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Foundry United Rev. |
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“Extravagant
Generosity” Stewardship Sunday Sunday, November 18,
2007 |
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Luke 10: 25-37 Rev. |
The
theme our Stewardship Committee selected for this year is “Generous Giving for Ministry.” When
the Committee went looking for Scripture that would serve as a foundation for
the theme, they came up with Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Today I
want to share a few points of reflection from this parable. First, we can often overlook the
needs of others, moving along our road of life unaware. In
Jesus’ story, a priest and a Levite – a pastor and an associate pastor – pass
by, on the other side of the road, the man who had been robbed and beaten.
They had set out that day to travel from It is
possible to be so caught up in the ordinary tasks of life, even a good life,
that we lose sight of the need around us. One of the functions of stewardship
season in the life of a congregation is to turn our eyes toward the needs of
the world around us for ministry, and to help us pause in the busy-ness of
our good lives to ask what God might be calling us to do on behalf of others
around us who are in need. We can
often overlook the needs of others, moving along our road of life unaware. Here’s
another point: The Samaritan performed
a ministry by caring for the wounded man. The Samaritan gave his own time
and energy and did what he personally could do. Ministry
begins with the use of our time and talents and energy. Each of us has gifts
for ministry – some to teach, some to serve, some to listen, some to make
sandwiches, some to repair homes, some to administer, some to lead, some to
encourage, some to sing. Giving
begins with the giving of our selves, our time, our energy, and these things
are sometimes harder to give than money. Ministry begins with us giving
ourselves. A third
point: In addition to giving his time
and energy, the Samaritan gave of his resources. He paid for the ministry
to continue with his own money. He paid the innkeeper to care for the wounded
man as he continued on his business. While
giving our money is no substitute for giving our time and talent and energy,
giving our time and energy and talent is no substitute for giving our money. Our
money is a way of making ministry possible that we ourselves can not do. Not all
of us can teach at By
giving of our financial resources we make ministry possible beyond our own
capacities. And
here’s the fourth point: The Samaritan
makes a commitment – a pledge – so that the ministry can continue as long as
it is needed into the future. The Samaritan pledges to pay the innkeeper
whatever more it costs to take care of the man until he is well. While
our giving may sometimes be motivated by an impulse within our hearts,
substantial ministry is dependent upon a willingness to make an ongoing
commitment. Sometimes we are hesitant to make commitments…to turn in
commitment cards or pledge cards or estimate of giving cards stating what we
intend to give in the year ahead. We want the freedom to decide along the
way, according to how we are feeling about things or how well things are
going for us, but substantial ministry requires the willingness to make a
commitment. Giving
for ministry cannot be only a matter of impulse. It has to also be a
commitment if ministry is going to be substantial, ongoing and strategic. The
Good Samaritan makes a pledge. Jesus’
parable of the Good Samaritan is a great Scripture for Stewardship Sunday. It
is a story of extraordinary generosity for ministry that encourages us to be
generous in our support of ministry as well. There
is one more thing about the story that spoke to me this week in a new way as
I studied it once again. It is something I came across in Joseph Fitzmyer’s
commentary on Luke 10.[1] Fitzmyer
says that to really understand Jesus’ parable you need to consider the
context of his telling of this story. The context is this: A lawyer had asked
Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus had turned the
question back on the lawyer and asked the lawyer what the law says, and the lawyer
answered that the law says, “To love God with all your heart soul, strength
and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus
told the lawyer that he had answered his own question. Then
the lawyer asked Jesus a second question: “Who is my neighbor?” Who is it
that I am required to love? Who are the people I am required to care about? How
far does my obligation extend? It is
in answer to this question that Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan,
Fitzmyer says. The
lawyer is asking: who do I really have to care about and who can I write off
as not my neighbor? Fitzmyer says that Jesus turns the tables on the lawyer
again and has him imagine that he has been beaten by robbers and is lying in
a ditch by the side of the road half dead, and asks the lawyer the question –
if you were in that situation, who would you accept help from? Would
you accept help even from a Samaritan, whom the Jews hated and refused to
touch? He says
to the lawyer, if you were lying in a ditch, beaten up and half dead,
whomever you would allow to help you, that same person is your neighbor and
you should be willing to care about him or her. This
spoke to me in a new way as I contemplated Stewardship Sunday and my own
giving this year. Every year on Stewardship Sunday I ask myself the question:
What should I give? How much should I commit? What is my obligation? Given my
income and expenses, what is the minimum I should commit? But the
Jesus who tells the story of the Good Samaritan turns the question around on
me. Instead
of thinking of myself and my income and my sense of obligation, I start to
ask the question: If I were a homeless person coming to Foundry’s Walk-In
mission for help to get a copy of my birth certificate and ID so that I could
apply for a job, how much would I want me to commit then? See
what Jesus does with the lawyer in the story of the Good Samaritan? If you
were lying in a ditch half dead, who would you want to be your neighbor? Jesus
did the same thing to me with my thinking about Stewardship Sunday. If I
were a day-laborer looking for someplace to get help to make my life better,
how much would I want me to commit on Stewardship Sunday? If I
were a child learning the stories of the Bible in Sunday School here, how
much would I want me to commit on Stewardship Sunday? If I
were a student at If I
were a 20-year-old gay man in If I were
still living in a trailer on the Jesus
turns the tables on us and asks us not to think about what we need to do but
what we would want us to do if we were the one lying in a ditch by the side
of the road. These
are the questions I have been asking myself this Stewardship Sunday. If I
were the man lying in a ditch by the side of the road, what kind of neighbor
would I want me to be? www.foundryumc.org |
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