October 30, 2005 (What God Can Do With Our 10%)

What if we knew exactly what to do in order to change and transform the world?
We would do it, right?

If we knew, right now, what part we could play in ending worldwide poverty…
We would do it, right?

If we knew what we could do to end hunger or cure AIDS…
We would do it, right?

If we were told what we could do to take care of people uprooted by tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes…
We would do it, right?

If someone walked in here right now and gave us the chance to be a part of transforming the world, a chance to be a part of the solution, an opportunity to be a part of something that would have lasting, even eternal significance…
We would do it, right?

At the end of the day, almost all of us want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want our lives to matter in the grand scheme of things. Deep down, every one of us hopes that something will be different, something will be better, something will have enduring significance because we walked the face of the earth.

While we do want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, there is another part of us—the part that is just skeptical. We often have this sinking feeling that convinces us that there is really little or nothing we can do to change or impact the world. We look at the complexities of the world and feel overwhelmed. We watch the news and read the paper and feel helpless against the onslaught of suffering and pain we encounter. If we are honest, there is a part of us, deep down inside, that simply says, “There is nothing I can do that could make any difference at all. Maybe somebody else can do something. But not me.”

So we sit in this tension between wanting to be a part of something bigger than ourselves and that sinking feeling that nothing we could ever do would make any difference at all. Many of us wait in this tension between our desire to be a part of something significant and our concern that we have nothing of significance to offer. And so we wait. We wait for someone to convince us—we wait for someone to show us—that we can make a difference in this world. We wait for someone to invite us into the work of transforming the world.

I can think of no one better to do that—to both convince and show us that we can actually be part of changing the world forever—than Jesus himself. In fact, Jesus spent much of his earthly ministry trying to do just that—trying to gather a group of men and women who would no longer be paralyzed by their fears that they were powerless in the face of the world’s brokenness. He was always trying to get people—ordinary people, common, everyday, hard-working people like you and me—to believe in something bigger than themselves, to see themselves as agents of God’s coming Kingdom.

So what did Jesus do? He gathered those folks together and tried to get them to see things differently, to see the world differently, to see themselves differently. He did this by telling stories. And here in Mark’s gospel, we have this familiar parable about a farmer, some seeds and a harvest. This is the very first of Jesus’ public teachings, and in it, he is trying to say to this group of his first followers that if they don’t get this story, then they probably won’t ever be able to see themselves as being a part of ushering in the very Kingdom of God.

“Listen,” Jesus says, “A farmer went out to plant his seeds.” Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He does not say, “A farmer once thought about going out to sow but then did not go because he was afraid that he did not have enough seed for it to be worth the effort.” And Jesus does not say, “A farmer did not go out to sow because he read in the paper that it was not going to be a good season for sowing seed….it would be better to wait until another time.” And please note that Jesus does not begin the parable by saying, “There once was a farmer who did not go out to plant any seed because he was the smallest and poorest farmer and figured it was best to leave the work of the harvest to those with bigger operations, extra resources and more expertise.”

Jesus starts his parable like this, “Listen! A farmer went out to plant his seeds.” This is where it begins. This is where understanding what it means to be a part of the transforming work of the Kingdom of God begins. “A farmer went out to plant his seeds.” If the farmer didn’t do this, there would be no story to tell.

Jesus paints a picture of a farmer who goes around throwing his seeds everywhere. The farmer takes the seed he has and puts it the ground, hoping and trusting that the seed will take root and produce. This farmer believes that in the very act of planting, there will be a harvest.

But when we first read this parable, we find ourselves thinking, “Hey, doesn’t this guy see what surrounds him? He is just throwing seed everywhere. The soil is too rocky, too shallow, too thorny. Nothing can come of all his efforts. This will result in nothing. It is meaningless.”

This scenario would have been bitterly familiar to the first century peasant farmers who made up the crowd of people Jesus was addressing. For them, the grain seed was their “cash flow”—it was literally their “seed” money. With the yield from these seeds, a farmer fed his family, paid his rent and tithes, and produced the seed for next year’s crop. To throw good seed into bad soil just made no sense.

And yet Jesus tells of a farmer who sows his seed despite all the evidence telling him that his actions are pointless. These peasant farmers, who were left to farm only the rockiest and worst land, would have expected this story to end with the same helpless feeling they had come expect. But surprise! Jesus tells this crowd just the opposite. Some of the seed took root and produced a harvest—a harvest of not thirty, not sixty, but a harvest of one hundredfold.

You see, the first century peasant farmer’s typical harvest was sevenfold; a good year might see a yield as much as tenfold. So they would have been absolutely floored when Jesus said this crazy farmer would receive a harvest a hundred times what he had put in. You can imagine these struggling farmers’ eyes opening wide and jaws dropping to the floor. One hundredfold. Unheard of! Could it be true? With such a harvest, a farmer could not only eat, pay his rent and tithes, and pay off all his debt, but he could even purchase the land, never again being beholden to another for a livelihood. Not only that, but a hundredfold harvest would give freedom to his children, and to his grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. So abundant was this harvest that it would have delivered the entire community from an existence of hopelessness and powerlessness. The harvest that Jesus promised in this parable is the kind of harvest that would transform the world, change it forever.

Jesus says to his early followers, and says again to us, “You who want to be a part of my transforming work in the world, then understand this…planting seeds is a revolutionary act.”

One of my favorite things in all of God’s creation is a big, juicy, red apple. Every time I eat an apple, I think to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just go out into my backyard and grab an apple off an apple tree any time I wanted one?” How cool would it be to be able to do that—to have access to fresh apples, right off the tree, anytime they were in season? The difficulty with my desire to have these apples is that I have not planted any apple trees in our yard. And the truth is, “If we want to pick apples, we have to plant apple trees!”

I can dream about apples in my backyard all day, every day, but if all I ever do is dream about them, then the chances of my dream becoming more than a dream are slim to none because, “If we want to pick apples, we have to plant apple trees!”

I could get discouraged that there are never any apples in my backyard, wondering why this simplest wish never happens. But if all I ever do is sit in my disappointment about not having apples, I can sit there apple-less until the end of time because, “If we want to pick apples, we have to plant apple trees!”

In order for us to experience the abundance of the harvest, there is an act of faith and hope that takes place. Every harvest has to be set in motion with the simplest of acts: the planting of a seed. Then, and only then, does the miracle of the harvest ever have a chance. “If we want to pick apples, we have to plant apple trees!”

Herein lies one of the simplest and most profound spiritual truths. It is so simple that it eludes those of us who tend to complicate things. And yet it is so profound, it can bring a whole new dimension to our lives. If embraced, it can transform the world. “If we want to pick apples, we have to plant apple trees!” If we want to reap, we must sow. If we want to pick apples, we must plant apple seeds. Similarly, if we want a harvest of peace, joy, love, faith and hope in our lives and in our world, then we must plant seeds of peace, joy, love, faith and hope in our lives and in our world.

The farmer Jesus introduces to us knows that every harvest is the result of the seed; if one wants to reap then one must take the time to sow. Every seed holds within it the deepest of spiritual truths: that the infinitely great is already active in the infinitely small, and in every seed there is potential for something far more than meets the eye. But a seed will be just that—a seed—until it is planted.

If we have the ears to hear, Jesus is telling us that the very act of planting seeds is an act of hope, an act of faith and an act of trust. Sure, we can plant seeds in the ground, we can weed our gardens, care for and water the young plants. But we cannot produce the harvest. That power belongs only to creation and to the Creator who creates creation. So, if we want to be a part of God’s transformational harvest, then we must be about the business of planting seeds.

I have come to believe that one of the most significant things I can ever do as your pastor is invite you to be a part of God’s world-transforming harvest. One of the most important things I’ll ever do as your pastor is help you become a person committed to planting seeds. And perhaps the most significant thing I can do in that process is to help you give away 10% of your annual income as “seed money” to the transformation harvest God is bringing forth throughout the world.

Ten percent—called our “tithe”—has been the longstanding tradition of the church throughout the centuries. Here is what we need to know about tithing 10% of our annual income:

1. Tithing is biblical. In both Testaments, there are ample examples of persons and communities being asked to tithe.

2. Tithing is radical. Giving away this percentage of our income boldly proclaims what we already know is true: money is not the center of our lives.

3. Tithing is practical. In a sermon delivered last year, Dr. Ritter had this to say about the practicality of tithing: “Look, tithing (or proportional giving if you can’t begin at ten percent) is not about your surplus but your substance….not about your leftover contribution but your initial allocation. It’s what you do first, not last. That’s the beauty of God’s plan. When you get your priorities in order, the rest falls into place. In a strange, yet wonderful, way, when you start with God’s way of living beyond yourself, you learn how to live within yourself.”

4. Tithing is doable. Think back for a moment to the time in your life when you made 10% less than you do right now. How different was your life then than it is now? Was your life any less fulfilling when you were earning 10% less? Our experience already tells us that we can live on 10% less than we do right now. At one time, we did.

5. Tithing is transformational. There is nothing that can give us a fraction of the satisfaction and passion for life more than knowing the difference that our 10% is making in the world. No house, no car, no clothes, no vacation will bring us the satisfaction of knowing that our 10% is bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming freedom for the prisoners, giving sight to the blind, releasing the oppressed and giving witness to the fact that this is the year of the Lord’s favor.

Friends, I stand up here and in good faith invite you to become a part of the harvest by planting 10% of your annual income in the work of the church, or at least challenge you to make a significant step towards planting 10%, because I believe:

The 10% we give to the church is like the seed in our parable. It is a small percentage of the whole, but like any seed, our tithe can produce fruit not even imagined when one just looks at the dollar amount we give. Who would think that from an acorn would grow the mighty oak tree? But it does. Who would think that a mere 10% of my annual income could transform the world? But it does.

Seeds are dead unless they are planted. Seeds are powerless until they are put back to work. The same is true with our money. Money is just paper and copper and silver until it is put to work.

And like the seeds in our parable that produce a harvest of unimaginable abundance—one whose benefits go far beyond the life of the planter—so too will the 10% we give to the church. We cannot even begin to imagine what would happen if more and more of us moved towards tithing. We can’t even begin to imagine how many lives would be touched, transformed and changed forever.

Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, bind up the brokenhearted.

Be at work at Ground Zero in New York and on the front lines of Katrina relief in New Orleans, rebuild the earthquake-destroyed cities in India, build an AIDS clinic in Zambia, help farmers in Chile, build new churches in Prague, work for peace in the Middle East, be a voice in the halls of Congress, bring reading to kids in Pontiac—all at the same time.

Free the addicted, unburden the grief stricken, remember the forgotten, include the outsider, give hope to the depressed, comfort the sick, forgive the sinner, connect the lonely.

I started this sermon by asking, “What if we knew exactly what to do in order to change and transform the world? We would do it, right?” Well, if we have the ears to hear, I think someone just told us.

Notes: The very first paper I had to write for seminary was on the Parable of the Sower. For this sermon, I dug it up to see what I had thought this passage had to say. This is one of my concluding paragraphs. I am glad to say I can stand by almost everything I wrote over a half a decade ago:

Finally, the parable calls each of us to be sowers in the work of bringing about the kingdom of God. We are to recognize that the seeds we plant by our faithful action for the kingdom have in them the fruit of the harvest. We are to trust that our work, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, is a part of the great works of God that are happening in our midst. We are not to become discouraged when it seems all of our efforts have failed. We are to rest assured on the promise that our “faith work” plants seeds that will grow and will produce the fruits of the great harvest. We can have great confidence, then, that our works of mercy in feeding the hungry and clothing the naked are a part of bringing about the day when hunger and poverty will be no longer a part of our world. We can also trust that our work for justice that opposes the violence of war, racism, sexism and homophobia are a part of bringing about a world of peace with justice where people will live as neighbors. We are called to keep sowing the seeds of peace, love, mercy and justice, knowing that our work is never in vain. We are a part of the coming kingdom of God that is already fully present, but has not yet come.

As always, I am grateful to the work of our own Dr. Bill Ritter. Much of my own understandings about the importance of giving and how we as clergy must engage our congregations about money, giving and tithing were things I learned from him. I am especially grateful for an October 31, 2004 sermon entitled The Ejection Fraction which he preached on the issues of percentage giving.