Sunday Nov. 21, 1999
“More
Than Leftovers”
Malachi 1 & 3
Pastor
Dan Baumgartner
It
seems appropriate, I thought, that the sermon title
for the Sunday before Thanksgiving would be "More than
Leftovers." I
want you to know, though, that what I had
in mind didn't have much to do with turkey and dressing.
This is Stewardship Sunday. It's
the Sunday we formally consider our commitment to God's
ministry here at Bethany...in all ways, including
financially. I discovered this week...that I've
never preached on a Stewardship Sunday before. I
looked back through a log I keep: I've
preached Easter, Thanksgiving, Palm Sunday, Christmas
Eve, weddings, funerals, retirement homes, retreats...but
never Stewardship Sunday. So I'm kind of excited
about it. You may say "wow, Dan, get a life. Excited
talking about budgets and money and pledging?" Actually,
those aren't my favorite things to talk about. But
the call of stewardship includes much more than money...it
has to do with the Lordship of Jesus in our life. And
that does excite me.
Our
text for this morning comes from the Old Testament
book of Malachi. Malachi
is not one that's used very often. It's the last
book of the Old Testament.
Malachi is a name that means "my
messenger," or perhaps "messenger of Yahweh." Malachi
was a crusty old prophet who spoke the word of God
to the people Israel. The
Israelite people had been allowed to return to Jerusalem
after 70 years of exile in Babylon. The
temple in Jerusalem, though not nearly so magnificent
as Solomon's original, had been rebuilt. Worship
with animal and grain sacrifice had begun once again. Ezra
and Nehemiah had
appeared on the scene to help govern, and rebuild the
wall around the city. Things seem to have returned
to some level of balance and comfort...but the word
from Malachi is anything but comfortable. I'm
going to read parts of two passages, one from chapter
1 and 1 from chapter 3. The first would seem
to be directed towards the temple priests first, then
the people...and the second to the people themselves.
(Read
1:6-14 and 3:6-12, selected… pray)
There
is a paradox in the Christian faith...between being
and doing. Faith
and works. Grace
and law. A
paradox is when two things that seem contrary, yet
both might be true. In
Jesus' teaching of the gospel (and in the Apostle Paul's,
for that matter,) grace
and action are both present. And
the order is critically important. Grace
first...action follows. We
experience Christ's love and forgiveness...and we are
compelled to live it out as new people. If we
reverse the two, we get in trouble. We
try to DO things that will somehow earn our way into
God's good graces, yet it can't be earned. But
we also get in trouble another way...and that is when
we start AND stop at grace. We
experience God's love and forgiveness, and then the
living out of our lives is just so much detail...and
if we don't do it well...well, we're covered by grace.
The
clear call of Christ is to LIVE OUT our faith well. To
live out the Lordship of Christ. Stewardship
has to do with the living out, with the doing. And
this is what Malachi talks about. Malachi's
book begins with God saying to His people "I have loved
you." And
most of the other 53 verses have to do with the living
out of that love.
I
have to tell you...that as I studied through this book
this week...I have been convicted. On my own
behalf, on behalf of our community at Bethany, on behalf
of the church as a whole. And
the thrust of that conviction is this: "In
my life...am I giving God my very best? Or
am I giving God the leftovers?" That's
the question I want you to think about this morning. And
as we look at Malachi's challenges in this regard,
I'm going to try to brush three major areas of
our lives: Relationships. Time. Money. And
I want you to think of how you live out those three
areas...as gifts, as offerings that you give to God.
The
first word of the Lord through Malachi is a penetrating
look at the giver of the offering. What
is the state of the heart of the one who brings gifts
to the Lord?
Throughout the scripture,
God looks on the heart of the giver...before He looks
at the gift. Is it an earnest, pure heart? And
so the gospels tell the story of the woman who gives
two measly coins...yet Jesus marvels at her heart,
at her willingness to sacrifice. In
Malachi, God
says first to the priests (but then expands it to the
people), "Are you showing me honor, are you showing
me respect?" The
clear implication is that they are doing neither. And
the priests answer back...they act shocked. "Who,
us? You're
not questioning OUR motives, are you? After
all, we're pastors! We're
giving our lives to you, Lord!" And
God's answer, essentially, is.... "pulll-lllease. You're
playing games. Who
are you trying to kid? If you were giving me
your lives, then your offerings to me would look very
different. VERY
different. And you know it."
I
began to think of my relationships with people as an
area of offering. I'm a Christian, I say I value
people...are my motives good? Think
through your own life.
What do your relationships
look like? Can
you bring them to God, and say "Lord, here's my offering." We
have many relationships we could look at. But
I particularly started thinking about people I know...that
I wish I didn't. People
who are just plain and simple, hard relationships. We
spend a lot of our time avoiding people that bug us,
or who we are not comfortable with. And
certainly, our lives can't be filled only with people
we don't like. But
are we called to avoid or get out of all those relationships? Should
we bring our relationship offering to God and say "Here,
Lord. I
bring you these relationships with people that I love
and am drawn to, and who are easy for me to be with."? Where
does loving enemies, praying for those who persecute
you, toughing it out with people...where does that
come in? I
told my men's group this week about a relationship
I had several years ago. I was traveling to New
York on business 4-5 times a year to serve on some
national committees (can't seem to get away from those
committees, can I?). There
was a guy named Scott from North Carolina. And
I can honestly tell you...Scott was obnoxious. Rude,
power-grabbing, devious, very mouthy and disrespectful. And
I spent two years being frustrated with Scott. And
lots of us on the committee spent a fair amount of
time talking him down, complaining about him, wishing
he weren't around and avoiding him if he was. And
after two years of that, I was at one of those smoke-filled
cocktail parties, and I said "So, Scott. How's
your family?" And
Scott looked at me for a long time. Sort
of sized me up. And then he began to talk. He
was worried sick about his family. He was on
the road so much that his kids never saw him, and they
were starting to have some problems. His marriage
was very, very rocky...and his bosses very, very demanding. He
probably talked for 20 minutes. My
heart broke for him. I never looked at
Scott the same again. I was so embarrassed about my
attitude. Oh,
he was still obnoxious, irritating etc. But
our relationship was changed forever...(pause). What
are your relationships like? Will
you bring them to God as an offering? In
our relationships...are we operating out of praying
hearts, motives that want the best for people, that
will stick with even difficult folks...will we feel
good about laying those relationships on God's altar?
Next
God speaks through Malachi about the gifts themselves. The
gifts that people were bringing were unacceptable. In
that culture which offered animal sacrifice to God
as an important part of one's faith experience...the
scripture was very clear (Leviticus, Deuteronomy) that
the animals brought as offerings were to be unblemished...in
perfect condition, the most valuable of the whole herd...and
Proverbs 3:9 says "Honor the Lord with the FIRSTfruits.” It's
very clear that what pleases God involves something
that is costly. Sacrificial,
something of value. But
the people were bringing, and the pastors were accepting
diseased, injured, blemished animals. In other
words, the ones of little to no value, the things easy
to bring that wouldn't cost anything. Giving
God the leftovers. And God says through Malachi, "Don't
even bother. It
would be better just to lock the doors of the church. Ushers,
chain the front door! I'd
rather you not bring ANYTHING than bring me the leftovers. Your
government wouldn't even accept this junk...what makes
you think I would?" Imagine
writing a note on April 14. "Dear
IRS: I'm not sending in the monetary payment
that I owe this year, because I have better things
to do with it. But enclosed are some old clothes
we were going to donate to Goodwill. Please
accept them in lieu of the money." The
IRS would be at your doorstep the next day. So
would the old clothes.
Do
we give God our best? I started to think about
our gifts of time. What
kind of time do we bring to the Lord ? How
do we set our priorities of time? For
most of us, time is the most valuable and scarce commodity
we have. Time
with God is very vague or nonexistent. We put
off the idea of a regular quiet time with God as sort
of "unrealistic in the 1990's." Or the 2000's. We
grab a minute in the car as we race into work. We
try to pray on the bus. We say "Well,
quality is better than quantity. I'll
give it 5 really good minutes." One
Christian publisher a few years ago had the audacity
to put out a booklet called "2 Minutes a Day for Accelerated
Spiritual Growth." That's so sad. Do
we give God our best? Or just the leftovers?
How
do we prioritize all the demands on our time? It's
a very, very difficult thing to do. And
so often it sounds like this: "Well,
our schedule IS going to include 10 hours a day of
work, an hour commute, time to remodel the house, we've
signed the kids up for soccer, swimming,
music, ballet, French, Girl Scouts...we're in the PTA,
on the Board of a couple organizations....and sometime,
somehow, some month we'll find time to have a night
at home together...or for a date with our spouse, or
to visit our folks...because those are priorities for
us, and we know that's important for God." And
heaven forbid if someone asks us to be in a home group,
or to be a Deacon at church. You can't do everything!" (pause) This
is so hard. All
the choices are good choices. So
hard to prioritize. But
the time for our relationship with God, and for those
things and people that we think the Lord would really
call us to...they have to be first. And the other
things will have to fit around them. And
that means we will have to say "no" to some things
we'd love to do. Do
we give God the best? Or
the leftovers, of our time?
Chapter
3 of Malachi gets even more pointed, I think. It
hits perhaps closest to home...our finances. At
this time of year, I
think of Bethany in this area. And
when I say "Bethany," I don't mean some vague institution
or organization we support...I mean the people sitting
right here this morning. You
and me. We
were $30,000 dollars behind going into November. The
Session is struggling to agree on a budget for the
year 2000 that can fund what this community of believers
thinks God is calling us to in ministry. And
old Malachi yells at us and says "Are
you robbing God? Are
you giving God the first, the best...or the leftovers?" God
says "Bring me the WHOLE tithe." I
had someone ask the other day what I thought a tithe
should be...I said "I think 50% is a good, round number!" Actually,
the very word "tithe" in Hebrew means 10%. In
Christian churches in America, the average is something
less than 2.7%. But
that doesn't worry me nearly as much as the question
of how we go about giving Jesus Lordship of our financial
side of life. Do
we bring God our best? Or
what's left over. The strong temptation
is to do what I call "leftover giving..."...whether
we're giving to our church, or somewhere else. That
means that we pay our rent or house payment, food,
entertainment, clothes, car payments, taxes, retirement
fund and miscellaneous bills. Then,
if there's anything left over, we give it away. What
would it look like for you to take out FIRST the Lord's
part...then figure out what to do with the rest? I'll
tell you right now that a few things would happen. First,
it would be costly. We would have to say NO to
some things we desired, or that made our life easier. I
remember when Anne and I were first married, there
were good friends of ours who were not Christians,
and for a long time we'd look at their lifestyle and
go "How
do they do that? How can they afford to go on
those trips, or buy that car?" or whatever. And
one day it dawned on me that every penny of their income
was disposable income for them. It
wasn't the same for us. As Christians, God puts
a claim on our lives...our whole lives, including our
finances. And that claim...is to give to Him
our very best...not our leftovers. Another
thing that happens when we give to God first...Malachi
talks about here in chapter 3. "Bring
the whole tithe," God says. "Test
me in this," says the Lord Almighty," and see if I will
not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out
so much blessing that you will not have room enough for
it...then all the nations will call you blessed, for
yours will be a delightful land," says the Lord Almighty." We
will be blessed. Unlike
what we hear from so many big-name fundraisers, that
blessing is not guaranteed to be financial. But
the floodgates of heaven will pour out blessing...and
ours will be a delightful land. Our
land could use some delight. And
as God's kingdom pops up here and here and there...as
Christians minister in their communities, as lives
are changed, as people are fed and clothed and loved...we
experience some of that delight.
Some
of you undoubtedly read this week in the P-I about
Oral Lee Brown. She's
a lday from Oakland who won a John Stanford Education
Hero award. Oral Lee Brown lives in inner city Oakland. 12
years ago she went to the principal of an inner city
grade school and said "I want to adopt a first-grade
class. I
want to follow them & support them all the way
through college." The
principal was floored. And
even more amazed when Oral Lee did it. Somehow,
she did it. 19 of 23 have made it into college.
She had meetings with parents, and with students. Bought
kids food, and Christmas presents and clothes. She
sold real estate for a living, and made a modest amount
of money...but every year managed somehow to put 10k
into a trust fund. She
scrimped and saved and did without a lot of things
for herself. That was very costly. She
gave thousands and thousands of hours to get to know
those kids, to love them, to buy clothes, to tutor...She
became like a second mom to them. That
was very costly. She
invested in those kids' lives, prayed for them, loved
them, wanted the best for them...with no guarantee
of any kind of return for herself. That
was very costly. And
when people told her she was crazy, that she couldn't
change the world, she said "When God is with you, no
one can stop you." Oral
Lee is a great model of stewardship. Not
a blueprint, but a model of someone giving the very
best, not just the leftovers. And
what's her blessing? She gets to see some of
that delight in the land. In four years, she'll be
going to graduations at 10 different colleges. "When
my babies walk across that stage," she said, "then
they can just lay me down and let me die."
We're
so used to being receivers, friends. God has given
us everything. Given us His very best in Jesus
Christ, sacrificial, costly forgiveness and grace poured
out with no guarantee of return...for us. And
when we experience that grace, we are compelled to
live it out in our lives...in our relationships, in our
time, in our finances. In
every way, we are called to "love the Lord our God
with ALL our heart, soul, mind and strength."
