Sermon Archive

It’s Stewardship Sunday—that’s the Sunday when one preacher, who’s frequently quoted but forever anonymous, said to his congregation: “All year long you’ve been having fun trying to pick holes in my sermons. Today’s my day to have fun trying to pick holes in your pockets!”

Well, in this morning’s First Lesson, the apostle Paul counsels his congregation that quality giving comes not from picked pockets but from generous hearts. Yes, God loves a cheerful giver. And Paul states that generosity is expressed not when gifts are turned over reluctantly but when gifts spring from a cheerful heart.

In today's Second Lesson, from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus directs his disciples' attention to a destitute widow. She has offered to God the last two coins she possesses, in an act of unfathomable generosity. Although the value of those two copper coins is less than a penny, she has cheerfully given everything she has.

Mark’s account puts me in mind of a modern story, one about the Central American nation of El Salvador and a visit there by an affluent American Christian woman named Marjory Bankson.

While in El Salvador, Bankson visited a number of rural villages. Of material goods, the villagers had very few, yet they welcomed her with a cheerful, heartfelt generosity of food and hospitality. They had little, but they gave freely.

In contrast, Bankson found herself roaming the villages continually clutching her purse, fearful that villagers would ask her for money. The villagers had little, but were sharing so generously. She had much, but was unwilling to share.

Then one day a political leader of the opposition party in El Salvador communicated to Bankson his idea about who, really, is rich and who, really, is poor, and Bankson’s eyes were opened. This Salvadoran said to her, “Being rich is wanting to give. And being poor is not wanting to give.” “Many of El Salvador’s poor,” he went on to say, “are really quite rich.”

In that moment Bankson came to see that in contrast to the villagers her reluctance to share was a sign of her not really wanting to give, which, in turn, was a sign of her own poverty of spirit. This well-to-do woman came to understand that she could be rich in spirit only by being generous of heart.

Confronted by her material affluence and spiritual poverty, Bankson concluded: "I guess I'm a pretty typical American Christian."

Actually, in my opinion, Bankson's self-perceptiveness makes her a rather untypical American Christian.

For I fear most of us haven't yet come to share the insight she gained that both the destitute widow in ancient Jerusalem and the impoverished villagers of El Salvador were truly rich. Most of us haven’t yet caught Bankson’s vision that wanting to give is the key to being rich in spirit.

I have a magnificent book of photographs, first published in 1994, entitled Material World: A Global Family Portrait. Its pictures portray the material possessions of representative families from many different parts of the world.

The main photograph representing our own country is remarkable. It portrays the Skeens, a family of devout Baptists from suburban Houston, Texas, together with all of their possessions, assembled in the cul-de-sac located out front of their home.

In the center foreground is the family, with Pattie, the mother, holding their big family Bible opened to a picture of Jesus. And radiating out from that Bible, a full 180°, like a fan, are 2 televisions, 3 radios, 3 stereos, 3 motor vehicles, 5 telephones, and a rich array of household furnishings for a 1,600 sq. ft. house.

The “meaning” of a photograph is of course in the eye of its beholder, but my own semiotic reading of this photograph was: “The Gospel generates material wealth.” And that message upset me so much that I wanted to shout out: “That's not true! The Gospel generates generosity.”

I suddenly found myself fantasizing a revised shooting of the picture. In my scene, the family and Bible were still in the center foreground, but radiating out from them, a full 180°, were several trucks and drivers loading up half of those goods so that they could be given away cheerfully and generously for God's work.

As my fantasy took shape, I recalled a line from a sermon by the ancient Christian preacher John Chrysostom, a sermon preached more than 1,600 years ago, when Stewardship Sundays hadn’t even been invented yet! Chrysostom said, “Wealth is by its very nature … meant to go out from you, like a light that dispels darkness.” And that quote seems to me an altogether fitting caption for my fantasized photograph.

This Stewardship Sunday I’ve sought to share with you a variety of voices—all speaking to the theme of generosity.

Said the apostle Paul: “… God loves a cheerful giver.”

Said Jesus: “This widow … out of her poverty has put in everything she had.”

Said the Salvadoran: “Being rich is wanting to give.”

Said my fantasized photo: “The Gospel generates generosity.”

Said Chrysostom: “Wealth is meant to go out from you, like a light that dispels darkness.”

Over the last several years, we at the Rutgers Church have experienced a remarkable increase in generosity and cheerful giving. Our pledging of money has risen dramatically, as has our pledging of time and talent to the programs of our church.

As a direct result of our increasing generosity, Rutgers has not only been able to maintain the light we'd already been shining into the darkness of our world, but Rutgers has also been able to kindle new light—more light!

Let me remind you of some of the recently developed or expanded programs our generosity has already made possible:

1.  the ministry and outreach of Presbyterian Welcome, working for the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the Presbyterian churches of our region,

2.  a renewed and re-invigorated Sunday School, first under the leadership of a part-time director, Virginia Roberts-Richbourgh, and now under the leadership of our full-time Director of Educational Ministries, Cheryl Pyrch;

3.  RYTAP, a Saturday theatre arts outreach program for youth;

4.  an enhanced spiritual support group for men living with HIV/AIDS, enhanced through the professional leadership of Douglas Rowan;

5.  an augmented Thursday Night Meal Program for Seniors, augmented with movies to provide for some of our least well-off neighbors a full night out;

6.  Candlelight Vesper Services during Advent and Lent;

7.  a homepage on the Internet;

8.  and, most recently, the start-up of Body & Spirit programs for toddlers and older adults.

Now, this year we hope to expand our programming even more by increasing once again our wanting to give, our cheerful giving.

Here is just a little of the additional light we hope to kindle in 2001:

1.  additional assistance to the Presbyterian Welcome program, which is moving next month to its new office in our Rutgers Church Parish House with its director becoming full-time;

2.  scholarship assistance for the college students of our parish;

3.  and a sizable expansion of our Body & Spirit programs so that we can provide after-school programs for children, daytime programs for teenage mothers and their children, computer training for older adults, and holistic exercise and sports programs for all ages.

These are some of our hopes for the new light to be kindled in 2001.

Well, the time has now come for us to express the generosity that the Gospel generates.

I invite you to spend a few moments in quiet reflection on God's gifts to us, and on what this church, its sacraments, its ministries, and its fellowship mean both to us as individuals and to our community at large.

I invite you to pray during this time that God may kindle within your heart the cheerful generosity of which Paul spoke, the cheerful generosity demonstrated by both the destitute widow of our Gospel Lesson and the impoverished villagers of El Salvador.

Then please take your blue card and make your pledge of support, of money, time, and talent, to the work of God through the Rutgers Presbyterian Church, so that new light may indeed radiate forth from us.

After this quiet time, I will close our period for pledging with prayer.

Then, during the offertory anthem, as a sign of your commitment and intentionality, please rise from your pew and come forward to the table of Christ to place in the plates that are there both your offerings for this morning and your pledge of support for the year 2001.

Let us now observe our period of silence and prayer for pledging.

[After 2 minutes] Let us pray: