What's Your Annual Income?

October 11, 2009
The 19th Sunday After Pentecost
Pastor Brad Davick
Amos 5:6-7, 10-15; Mark 10:17-31

Stanley Hauerwas, professor of Christian Ethics at Duke University, has written about the church's need for honesty and transparency in all aspects of congregational life. One way he posits making this happen is the manner in which new members are received into the community of faith; whenever people join the church, Hauerwas thinks they should stand before the congregation and answer four simple questions:

Question 1: Who is your Lord and Savior?
The response: "Jesus Christ."

Question 2: Do you trust in him and seek to be his disciple?
"I do."

Question 3: Will you be a faithful member of this congregation?
The answer: "I will."

Question 4: Finally, one last question: What is your annual income?

(Again, the next New Member Orientation is Friday, November 6, 7:00 p.m. @ our home!)

Anyone feeling a bit nervous? Anybody suddenly overcome with nausea? How about, "Are you kidding me! You want me to do what! It's not enough that I'm not a lying, stole your cleaning supplies, gigolo who blames it all on the dysfunctional relationship with my father?"

I wonder if that's how the rich man in today's gospel story felt? It seems to me that Jesus' challenge to sell all your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor, and Professor Hauerwas' "what is your annual income" conditional membership marker aren't that dissimilar. Both suggest that people like the young rich man and people like you and me, are, dare I say... rich.

Is it fair to call most of us rich? According to Methodist founder John Wesley, it is. He said that the word "rich" in the Bible means to have the necessities of life (food, shelter, and clothing) and then something left over.

But here is part of the problem of "rich folks" like us. We have increased the number of things we regard as necessities. There are hundreds of things that we call necessities that our parents and grandparents considered luxuries.

Remember, the Bible says that shelter, food, and clothing are necessities. To have these and something left over, as almost all of us do, is to be rich.

And on this point, let me be clear; being rich, having abundance, having five sets of china is fine. Jesus didn't care about the rich man's stuff; Jesus doesn't care about our stuff either. For Jesus, it's not about the money...its about God's [work], our lives, and our priorities. It's about our response to God's generosity to us.

When you think about it, God's generosity to us is really what the good news of the Gospel is all about. The plot of the 66 canonical books in the Bible, for all its turns and twists, shows the generosity of God. The first line in Genesis is "In the beginning God created" the cosmos out of chaos-something God did not have to do but chose to do as a generous expression. The last line in Revelation is "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen." Of course, one must take the turns and twists seriously, as they appear in Job, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and too many stories of God's judgment. But these do not counter the Bible's revelation to the character of God as generous all along the way through Jesus Christ.

Right about now, maybe you're thinking to yourself, "Here it comes. He's going to tell me that my response to God's generosity is to give more; more of my time, my talent, and my treasure. I'll tell you what its time for... its time for me to shut down!" There is a certain reality here; for many Christians, conversations, temple talks and sermons about giving are immediately mentally filed in the, "They're asking me for money box."

I'll be the first to admit it... when I used to sit where you're seated...at the first hint the preacher was going to talk about money, giving, stewardship, my "they're asking me for money box" flew open and I stuffed all those bad words deep into the recesses of the box. Because... let's be honest, its hard to be generous. There are so many demands placed on us... we can feel pulled in so many directions. Yet, stories like today's Gospel remind us that there is no getting around it; God's work requires us to be generous with our hearts, our possessions, our hands. And maybe the reason the internal mental money box opens and closes so quickly is due to the manner in which, we, the professional clergy have positioned our preaching and teaching and our asking about giving, generosity, and money.

Dear Abby, we are not overly religious people, but we do like to go to church once in a while. It seems to me that every time we turn around, we are hit for money. I thought religion was free. I realize that churches have to have some money, but I think it is getting to be a racket. Just what do churches do with all their money?

Dear Curious: Do you think the church runs on air? Priests, ministers and rabbis must eat. Staff and musicians must also. Buildings must be maintained, heated, lighted and beautified . Custodial staff must eat and feed their families. Most churches engage in philanthropic work (aid to the needy, missions, and education); hence, they have their financial obligations. Even orchids, contrary to folklore, do not live on air. Churches can't live on air either.

Dear Abby puts it right out there, doesn't she! No beating around the bush, no soft sells, no tippy toeing around what the church needs, and in a certain manner what God's work needs:

Professor Hauerwas may sound crazy for suggesting his four questions. Nevertheless he makes the important point that life in a church is dependent upon the life Christ gives, but it is also dependent upon the life of its members. Thank you, the people of St. Paul's, for the life you give to this place, for your dedication to Christ and the gospel, and for supporting the staff and ministries here, and to our greater church; where God's work done by our hands is a reflection of our response to the generosity of God.