The Twenty-Third Sunday After Trinity, Stewardship Sunday (November 12, 2023)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today is Stewardship Sunday. For those who might be unfamiliar with this idea, this is a day we set aside to be intentional and think about our giving. This is often done in conjunction with the pledge season: we passed a budget at the annual meeting and pledges acts as a way for you, the parishioners of St. Paul’s, to pledge what you plan to give over the next year. It’s important, as Christians, those those of us who have been given much give in return. I was reminded this week of one of my favorite films: Calvary. Brenden Gleeson plays a good country priest in Ireland. At one point in the film, his church burns down. I won’t give too much about the film away but would recommend it to you as an excellent, but challenging movie. But there’s a scene where the priest is called to visit the home of a millionaire banker who attends his parish. This wealthy man’s family has just left him but he drunkenly claims not to feel anything. He tries to impress the priest with his wealth by taking down one of his expensive art pieces from the wall and urinating on it. Knowing that the church has burned down, this wealthy man offers to give money to rebuild it: He says “Oh I can give you 10,000 pounds, or 15,000, or 20,000, it’s of no difference to me” to which the priest says: “Make it 50,000, then.” In other words, he wants the man to give until it hurts. That’s an important principle in giving, but it looks different for each one of us. In fact, Jesus tells the story of a poor widow who gives two pennies, a significant amount for her. Jesus says she’s given more than the wealthy who gave great sums.

Our reason for giving and the theme of this year’s Stewardship Season can be found in today’s Old Testament reading and comes from one of the Offertory Sentences in the Prayer Book: “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” The passage in which that verse is ensconced is set near the end of King David’s tenure. His successor, his son Solomon, has been lined up but there’s one big thing left to do: build the Temple. David was not allowed to build the Temple because he was a man of war. But this doesn’t mean he couldn’t contribute. And so in the first Stewardship Sunday speech, he reminds the people of the awesome responsibility of constructing the Temple and exhorts them to give and to worship.

David sets an example: he gives his own wealth: “because I have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house, Even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses withal: The gold for things of gold, and the silver for things of silver.” In response to his example and urgings, the people also give from their wealth to the cause of Israel’s cultic life. It is in this context that we can really look at what David says: “All things come of thee, O Lord, and of thine own have we given thee.” God doesn’t need our giving. Everything is already his and he has no need for anything outside himself. We give to remind ourselves where our true allegiance lies. We give as a way of being reminded that we are insufficient in and of ourselves. That’s why the priest from Calvary tells the wealthy banker he needs to give more: he needs to be reminded that just because he’s incredibly rich doesn’t mean he’s in control. It’s also why the widow, even in her poverty, is lauded for giving what might seem like a meager gift compares to others. She recognizes what the wealthy banker can’t see: nothing is really ours, we’re only stewards of it for God and the question is how will we steward those things he gives us.

In conjunction with their pledges, the people of Israel offer sacrifices to God. There are two sacrifices mentioned here: burnt offerings and drink offerings. Burnt offerings were animals offered to God on an altar. They were burned completely with nothing left over. This was a sign of complete submission to God’s will and brought about the expiation of sin. The drink offerings were wine or strong drink poured out into the ground near the Temple Mount. This offering was only allowed to be offered in the Promise Land, it was a sign of the ongoing Sabbath of God’s people. This sacrificial logic is deeply embedded in the Scripture, beginning all the way in the Garden of Eden where God fashions clothing for Adam and Eve from the skin of the animal; a living creature had to die because of Adam and Eve’s sin. There are sacrifices offered to God throughout the book of Genesis but the real sacrificial system develops in the book of Leviticus which lists the details and rules of the various kinds of sacrifices the people of God were supposed to offer. Ultimately, however, this sacrificial system finds its culmination in the perfect and spotless Passover Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For the great gift of our redemption, what could we possibly give in return? Nothing short of “our selves, our souls and bodies” and even that would not be enough. But we give back to God not because we think our gifts can equal his in some tit-for-tat exchange or because we think God really needs what we can give him; rather, we give because we love him. If you’re going to fill out a pledge form because you think it will make God love you more or because you want a nice tax deduction or because you just like supporting community organizations, don’t do it. Address that underlying problem but be aware that God doesn’t need it and we don’t either. What we give to God should come from our adoration and love for him.

A final thing to point out about our reading: Israel was in a simultaneously exciting and scary place. They were in the process of a regime change, a process that had not gone smoothly in their past history. People don’t like change and this is a major change to get used to. They were beginning this great project and, as you heard David say, Solomon was still young, still green. He wasn’t experienced. In giving their goods and offering sacrifices, the Israelites were really trusting in God. The Church finds itself in a moment of transition: our culture is changing, fewer people attend church regularly than they did 20, 30, 50 years ago. But just as the Temple was a really important and necessary way of fomenting Israel’s national identity in a time of uncertainty, so our ancient worship gives the Church her identity in a context where it is unclear what the future holds. By giving, we are declaring our desires, our security, our future to be in God’s hands. There’s nowhere safer to be. God will be faithful and, in response, we are called to have faith, a confidence in God that is made evident in our allegiance to him.

So we are called today not just to give a dollar value. We’re called to give our whole selves. To help us feeble creatures accomplish this, it helps to break it down into a few categories: time, talent, and treasure. First, we give God our time. There are 168 hours in the week. How long is our Sunday service? An hour and fifteen minutes or maybe an hour and a half depending on how long-winded the preacher is. That’s 0.005% of your week. If you work a full-time job, you’re giving your employer almost a quarter of your hours. And of course we need to work and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it should also make see that there’s room to beyond Sunday mornings. Attending studies, fellowship events, the Daily Offices, and Mass are a great way to give God your time because those are opportunities to adore him, to learn about him, to grow in relationship with him.

A second thing we can give God is our talent. St. Paul tells us that every Christian is endowed with spiritual gifts. He describes these various spiritual gifts like parts of a body, we need all of them for the Body to function in a healthy manner. That means that only you can be you. You have your own gifts that we the Church need. Ask yourself, what spiritual gifts do you have? Can you utilize them here at St. Paul’s? If you’re not sure where you fit in or what your spiritual gifts are, come talk to Fr. David or me and we’ll be happy to walk with you as you discover that. Next Sunday, we’ll have our ministry and committee fair. The various chairs of committees and ministries will have information for you abut what they do. Go through that prayerfully and listen to see if God is calling you to do something.

Finally, there’s treasure. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to give 10% of their assets to God. This is a good goal for us to shoot for today because as the Church, we are Israel. You know what giving financially can look like for you but it’s important to remember that if we’re giving God our whole selves, that includes our checkbooks. We can’t compartmentalize. And so I would encourage you to pray about what God wants you to give, not out of a sense of legalism, but from a place of love. We love him because he first loved us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.