Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's November 14, 2004 Sunday Morning worship service.

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What would it be like if we had a Day of Reckoning – a national holiday when no one worked or went to school, when the banks and post office closed, when everyone had to stay at home and to participate in a common assignment: that assignment being, to ponder our possessions, clean closets, fidget over finances, prepare a last will and testament, if that hasn’t been done, when everyone was asked to review our level of volunteerism, evaluate our civic participation or the lack thereof -- simply put, to put our proverbial house in order?

A national day of reckoning.

I doubt it would ever get support in Congress, and probably the Salvation Army and the landfills couldn’t handle all the junk coming their way, but the idea of a day of accountability and self-examination could go a long way in returning the nation to a sense of altruism, civic virtue, and a renewed sense of the obligations we have toward our community and larger society.

With the recent demise of Tenn Care as it has been known, continuing tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, at a time when wealth, like income, seems to be flooding upward and not trickling downward, wouldn’t it be good to pause and take stock of who we are, what we own, and what should be our responsibilities towards others in our society?

A national day of reckoning. To have such a law of the land enacted would face the impossible hurdle of surmounting the influence of special interest groups like credit card companies or the advertising industry whose vested desire is to keep the populus paying off credit card interest in perpetuity and to keep us accumulating ever more fashionable clothing and disposable gadgets beyond what anyone could possibly need.

But wouldn’t it be a healthy exercise to have a national conversation about the ills of consumerism and the problem of greed, the dangers of debt and the long-term consequences of our lifestyle choices on our children and grandchildren?

While we have no such designated day of reckoning for the nation, we do have, here in the church, the annual ritual called Stewardship Dedication Sunday. You’ve got the forms and you know about the opportunity to dedicate them later in the service, and you have been made aware of the inventory of listed spiritual gifts and your own opportunity to do some soul-searching to determine what gifts you have to share. I don’t know if it is just a coincidence of the calendar or if someone planned it this way, but today is also a day to consider the opportunity to direct that your bodily organs be donated to give the gift of life to others, yet another way to reflect upon Christian stewardship and the possibilities for enriching the lives of others.

My own encounter with the concept of stewardship began at a very early age when, as the second Sunday of November rolled around, my parents invariably helped me and my five siblings fill out a financial pledge card – and we each pledged to give $52 a year to the church, one dollar per Sunday. And on that pledge Sunday, we each marched to the front to put our pledge on the communion table. And each month upon cashing his paycheck, my Dad got a bunch of one dollar bills, and each Sunday we placed them in the little envelop with each of our names on them, and put them in the offering plate. And while, as young children, we had no income out of which to tithe, my parents and that congregation recognized the importance of teaching children to pledge, to give on a regular basis, to develop a habit of pausing to evaluate one’s obligation to God and Church in light of God’s blessings to us.

It was a day of reckoning – a time to ponder personal commitment, to realize that the cost of living for the church was on the rise, too, that a true tithe increased in correlation with rising income and rising assets, even as it could also decrease if one’s financial resources declined.

As we think about the New Testament reading from II Thessalonians, each one of us will have to be vigilant in not being found idle or indifferent to the work that is the responsibility of each one. The writer of this epistle doesn’t mince words about the danger when a member of the faith community fails to carry his or her own load in supporting the corporate life of the Church. II Thessalonians warns to “keep away from believers who are living in idleness . . . anyone unwilling to work should not eat . . . for we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.”

Although I hesitate to interpret these warnings about idleness in a legalistic framework, certainly scripture does remind us again and again that each person has a spiritual gift to share, a responsibility to uphold, functions to fulfill, and financial resources to make available for the common good. But the offering that we collect each Lord’ Day is about much more than money: it is a weekly opportunity to renew one’s life and faith.

In fact, I would say that from my vantage point up here, the offering is the one time when the congregation seems most alive – music from the organ massages our senses and puts us in a mood of thankfulness; the adult ushers go to the back and wait to see if the children offering ushers are going to show up and I often interpret the frantic looks and concerned body language of the adult ushers as acts of quiet desperation. I watch as people in the pews squirm for their wallet or take a brief stretch to prepare for the stretch run of the worship service now nearing its climax. And since we don’t have any liturgical dancers, the offering is the one regular worship time when there is actually drama and movement and people get to pass something along and maybe even look their neighbor square in the eyes so no one will think they’re trying to get a peek at what the neighbor put in.

And, somehow, perhaps if only by the miracle of grace, sandwiched between the desperation and the squirming, we realize as the plates go around, that it is a day of reckoning when God has asked of us the dedication of our very best, the first fruits of all we have to offer.

It should be a surprise to you that money is the most talked about subject in scripture, every sixteenth verse according to one estimate deals with money, surprising because money is one of the least talked about topics in many churches. Many of the words of Jesus were directed to those at the bottom of the economic ladder, but comparatively few pulpit pronouncements across the land move in that direction. If money is mentioned, it is all-too-often associated with an ethic of material success as a sign of God’s favor instead of a sign that God calls the affluent to care for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.

We like to tell stewardship stories that feature gospel characters like Zaccheus, the small man with a big heart who gave away much of what he had as recompense for all that he had done wrong; or we like the sweet story of the poor widow who put all she had, her two pennies, into the temple offering plate, about whom Jesus said, she gave more on that day than the many wealthy with their extravagant gifts. We prefer our stewardship stories with happy endings and words like, “well done, good and faithful servant.”

But do we dare, on stewardship Sunday, talk about stories like the one from the book of Acts about Ananias and Sapphira, the husband and wife who had promised to give the full value of some land they had sold to the early Christian community in Jerusalem so the church had resources to care for the needy among them, but who, upon selling their property, kept some of the proceeds, and then lied about their deception to the apostle Peter, with the disastrous result that both this husband and wife fell down dead for holding back and attempting to trick God. Now, there’s a story to put a little fear into you on Stewardship Dedication Sunday! Stewardship Sunday can – and should -- be a day of reckoning: Just what should be the cost to disciples called to participate in the radical claims of the Christian movement? How much of our property, our wealth, are we willing to surrender for the cause of the Gospel?

At the very least, surely we can agree that God has a vision to change the world. And we know that God wants us to be part of that vision. “Behold, I am creating new heavens and a new earth,” writes the prophet Isaiah. “No more shall there be an infant who lives but a few days; no more an old person who does not live out a lifetime; no more will people labor in vain.”

There is an old story when God was asked about his plan to save the world. God responded that the plan hinged on a small, motley band of unemployed, illiterate, social outcasts and misfits otherwise known as the twelve disciples. But, what will happen God, if this small, motley band of unemployed, illiterate, social outcasts and misfits can’t manage to get the job done. Couldn’t you have shown a bit more discretion in your selection process – better background checks, a better resume, a few good references. Don’t you have a backup plan, God? And God replied: “I have no other plan.”

We are the plan. We are the dream and keepers of the vision. Our practice of generous stewardship is integral to the success of God’s plan. It is our gifts, our money, our time and talents, that declare God’s intention that “no more shall there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime.”

The gifts we bring, whatever the gifts amount to be, may seem tiny or even insignificant compared with the enormous needs around us, but things like maintaining buildings, paying salaries, contributing to local compassion and outreach ministries, or furthering the work of Grace School in Kenya are sometimes the best things we can do to declare to the world that God has not yet given up on the human race.

The rabbis tell us that when a wise man heard that the end of the world was near he went out into his garden and planted a tree, an act of courage, audacity, and hope. When we give gifts of money and time and ability we are planting a tree – it is a gesture towards God’s future, even when life might otherwise seem futile or beyond hope.

To give cheerfully of our treasure is truly an act of defiance, a counter-cultural activity, a small protest in the face of rampant materialism and greed. When we freely give away what we have, we say that our worth is not finally measured by the bottom line on the tax return or on the value of our land and savings accounts, that our ultimate allegiance to God transcends family, clan, race, or nation.

When we give sacrificially to the church, we go against the grain of prevailing social norms and economic values. To freely give as we have freely received, with no strings attached, echoes the kind of unconditional love and grace we have received.

Money is and will continue to be the great spiritual challenge in our lives. We need days of reckoning to keep money and wealth in perspective so that it can be used for the ends to

which God originally intended.

We do well to remember the words of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

The author Henri Nouwen told about a woman he was working with who was so mentally ill that they had to take everything away from her because some of the things in her possession might hurt her. But something was in her hand, closed up in her fist, which was so hard to retrieve. Finally, they pried it loose. It was a small coin. She couldn’t buy anything with it, but she was going to hold tenaciously onto it.

Nouwen tells us that we will never have a great relationship with God until we allow our hand to be pried open, and let God take us by that hand. Whatever it is that we are clinging to, whatever the world ahs told us we have to hang on to, we have to open our hand and let go and let God reach down, take us by the hand, hold us, lift us up, and change us.

So let it be! Amen!