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I want to tell you a story, along with a backstory. The story comes from a recent issue of The Presbyterian Outlook. Now, for those of you not familiar with it, The Outlook is a newsletter independent of, but focusing on the Presbyterian Church (USA). It got its start in the Southern Presbyterian Church, it’s been around nearly 200 years, and it’s currently published 43 times a year.

Four years ago, The Outlook was looking for a new Editor. When I read the job description it seemed to have been written expressly for my skills and my beliefs about the nature of a publication in the 21st century.  Moreover, this was the one time in my life that I felt like God was really speaking to me. I’ve always envied people who say they’ve heard God speaking to them — this is the only time it’s happened to me.

So, for the only time in my 26-year career with the Southern California Golf Association, I really went after this job, sure that God was calling me to Richmond, Virginia, where The Outlook is headquartered.  I assembled recommendations from two seminary presidents, a General Assembly moderator, Mark Smutny and Barbara Anderson and many other people both in the church and the communications field.

The job search requirements asked me to explain my concept of melding print publications with electronic communication and several other similarly thought-provoking questions. The whole thing was extensive — even my mother was impressed with it! My wife and I had already planned an East Coast vacation and we visited Richmond just to see what the area looked like. We even checked out the Second Presbyterian Church.

                Well, since I’m standing here, you can guess the outcome. God may have been speaking to me, but she apparently wasn’t speaking to the search committee. I got a weird phone call thanking me for my submission and saying I wasn’t going to be interviewed.

So, as you can imagine, The Outlook hasn’t been high on my reading list in the last four years.

                Then, about six weeks ago, out of the blue, I got a copy of The Outlook in the mail, glanced through it and saw an article by Jill Duffield, pastor of the Tirzah Presbyterian Church in Waxhaw, North Carolina.

Unless you’re an Old Testament scholar (which I’m not), you wouldn’t know that Tirzah is one of five daughters of Zelophehad in the book of Numbers and that it’s also a town mentioned in the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua. How a Presbyterian church came up with that name is beyond me, but according to Google there are actually two with the same name — and they’re 46 miles apart!

                A little sleuthing on Google also told me that Waxhaw is a small town near the border of South Carolina — if it’s not the middle of nowhere, it’s within shouting distance of it.

                Anyway, the first thing that caught my eye was that Tirzah is a 200-year-old church that abandoned its stewardship campaign and pledge cards 30 years ago. As someone who is a veteran of many PPC stewardship campaigns (and facing a meeting Tuesday night to begin planning the next one), my first reaction was “YES!”

Instead, most Tirzah members follow the Old Testament pattern of tithing, giving the first 10% of one’s income or assets to God. Moreover, they give additional money for mission projects, special offerings and capital campaigns. And they do all that without a Stewardship campaign.

                My second reaction (after my fist pump) was “What if? … What if this were PPC?”

                Ah, but all is not as smooth as it might appear in rural North Carolina. Waxhaw is about 30 miles south of Charlotte and, apparently, people have been moving from the “big city” into this little town. And while people have been joining the Tirzah Presbyterian Church, they apparently haven’t had “tithing” built into their faith journey DNA.

                So, the suggestion was floated at Tirzah that perhaps it was time to do a Stewardship campaign ... and it fell flatter than the pancakes that Mark Smutny will flip at our church brunch on September 6.  According to the article, “the church’s past treasurer made the argument that pledge cards didn’t work and you couldn’t plan a budget around them, so what would be the point?” 2

Let us pause at this point to administer smelling salts to Mary Mellema and Fried Wilson, our past and current treasurers at PPC.

                In true Presbyterian fashion, the members thought Stewardship was the pastor’s job — that the pastor ought to, as the article said, “preach tithing and the scriptural basis for tithing.”  However, when Jill asked her Session, “Are you willing to stand up in worship and share with the congregation why it is that you tithe?” moments of heavy silence (to use her words) were followed by a curt, “I think it needs to come from you.” 2

                Thus, it appears that this church, much like PPC, has a wall between those members who tithe and those who don’t, either because the non-tithing members have never been indoctrinated into the practice or possibly because churches have been reluctant to focus on the subject.

                Now as pastor Jill points out, tithing isn’t some mathematical formula to determine what we will give to the church. It’s a first-fruits, grateful response to the God whose giving knows no ending. The real question is how seriously will we take Jesus’ direction in today’s Gospel lesson to “Sell all that you have, give the proceeds to the poor and follow me”?

In a few moments, we’re going to sing a hymn that says “All that we have is thine alone.” 3 What if we really believed that?

I had a lot of fun digging into today’s Gospel lesson. The same story, with a couple of variations, appears in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew calls it the story of “The Rich Young Man.” Luke describes it as the story of “The Rich Ruler.”  I call it the story of the bratty little brother. Whether you’re a sibling or a parent, you know who I’m talking about — the kid who keeps asking “why?” to every question you answer until you’re sick of it.

In the Matthew version, Jesus was in the midst of a preaching tour — sort of an early version of the Billy Graham Crusades. And up comes this young man who asks the sort of question that Jesus must have gotten a little tired of hearing: “What do I have to do to get eternal life?”

Jesus smiles and — after needling the guy a little bit about calling Jesus “good” — gives him the obvious answer: “Keep the commandments.”

The man replies “Which ones?” (Doesn’t this sound like the “why, why, why” from your bratty little brother?)

So, Jesus tosses off five of Moses’ original 10 and throws in “love your neighbor as you do yourself” for good measure.

“I’ve done all of this,” says the man, somewhat smugly. What else?

Now to this point, Jesus has been using straight-forward Old Testament theology in this back-and-forth discourse, and I think he’s had enough.  Instead of using the numerous tithing examples in the Torah, Jesus says, “Sell all you have.” And the rich young man walks away sadly.

Now, be honest, if Jesus were up here instead of me and preached that today, what would you do? How would you feel? Would you be reaching for your checkbooks and stock portfolios? Or walk away sadly.

But I think there’s more to the story. I’m not sure that Jesus really expected the rich young man to sell EVERYTHING. Let’s pick it up from verse 23:

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As he watched him go, Jesus told his disciples, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is for the rich to enter God's kingdom? Let me tell you, it's easier to gallop a camel through a needle's eye than for the rich to enter God's kingdom."

The disciples were staggered. "Then who has any chance at all?"

Jesus looked hard at them and said, "No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it."

Then Peter chimed in, "We left everything and followed you. What do we get out of it?"

Jesus replied, "Yes, you have followed me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel. And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields—whatever — because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life.

This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last and the last first." 1

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                I think in this scripture Jesus was trying to distinguish from being IN the Kingdom of God in eternal life and DOING the work of the kingdom here on earth. The former is in the hands of God; the latter is squarely in our hands. Or, to put it another way, let God worry about eternal life; you deal with the issues in the here and now, and that means taking a good look at your priorities, at what you’ve always considered as important in your life.

                Now, lest someone pipes up with a “preacher, heal thyself,” let me be the first to say that I haven’t sold all of my goods and given the proceeds to the poor. However, I do tithe, and have done so for many years. I have no wish to speak for other tithers, but let me tell you my story.

                I consider myself privileged to have been born when I was, to the parents I had, in the land where I live. We certainly weren’t rich growing up (my dad was a minister) but we not only had enough to eat and a roof over our head but I also got plenty of opportunities as I was growing up.

                That doesn’t mean it’s always been fun. My first wife died of multiple sclerosis and I had one son die of a heart condition. It hurts my wife and me to see our son suffer with his current disability. I’ve been laid off and lost a job. I’ve been on the receiving end of a food distribution line, as well as the giving end here.

                Moreover, God has expected me to play my part. My wife and I worked multiple jobs and I worked full-time while I finished school. In addition to our busy jobs, we have continued to serve in various ways at PPC, believing that this church IS doing God’s work in this community and the world.

But through everything, I have never doubted that God was guiding me, and that — in the words of today’s closing hymn, God’s giving does, indeed, know no ending.

                Moreover, this church — and others in cities from Montreal to Redondo Beach — have nurtured my faith and been my spiritual homes. I tithe remembering all those who came before me, people such as my mom and dad, Gordon MacInnes, William Russell, Dean Thompson, Ken and Janet Joslyn, Mark Smutny and Barbara Anderson and many others. 

Among other things, these and other people taught me that tithing was something that didn’t spring up immediately, that had to be nurtured and taught to grow. And, yes, there have been years when we didn’t quite get to 10 percent.  There have also been years when we’ve been well above that number.

                We’ve just finished a week here at PPC when the church’s staff was put on unpaid furlough as a result of the church’s precarious financial situation. This was one of the most painful steps that the Session has ever been forced to take and our financial future still looks uncertain, despite the generous extra gifts that many of you have made.

Many of you have also offered wonderful suggestions for creative fund-raising ideas. We encourage all of you, your friends and businesses to take advantage of the E-Waste Collection Day on August 29,. We also hope you will all plan on attending the very special fund-raising program on Sept. 11 with Georgia Stitt and Susan Egan. These, and other things, are wonderful signs of energy here at PPC

                Yet this entire summer has also caused me to think extensively about my 33-year-relationship at PPC.

This is a wonderful church, with a rich history. As we have for more than 130 years, we continue to nurture our members and to serve this rapidly changing community. We’re in the midst of working through a radical, God-inspired attempt to reinvent a multicultural congregation that is reaching out to many segments in this community and beyond that past PPC generations would never have imagined.  These are exciting, albeit nervous, times!

Yet, during these 33 years, there’s never been a year when we haven’t been consumed with fund-raising, whether it’s been capital campaigns, year-end programs, special appeals or regular stewardship campaigns.  We have more committees devoted to the financial affairs of PPC than to any other area — perhaps more than all other areas combined. Many people have left in despair over financial issues.

Perhaps we need to listen seriously to our Korean brothers and sisters, for whom tithing is a way of life that they preach and live. They don’t understand the pledge card system, a fact that drives our budget committee nuts.  But what if they’ve got Jesus’ teaching right ?

What if everyone’s life and giving was so God-centered that we could turn all of our hours into actually doing the work of the kingdom instead of worrying about how we can afford to finance it?

What if we spent all of our time in feeding the hungry, caring for the homeless, providing care for their souls, teaching the gospel, using music and the arts to reach out to our entire community, and in countless other ways we’ve never imagined, instead of having to worry about whether we can meet payroll or keeping the air conditioning system working?

What if we answered Jesus’ challenge in today’s gospel lesson with an unconditional, heart-felt “yes”?

                What if we believed the words we’re about to sing?

“May we Thy bounties thus

As stewards true receive,

And gladly, as Thou blessest us,

To Thee our firstfruits give.”  3

WHAT IF?

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FOOTNOTES:

1 The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language,  by Eugene H. Peterson, pgs 1782-1783. © Copyright 2002, Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission.

2  I Surrender All, by Jill Duffield.  Published in The Presbyterian Outlook, August 3, 2009,

Pg. 14

3 Hymn: We Give Thee But Thine Own. Text by William W. How, 1864. Public Domain.

4 Hymn: God Whose Giving Knows No Ending. Text by Robert Edwards, 1961. Used by permission

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