Stewardship
1990 (Year A), 6 May /
Easter 4
St Mary Stoke Newington
‘Too much of a good thing can be wonderful’ said Mae West. And I guess that’s just what you are thinking as you settle down and hear my accent for the first time, particularly those who found Gerald difficult. ‘Didn’t that other priest on Friday have the same accent as this one? Good grief where does Allan find all these people! ‘Verily, too much of a good thing can be wonderful.’
Now I hasten to add that I didn’t know Gerald in Leeds, he’s far too young for that, but one of the most enduring memories I have from my childhood there is of singing in the church choir. We had to go at least twice on Sunday, or we didn’t get paid. The evening service in particular was mind bogglingly boring. The sermon lasted at least twenty minutes, a bit like this one, and seemed, for the most part, to be completely irrelevant to us.
To make time pass more quickly we used to make paper aeroplanes out of the sheets which had the hymn numbers on and fire them up and down the choir stalls. Occasionally a supremely successful one would zoom out of the choir stalls altogether into the middle of the church. But then, horror of horrors, it could be seen by the adult members of the choir sitting in the stalls behind us. At that point one of them would reach over and whack us on the back of the head with a leather glove. ‘You’re not here to enjoy yourselves’ they would hiss ‘Just sit still and behave.’
I went back to that church earlier this year, with my family and the person who whacked me most of all collapsed in church. It was very difficult to dispel feelings that at long last some kind of divine retribution had taken place.
‘You’re not here to enjoy yourselves’ – the words are still with me. They ring in my ears. ‘You’re not here to enjoy yourselves’. The other thing that we were not there to do was to talk about money. The people of Leeds would have been appalled if a member of the clergy had got into a pulpit and told them that it was about time they put their hands in their pockets and gave more money. It would’ve been as if they’d said something rude. You might not be there to enjoy yourself but at least your misery was free.
Well I’m here today to tell you that a great many things have changed. One of them is that you are here to enjoy yourselves for that is what God longs for, and the other is that my goodness you are here to give.
What is more gone are days when 10p was an adequate weekly contribution to the work of the church. 10p wouldn’t pay for the brochure you’ve had printed for this Stewardship Programme. If you give 50p a week it wouldn’t go much further.
What will happen over the next couple of weeks is that you will be asked to think very deeply about how much you give towards the costs that the church incurs. You won’t be asked to give away so much that either you or your family go without, nor do we want you to give so little that you scarcely notice it.
We want you to give realistically, responsibly and prayerfully. We don’t want you to make promises that mean nothing and we don’t want to start a process that will result in promises that will be impossible to keep. Most certainly the visitors will not be arriving at your door to make you feel guilty.
What they will do will be to encourage you to assess your for giving, for giving is a very special, a very important activity. It is not something to be taken lightly but it’s not a dirty word either; it is truly divine. Our giving mirrors the gifts we have already received from God and it is made in response to those gifts.
Those gifts which our divine Father offers us are creative, they are sustaining and they are costly, for they called us into being, they have developed us up until now and they have, as the sentences say, by his suffering and death, became the source of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him.
We are privileged to be able to mirror these gifts, given us by God, in the ministry of the church here. With our own talents we can call into being new forms of ministry, a bereavement visiting group has recently started in this parish and there may be other new ways of ministering in this place. With all your gifts you can sustain the ministry which is already in existence here. We would encourage all your giving to be sacrificial, giving freely of your time and honestly of your money.
Yet something strange happens to our brains when we begin to think about our giving to the church and what we offer to God. Somehow we switch off and different standards begin to apply. We assume that it will all be done by somebody else – the Church Commissioners, the more wealthy members of our congregation, anybody but us. We assume the call to make choices and decisions about what and how much we give can be put off for another day.
Well, I am also here today to tell you that there can be no excuses for not looking at this issue seriously and of putting it all off. Here’s a story of a man with excuses. ‘The Lord said unto Noah, ‘Where is the Ark I commanded you to Build? And Noah said, Verily I have had three carpenters off sick. The gopher wood supplier hath let me down – yea even though the gopher wood hath been on order for nigh upon twelve months. The damp course specialist hath not turned up. And God said to Noah, I want the Ark finished before seven days and seven nights. Noah said, it will be so. But it was not so.
The Lord said unto Noah, What seems to be the trouble this time? And Noah said, My subcontractor hath gone bankrupt. The pitch for the outside of the Ark hath not arrived. The glazier departeth on holiday for Majorca, yea even though I offered him double time. Shem hath formed himself a pop group with his brothers Ham and Japheth. Lord I am undone. And the Lord grew angry and said, What about the animals, two of every sort I have offered to come to be kept alive. Where for example are the giraffes? And Noah said, They have been delivered to the wrong address, but should arrive by Friday.
And the Lord said to Noah, Where are the monkeys, and the elephants, and the zebras? Noah said, They are expected today. The Lord said, How about the unicorns? Noah wrung his hands and wept. Oh Lord, they are a discontinued line. Thou knowest, Thou knowest how it is.
And the Lord said, Noah, my son, I know. Why else dost thou think I have caused a flood?
I hope that your Stewardship Programme is successful. I hope that it will be a time for making good decisions and choices not a time for excuses and putting things off, leaving them to others and hoping that they will be done for you. I pray that you will all find the appropriate way to give back to God some of the good things he has showered on you. AMEN