Proper 25, Year C

Every single one of the commentators I’ve looked at basically hate today’s gospel passage and say it’s impossible to understand.  Even the best Biblical scholars are flummoxed by it.  However, you will be glad to know that the preacher at St. John’s Anglican Church in Bowmanville understands it just fine, and it makes perfect sense.  And since you made the excellent decision to come to St. John’s Anglican Church in Bowmanville today, in the next 15 minutes you too will understand it, and what befuddles all the Biblical scholars will make perfect sense to you too.  

We begin with the question of what is a steward?  Stewardship is a word that we use in the church, but there are plenty of folks who don’t really have an exact definition.  A steward is someone who manages property or resources that belong to someone else.  The word “steward” and the word “manager” are often used interchangeably. People hire managers today.  In Jesus’ day, running a business or a farm had to be done without computers, without telephones, without the machinery that we take for granted, and therefore everything was way more labour-intensive and time-consuming.  So, if you owned a farm or a business, it would be way too much work for you to do all by yourself, and you would need to have a steward to manage it for you.  And you don’t need just any steward, you need a really good steward you can trust.  If you have a smart, hardworking steward who makes wise decisions, your business will flourish.  If your steward is lazy or makes terrible business decisions, you’re the one that’s going to lose money as a result.  A good steward can motivate your employees; a bad steward might mistreat your employees.  A good steward will take good care of your property, leaving it better than it was when they got there.  A bad steward, because he has access to your accounts, can rob you blind.  Okay, so the first point to remember is that a steward is managing someone else’s resources.  

Next we’re going to look at why Jesus talks about stewards in so many parables.  We remember that we come into this earthly world as helpless, naked infants.  And when we die, we leave this earthly world and we do not take any material possessions with us.  What we encounter in this earthly world does not really belong to us; it all belongs to God.  The air we breathe belongs to God.  The water we drink belongs to God.  The food we eat belongs to God.  The beauty we see belongs to God.  The objects we handle and the resources we use belong to God.  The money that passes through our hands belongs to God.  

It is worth reminding ourselves that some newborns are born into situations of lots of riches and lots of opportunities; other newborns are born into situations of poverty and exclusion.  And the amount of money and opportunity is not distributed according to the merit of the newborn.  Reminding ourselves of this can help guard us from sliding into the arrogance of a sense of entitlement to what we happen to have.  And even our intelligence or our talents came to us from God.  Every hour of time in our life comes to us from God.

Ultimately, we do not “own” things, we simply use things that ultimately belong to God. During our time passing through this earthly life, we are stewards of God’s resources.  When our time passing through this earthly life ends, the question comes up: did we steward those resources well, or did we just take the owner’s resources for our own consumption?  This is important in several ways.  One is the stewardship of creation: how well are we caring for the earth, the water, the plants and animals?  The other is the way this parable focuses on: how well are we stewarding the money that belongs to God, which we are entrusted to manage for God.  So the next thing to remember is that we are stewards entrusted during our time in this earthly world with managing money that belongs to God.

Now we’re going to shift gears for a moment and then we’ll come back to that.  I’ve been learning French on the Duolingo app, which has a lot of advantages.  However, one of the disadvantages is that since you’re only talking to your cell phone, you don’t get any practice having a conversation with an actual human being.  To fill that gap, I tried an app called Tandem, in which you can find someone who’s fluent in French and wants to learn English, so you can practice together.  People from around the world use it for lots of languages.  Most of the people I’ve interacted with on this app are nice people, and the conversations are useful.  There was one guy who was particularly enthusiastic about me, and was very solicitous in asking me questions about who was helping me with the housework.  My reaction was, “A man who cares about a woman’s housework!  You are definitely a romance scammer!  I am very impressed with how smart you are in knowing your market!

I ended the conversation immediately.  But I really was genuinely impressed with how clever he was.  I’ve heard plenty of women who are really frustrated that their husbands will not do their half of the housework, and who are even more frustrated that their husbands do not care about how unequal the workload is in their marriage, and who are even more frustrated that their husbands do not care about how frustrated their wives are.  

I was impressed that this scammer was shrewd enough to know women, and to know how to swindle women into giving him enormous amounts of money.  I wish their husbands were that smart about the women they are married to, so that instead of being smart for corrupt scams, the husbands could be smart for the good of their marriage, and the good of the wives they love.

That’s what’s going on here.  Here’s what I hope you will remember, which is how the parable makes sense.  The owner says, to the dishonest steward, “I’m really impressed with how shrewd you are giving away my property for dishonest and selfish purposes.”  Jesus says, I wish you children of light were that smart at giving away God’s property for good and generous purposes.

The owner of the property is God.  We are all stewards of God’s property.  The dishonest steward is smart enough to know how to give away someone else’s property for selfish purposes.  Can we be that smart to know how to give away God’s property for good purposes?  Don’t we know how to give God’s money, which is currently in our bank accounts, for good purposes?  Don’t we know how to give God’s money to those who need it more than we do?  Don’t we know how to give God’s money to provide for God’s mission and ministry in the congregation we’re part of?  

The dishonest steward can get friends by giving away someone else’s property; wouldn’t it be great if we could give away someone else’s property for good purposes instead.  Instead of using your money to make friends with rich people, you can give it to the poor.  When you arrive at the pearly gates and your money is left behind, the poor people you’ve given to will say, “That woman gave us money when we really needed it.  Make sure you welcome her into the eternal homes here in heaven.” Instead of using money for your own consumption, you can use God’s property for God’s mission and ministry and make being friends with the angels!  The angels will say “welcome this person into the eternal homes here in heaven!”  As Jesus puts it, “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.”

Giving time and talent are valuable, and we’re going to talk about them when we get to the parable of the talents.  But this parable really is about giving money.  And Jesus is specific about that.

Jesus tells us to give our money generously, because giving our money generously is the simple, practical foundation of our faith.  We may think that it’s more spiritual to aim for the more exalted virtues of spiritual riches.  Jesus says no.  Jesus says in verse 11, “if you have not been faithful with money, who will entrust to you the true riches?”  If you refuse to follow the simple directions for something as practical as giving money, who’s going to trust you to do the right thing with the spiritual realm?  And if you want the inspiring spiritual growth, start with the simple practical money you’ve got.  As Jesus says, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.”  And remember, this isn’t really your money; it’s God’s money—you’re just managing it for awhile during your short time on earth. 

We like to think of ourselves as not particularly attached to money.  Jesus is calling our bluff on that.  Jesus says, “if you’re not attached to money, then be literally not attached to it by giving it away.”  If your money is serving you, you can give it to where it will do good service in ministry.  If you can’t give it to where it will do good service in ministry, then your money isn’t your servant; your money is your master.  Jesus is not fooled by this.  He says “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.”  It’s as simple as that.  

People sometimes think of money as the opposite of “spiritual things.”  Jesus is telling us in this passage that what we do with our money is absolutely a spiritual thing.  Giving our money is the foundation of our spiritual life, and it is the foundation of our spiritual growth.

That’s the reason we talk about being good stewards of God’s money.  That’s the reason we talk about stewardship.  Today’s sermon is a stewardship sermon.  

We’ve got a great church here at St. John’s and we’re doing great ministry together.  We’ve got wonderful parishioners, a priest who loves this congregation, Saturday suppers that provide food and warm companionship, uplifting worship, Bible studies to explore scripture together, caring relationships, creative crafting that helps others, an Inquirers’ class to deepen faith and commit to it, and so many other things I thank God for daily.  And all of it requires money.  We are asking you to be good stewards of the resources God has entrusted you with by giving generously to God’s work at St. John’s.  

We know that different people have a wide variety of income levels and financial resources.  That’s why we encourage people to give a percentage of your income, however high or low your income happens to be.  A tithe, 10% of your income, is a great goal.  If you’re not ready for that, start with 2% or even 1%.

We are grateful for any gift, at any time, by any method.  Still, I want to share with you some good news.  We’ve heard about the decline in the numbers of Canadians who are active in church.  However, the good news comes from a diocesan meeting I participated in last week, where our diocesan stewardship director, Peter Misiaszek, pointed out that there are 14 churches in our diocese that are continually growing.  What made the difference between the churches that are growing and the churches that are shrinking?  He showed us the graph of what percentage of people in the congregation give by pre-authorized remittance, abbreviated PAR.  This is a form you fill out so that your gift to your church is sent automatically each month.  You make the decision to give once, and your parish can count on that money each month.  

The churches who are shrinking most have an average of 21% of their congregation who give by PAR.  

The churches in the middle, who are either staying the same or shrinking more slowly, have a higher percentage of their congregation giving by PAR, 35%.  

The churches who are growing have the highest percentage, 48% of their congregation giving by PAR.  That’s twice the percentage of the churches with the most decline.  Giving by PAR makes a big difference in whether our church grows or shrinks, because we can rely on it.  And there’s something else going on here too.  There are folks who say God is a priority in their life, or that the church is a priority in their life, but they give only when you happen to think of it, if there’s anything leftover.  PAR givers make their giving to the church a priority in reality, by giving right off the top, automatically.  It’s a way of getting your priorities straight in reality.  So #1 if you are not already giving by PAR, please start.  We are praying for new PAR givers this year.  The form for you to fill out is available at the back of the church.  You can ask me or Cathie McCabe and we would be thrilled to give you one. 

I want to add that you always have the option to change the amount on your PAR form to a smaller amount if necessary, or, we hope, to a larger amount.  Inflation is happening all around the world, and while I wish that there were some way that our congregation had a special magic exemption for our bills, the reality is that our costs go up just like everyone else’s.  Unfortunately, inflation means that the amount you pledged for your donation ten years ago is worth a fraction of what it was worth then.  So #2, if you already are giving by PAR, please consider whether you can update your gift to a larger amount.  You can do this by writing the new amount on the form, available in the back of the church, which Cathie or I would be thrilled to give you.  If you are giving by some other method, we encourage you to consider increasing your giving for the same reason.

Earlier in the sermon I mentioned that we use God’s resources while we’re passing through this temporary lifespan on earth, and we do not take any money with us when we go on to heaven.  So, #3: this is your reminder, while you are still alive and well, to choose what you want that money to go to, by making a will.  And this is also a reminder to include in your will the ministries of God happening here at your church.  

All of us are stewards of God’s resources.  We can be as smart as the dishonest steward to know how to give away what belongs to someone else.  And instead of doing that for selfish gain, as he does, we can do it for good purposes instead, to use God’s money by giving to our beloved church to do God’s ministry.