Stewardship and preaching.

What do we mean by preaching stewardship? Today, stewardship is such a churchy term that many who listen to sermons may not know what preachers are talking about when they use the word. In fact, even preachers and congregational leaders have different ideas of what it means to preach stewardship.

For some preachers and leaders, and certainly for some churchgoers, preaching stewardship is an annual event, usually held in October or November. In this once-a-year sermon, the preacher makes the case that the members of the congregation increase their giving to the church, in response to programs and priorities proposed by the church board or congregational council, or a financial shortfall or crisis. The preacher might highlight a special project, such as a new roof. The preacher might point to the congregation's mission, to all the good things the church is doing, as if to say, "This is a good investment." The preacher might appeal to people's sense of gratitude, inviting them to "give back" for all the benefits they receive. Or, the preacher might spell our the dire consequences that will befall the congregation unless more money is found. These fund-raising approaches are used successfully by the symphony, an alma mater, the cancer society, and many worthy causes and worthwhile institutions. They make people's use of money a response to a given need, the congregation's performance, or people's attitudes and feelings, suggesting that preaching stewardship is only appropriate at certain times or under specific circumstances.

For other preachers and church leaders, the notion of stewardship has expanded from the money we put in the offering plate to embrace everything from how we speak of Jesus and our faith, allocate our time, take care of our bodies, manage our finances, and care for creation. This understanding of stewardship often makes preaching easier and more comfortable for the one in the pulpit. The preacher can dance around how people use their money, time, and skills by talking about stewardship as an all-encompassing umbrella and never getting specific. Yet this approach to preaching stewardship frequently fails to connect with those sitting in the pews, because it is not what the preacher really means to say. As one congregant told his pastor, "If you mean money, say money."

Even if preachers clearly define stewardship as money, time, or skills, so that parishioners know what they mean, ought sermons to be about these subjects? Rather than money and giving, skills and volunteering, time management, health and wholeness, and even the state of the planet, preaching is concerned with God, particularly as God reveals God's very self to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Stewardship is different from fund-raising because stewardship is a response to God. Preaching, therefore, needs to provide a word from God, or an experience of God, or a testimony to God's saving activity, to which people can respond. In this way giving, like faith, is inspired and not demanded.

I am not saying that all the topics that stewardship covers--tithing, volunteering, leading a balanced life, caring for creation, and whatever one would add to the list--do not belong in the pulpit. Clearly, if we follow Jesus' example, every issue is fair game for preaching; no topic is out of bounds. To say otherwise is to identify areas of life where Jesus has no place. Yet I recall with regret stewardship sermons, that I both preached and heard, so intent on getting the congregation to increase their giving that Jesus was somewhere in the background. Jesus needs to be front and center. However we define stewardship, whatever we say about money, skills, and time, it ought to be grounded in and flow from a clear and bold proclamation of the gospel. Rather than making any of these topics the subject of the sermon, we do better to preach the gospel and then move to the possibilities and implications of the gospel for the issue or topic that we seek to address.

So what do I mean by stewardship? In this article, I confine my discussion of stewardship to how we use money in response to the gospel, and explore some of the possibilities and implications for preaching about money and giving that flow from proclaiming the gospel. I suspect that the observations I offer are applicable to other stewardship topics that preachers and congregations may wish to address.

Let Jesus Do the Talking!

When preaching about money is grounded in the gospel, Jesus speaks the first word. Preachers do well to let Jesus do the talking. According to Scripture, Jesus has much to say about money, most of which preachers could not get away with saying themselves. "For where your treasure is," Jesus says, "there your heart will be also" (Matt 6:21). Even more pointedly, Jesus declares, "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (Matt 6:24). According to Luke, Jesus is on the side of the poor. In his inaugural sermon at Nazareth, for example, Jesus declared that the Lord anointed him to bring good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). Jesus called the poor "blessed" because the kingdom of God belongs to them (Luke 6:20). The rich, it seems, share in the kingdom of God by virtue of how they treat the poor and needy. As Jesus tells it, while a poor man named Lazarus sat with Abraham in the life to come, a rich man's treatment of Lazarus in this life landed him a chasm away (Luke 16:19-31). Clearly, Jesus has opinions about what we do with our money.

When preachers allow Jesus to do the talking, they listen to Jesus before they ever say a word. By listening to Jesus speak to them before and as they speak to the congregation, preachers stand (often uncomfortably) with their people under God's Word, rather than standing with God's Word against their people. Jesus can then address both the preacher and the hearers, who together try to understand and faithfully respond to what Jesus is saying.

Preachers that follow the lectionary, the system of Scripture readings appointed for worship on a given day or occasion, rather than selecting their own sermon texts, report that Jesus determines when they preach about money, as well as what gets said. Rather than allowing the calendar of the annual stewardship campaign or the congregation's financial situation to determine when money gets addressed from the pulpit, these pastors preach about money whenever money is part of any of the appointed Scripture readings. They are freed from having to fit money and giving into a sermon when these topics are needed, in essence preaching the Bible from the perspective of money. They can point to the readings, which they did not select, and honestly say that, on this occasion, to preach biblically is to preach about money.

Perhaps most important, congregants observe that sometimes the best stewardship preaching occurs when the pastor is not asking members to increase their giving. Perhaps congregations best may consider the more foundational question of how money, wealth, and material possessions relate to faith and discipleship when hearers are not feeling pressured or called to make an immediate response. People have time to reflect, pray, and allow Jesus' words to sink in and stick with them.

Jesus' Assumptions about Money vs. Ours

Preaching and listening to sermons about money is uncomfortable, in large part, because of many of our norms and assumptions about money. For example, many Christians assume that money and giving are private matters between themselves and God. Even in some families, people do not discuss what they earn and how they spend their money. Christians may be reluctant to talk about what they give because they do not want to be perceived as either boasting or shaming others. When people's personal assumptions about money, such as that money is a private matter, go unquestioned, they often become normative in the congregation.

When money and giving are addressed in sermons and openly discussed in the congregation in ways that challenge people's assumptions, people become uncomfortable. Rather than resolving their discomfort by allowing Scripture to inform their assumptions, they may attempt to enlist Scripture to justify them. In one congregation, when I suggested that we have an every member stewardship visitation, people quickly quoted Jesus' teaching about giving alms in the Sermon on the Mount as a way of justifying why we should not do the visitation. Jesus said, "But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you" (Matt 6:3-4). They argued that, since giving should be secret, how people use their wealth is a private matter between them and God. Money and giving should not be discussed in church.

Yet Jesus surely challenges and calls into question many norms and assumptions about money and giving. Preaching is an effective way to help people realize this. In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus says that we should give alms in secret, Jesus is talking about our motivation for giving rather than the practice of giving, a distinction that many Christians gloss over. Jesus teaches against drawing attention to our giving so that we might be praised by others. Jesus is not saying that money and giving are private matters, not to be discussed in the Christian community. Jesus' own example makes this clear. Mark tells us that Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury (Mark 12:41). Jesus--and everyone else--saw those who put money into the treasury and how much they gave. Rather than a private matter, Jesus seems to consider the offering a public event, which everyone can witness. Imagine how scandalized we would be if we eliminated offering envelopes and everyone watched and saw what we put into the plate. Even worse, Jesus--and perhaps everyone else--comments on what he sees. "Truly I tell you," Jesus says, "this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on" (Mark 12:4.3-44). Jesus publicly scrutinizes and evaluates peoples giving!

When preaching about money and giving involves challenging the congregation's operating assumptions and clarifying the assumptions of Jesus, change comes slowly. People must question and let go of their own assumptions and norms before they can be open to, embrace, and finally act upon the assumptions of Jesus and the norms of the Bible. This kind of preaching requires patience and a long-term perspective. It is worth the effort because these sermons lay a solid foundation on which to build.

Untangle the Bible

Of course, to authentically preach biblical assumptions and norms about money and giving, preachers and congregational leaders must know what those assumptions and norms are and be able to point to them in Scripture. As with so many subjects, the Bible includes a variety of perspectives on money and giving. "Each of you must give as you have made up your mind," Paul writes, "not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Cor 9:7). Cheerful giving is different from the directives to "take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground" (Deut 26:2) and to "set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field" (Deut 14:22).

Preachers may need to untangle the perspectives on money and giving found in the Bible and, together with congregational leaders, determine which one(s) to emphasize in both preaching and the congregation's stewardship programming and communication. To conflate biblical perspectives, for example, by asking people to cheerfully give a tithe of first fruits and then grow in their giving, creates an approach to giving that may sound biblical but cannot be found in Scripture. A more authentic and effective approach is to select one perspective, whether that be about cheerful giving, first fruits, tithing, or growing in giving, and clearly teach and emphasize it. Only when the members of a congregation become cheerful givers might congregational leaders introduce a second biblical perspective by inviting people to give first fruits.

Sermons are enhanced when people see the congregation practicing the biblical approach to giving that the pastor preaches. For example, congregations inspire first fruits giving by making benevolence the first check written each month. The con verse is also true; sermons are undermined when the congregation does not practice what is preached. So, for example, congregations that ask people to tithe need to practice tithing as they determine their support of mission beyond the congregation and the work of the greater church. By practicing the approach to giving that the pastor preaches, a congregation indicates the seriousness with which it regards biblical teaching.

Appeal to People's Best Selves

Preaching demands that preachers decide how they will approach the members of their congregations. Sermons are prepared and preached differently, depending on whether the preacher regards the members of the congregation as saints of God or considers them sinners. When the proclamation of the gospel will speak to money and giving, determining how to approach the congregation can become an easy, even subconscious decision. The way individual members and the congregation as a whole make decisions about money and use their financial resources gives the preacher plenty of evidence for judging the hearers as saints or sinners. At some point preachers decide whether congregations are generous, whether they agree that money is a means and not an end, and whether congregations have a vision for participating in God's work of recreating and reconciling the world or are only concerned with themselves. A preacher's assessment of these kinds of issues often gets expressed in the way sermons are structured and delivered, even when the preacher does not intend to do so.

Rather than weighing the evidence and rendering a judgment, Jesus would have preachers use a different approach. Paul reminds us how Jesus approached us: "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly ... God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Rom 5:6-8). Jesus' example invites preachers to regard their hearers, first and foremost, as those for whom Christ died. Preachers will then approach their congregations as Gods beloved children. They will strive not to hold people's attitudes and actions about money and giving, which compete with and contradict the gospel, against them. In both the form and delivery of their sermons, preachers will consciously appeal to people's best selves.

Appealing to people's best selves does not mean ignoring or overlooking stinginess, ingratitude, preoccupation with money, or concern only for the self. However, rather than chastising, preachers appeal to people's best selves when they assume that most people care about others and want to give generously. This assumption leads preachers to explore what keeps people from giving and what other values compete with their concern for others. Are people struggling to make ends meet? Are they afraid of not having sufficient financial resources for the future? Is their self-worth somehow tied up in their financial status? Some parishioners report that the most helpful sermons are those in which the preacher authentically addresses the struggles to be faithful stewards.

Preaching is Not Enough

Finally, a single sermon and even preaching by itself are not enough to help Christians respond to God by using their money in ways congruent with the gospel. Preaching needs to be partnered with other congregational activities. Even Jesus complemented his preaching with signs and miracles, acts of healing and forgiveness, and personal interactions. Ultimately, Jesus embodied his preaching by dying on a cross and rising from a tomb.

Preachers and congregational leaders need to plan ways to complement preaching about stewardship and money with other congregational activities, particularly the congregation's stewardship emphasis. I also wonder how the offering in worship might be employed as an embodied word, and the testimony of others might add authenticity to preaching on stewardship.

By making stewardship, however it is defined, a consequence of rather than a replacement for the proclamation of the gospel in the Sunday sermon, preachers can help their hearers to receive the good news that Jesus is concerned with every area of their lives, and that in faith, we can use everything in our lives to praise God and participate in God's work of bringing life to the world.

Craig A. Satterlee

Axel Jacob and Gerda Maria (Swanson) Carlson Professor of Homiletics Luthernan School of Theology at Chicago