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Sermons by The Reverend Grayhame Bowcott:
“The Thing About Money Is…”
The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost – October 22nd, 2017
St. George’s, The Blue Mountains
Matthew 22.15-22
The Question about Paying Taxes
15Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.16So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.17Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’18But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?19Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius.20Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’21They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’22When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.
I pray that I speak to you in the Name of God:
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
What is it about money that seems to bring out the very worst in us?
Today I’m going to preach about money.
To be honest, it’s probably my least favourite of sermon themes.
I’d like to start my sermon this morning with a little bit of a rant regarding a few ministry experiences that I have encountered over the years with money that have left a really bad taste in my mouth. It’s experiences such as these that cause me to ask the question of: how do we use our financial resources to define what is meaningful in our lives? Or not.
Will you indulge me for a moment?
Oh, and I’ll be up front and honest with you.
None of these are stories about people or events in this parish.
The first of my three rants came as a result of a cheque that was made out to one of my past churches. Now in general, I tend to never complain about the church receiving money, Lord knows we need it to keep the doors open and to continue to minister in our communities, but this specific cheque greatly disappointed me because of what it represented.
The cheque was a donation made out to the church in thanks for pastoral services that an individual had received after a time of great loss in that person’s life. The nature of the pastoral services offered to this person and family were quite significant, including hours of time with the minister, the borrowing of furniture from the church, the creation of an entire special service that was written to address a difficult pastoral problem and the many members of that congregation that came to lend their support to all of these things.
If I were to have added up all the hours involved in the time of pastoral, administrative and liturgical ministries provide for this family, it would easily have been more than 30 hours and that is not including the time of the many volunteers who helped to host a stately funeral, or my personal pastoral visits to the family after the event.
When I opened the thank you card with the cheque attached, I was astounded to see an amount of $50 written out in it. $50 was the monetary thank you from the children of the deceased for all the support that had been given to their family.
Maybe $50 doesn’t seem like a bad amount to donate to the church, but let’s put it in perspective for a moment. The catering bill for this event cost thousands of dollars because of the more than 300 visitors that were hosted. Then there was the flowers and the funeral costs – again quite a few thousand dollars. Then there was the legal expenses and estate fees – again thousands of dollars. But when it came to the Church, the numerous volunteers, the pastoral visits and to the comfort and hope that our ministries had provide to a dying relative and grieving family - $50.
In a life of holiday vacations, big homes, Mercedes Benzs,
In that moment God, as represented by the ministry of the Anglican Church, was worth $50 to the family of a parishioner who had been loved, supported and celebrated abundantly.
Rant #2: Not that long ago, I was asked to do a graveside burial for a neighbouring parish. It was one of the difficult situations when as a pastor I knew nothing about the family and wouldn’t get an opportunity to meet with them very long with them beforehand.
And so I arrived at a remote cemetery and found the crowd of people gathered around the hole in the ground. I had only two pieces of information: 1) the name of the deceased and 2) the name of a family member. Other than that, all I had to go on was my faith in God.
When I met with the family and asked about the deceased, the family explained that the man was “sort of religious”.
Before he had died he was telling others that he was going to be with Jesus.
And so, in honour of this story I remembered the words to the old hymn, “Just as I am” because the last part of each verse ends, “And that thou bidst me Come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.”
The family seemed very pleased by this and by the fact that they had a priest to bury their loved one.
As far as funerals go, the service was simple, but meaningful.
But then came the awful moment at the end.
Realizing that they hadn’t talked about the costs of a funeral, immediately after I had said the last Amen, one of the family members asked me outright what I wanted to be paid.
In front of everyone gathered there!
(Now normally, funeral directors work out these details beforehand, but in this case a funeral director wasn’t involved).
Recognizing the awkwardness of the moment, I told the family that I was happy to help out another congregation when the minister was away and that it was an honour to be there for them.
But this wasn’t a satisfactory answer. They wanted to pay me something.
So, on the spot, they took up a collection from the family.
One member said, “What have you all got in your purses and pockets?”
And to my horror, standing on the grave of the deceased, they gathered their fives and their quarters and filled a plastic bag with money and then presented it to me.
Again I said it wasn’t necessary, but they insisted.
In that moment I felt very cheap. I felt bought.
In that moment, God was a man hired to mouth a couple of words for a “somewhat religious” family.
My last rant will be the shortest, but makes me the most furious.
Again, in my past community, I was serving a Mission Church that had much to be thankful for.
St. Anne’s Church had been closed for a number of years before I worked with a small number of devoted parishioners to petition the Diocese to reopen it as a Mission Church.
Our first Thanksgiving together was a huge celebration because we were very thankful to the blessing of having a building to come together in worship and praise. We had worked so hard, among people in a very poor community to renovate the church, pay the hydro bills and other costs of ministry.
St. Anne’s was also my personal way to say thank you to God for the Church. In my entire time there I offered my services to that community for free in order to help them in their goal of becoming a self-sustaining congregation.
On our first Thanksgiving together
a time where we live out the faith of the one leper who came back to Jesus to say thank you for having his life transformed, we rejoiced with an authenticity that I had rarely experienced before.
There were 23 of us that Sunday, a small miracle from the original 6 participants that I had begun our ministry with. I remember the service like it was yesterday. It was a sunny, crisp autumn morning, like many we have experience in this past week here in the Blue Mountains.
It wasn’t until I had finished the service and was driving back to Grand Bend that I got really annoyed.
Between Port Franks and Grand Bend the traffic was backed up for miles.
What was the big event that hundreds of cars had come for miles to attend?
I was going to be late for my second Thanksgiving service.
Where had all of these people come from?
And then I remembered….
It was the last day of the Pinery Flee Market.
While Thanksgiving Sunday is a day that many of us hold as sacred, an opportunity to stop and present ourselves to God as living thank you notes for all our blessings….I was going to be late for Church because thousands of people were wanting one last chance to buy more cheap stuff on the last sale day of the Flee Market.
Now I have nothing against flee markets or those who make their livelihoods buying and selling things, but the insult to God seemed to be in the way that people were so excited to buy up “the rubbish of the Kingdom” at a time when they should be saying thank you to God for the blessings of this world and the glory that awaits us in God’s heavenly one.
It made me wonder if the other nine lepers from Thanksgiving Gospel reading all ran off to the nearest fleemarket instead of coming back to Jesus to say thank you.
On that day God was second in the priorities of thousands of people to buying more cheap stuff at an even lower sale price.
So, three rants about money. But what do they have in common?
Here’s my answer to the question: the thing about money is, it is not the money that is the problem.
I don’t believe that money is the root of all evil.
Rather, I believe that money is only a mirror that we can hold up to our lives that represents what is truly meaningful to us.
Frequently, money reveals to us where God is in our list of priorities.
When the Pharisees and the followers of King Herod wanted to trap Jesus between the priorities of the world and the priorities of God, they tried to use money.
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor, or not?” they asked.
This question was a trap because they knew that if Jesus answered:
No, it is not right to pay taxes to the Divine Holy Roman Emperor because he’s not God, then they could have him arrested for breaking the Roman law.
But if Jesus answered: Yes, then he was agreeing that the Emperor was more important than God – and that was considered blasphemy to the Jewish people – punishable by death.
Now, Jesus had no problem talking about money.
He was far more comfortable talking about it than I am.
Probably because Jesus likely had far less money than any of us have.
Jesus doesn’t allow the question from the Pharisees to trap him.
He answers by revealing the truth about wealth and money.
The thing about money is that is only a tool that reveals what you value the most.
So, he says, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s.
But what does that actually mean?
In rant #1 God was worth $50 to a family that chose to spend thousands of dollars on things that had nothing to do with God.
In rant #2 God was worth a plastic bag of money that fulfilled the obligation of having a priest show up for a funeral.
In rant #3 God wasn’t worth showing up to a Church service when there were bargains to be found at the flee market.
And Jesus asks us the question: “What is God worth to you?”
The answer to his question should be: everything!
If we believe that God is the creator and ruler of our world, our lives and our salvation, then we should be willing to give everything to God.
In fact, everything is already his, isn’t it?
But we don’t tend to live this out in reality, do we?
Maybe $50 is enough.
Or a bag of spare change.
Or perhaps God’s not worth showing up to Church at all.
The remarkable truth about money is how it depicts what is meaningful to us.
Jesus calls the Pharisees and the Herodians hypocrites because when they ask him about money, they really don’t care about having God as a priority in their lives. They only care about themselves.
But we, as followers of Jesus, seek to be different.
How can our use of money and resources to demonstrate that God is number one in our lives?
For everything that we are,
Everything that we have,
And everything that we will ever be,
Is a result of God having given it to us in the first place.
So, what did I hope to accomplish with this sermon this morning?
My goal is not to ask for money for the church.
My aim was not to make anyone feel uncomfortable about their financial situation.
My hope is to cause each of us to pause.
If this morning, we all pause to reflect on the place of meaning that God has in our lives and how we value God in comparison our other desires and possessions, then I think I will have done right by the Gospel.
This is my prayer for today.
In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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