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October 13, 2019“Our United Methodist Membership Vows: Gifts”I would like to thank my friend, Rev. Katie Voigt, for much of the content of this sermon.Matthew 19: 16-26, New International VersionJust then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”“Why do you ask me about what is good?”?Jesus replied.?“There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”“Which ones?” he inquired.Jesus replied,?“‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery,?you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,?honor your father and mother,’?and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”Jesus answered,?“If you want to be perfect,?go, sell your possessions and give to the poor,?and you will have treasure in heaven.?Then come, follow me.”When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.Then Jesus said to his disciples,?“Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich?to enter the kingdom of heaven.?Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”Jesus looked at them and said,?“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”You remember that we are working through our stewardship season by discussing our United Methodist membership vow. As church members, we promise to support our church through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness. Today is gifts. So, welcome to the sermon that most pastors don’t want to give, and most congregations don’t want to hear!We are told over and over that it isn’t polite to discuss money. Why? Because it’s awkward. It’s not polite to dig into people’s personal business. It feels nosy and intrusive. It makes us squirm in our seats. Yet, here we are, talking about it. We wonder why the preacher won’t shut up and sit down; and we wonder why Jesus had to talk about it so much, so that all those preachers think they have to meddle in our lives and our bank accounts!You’ve probably heard the numbers. Jesus preached about money more than heaven and hell combined, more than anything except the Kingdom of God. Eleven of his 39 parables are about…money. One of every seven verses in the gospel of Luke is about money. This is Jesus at his most annoying!And it’s not just us who find this uncomfortable. The man in our text today was also made pretty uneasy. He wants to know what he has to do to be saved. Jesus tells him the obvious: “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery,?you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony,?honor your father and mother,’?and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’” But the man is persistent. He has done all this. Is there anything still standing between him and God? Well yes, there is. You guessed it: money. When Jesus names this, the man “went away sad, because he had great wealth.” Money was an obstacle between him and true faithfulness to God. But Jesus isn’t done. Next he has a message for his disciples, and us. “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich?to enter the kingdom of heaven.?Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”Well this really puts us in a pickle, doesn’t it? Now we have to start drawing lines. Who, exactly, is rich? How much money makes you wealthy? How much lack makes you poor? To be honest, we never wanted the other guy to be rich so badly! And we want to be as close to the “rich” line as possible without going over, because, honestly, we want to enter the Kingdom of heaven easily, don’t we? Without any sacrifice.But this line of thinking misses the point. It’s not about exact values that make us rich or poor, it’s about what gets in the way of our relationship with God. As Jesus says, it’s impossible for us to gain the Kingdom on our own, with any amount of giving. We need a close relationship with God to be a part of his Kingdom. For the man in our scripture, his wealth, and his efforts to preserve it, were distracting him from the worship of God. What about us? Could our bank accounts, our possessions, our investments and retirement strategy come between us and faithfulness to our Creator and Sustainer? Could we possibly be more focused on them than on our discipleship? Is it possible that it’s not about how we score on the “rich” scale, but about how we use the resources God has given us? After all, that says a lot about where we are with God. As scripture tells us, in the book of James, “…faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (2: 17) And Matthew tells us, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (6: 21). Which should make us ask ourselves, “Just where IS my heart?” And, “Do I really have faith if I’m not giving sacrificially?”I think most of us have heard of Stephen King, the best-selling author of dozens of horror books. As you can imagine, this has made him very wealthy. He was seriously injured in 1999 when a van hit him while he was walking along a road. He reflected on this experience when he spoke at the Vassar College commencement in May of 2001.A couple of years ago I found out what ‘you can’t take it with you’ means. I found out while I was lying in the ditch at the side of a country road, covered in mud and blood…I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you’re lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard. In the months that followed, I got a painful but extremely valuable look at life. We come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we’re just as broke. Warren Buffet? Going to go out broke. Bill Gates? Going to go out broke. Tom Hanks? Going out broke. Steve King? Broke. Not a crying dime.We have enormous resources in this country…but they are only yours on loan. Only yours to give for a short while.Should you give away what you have? Of course you should. I want you to consider making your lives one long gift to others, and why not? All you have is on loan, anyway…All that lasts is what you pass on.Making your life one long gift to others. What would it look like if you actually did that? And isn’t that what Jesus did? Isn’t that what he calls us to? Isn’t that the goal of the whole Christian life? Isn’t that why we offer our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness to God, through Jesus, in our church and community? Isn’t that why we give back to God what he has blessed us with in terms of material resources? Isn’t that why Jesus was insistent about how we used our money? Like him, we are to make our lives one long gift to others. Every Sunday, during the offering, someone comes up to the lectern and tells a story about how Jesus is changing lives through your giving. That’s the business of the church: making the church a gift to others. When you give your money you make that mission a reality. And then, because of the grace of God, you become the gift! Your life becomes a gift that shares life with others. You have all been given a pledge card. I ask you to think about it prayerfully. How is your life a long gift to others? How do you use the resources and the blessings God has given you? References: action.aspx ................
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