Divine Dividend
a sermon based on 1 Timothy 6:6-19
by Randy L Quinn

During Bible Study one week several years ago, Helen told the story of her granddaughter who stopped by her house on her way to Sunday School. Cassie showed her grandmother her new purse and the bright shiny quarter inside it.

“Is that for the collection?” Helen asked.

“No, Gramma,” came the insistent reply, “it’s for the offering.”

In that short conversation, an important lesson was taught. There is a difference between taking up a collection and gathering the offerings. A “collection” implies that the purpose is to meet the needs of the church. An “offering” reminds us of our own need to give.

Shortly after arriving here, I changed the order of worship. It wasn’t something I did casually, but intentionally. Some of you were involved in the discussions when I was trying to decide what to change and when.

Some of you probably don’t remember what the changes were, but those involved in leading our worship do. In fact, I had one musician tell me that she didn’t know much about what was in the order of worship until she began playing the piano for church! She just followed along and did whatever the leader said to do next.

That may be true for you, too, but the leaders in our church – the liturgists, the musicians, the song leaders, and the ushers – each know some of the changes we made in our worship service because habits are hard to break.

There are things that we include in our worship service for specific purposes, and I put them in a particular order for a variety of reasons. It isn't just a matter of listing things and separating them with songs. It's a matter of some artistry in which a focus is chosen, a focus toward which everything else points. I begin by determining what it is we've gathered to celebrate and making that the focus.

I know that before I became a pastor I thought differently about it than I do now, but one key element that I always wondered about was the offering. Where does it fit? Why do we include it?

In some churches it comes before the sermon. In some it's after. (I’ve even heard of a few churches where the offering is not done as a part of the worship service itself!) For those pastors and churches who believe that the focus of our worship is the proclaimed word, the offering comes earlier. For those pastors – me included – who believe that the focus of our worship is our response to God’s Word, the offering comes later.

The offering, in my mind, is a response to God's grace. And to me, it's one of the primary reasons we come to worship – to give to God in response to what God has given to us. Everything else is preparatory to our gift – reminding us of what God has done, what God is doing, and what God has promised to do.

You may not agree with me.

• You may think the primary act of worship is the sermon.
• You may think our main purpose is to fellowship with one another.
• You may think the most important reason we gather is to pray with and for one another.

It isn’t that I don’t think those aren’t important elements of worship. But I think those all build toward the crucial element of our response to God, a response symbolically represented in the offering and powerfully witnessed in our service beyond these walls.

Now, I also know it's possible to twist that purpose. In fact, in the verses preceding our text for today, Paul alludes to people who give the sermon then make a request for money, becoming what Fred Craddock refers to as "peddlers of God's word" in the process.

There are lots of people who have products and services to sell. Some are more useful than others. But peddlers have a bad name, even when they’re offering a good product because it's clear to everyone that they aren't in the business to give us what we need but to get what they want.

I don't know how many of you ever watch PBS. Twice a year they solicit sponsors to support public television – individual sponsors like you and me.

During their finance campaigns they find interesting programs that appeal to different groups of people. Once I saw a gardener. Last winter it was a concert violinist. At other times, I've seen dancers. There have also been documentaries and interviews. If you watch public television at all, you've probably encountered one or more of their finance campaigns, each with a particularly appealing feature presentation.

Generally, each feature show appeals to a particular crowd, so gifts are given to those who pledge during that particular show. A CD or a video or a book is offered to entice people to sponsor public television.

Unfortunately, there are times when the presentation comes off as a way of peddling a product that no one wants and even fewer people need.

One year I found myself listening to Suze Orman who wrote the book, Nine Steps to Financial Freedom. If you pledged during the show, you received a "free" copy of her book. If you pledged enough, you got another book she wrote as well as a video presentation of her ideas. In the meantime, to entice you to support public television, they showed the majority of her video presentation.

Why I remember it so well was the particular piece of the program that I caught. Suze Orman was making a presentation of the ideas in her book. I don't remember which step it was, but she was adamant that in order to achieve financial freedom you have to give money away. "Giving money away makes you feel powerful," she said.

She gave some ideas of where to give your money, and she gave some broad sweep suggestions about how much money to give away, but it was clear that she meant to non-profit organizations like Public Television . . . and the church.

In fact, her strongest statement about giving was that we should NOT give to individuals – with the possible exception of our own parents – but to organizations that we trust, organizations in whose purpose and mission we believe.

She said what I've been saying for a long time. I say it most often when I'm visiting with couples preparing for marriage. I tell them they need to give. As newly married couples, they can choose how and where to give, but I am strongly convinced that we need to give.

The questions of where and how much are harder to answer, since I think there are a variety of places, ways, and amounts that we can give.

• We can give money, we can give time, we can give talents.
• We can support the church, we can support our community, we can support our schools.
• We can set an upper limit to how much we give or a lower limit to how much we give.

Of course, the best and easiest way of deciding is to use the Biblical standard of the tithe, a tenth of our earnings or a tenth of our time or a combination of both. But I also know that for some people, it's hard to imagine giving a full tithe, a full ten percent of their income. To those people, I say start with five percent or three percent. Then increase it by one percent each year until you reach the full tithe. Ronda and I started that way. We're now well beyond the ten percent tithe.

I also know that the church may not be the only place you will choose to give. God can and does receive gifts through other mission projects like Heifer Project and Habitat for Humanity. God also can and does receive our gifts given through the American Cancer Society and the United Way.

I just know it's important to give. So Ronda and I give money to the church. (We give smaller amounts to other organizations, too.) We also give some of our time to various organizations, including the church. Giving is important to us, and by our example, our children are learning the importance of giving, too.

Paul reminds us that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil" (v 10). And the most powerful way to free us from its grasp is to let go of it. In a paradoxical way, that allows us to control our money rather than letting our money control us.

You see, I've learned that it doesn't matter how much money you have for money to control your life. Those who have lots worry about it, and those who don't have enough worry about it. But those who are truly rich have learned that it isn't wealth that makes you happy.

That’s also why I think it’s important for church budgets to include mission giving. It’s important for the church to support missions beyond the walls of this building. By giving money away rather than hoarding it, we become better stewards of the money we receive and we honor God in the process.

There are many opportunities for us to become involved in mission. There is the Bishop’s Roundup for Hunger. There are mission projects like Puente de Fe in Topeka. There are food banks. There is a multitude of United Methodist missionaries serving at home and abroad we can support.

I believe that when we invest our money in mission, there are divine dividends that bring their own unique and wonderful rewards. That is true for us as individuals and it’s true for us as congregations as well.

God has met our needs so we can meet the needs of others.

Thanks be to God. Amen.