Haggai 1:15b-2:9

Mark 12:41-44

I have a stewardship joke for you: Two men have survived a plane crash out in the Pacific Ocean. They wind up upon the shores of a deserted island. The one man is panicked. “How will we ever get off of this island? How will they find us? How are we going to survive?” The other man leans back calmly against a palm tree, taking in the beautiful blue waters and the cooling sea breezes. “How can you be so calm? Do you not understand our situation?” the first man asks. The second says, “There’s nothing to worry about. Everything will be fine. I make over $2 million a year.”

“A lot of good all that money will do us now,” the man replies. “That’s $2 million a year,” the other replied, “and I tithe to the church. …My pastor will find us.”

I laughed the first time I heard that story, but as I thought about the sermon in it the story didn’t remain so funny. Actually, it speaks to the unfortunate situation that churches often find themselves in due to the financial struggles that they face. A gift from those who give out of their abundance is more valued than the gift that is given out of humility – out of the heart – the gift of one’s self.

Few people would call stewardship their favorite sermon topic, myself included. However, Jesus was pretty big on the topic.   He preached about money and stewardship more than he preached about anything else. The famous passage that comes to mind is the one from Mark that we just read: the one wherein the widow, behind the large sparkly offerings of the rich, comes forward with just two small coins, the only coins to her name, and she gives them to the temple. She’s the one worth tracking down, says Jesus. She’s the one whose gift we cannot do without!

Actually, it’s not just her gift. It’s her giving. It’s the way her gift comes from a willingness to give up, to give over, herself. It’s the way that she is able to say, “all that I have, and all that I am, is best placed in your hands, O God.”

Next to this woman it’s hard not to feel inadequate or a bit guilty. A mentor of mine once told me that he refused to preach stewardship sermons because “they just make people feel guilty.” But, if you think about it, guilt isn’t always such a bad thing. The right dose of it can grab our hearts and our minds and bring our attention back to where we need it to be. Not that guilt is my goal here, but I have noticed certainly in my own life that a little bit of it can sway me back to the better way, to the more compassionate impulses, and to the kind of joy and hope that’s found in caring more for the needs of others than the wants of myself.

We read from the book of Haggai this morning. In it, the prophet encourages his people to rebuild the temple, which had suffered greatly during the people’s exile. All wrapped up for them in the meaning of the temple was the power of God’s presence, God’s will to be faithful, their identity as God’s people, their hope for peace and prosperity and a blessed future. It is in this context God announces, “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine. The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former… and in this place I will give shalom…”

It’s a call for trust. God is saying, I will build this temple beyond your dreams. This place will shine. My presence will be blinding – it will be so bright – in your witness. Just give back to me what I have lent to you and this temple will be like what you have not yet seen. God will use the treasures of the nations; God will use what the people give back to build up the temple – or what we might call, the body of Christ. But, the people must trust enough to give.

The thing about faithful living is that it demands trust. It demands a willingness to say, “God, I trust you enough to give you these gifts, to give you even my life, AND EVEN MORE I will trust you to do things with these gifts that will exceed my knowing and my understanding.” The thing about faithful living is that we do not get to see the full effect of our faithfulness. We must simply trust.

We have a special figure in my family whom we call Aunt Lucy. She’s my mother’s aunt, and when her name is mentioned my mother gushes with admiration. I’ve never known Aunt Lucy very well, not nearly as well as she’s known me. Through the years, though we’ve only met once, she’s kept close tabs on my sisters and me. Just after I was born, when my older sister was perhaps 4, my parents followed an opportunity and moved from California to New Jersey. That meant big change for my sister who had only known one home, one neighborhood, one context in which to see her life. You can imaging that it wasn’t easy for her as the house was all boxed up and as she got in the car for a five day drive across the country. She remembers vividly even 40 years later what a gift it was to open each day a little something special from Aunt Lucy who knew the journey would be tough. Each day a new gesture that told a confused 4 year old girl, “though I’ve never met you, I love you, and you – though your world is changing – are very loved!”

Aunt Lucy will never know the full impact of her giving. Even if my sister should try to tell her, she couldn’t convey all that it meant. The thing is, Lucy doesn’t need to know. She gives because she loves to give. She gives because she trusts God to do something with the gifts that she gives.

It works the same way for the church. We can’t know how many lives are blessed and in what ways because our lights are on and our doors are open. But, they are blessed because in something as mundane as us paying this church’s electric bills God is offering a place in which people are able to receive the spiritual food which we all so desperately need. We can’t ever fully know the impact of funding bibles for confirmands, or curriculum for Sunday school, or of supporting the local and global missional work of the UCC. We can’t always know how a small group gathering or an Advent study will change a life, or how a visit, or a card, or a prayer will heal someone’s heart. We can’t know all the ways that worship will form us, or the extent to which our outreach to St. Luke’s or our service to the community will touch the world.

We just can’t know all that God will do through our collective giving and the ministry of our church. But, my friends, we can trust.