A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Make the Most of Your Treasure

Luke 12:13-21, Preached by Tom Lacey at Congregational Church of Boca Raton, November 26, 2006

A Christian woman was sitting at her second story window when she was distracted by the movement of a shabbily dressed stranger down below, leaning against a post in front of the building. She couldn't get him off her mind. Thinking that he might be in greater financial distress than she, she took out a ten dollar bill and slipped it into an envelope on which she quickly penned the words, "Don't despair." She threw it out the window. The stranger below picked it up, read it, looked up, and smiled as he tipped his hat and went his way. The next day she was about to leave the house when a knock came at the door. She found the same shabbily dressed man smiling as he handed her a roll of bills. When she asked what they were for, he replied: "That's the sixty bucks you won, lady. “Don't Despair” paid five to one."

Did you do any shopping this Thanksgiving weekend? Anyone here get up for the 5 o’clock starting time for the Christmas shopping season. Easy come, easy go, right? Well, next Sunday, will be our Stewardship Sunday, when as good stewards of the treasure with which we are blessed, we will pledge a certain amount to the work and ministry of this church. Honestly, for many people, when we consider giving to church, it’s more like, hard come, even harder to go. But that’s OK. I believe the vast majority of people, you and I for example, works quite hard for money. So, it’s natural that we want to get the most for our money, even from church. The problem is that we tend to look at this giving to the church a little bit too much like spending money in other ways. Let me give you an example. Doris Lopresti teaches second grade in a parochial school. One day, as part of religion class, she asked the children to draw a picture showing what they'd do if they could spend the day with Jesus. The pupils tackled the project eagerly. After a few minutes, one little girl came up to her desk with her almost finished drawing in hand. "Miss Lopresti," she said, "how do you spell ‘Bloomingdale’s?’" Evidently, she was going to take Jesus to her favorite department store.

The thing is, at church, we are less consumers and more producers. Jesus speaks to this when he says: “A good person out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things….” Mt. 12:35 Your financial giving here brings forth good things. You are more an investor than a consumer, more a participant than an observer, here in God’s house. This is giving that is more like giving to your own family than anything else. You would never consider the money you spend to house, clothe, and feed your family as consumption items. You are investing in their happiness and your welfare, producing happy people of value, and answering God’s call to do what is right and good. The same goes here. We do not consume a church; rather, we, with God’s help, produce it, in reality. So pledge to give what is right. Invest in God’s family and God’s truth, our Christian faith.

What we want to see this morning is that in order for people to make the most of their money they have to give. Now clearly, we give it all away when we die. But we are talking about before then, when we still have options. What I mean is when we get to answer the question, “And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” Look, what I am saying is that Bill Gates could have waited until his will was executed to give away his billions, but he was smart enough to do so now, while he is alive and can watch over it and see the difference it makes. Of course, none of us is Bill or Melinda Gates, but the principal still holds true. Our scripture reading makes this clear. The man gains money; he plans on spending it on eating, drinking and being merry; and he looks forward to saving it. What he doesn’t plan on is giving. This is why God calls him a fool. He doubles up on the saving’s side rather than moving to the giving side of making the most of money. To make, to save, and to spend are not enough. We are called to give. We are called to produce for God and good.

You don’t have to have a fortune to give what you’re supposed to. In the mountains of North Carolina, a winter had been especially difficult. Snow had stacked up several feet high in the upper elevations, where an older couple lived in their isolated cabin. By this time, they were snowed in, so the people would watch for smoke to come from the chimney. One day when smoke was no longer apparent, the Red Cross was called in. Two workers equipped with medical supplies and food parachuted into a clearing and made their way to the cabin. At the doorstep, they knocked and an old man appeared at the door. “We are from the Red Cross,” said one of the young men. “Well, you know,” the old man said, “it has been a right hard winter up here, and I just don’t hardly see how we can give anything this year.”

Now they have an excuse, but as for the rest of us, as scripture says, “All shall give as they are able, according to the blessing that the Lord your God has given you.” Dt. 16:17 Often, it’s not how much we give, but the very fact that we give at all that makes all the difference to God and for good. The late Peter Marshall, chaplain of the Senate and Presbyterian pastor in Washington, had a prayer which ought to give us pause. He prayed, "Lord, help me to regulate my giving according to my income, Lest thou shouldst regulate my income according to my giving!"

The fool in the story is a fool for two reasons. First, because he doesn’t give, and so robs himself of making the most of his money and his life. Second, because he doesn’t believe, which is the greatest sadness of all, and so robs others. Giving anything away requires believing. Former Giants pitcher Dave Dravecky had a speaking engagement one night at a church, but he really didn't feel like going through with it. He was still struggling over the loss of his pitching arm to cancer. “I felt lousy that night,” he recalled. But he went anyway. “I felt so unworthy to be standing there in front of all those people who looked up to me,” he wrote. “If they just knew what I was really like, what thoughts went through my head, what words came out of my mouth, they'd get up and walk out the door,” he wrote. Much to Dave's surprise, not one person walked out that night. In fact, one man came forward. He was a 34-year-old welder whose life was a mess. He wanted to change his life but wasn't sure where to start. This welder had been having an affair with another woman but was in the process of trying to put his marriage back together. There was something in Dave's message that night that spoke to this man. He wanted Christ to come into his heart and change his life. Faith stirred in that man as he went home to his wife. In the weeks that followed, everyone around him noticed the change—people in the neighborhood, people he worked with. No one noticed more than his wife. Five weeks later, that man went to get a tool from the toolbox on his flatbed truck when another truck backed into him, crushing his chest. He died instantly. A few months later, Dave Dravecky was speaking on a nationally broadcast radio program. During the call-in segment of the show, this man's wife called in. She said those five weeks were the best days of their marriage. “Choking back the tears,” Dave writes, “she thanked me.” And to think he didn't want to go. And to think he almost didn't go. Dave and Jan Dravecky, When You Can't Come Back

The stewardship of talent works on the same principal as the stewardship of time, which works on the same principal as the stewardship of our wealth, whatever size it may be. You have to believe that you make a difference. You do. So believe in your wealth, be it financial, talent, or even time. Have faith that God has tapped you to produce something for him and others, something in Christ’s name.

More than simply handing over a check or some cash to the Church, I would hope we are giving something of ourselves. We can give according to duty or because of guilt. But the best reason of all is because we are following our heart. A church should an affair of the heart. The author Ray Bradbury said, “If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” Ray Bradbury   And that’s exactly how a church runs best. Together, when we pledge and give, we stand at the cliff’s edge, hand in hand, and jump. It is up to us to build the wings that will continue to carry us along the updrafts of God’s will. Together, we have a wonderful opportunity to build a church that would continue to please God.

Money that is used for a high and noble purpose brings a wonderful  satisfaction. Let me tell you a great American success story. Andras Grof was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, where his boyhood was continually marked by tragedy. At the age of four, Andras contracted a raging case of scarlet fever. He barely survived and lost most of his hearing to the effects of the disease. Andras was often picked on for being a Jew, but it wasn't until 1944 that his ethnicity became deadly. It was that year that Nazi forces began rounding up Budapest's Jews and sending them off to concentration camps. Andras' father was taken away and sent to a labor camp. He and his mother hid out with a Christian family. They survived the war. In 1956, the Soviet army began taking over Budapest, and Andras knew it was only a matter of time before they, too, would begin persecuting and killing Jews. So he and a friend fled Hungary. By train, they traveled to just outside Austria. The border was heavily guarded, but if they could make it across, they would be free. Aided by a hunchbacked smuggler, they walked across fields and hid in forests until they made it safely into Austria. Aided by the International Rescue Committee, Andras came to America, where he started a whole new life. With the committee's help he bought the best hearing aid on the market. He entered the City College of New York, where he was an excellent student. He also married and started a family. And in his new country, Andras found success with a capital S! Today, Andras Grof is known worldwide as Andrew Grove, the head of Intel, the world's leading manufacturer of microprocessors. In 1997, he was TIME's Man of the Year. Colleagues and employees speak of him as a brilliant, hardworking, visionary, and kind man, a man of integrity, with a commitment to excellence. His net worth is estimated at $300 million.

Andrew Grove and his wife have two daughters, and someday they plan to leave their girls a small inheritance. But the bulk of their fortune will be split up in three ways: some of it will go to create chemistry scholarships at the City College of New York; some of it will go to fund prostate cancer research (Grove was recently diagnosed with the condition); and some of it will go to the International Rescue Committee, the organization that helped a young refugee start his life over. Joshua Cooper Ramo, "A Survivor's Tale," Time.  Andy Grove is no fool. He is a successful businessman. Even more important, he is making certain his money is used for something greater than himself.

For most of us, we will not have an estate that will do such things. But for all of us, what we have here in this church is an opportunity to build a legacy of living faith. Don’t believe in bigger barns. Believe in a bigger God, a more fulfilling life, and perhaps, somehow, if it’s possible, an even better church.

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