Year B — All Saints’ Sunday

The Rev. Gerald W. Keucher

I want to tell you a bit this morning about why and how I give to the Church. This December will be the 26 th anniversary of when I began the journey. Here’s the story. Long before I was ordained, in June of 1980 we became “urban homesteaders.” Fr. John and I bought an abandoned house in a very iffy neighborhood on the North Shore of Staten Island. The large Victorian houses in the area had been converted into apartments and rooming houses by slumlords who had milked them dry, left them vacant, and then sold them to other people like us.

“Move-in condition” in the neighborhood meant that an ancient furnace could be coaxed into working; it did not imply that any plumbing or electrical systems were operable. The man who sold us our house held a private mortgage because no bank would make loans in that area. The banks calculated that the value of the houses and lots was zero less the costs of demolition. The previous owner thought that the people buying his properties were fools.

By December I was wondering if he had been right because we could not make it. Fr. John, a priest and an artist, was not working as a priest and made next to nothing from his art. The wind blew against the sheets of plastic we’d stapled to the windows that we couldn’t afford to repair. The oil company demanded cash for its deliveries, so the tank was often dry. My job paid me once a month, so we were broke three weeks out of four.

I had already taken a second job as the organist at a parish in nearby Bayonne , but we still had to borrow money from a friend that month to pay the mortgage. Things were that serious. We were pledging what I thought was a generous amount, but we had fallen behind in our weekly pledge. It was just one more bill that we couldn’t pay. I had done all I could do, and it just wasn’t enough.

At an Advent Evensong at the church in Bayonne the rector took a liberty with the lectionary and preached on Malachi 3, beginning at verse 8, in which the prophet brings God’s accusation of theft against the people. “Will a man rob God?” the old language says, “Yet you are robbing me! But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’ In your tithes and offerings!...You are robbing me…Bring the full tithe into the storehouse…and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts. See if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”

I remembered my childhood. My mother had brought us up to tithe. I asked her once through gritted teeth, as I was putting ten percent of my allowance into the envelope for church the next day, “Why are you making me do this?”

“So that when you’re big you’ll tithe on your grownup income,” she said. “How do you know I’ll do that?” I asked, somewhat surprised that she could see the future. “I know you will,” she answered, “because ‘as the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined.’”

I’m not sure what I would have done without that sermon at that time and the memory of my upbringing. But that’s the great thing about God’s providence. God gave me the gifts of that sermon and that upbringing, so God had given me a way out of my financial difficulties in December 1980. My prayer is that God might be giving you a similar gift this morning.

“OK, God,” I said, “OK. I’ll put you to the test.” For the next few weeks I stopped thinking about the $15 a week that we were pledging. When I got paid at the end of that month, I wrote a check to our parish for ten percent of what I put into the bank. It worked out to more than twice our weekly pledge. I turned in the check and held my breath.

Nothing happened. That is to say, the windows of heaven did not pour money down on us, and our windows were still covered with plastic. However, something else didn’t happen as well. We didn’t go deeper into the hole. We paid back the friend the next month and still met our obligations. We were somehow, and I’m not entirely sure how, better able to make ends meet on 90% of our income that we had been on 100%.

In reality, everything happened, and it happened in us. Giving away a percentage of your income off the top — especially if it’s more than you think you can afford — has a powerful effect on you. It makes you know and feel almost immediately that money is a tool: it’s just a means, not an end. Everything goes wrong with our attitudes toward money when we think of money as an end. If money is the end, then people and relationships becomes means to that end. If money is just a means, then people and relationships can become ends in themselves.

And this is the place where we’ve been growing in the 26 years since that December. The checks to the church are always the first ones I write after the direct deposit hits the bank. (And — though this is just personal preference — our tithe is always on the gross. I figure if we’re not going to rob God, why chisel Him? And then the tax refund is free money that’s already been tithed on. But that’s just my preference.)

Here’s the deal. Even if we think that money is the end, money is always a tool, and it’s the tool that really works on us all the time. So if your money is not working on you to make you generous and open, it’s working on you to make you fearful and always feeling as though you don’t have enough.

I went back to tithing as an adult out of sheer desperation. Hitting bottom, however you do it, is not a bad thing. But even if you aren’t hitting bottom, I think there’s still something you want. You want not to be anxious about the little things. You want a relationship with God. You want an experience of God. You want to get to the place where your will and God’s will are the same — where doing what you really want to do means doing what God wants. I think you want your heart to be with God. Why else would you be here?

So if you want your heart to be with God, here’s a way forward. Put your money where you want your heart to be. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Your heart follows your money, not the other way around. We think it’s the other way around. We think we spend our money on the things that are important to us, but those things are important to us because they’re what we spend our money on. Put your money where you want your heart to rest, and your heart will move there.

So stop thinking about what you give as another bill that has to be paid, or as a tax, or as club dues, and for heaven’s sake, don’t let it be just a tip that’s less than you spend on lunches or your Metrocard.

Make your gift a first-fruits offering. Set a percentage in your heart, and give that percentage off the top whenever you get money. And don’t give at other times. Break the tyranny of the weekly envelope. If you get money once a month, give your percentage once a month, and don’t sweat the other weeks. If you’re self-employed and income is really erratic, then just give back to God when God gives to you. Don’t worry about the weeks in between.

I’ve told you the percentage I give. It was like jumping into water when you don’t know how deep or how cold it is. It’s quite a sensation of letting go, but then you find that the water’s just right. I can tell you from my own experience and thousands of years of the experiences of others recorded in Scripture and Christian history that you can do it too.

However, if you think you’re not ready for such a thrill — especially if what you’re giving now works out to one or two percent of your income — don’t start with 10%. Here are the two main points: First, figure your gift as some percentage of what you just received. Start with 5% or 3%. If $1000 just got deposited, then a $30 check gets written if you’re doing 3%, $50 if your percentage is 5%. Make sure your gifts are a percentage of what you just received. And second, make your gifts off the top. Do it first, before you start paying anything else.

This will change your life. You may think paying your bills is the least religious thing you do, but proportional giving off the top changes all that. It means that each time you sit down to pay bills, the first payment you make is a thank offering to God that is in proportion to what God has given you. Percentage giving off the top turns paying your bills into an act of worship because you’re putting your trust in God. It changes how you think about your life and what you have. It’s the most powerful way to use the powerful tool that is your money in the service of your spiritual transformation. I’m quite serious. This changed my life. This will change your life.

Percentage giving off the top: that’s my sermon, and I’ll show you how it works in a minute. But first, have you noticed what my sermon has not been? I haven’t said a word about how much the parish needs your money. I haven’t mentioned budgets or capital needs. I haven’t browbeat you or played a single guilt card. I haven’t said ‘should’ or ‘ought to’ a single time. Look, you’re all bright people. You know perfectly well what our needs are. I’m not going to dwell on them because they are obvious.

My point is rather different. I know that you want this parish to thrive. I know you want it to be here so that future generations can meet God here just as you have. I’ll bet most of you wish that you could do more. Well, I’m here to empower you. I’m here to tell you, and to show you, and to witness to you from my own experience how you can be as generous as you’ve wanted to be. And now I’ll show you how it works.