“In the Kingdom - Stewardship”

Matthew 21:33-46

Dr. Nick Campbell, Fairview pastor

Once upon a time at a church meeting, a wealthy member rose to tell the rest of those present about his Christian faith. “I’m a millionaire,” he said, “and I attribute my wealth to the blessings of God in my life.” He went on to recall the turning point in his relationship with God. As a young man, he had just earned his first dollar and he went to a church meeting that night. The speaker at that meeting was a missionary who told about his work in the mission field. Before the offering plate was passed around, the preacher told everyone that everything that was collected that night would be given to this missionary to help fund his work. The wealthy man wanted to give to support this mission work, but he knew he couldn’t make change from the offering plate. He knew he either had to give all he had or nothing at all. At that moment, he decided to give all that he had to God. Looking back, he said he knew that God had blessed that decision and had made him wealthy.

When he finished, there was silence in the room. As he returned to the pew and sat down, an elderly lady seated behind him leaned forward and said, “I dare you to do it again.”

Stewardship is less about our possessions than it is about our possessiveness. The wealthy man recognized that what he had was a gift from God. But he also knew that one dollar is easier to give up than a million dollars.

There is another story of a man who made the commitment to tithe to the church in response to the grace he had received in his life. So when he made $500 a month, he gave $50 a month. As his income and success increased, so did his giving. When he reached $5000 a month, he gave $500 a month. When it reached $50,000 a month, he gave $5,000 a month. But when he started making $500,000 a month, he just couldn’t write that check for $50,000. It bothered him that he couldn’t do it, so he went to his pastor to talk it over. She was a wise woman who listened carefully to his story and his struggle. She told him that they could pray together about this situation, and this is what she prayed: “Lord, please shrink the amount of money this man earns, so that he can get back to tithing.”

She knew that tithing is not about the church getting more money, but about honoring God through the stewardship God has given us. The 44 Standard Sermons of the Methodist Connection begins in sermon 1, paragraph 1 by proclaiming, “Everything that is, is by God’s grace, so we have nothing to offer God except what God has given us.” This is where we start to think about salvation and the first great commandment to love God. This is also where we start to think about stewardship and the second great commandment to love our neighbors.

This parable that Jesus told in our reading for today would have sounded familiar to the people of Israel. The prophet Isaiah had also compared God to a vineyard owner. In Isaiah’s parable, the people of Israel were the evil vinedressers who could only produce bitter fruit. Jesus starts with this familiar tale and builds on it. Just as in their world, the owner rented the vineyard out to tenant farmers who worked the land. The rent on the land would be a fee or a percentage of the crop. And just as it was in their world, the owner sent his agents to collect what was due.

That sounds fair enough. One owns the land, and the other returns a portion to the owner for using the land. In that day, the renters worked hard, they took risks, and after all the bills were paid including the portion for the owner, about 10% of the crop was left over for taking care of their families. In this parable, the vinedressers do what many were tempted to do, which was to keep for themselves the portion meant for the owner. When the agents come to collect what is due to the owner, the vinedressers beat the first agent, and they kill the second. The people hearing this parable may not have approved of those actions, but they can certainly sympathize with them.

But then there is a twist in the parable. Instead of sending the police, or the army, to deal with these evil workers, the owner decides to send his own son. When the owner’s son shows up, the tenant farmers miscalculate, and they presume that the owner is dead. Believing the son to be the sole heir, they kill him in hope of gaining the vineyard for themselves. The plan is stupid and illegal, but they have convinced themselves that they deserve not just the rent money, but the vineyard, too.

The Pharisees found it easy to pass judgment on those tenant farmers. The renters deserve the punishment the owner exacts on them, for they have assaulted and murdered others in order to gain something that was not theirs to have. We agree with them that justice requires nothing less.

I have said this before, but a good definition of a parable is a story that is about an imaginary garden with real toads in it. These vinedressers who refuse to give to the owner what is due are real toads. And we are the toads whenever we try to justify why we keep what is due to God for ourselves. If you don’t want to be toads, it would be wise to know what it is that is due to God.

Jesus summed it up this way: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. The Church gives us some direction on how we flesh out those “dues” by giving us the markers of “my prayers, my presence, my gifts, my service, and my witness.”

First, God is due our prayers -- and not just during worship. God is due our prayers when we rise in the morning, and when we retire for the evening. God is due our prayers when we receive the blessings of a meal, and for the blessings of family and friends, and for the blessing of watching over us. God is due our prayers while God still gives to us our breath and life.

Raymond Brown has written, “To be prayer-less is to be guilty of the worst form of practical atheism. We are saying that we believe in God but we can do without him. It makes us careless about our former sins and heedless of our immediate needs.” God is due our prayers.

Second, God is due our presence – and this is not fulfilled simply because we put our body in a pew. God is due our heart-felt praise for the blessings we have received. God is due our sin-sorry confessions for the times we have preferred our own will to that of God’s. God is due our hopeful caring intercessions for others, so that God can work through us to bring comfort, peace, and wholeness. God is due our open and willing hearts, so that God can complete us as those who reveal God’s image to the world.

Too often, however, we have accepted the world’s stereotype about worship. The world thinks worship is when people gather, God appears, and an hour later both the people and God disappear. Worship is not so much about God coming to us, as it is about our being intentional about coming to God. God is due our worship.

Third, God is due our gifts -- and not just what we don’t need. God is due our gifts because everything that is, is by God’s grace. God is due our gifts because we have nothing to offer God except what God has already given us.

To keep those gifts for ourselves is to declare that we do not trust God to keep God’s promises. When the Israelites returned to Jerusalem after the second exile, the people felt overwhelmed with their need to rebuild their homes and their lives, and the temptation was great to keep for their own use the gifts that were due to God. The prophet Malachi, speaking for God, said to them: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” -Malachi 3:10 (NIV)

The Apostle Paul, writing again to the church at Corinth, encouraged the believers to give all that is due to God. He wrote: “The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” -2 Corinthians 9:6-8 (NRSV) God is due our gifts.

Fourth, God is due our service – and not just what we do at the church. Teresa of Avila, a 16^th century nun, gave us a challenge that explains why God is due our service: Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

The early Methodists took John Wesley’s teachings about the service that is due to God, and summarized them in a form we print in our bulletin every week: 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! God is due our service.

Last, God is due our witness – and not just what we share in the safety of our small groups in the church. God is due a witness that declares, “Your will be done. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.” We are to desire nothing more than God’s reign in our hearts, or we will be guilty of beating away the first agent for the Lord, the Law of Moses. We are to desire nothing less than the redemption of the lost and least, or we will be guilty of killing the second agent, the prophets of God. We are to desire nothing else except to love God and to love one another, or we will be guilty of killing the Son of the Father again.

Even if we are committed to our faith and to our church, we still have that temptation to keep for ourselves what is due to God. Perhaps the most common form of that temptation is to think that what we have to offer is so small compared to what God is due, that if we keep it for ourselves no one will be harmed and God won’t even notice.

One last story about people who tended a vineyard: There was a little village in Italy where the mountain sides were covered with vineyards. Each family would bring their wine to the center of town and pour it into one large keg where the several varieties could blend and age together, producing a highly valued wine that surpassed any of the individual wines alone.

One year the vineyards did not produce an abundance of grapes. One of the families decided that since things would be tight that year they would break the covenant between the village families, and keep their wine to sell elsewhere. But they didn’t want their neighbors to know that they were breaking the covenant, so they filled their barrel with water. On the appointed day, this barrel of water was poured into the town keg, along with all the other barrels from the other families.

The town keg was set aside to age. At the end of seven years, the villagers gathered around that keg to sell their wine to merchants who had come from all over the world. The entire community depended on the sale of this wine to provide for their life together until the next season. The giant keg was tapped, and a pitcher was placed at the tap to catch the sample that would be used to sell to the merchants. And out came pure water.

We have been given a vineyard to work, a vineyard that is a gift from God through the grace of Jesus Christ. We have been set as stewards over this gift, accountable to God for the harvest, and for giving to God what is rightfully God’s to receive. Everything that is, is by God’s grace. The world is daring us to trust God again with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness. The world is daring us because the world needs us to be the Body of Christ, and to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Let us affirm that we are ourselves gifts of God’s grace, gifts that are to be given for the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ, as we sing “When we are living, it is in Christ Jesus . . . we belong to God.” (UM Hymn 356)

To download this, and other, sermons by Dr. Nick, click here.

About our pastor

Dr. Nick has been a United Methodist pastor since 1978, when he had a 4-point charge his first year of seminary, and has been at Fairview United Methodist Church since July, 2003. His degrees are from University of Missouri-Kansas City (BA, Communications Studies) and Saint Paul School of Theology (both Master of Divinity ’81 and Doctor of Ministry ‘94). He has written three short books: Deep and Wide: The Perfecting Love of Jesus Christ; Condensed Sermon Soup: Just add the water of your baptism and let the Holy Spirit stir (a summary of the 44 Standard Sermons of the Methodist Connection); and Casting Out the Evil Spirit in the Church (an updated version of John Wesley’s prayers.)

He is married to Pam, a Special Education Teacher at Smithton Middle School, and she received her master’s degree in reading in 2005. She also worked for and received her math certification in 2006, which joins her certifications in music education and special education. They both sing in the choir, and are the parents of 2 children: Susan is living in Knob Noster for her internship with Royal Oaks Hospital (Windsor, MO) and Central Missouri University (Warrensburg, MO), and Wesley is working on completing his master’s in trumpet performance at the University of New Mexico before getting married to Pamela Corder in May 2009. Pets include Lucy (rat terrier), Bijou, Sophie, Arwen, and Sam (Tiffany cat, Calico cat, Brown Tabby cat, Gray Tabby cat – all rescued female strays).

Ways to Contact the Pastor

Stop by the office most week days, 8 AM – 12:30PM

Other times by appointment

Call the office @ 445-5391

drnick@frontyardchurch.org (pastor’s home email)

Church Office

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Are you considering the ministry as a vocation? Are you wondering what it is that God may be calling you to do?

Check out Is God Calling You? -- an interactive site to help you sort through the questions of calling!

You can also check out Explore Ministry a site run by the Fund for Theological Education.

Looking for time away?

Consider staying at the Shalom Spiritual Life Center,

a new retreat center just outside of Columbia.

Dr. Campbell is on the board, and has written some of the retreat center materials

to help persons spend intentional time with God.

The center is made available on a donation basis,

so there is no set fee to stay at the Shalom Center.

You can send an email to make a reservation.

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Contact David Atkins at 875-4168 (local call) or 800-332-8328.

Check out their website to learn more about the many ways you can remember the church and many times help yourself with taxes and income!