A stewardship sermon preached at St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Urbandale, Iowa. dedicated to sinners who, as I do, regard most stewardship sermons as semi-pelagian legalism.
Exodus 36:2-8
Moses then called Bezalel and Oholiab and everyone skilful to whom the LORD had given skill, everyone whose heart was stirred to come to do the work; and they received from Moses all the freewill-offerings that the Israelites had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill-offerings every morning, so that all the artisans who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task being performed, and said to Moses, “The people are bringing much more than enough for doing the work that the LORD has commanded us to do.” So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work.
Grace to you and peace my friends, from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Old Testament reading today is one you probably have never heard before. It never comes up in our three-year cycle of readings. And even if it had, you probably would have tuned it out, because it sits in the middle of a long section detailing all the architectural requirements for the Tabernacle, lists of spiced anointing oils, and jewels to put in the priests’ vestments, of how the draperies should be spun from goat hair and how many loops should be placed on each side of a curtain. Be that as it may, it’s still a curious little story, especially for a Sunday when we’re thinking about stewardship.
The Israelites were in the wilderness after God had brought them out of slavery in Egypt. God had taken care of the Pharaoh’s pursuing armies by drowning them in the sea. And because the Israelites were hungry and food in the desert is scarce, God sent manna for them to eat, settling it on the ground with the dew each morning. Moses had gone up Mt. Sinai where God had given him the Ten Commandments and, according to my Bible, about 20 more pages of laws for the Israelites to follow, including all the instructions for how to build the big tent called the Tabernacle where God was going to take up residence. And if that’s not enough, watch out folks, because you’ll be getting chapter and verse of laws ad infinitum from the book of Leviticus in about four pages.
But right here at this moment in the story the needs for the Tabernacle have been laid out and the Israelites have responded with utter generosity to meet those needs. The Israelites had taken lots of gold with them when they left Egypt, most of it plundered from the Egyptians. And they turn it all over to the goldsmiths to be hammered into lamp stands and ornaments for the interior of the tent and for the gold leaf on the Ark of the Covenant that would one day be pulled fictionally out of the ground by Indiana Jones. The Israelites provided all the jewels needed for decorations. The women wove and dyed the cloth for the hangings. And the builders at Holy Tent Construction, Incorporated, were overwhelmed. It was too much too much. The foremen on the project, Bezalel and Oholiab, came to Moses to say, “Our guys can’t do their work. The donations are getting in the way.” Now there’s a picture for you at a worship service dedicated to the issue of stewardship: People who give so much of themselves that someone has to say to them, “Pull back for God’s sake!”
What was it that got those Israelites to be the kind of people who give and give and give? Was it the Ten Commandments that did it? Or how about a divine shopping list for jewels and gold, cedar logs and goat hair? Was that it? Not at all. Just like a preacher standing in the pulpit on a Stewardship Sunday telling you to give more to the mission of the church won’t get you to give what’s needed. That’s because what’s needed is not another demand for you to shape up, get with the program, straighten up and fly right, be all you can be or just do it. If these kinds of demands, requests or simple suggestions could change you into the extreme giver we see in Exodus, it would have happened long ago in your life and much further back in the history of us possession-hugging and treasure-troving sinners. All we would have ever needed would have been Moses, a wagging finger and your mother’s icy, scolding stare. And you know how two of those three things work with squabbling siblings. They may take the edge off the fighting, but they won’t turn you into someone who loves unconditionally. What Moses, the law and another Stewardship sermon will get you is that rich young ruler who goes away dejected after Jesus tells him to sell everything and give it to the poor. The Israelites could give and give and give, because God had given them hearts for it. On the other hand, the rich young ruler had a heart for laws and religious hoo-haw and spiritual exercises, but wanted to keep his most central identifying mark: his control and autonomy. He wanted to own his own heart.
But those Israelites had had their ancient desert-wandering hearts smitten by a God who had given them the one and only thing needed to turn them into the people who lavished their goods and attention on the building of the Tabernacle. God had given them his choice. God had elected them, chosen them, pegged them for something big. God had pulled them out of a far-off land and yanked them out of slavery with a promise to give them a future. It was a promise that began with their earliest parents in the Garden as God gave the sinful Adam and Eve and that brother-killing Cain some divine protection in the midst of their sinful lives. It was a promise that came to life in Sarah’s wizened old womb and that gave that 90-year-old woman and her husband a son. It was a promise given to that cheating, conniving son, Jacob, when he wrestled with God at the Jabbock River. It was a promise that appeared before the escaping Israelites in the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. It was a promise that saw them through the sea to the safety of the other side. It was a promise gently settling on the ground in the form of manna in the wilderness. It was a promise to bring order, safety and security to their lives in the shape of the Commandments. And it would be a promise embodied in a land set apart for a people who would give witness to the God who is faithful to them even when they wander into the deepest prodigality. The rich young ruler couldn’t give it all up, because he owned his heart and kept himself autonomous. The Israelites could do it, because their hearts didn’t belong to themselves. Their hearts had been gripped by the hand of the eternal lover, provider and savior of the godless, the sinful, the broken, the you and the me.
Back in 1517, Martin Luther, the guy whose name is on this church building, posted the 95 Theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. The Theses were a disputation, a series of logical statements written to ask questions about whether doing more could get you in good with God. The first and most important of the theses says this: When our Lord and master, Jesus Christ, bids us to repent, he requires an entire life of repentance. What Luther meant was the exact thing we have before us today. The life of repentance is a life that doesn’t own its own heart because a relationship with God has come about that stakes a claim on that heart. And the only way for that to happen, for you my friends to become the kind of givers that every other awful demand in a stewardship sermon has wanted you to be, is for me to let go of any reminder of the church’s needs, of any advice on how to be more successful Christian givers, and of any motivational Powdermilk Biscuit-style urgings to do what needs to be done. Instead, the only thing for me to do is this: I need to give you the promise that takes hold of your heart.
But, of course, that’s already been done to you. Don’t you know already whose you are? Have you not already had the water poured over you with the words, “I baptize you”? Have you not spoken a confession Sunday after Sunday and heard your pastor say you’re forgiven? Haven’t you swallowed a chunk of the ultimate promise and a slurp of divine mercy in the bread and wine at the altar? If you have, then look into your heart and read the stamped placed there by Christ on the cross. It reads, “Property of Jesus.” And all I need to do is have you look to him and then say to you, “What he said.” But if you have not heard and known this promise, and your heart says, “Mine,” then all there is for me to say to you is what the rich young ruler got from our Lord himself, “Sell all you have and give it to the poor. Wrench your self-owned, autonomous heart out. And when it’s gone, let’s see if there’s room for that promise.”
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