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"Putting God First"
Numbers 18:8-29
A sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
April 29, 2001
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
Today is Pledge and Commitment Sunday. We are not one of those churches who talk about money a whole lot, even though Jesus did talk about it a whole lot. We are not a church that guilt-trips people into giving. That’s not how I work, and I don’t think it’s a great motivator. What we are is a church that takes our faith very seriously. We are a church that takes doing ministry very seriously and we do it in a unique way, different than most Baptist churches. Thank God, I hear people saying. I know many of you have had the chance to fill out your pledge cards and the time and talents sheets. If you haven’t yet, one is available in your bulletin and before too much longer I hope you will fill it out. Also, if you want to cross a number out and write in a new one, that is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged.
Today, I want to encourage you to take stock and think about where your priorities lie. Our giving to the church simply reflects an aspect of our priorities. It’s all about making sure your personal budget matches your priorities.
In this day and age when our investments in things like the stock market are tenuous at best, I wonder how well all of our investments here are doing. When you have weighed all of the risks and returns, are your resources in the places where your priorities lie? Borrowing a theme from the popular language, I am specifically asking you "what’s in your portfolio"? Our pledge cards represent part of our priorities, our willingness to risk for God’s work here and now, and our investment in the future of this great church.
So, what’s in the portfolio of your life?
While you are thinking about that, let me share with you a theological meditation from one of the sages of modern life. I’m referring, of course to George Carlin. He recently wrote about what’s in our portfolios:
"The Paradox of Our Time" -by George Carlin
"The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings, but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.
We spend more, but have less;
we buy more, but enjoy it less.
We have bigger houses and smaller families;
more conveniences, but less time;
we have more degrees, but less sense;
more knowledge, but less judgment;
more experts, but more problems;
more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values.
We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life;
we've added years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.
We've conquered outer space, but not inner space.
We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul.
We've split the atom, but not our prejudice.
We write more, but learn less.
We plan more, but accomplish less.
We've learned to rush, but not to wait.
We build more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion;
tall men, and short character;
steep profits, and shallow relationships.
These are the times of more food, but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but more divorce;
of fancier houses, but broken homes.
These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer to quiet, to kill."
We need to get our priorities in line.
If we don’t we end up as cynical as this list. This is the result of the me-first existence. It is the belief system which says "I am in control of my own destiny. I am in control of how others perceive me. I am in control of everything." So we accumulate all of this stuff and we wonder why so many of our lives are so empty. There are those who say our addiction as a society, our god is consumerism. The first two steps in any 12-step program are to recognize that our lives have become unmanageable and to accept that only a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. We call that Power, God. So I suggest implementing a new plan for our lives, a plan I know many of you already practice. It’s called, the God-first plan. GFP for short. If we put God first, then the other pieces just might fall into line.
This was a problem addressed by the ancient Israelites. Knowing our propensity for selfishness and godlessness they addressed this by implementing a GFP. Here’s how it worked. When it came time to dole out the land to the 12 tribes, only 11 got land. The 12th, the tribe of Levi, had responsibility for the function of the tent of meeting, the ancient equivalent of church. They were the religious sect, the priests. And holiness was so important that an entire tribe attended to it. But with no land, they had no way of making a living, eating or for that matter attending to the work of God through the temple.
Enter onto the scene the concept of tithing. Each of the land-owning tribes would take one tenth of their earnings, the first fruits of their harvest and give it to the Levites. This was the amount set aside for God. Everyone in the ancient Israelite community tithed, even the Levites. The Levites would not pocket all of the money. They would use it for the work of the Tent of meeting, but they would save ten percent and use it for special offerings. It was how they stayed faithful and supported God’s work.
There was never a question as to whether they lived up to their obligation. It was assumed that everyone tithed. It was a way they kept their community together. And it was always a GFP. A God-First Plan. When you put God first, other things fall in line.
I took up tithing about 17 years ago after hearing a powerful sermon by my pastor. I was making $8,000.00 a year working for Denison University. I had my room and board paid for, so I didn’t have a whole lot of expenses. I realized that I was putting in maybe a few dollars a week. It never hurt. And I was getting a whole lot from the church. In fact, I sang in the choir back then and the ushers never got to the choir loft so most Sundays I conveniently missed the offering.
Anyway, I realized I wasn’t pulling my fair weight. So, I took a deep breath, filled out my pledge card and committed to paying $200.00 a quarter to the church. I thought it would hurt me. But I budgeted it and I didn’t miss the money. In fact, I felt good about it. It energized me. It made me committed in a new way to the church and it made my commitment to God what I felt as meaningful. I started to show up every Sunday. And I began to realize that it was not about the money. It was about my heart. It was about my priorities. It was about being willing to take a risk. It was about making a commitment. It was about giving thanks. It was about putting God first. It started out as an obligation, but it became a joy to put God first in my portfolio because without God, what was my portfolio worth, anyway?
I have tithed ever since. It is always the first check I write in the month. The Biblical mandate is that we use the first fruits of our harvest to God’s work. The logic is if God is central to your life then God’s work ought to reflect your monetary priorities. If you give of your leftovers, as I did for years, then what does that symbolize about your priorities when it comes to God or the rest of your portfolio?
A few years ago, Dolores Street Baptist Church in San Francisco moved from a monthly mission collection to a mission tithe. They used to have a different mission for which they would take a second offering each Sunday of the month. They ended up giving a hundred dollars or so to the different missions. But then they decided that they should do like the Levites and give 10% of their offerings to missions. Since that little congregation of two dozen gave about $40,000.00 a year, they gave $4,000 to missions a year. So, every quarterly business meeting they had some fun. Imagine sitting in a church meeting and arguing not about how little to give, but how much. Suddenly mission giving doubled and it was inspiring to see how much change one tiny church could make in the world.
At UBC, when you look at our budget, you might not see a tithe to missions, although we are one of the leaders in the region in per capita mission giving. But when you add in the monthly Communion offerings, the money we collect at Coffee Hour for Indian Missions and the below-market rate which we give to some of the fine groups who use space in this building, we give way over a tithe to missions of justice, advocacy and healing. That shows that we have our priorities in line. At this church, we put God first and we make doing ministry our highest priority. In fact, it just might be a double tithe.
But let’s think about this in terms of our own lives.
I did some checking this past week, and found out that the median household income for the Twin Cities is $62,000 per year. That’s up from $45,000 in ’97 and $36,000 in ’90. Now I know some of you make considerably less than that and some of you make more. But let’s have some fun with the numbers:
You might think this fuzzy math, but here goes.
In our congregation, we have roughly 130 members in about 75 families. Let’s say that $62,000.00 is too high and the average income is more like $50,000.00. If each family tithed, gave 10% as their first fruits that’s $5,000.00 a piece. If you do the math that’s something like $420 a month. Multiply that by 75 families and we are talking about $375,000 dollars! Our congregation struggles to make ends meet on budget of a little bit over a half of that. Even now, the All-Church Council has asked the various boards to be prepared for budget cuts. And I know most of the boards don’t feel like they can cut much of anything and still have a worthwhile program, let alone an expanding program.
But these problems could all go away if we all took the biblical program seriously and began to tithe. Our giving hovers around $100,000. That’s about a $275,000 gap between our present giving level and our tithing potential.
Let’s say my numbers are way off and we the average income in this church is more like $40,000. A tithe would work out to $333 per month. If that were our average tithe, we would end up with $300,000 in pledges. If the average income was $30,000 and everyone tithed (that’s $250 per month), we would have 225,000, still double our current giving. Can you imagine what would happen if we lived up to our tithing potential? We could start thinking about the new things we could do or the things we could do better:
I believe this is very possible. There is an excitement here in this congregation. There is a sense of possibility out here that is palatable.
Think of it:
We could give more to missions than we are already giving.
We could hire a person to shepherd our expanding youth and education work, something UBC has talked about for years.
We could do more justice, find ways to serve more people and enhance our programs, making it more pleasing to God and beneficial to us and our neighbors whom we serve.
We could explore the staff needed to have a truly cyber-sophisticated ministry, reaching all of those who would never step foot inside of this building, but long for God, companionship and community that they can only find on the internet.
We could enhance and jump-start our ministry with students.
We could do some long-delayed repairs on this great building: new windows, an upgraded electrical system, we could fix the baptistery doors.
We could enhance our worship with more art, more musicians more innovation, even a commissioned piece of music now and again.
We could pay a decent wage to our child care workers, musicians, custodian, office help and even set up a scholarship program for students going to seminary.
We could hire an administrator to attend to a lot of the "busy work" that tends to burn out our present boards.
We could do another hymnal revision.
We could get a fifth octave of bells.
We could really do some outreach, letting people know how great a church this really is and why they need to check us out.
We could underwrite the cost of people going to conferences, which would help us to better be the church.
We could make all of this building accessible.
We could have even more far-reaching effects within our denomination as a force for justice
We could buy houses and get involved in housing issues.
In this immense space, we could provide job and computer training
We could take some risks and save some more lives.
We could start expanding programs instead of cutting them back.
And that’s fun.
You start to get excited when you see what is possible out there. And it is possible, my friends.
But you know what? Tithing is not about making a budget. It is about your own faithfulness. It’s about putting your priorities in line with your beliefs. The Apostle Paul said, "where your money is, there is your heart also." Tithing is about putting God first.
This is really about where your priorities are. This is about who is most important. We all need and long for a life where we can live and thrive without having to worry about our next meal or our how to pay for the kids’ education or how to make the skyrocketing rent. But I do know this. Church centers me. This community gives me hope. My relationship with God and this community is my number one priority, next to my family. So, of course they get my first fruits. Because it is the most important.
So, what’s in your portfolio?
When you make your budget, is church even a part of it?
Does your budget reflect your values?
I’m not only talking about your financial budget, but also your time budget, your spiritual budget.
If things feel a bit out of whack, then you might want to try out the GFP. The God First Plan.
Why do we do this? If you need any other reason, then remember that God puts you first. Always has. Always will.