The parable of the sower.  How many times have you heard it?  It’s been lots of times for me.  It seems to be especially popular at church camp.  Last summer, when my sister and I helped at music and drama camp, our group did a skit, and the story was the parable of the sower.  I will never forget the two campers assigned to be birds.  They took great delight in walking behind the young man sowing the seeds, bobbing their heads up and down and saying, “Peck, peck, peck, peck”, pretending to eat the seeds as fast as the sower could sow them!  The director encouraged them to ham it up, and they did a great job making everyone laugh.

As a kid I never really noticed the birds much.  I was too focused on the thorns.  There was always somebody who took way too much pleasure in being the thorn that chokes the plants!  Of course, as a camper, I thought this was hilarious.  But Jesus doesn’t mean for this parable to make us laugh.  It is a story meant to get us seriously thinking about discipleship and our commitment to following Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

So I found it ironic that I heard myself laughing this week as I read the parable again, for the maybe hundredth time in my life.  Look at verse 22. Jesus says, “The seeds that fell among thorn bushes stand for those who hear the message; but the worries about this life and the love for riches choke the message, and they don’t bear fruit.”  Humph.  The worries about this life, and the love for riches, choke the message, and they don’t bear fruit.  I honestly never noticed that detail before.  The plants were being choked, not because of some goofy campers pretending to be thorns, but because of very real issues like anxiety, materialism, and greed!  All things that didn’t register for me as a kid at camp.  But in all the years since, I never noticed this detail, that the thorns doing the choking are everyday problems for us, in particular, issues like security and money and how much is enough.  How could I have missed that?  Do you think I just didn’t want to hear?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who would just as leave we didn’t talk much about the thorns and the choking and facing the possibility that the worries of this life and our love of riches are stunting our spiritual growth.  So that’s exactly why we are going to talk about it!  For the next few weeks, we will be using a book called, “Enough:  Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity”, written by United Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton.  This book was first published in 2009, and it’s essentially a compilation of sermons Hamilton wrote in 2007 to help church members who were living beyond their means and struggling with making faithful financial decisions.   In the sermon series he addressed topics not often mentioned in sermons, such as the importance of budgeting, and paying off credit card debt, and saving for the future.  He frames all of this practical teaching within an important spiritual truth:  that when we handle our money and possessions in the way that God intends, we will find joy.

Rev. Hamilton’s sermon series was so well received, his staff used that material to create an entire stewardship campaign around this theme, including sermon outlines that are so thorough, basically all that is needed is to add a few conjunctions here and there, and voila!  I have decided not to use those sermon outlines, but I want you to know I will be drawing extensively on material from the “Enough” resources.  Rev. Hamilton and the Church of the Resurrection have made all of this available for other churches to use in the hopes that everyone will experience the blessing that comes from making God—not wealth—our priority.

Now, just so we’re clear:  there is nothing wrong with wealth in and of itself.  As one of my former district superintendents used to say, “It’s hard to bless anyone without some money.”  Yes, I know a smile doesn’t cost anything, kind words are priceless, etc.  We don’t always need money to be a blessing.  But many blessings require financial backing.  The hospital where you got treated for your last illness?  It was built because people pooled their wealth, bought land, built a building, and put some funds away to insure the institution’s survival.  The team of professionals that cared for you while you were a patient there?  They got their training by investing their own, or someone else’s wealth, into their education.  The prescription the doctor sent you home with?  It was most likely for a drug that was developed because of a large investment of wealth somewhere along the way.  Wealth is one of the primary vehicles through which God wants to bring blessings to the world.  Which makes it very important to talk about in church.

But because wealth is such an important vehicle for blessing others, we can be sure it is also something that the power of evil wants to leverage, too.  Financial resources can either be a tool we use freely to help others; or financial resources can become a trap that keeps us from experiencing God’s provision and joy.  Jesus warns us about the power of evil to rob us of God’s best.  “The thief comes only to steal and destroy.  I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  (John 10:10)  Jesus instructed us to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33), promising that if we strive for God’s kingdom first, God will meet our material needs.  But if we get our priorities out of whack, and make accumulating and retaining wealth our top priority?  We risk losing our souls.  As Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:10, “Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

I don’t preach many three-point sermons, but I want to be sure point #1 is clear:  what we do with our money matters to God.  What we do with wealth and possessions has a direct correlation, not only on the well-being of others as we give it away and seek to be a blessing, but on our own spiritual well-being!  Just as a thermometer measures if we have a fever, what we do with a money gives us a measurement of our spiritual health.  Where it gets tricky, though, is we don’t have a “normal” or baseline measure for wealth like we do for body temperature.  We accept 98.6 degrees as “normal”, or healthy.  But what is a normal or healthy amount of wealth?

This is a hard question, but we can take comfort in knowing we are not the first generation of people to ask it!  The book of Proverbs is a collection of teachings compiled at least 700 years before Jesus, and many of the sayings are assumed to be much older than that.  In Proverbs 30:7-9 is a prayer, “I ask you God, to let me have two things before I die:  keep me from lying, and let me be neither rich nor poor.  So give me only as much food as I need.  If I have more, I might say that I do not need you.  But if I am poor, I might steal and bring disgrace on my God.”  Isn’t that interesting?  Lord, make me neither rich nor poor.  Don’t give me so much that I forget I am a mere mortal and dependent on you.  But don’t give me so little that I have to beg or steal!  Unlike the parable of the sower, I don’t remember ever reading this Bible passage before.  But what a gem!

Jesus said, “One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15)  But what constitutes an abundance?  How much is enough—and how much is too much?  Which brings us to important point #2:  it is not our job to judge whether someone else is honoring God with their possessions and wealth.  We can only look at this issue for ourselves.  I overheard one of our preschool teachers recently talking to her student who was upset about something a classmate was doing wrong. “You just worry about you.  What so-and-so is doing is none of your business.”  Maybe money would be easier to talk about in church if we could avoid the pitfall of being judgmental about how other people order their affairs.  Can we make a commitment to each other right now, that as we learn more about being faithful with our finances, we will focus only on our OWN decisions, and our OWN relationship with God, and leave everyone else to do that for themselves as well?

Over the next several weeks, we are going to asking the question, “Just how much is enough?” in various ways. Questions like

How much stuff constitutes an abundance—and how much constitutes an over-abundance?
How much do we need to give so that we can maximize our joy?
How much are our possessions contributing to our spiritual growth—and how much are they choking us?

Which brings me to important point #3:  God is inviting us to discover joy through simplicity and generosity. Discovering joy through simplicity and generosity is basically the opposite of what we are taught in American society!  This is new territory for us!  So as we work together on the “how much is enough” questions, I will be sharing some stories I hope you will find inspiring.  Today I’d like to tell you about Lighthouse Fellowship in Montgomery County.  They are a small United Methodist congregation, and with their pastor, Rev. Cindy Brubaker, a few years ago they wrestled with the question of “how much is enough” in a dramatic way.   They had an architect in their congregation who was originally from a small village in India.  He desperately wanted to build a church in his hometown, because there weren’t any Christian resources nearby.  So he went to India, used all he had to buy land, and put a stone on it, a marker of promise, that a church would indeed be built there.

When he returned to Lighthouse Fellowship, he told his congregation about how excited people in his village were to be getting a church.  But he was concerned because the estimates he received for building the church totaled $10,000, and he did not know how he would raise the money.  The members of Glenside prayed and discussed and prayed some more, and then voted to give all the money they had in the bank–$10,000—to build a church in India.

Sadly, the man died one week before the building was dedicated.  But Pastor Cindy and others from her church were there for the opening ceremonies.  The bishop presiding said, “A lot of people come here and lay a stone, but never come back to build the building.  But you did.  Thank you!”  That church in India is going strong, and now has several hundred members, and it exists because   Lighthouse Fellowship sent all the money they had in the bank!  Isn’t that amazing?

Now, again, the question of “how much is enough” will be answered differently by different people.  Personally, I like working at a church that has some savings!  But Pastor Cindy’s story has stuck with me.  What a powerful example of not wanting the “worries of this life and the love of riches” to choke our spiritual growth!  The people of Lighthouse Fellowship could have chosen to do a long-term building campaign, and send money a little at a time over to India.  But something told them that time was of the essence.  The Spirit was moving.  And so they acted in response.  They sought first the kingdom of God, over their own comfort and security.  And God has blessed them a thousandfold for their faithfulness.

It is stories like this that made me choose Adam Hamilton’s Enough resources for our stewardship series.  Over and over, people of faith find that when we seek first God’s kingdom, we will be blessed.  Many Christians have discovered greater joy through simplicity and generosity.  We know that stewardship isn’t about paying the church’s bills.  Let’s work together to learn what it is about:  contentment, and faith, and blessing.  May we be like seeds sown on the good soil!  Amen.

 

Children’s Sermon:

I brought some things in this morning that you may have seen before. Look at this. I’ve got a sock and a shoe. What would you say if I put the shoe on first and then tried to put the sock on after? That’s right. It doesn’t work. You have to get the order right. You need to know what comes first.

I’ve got a toothbrush and some toothpaste. Do you brush your teeth in the morning? Good. That’s important to do. What if you brushed your teeth and then put on the toothpaste? Would that be a good idea? Of course not. It’s important to put the toothpaste on before you brush you teeth. You have to know what comes first.

I’ve got a flashlight and some batteries. If it was dark and I was in a hurry to get some light would it work to take the flashlight and leave the batteries behind? No, of course not. You have to put the batteries in the flashlight or else it won’t shine the light. The batteries have to go inside first. You have to get things in the right order and know what comes first.

Now, I brought in two other things this morning. I have a Cross that reminds us of God / Jesus and I’ve got this pot of money (give it a jingle so they hear the money). Jesus said that it was very important to get these in the right order if life is going to work right. If we put money first in life we end up in all kinds of trouble. Jesus said that it was important to put God first and not worry too much about money. He wanted us to make sure we put things in the right order!

Let’s pray: Dear God, help us to always put you ahead of money or anything else in life. Thank you that life will work when we put you first. In Jesus’ name – Amen!