The Tale of Two Coins – David Martin – Oct. 21/07

The Tale of Two Coins

October 21, 2007

Rev. David Martin

Text:

Mark 12:41-44

Matthew 22:15-22

 

I was a young pastor at the time and was rather taken aback by the cold, abrupt response of Millie’s neighbour. Joe and Millie had just moved from their home at Hagerman Corners into the seniors’ apartment in the old town of Markham and as pastor of Hagerman Mennonite Church, I was checking in on them to see how they were adjusting their new home. Joe, who kept himself busy self-publishing his little books of poetry and building his ships in a bottle, seemed to be doing fine and Millie, who faithfully attended worship each week at Hagerman and every Tuesday joined the women’s sewing circle, seemed to be adjusting well. As I went to leave, Millie insisted on seeing me down to the lobby. There at the front door she proudly introduced me as her pastor to one of her new neighbours who was just returning from her errands. “Hmpf,” the women curtly replied, “All the church wants is your money!” Abruptly, she stormed off, leaving Millie and I both a little startled.

Of course, I internally defended the church, saying, ‘What does she know. She’s obviously been listening to too many TV preachers.” Now, if it was TV preachers she was meaning then I was with her, being none too sympathetic myself. As I have reflected on those brusque words, I have begun to wonder if perhaps Millie’s neighbour was right after all. If you look at the evidence, it certainly appears as if the church has a high interest in money. Just listen to this sampling of New Testament texts:

In Mark 4, in his inaugural speech that marks the beginning of his ministry, Jesus himself puts a high emphasis on money calling for the Year of Jubilee and the forgiving of debt for the poor. If you look closely at Jesus’ teachings and parables, it is hard to deny that Jesus had a strong interest in money. In addition, in Luke 8 we read this:

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.         (Mark 8:1-3)

I bet you didn’t know that Jesus’ preaching tours were funded by wealthy female patrons who backed his mission and accompanied him on his tours. It appears that even Jesus relied on funding to do his work.

We might also go to the early chapters of Acts and note that right from its inception, the church was all about money. People were selling off property to support the mission and the larger community of faith was assisting the widows and the poor.

Then soon afterwards, in 2 Corinthians 8 & 9, we encounter the apostle Paul who is on an aggressive fund raising mission to raise money for the poor in Jerusalem.

In many ways, it looks like Millie’s neighbour was right – the church does want your money. It is clear from the sampling of evidence that we have just covered that money is a key component in the mission of the church. Generosity is simply foundational to what the church is all about. Extending the peace of Jesus Christ, which is Mennonite Church Eastern Canada’s new mission statement, will only be realized if there is generous engagement in the mission of the local congregation and the mission of the wider church.

When I began my role as Executive Minister for MCEC, I would not have predicted that money and generosity would be a significant aspect of my work. I suppose I should have known better, since generosity has always been foundational to the church’s mission. While our congregations do not yet face a crisis, it has become clear that generosity needs to be high on the agenda if our churches are going to retain their capacity for ministry into the future and be in a position to engage a new generation of disciples.

The Generosity Project is an initiative by MCEC to ensure that our congregations will retain and grow their generous edge so that they will have ample capacity to fund their local ministries as well as have the capacity to participate in the broader ministries of the wider church. In order to discern what it is that congregations are experiencing and need on the generosity front, MCEC initiated a series of fourteen regional dinners this past May. We invited three persons from each of our congregations to participate in a dinner in their area. The dinners were almost one hundred per cent subscribed and in the end, we engaged about 225 people from 80 of our 92 churches. (Unfortunately, we were unable to accommodate some of our more remote churches.) At those dinners, we asked ourselves three key questions. “How has your congregation experienced generosity in the past year? What are your greatest generosity challenges? What themes are emerging from this conversation that are instructive for nurturing generosity?” Well the dinners were always good and the discussion was always animated.

So what did we learn? Well, we discovered that generosity is alive and well in our MCEC community of congregations! We heard some amazing stories of generosity. For instance, we heard from the Grace Lao Mennonite church that their members donated time and money to make 9,000 spring rolls to raise money for MCC and for their church mortgage. We heard how the Waterloo-Kitchener Mennonite Church raised $97,000 dollars in two months to pay for a $100,000 replacement of their flat roof! We also heard how the youth sponsors at the Hunta Mennonite Church, just outside of Cochrane, drive 128 km a week to pick up and drop off youth. We also heard about congregations who have above budget partnerships with ministries in Kenya, Ethiopia and other places around the world. And the list went on and on. Generosity is alive and well in MCEC!

However, we also learned that our congregations are struggling with generosity. Giving to projects is always easier than donating to the local budget and to the congregational ministries that we all want, but so often take for granted. We heard that it is a struggle at times to engage a new generation of givers and that churches are fearful about what will happen when they can no longer count on the faithful giving of their seniors. We heard that volunteer engagement is a serious issue in many churches and that we are not always generous with our time and our talents in ter
ms of supporting the mission of the local congregation. We heard concerns that a culture of consumerism and consumption has unduly influenced our church members and at times has seriously curtailed their capacity to contribute financially to the mission of the church. And the list went on and on.

When we stepped back and asked, “What is the meaning of it all?” the lively discussion ranged all over the map. We talked about nurturing a deeper spirituality in our membership, about clearly articulating the vision and mission of the church, being more creative and descriptive when we present the budget, about educating and informing our members of congregational giving patterns, introducing direct deposit options, etc. etc. The list went on and on.

To help us make sense of all this, when the dinners were over, we sat down with an outside consultant to help us think through what it was that we were hearing. In the end, three areas or frames of reference seemed to emerge as perhaps the most critical areas to address. The first one is focused around theology and identity. The question is whether we in the church really have a clear understanding of the mission of the church and God’s call to participate in that mission of actively extending the peace of Jesus Christ to a broken and hurting world. Do we even know what we are about? Do we truly understand the New Testament vision for the church?

Leadership is the second area or frame of reference that emerged. The question is whether our congregations would benefit from more strategic leadership in the nurturing generosity and stewardship. Are we intentional about providing leadership in this area? Do we clearly articulate the vision of the congregation to its membership? Are we strategic in applying resources, education, challenge and even simple data analysis? What is the role of the pastor? Why do pastors so often feel that speaking about money and stewardship is a taboo subject? What resources might pastors need?

Personal engagement was the third area that emerged. Do we need to work at nurturing a deeper spiritual commitment in our members? How do we challenge our members to take ownership for the mission of extending the peace of Jesus Christ? What would it mean to engage them more fully in the ministries of the congregation? As Tobi suggested in her sermon the other week, do we need to nurture a counter cultural spirituality of gratitude so that generosity becomes second nature in response to the abundance that we experience from God?

We want to pose these questions to the delegates attending our Consultation on Generosity next Saturday. You are more than welcome to join us at the Floradale Mennonite Church as together we discern what our congregations need in order to become even more generous communities of faith. However, let me give you my take on this. I think that all three of these areas are important but I wonder if perhaps we need to begin with the third one, personal engagement. Admittedly, they are all interconnected at one level, but I wonder if there is some merit in highlighting the area of personal engagement. At least that appears to be how Jesus approached the issue.

Let’s turn for a few minutes to our tale of two coins that we heard in the scripture reading earlier. Our first story is about the widow whom Jesus commended for putting her penny’s worth of two small copper coins into the temple treasury. I’ll be honest with you. I have never liked this story. It’s always made me feel uncomfortable. In fact, it feels a little threatening. I’m not ready to throw my last penny into the offering plate. I keep a few back for retirement, a bit for vacation, some for my kid’s education, and so on. Would Jesus commend me? I’m not putting my last penny into the church coffers like this story suggests. What is it that Jesus is praising?

Well, I wonder if this coin doesn’t tell the tale of a woman who has fully given herself over to God and to the mission of God’s peaceable kingdom. Is Jesus perhaps praising her full engagement with the mission of God? Here is a woman who is fully devoting herself to the call of God and personally engaging that mission.

In contrast, Jesus seems to be critical of the scribes and Pharisees for their token commitment to the mission of God. Sure they tithe, in fact, some of them not only tithe their primary crops, they even fastidiously tithe the mint and dill from their herb gardens! Yet their commitment to the mission is token. They have not fully identified with God’s mission and are not responding out of hearts full of gratitude for God’s generosity. Indeed, while the cup looks clean on the outside, the inside is nowhere near fully aligned with the mission of extending God’s kingdom of peace. Perhaps what Jesus is challenging us to is a total engagement of all we are and all we have with the way of the kingdom, an engagement grounded and rooted in gratitude for the amazing grace and generosity of our loving God.

The coin in Matthew 22 tells us another tale. Actually, it gives us the flip side of the coin, if you will. I would like to build on what David shared with you in his sermon last week. In contrast to the story of the widow and her coin, in this story, Jesus seems to be affirming token involvement with the mission, that is, token involvement with the mission of Caesar. If Caesar wants a coin or two, let him have them, offer him only a token engagement with his mission. But what else is Jesus saying here? I understand that David pointed out the sub text in this story, which hinges on the word image. “Whose image is on the coin?” Jesus asks. Caesar’s is the reply. To which Jesus responds, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus’ listeners would have very quickly picked up his meaning as they brought to remembrance the Genesis story and its claim that human beings have been cast in the image of God – not coins. You may owe Caesar a few token coins, comments Jesus, but you owe God your entire being! Again, Jesus is calling his disciples to total engagement with God’s mission, engagement of all we are and all we have with the way of the kingdom, an engagement grounded and rooted in gratitude for the amazing grace and generosity of our loving God.

Well, in the end, I think Millie’s neighbour was wrong. What the church wants, what God wants is not your money! What the church wants, what God wants is you – all of you! God wants your time, your gifts, and your spirit. God wants your faithful, joyful engagement in the mission of extending the peace of Jesus Christ, an engagement grounded in a response of joyful gratitude for the overwhelming generosity of God’s goodness. And of course, if you are taking joyful ownership for the mission to which God calls the church, then I am sure that your wallet and your bank account and your assets will also be joyfully engaged in that mission.

Friends, whether it be nurturing generosit
y through theological identity, leadership, or personal ownership, at its deepest level Jesus’ tale of two coins challenges us to a life of radical gratitude that joyfully engages the mission of extending the peace of Jesus Christ. My prayer is that you will fully engage that mission here in the ministries of TUMC and in your partnership with the ministries of MCEC and the wider church. To that end, may God bless our generosity and grow Christ’s reign of peace. AMEN