Grateful and Generous Hearts. John H. Westerhoff III

Pollyanna story. Anna was not simply an optimistic personality, one who, no matter what, could look on the bright side of things. She was, in Oursler’s words, “a big soul, big enough to see God everywhere.” She was in her heart a grateful person, one who had a deep sense that all of life is a gift. Taking nothing for granted, demanding nothing as her due, she recognized that we come into this world with nothing, we go out with nothing, and in between we are given all we have.

      To be thankful is not to deny that life can be difficult and painful. It does not compel us to pretend that things are better than they are or to ignore the suffering and pain in our lives or in the lives of others. But being thankful does require us to acknowledge our creaturehood, our dependence, and our lack of self-sufficiency. And it does require us to express through grateful and generous hearts our thankfulness. “Much obliged, dear Lord, for all you have given us.”

      Perception Is Everything

      How we understand and live our lives is a result of how we perceive life and our lives. Christianity is a way of life dependent upon our perceptions, which is to say our faith. We all live by some faith. And that faith determines how we live.

      Recall the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30). It is a story that is related to stewardship, but not in the way we might think. In this story, like many others, there are two throwaway characters whose purpose is to draw attention to a third character. In this case, there is the master, who is God. God entrusts his three servants with his money. God returns and asks them to account for their stewardship. The third one explains, “I perceived you to be a harsh, demanding, critical parent, and so I saved what you gave me and here it is.” And God responds, “You say I am a harsh, demanding, critical parent? Well then, let’s take what you have saved and give it to the others, and then cast you out where there is gnashing of teeth.”

      Here is a parable intended to teach us that the God we perceive is the only God we can experience, even if the God of our experience is not God at all. Further, this faith or perception of God will influence our understanding of stewardship. Stewardship, therefore, is first of all about how we perceive life and our lives—about faith.

      Stewardship is one dimension of the Christian life of faith. It is not a program, not an every-member canvass, not a fund-raising campaign, not an occasion for people to vote whether they like or do not like how the church spends their money or treats them.

      Stewardship is what we do after we say Credo, we believe, that is, after we give our love, loyalty, trust and obedience to God, the God of our faith.

      Christian faith, I acknowledge, makes little sense in the modern world. It is a perception of life in which everything we have and are is gift. It perceives that we are called to be servants of the master, ministers of the magister, stewards of God.

      A Confession

      My theology of stewardship has always been orthodox. My problem, however, was that what I believed in my head I did not believe in my heart. To be personal and I hope not self-serving, for many years I had difficulty living faithfully in terms of my stewardship of money. I rationalized. I worked long and hard for everything I earned, for less than I reasoned I was worth and my family deserved. I made my contribution to the church through my labor, my time and my talents. And while I made a pledge each year, it was very little. As you may guess, I never preached on stewardship. I told my parishioners that the financial aspect of the church’s life was their responsibility. Over the years my guilt increased, for I knew my stewardship was poor and my life of faith flawed.

      Then a number of years ago, Caroline, with whom I had worked for many years, and I talked about the possibility of marriage. Early on she made it quite clear that if we did marry we were going to pledge a minimum of ten percent of all our earnings to the church and it would be the first check written each month. That was the beginning of my conversion.

      Amidst these conversations on stewardship two memories surfaced. The first was working with Caroline in New York sometime earlier. We had finished a long day and were going out for supper. Walking up Fifth Avenue, we looked down and there was a large bill in a doorway of a closed business. She picked it up, looked around, and saw that no one around us seemed to have lost it. I’m embarrassed to say my first thought was that it would take care of supper. We walked a few feet. In front of us was a group of street musicians. Caroline dropped the bill into their offering basket, saying, “It came from the street—it needs to go back to the street.”

      The second was a conversation with Peter Lee, the present bishop of Virginia, who was at one time my rector, colleague, and friend at the Chapel of the Cross in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. One day he told me of his father during an economic recession. While he was in college, he sent a letter to Peter saying that he was experiencing some financial difficulties. He explained that he would not consider cutting or even reducing his pledge, his promise to the church. That would be paid first, no matter what, so Peter had better find a job and apply for a scholarship because otherwise he would need to drop out of school.

      Today, Caroline and I do tithe. I feel good about that, and now I have no trouble talking about money and stewardship. Our habit is to pay by check, the first written each month. But Caroline, who sits in a pew most weeks, insists on making an additional weekly contribution because she believes that this symbolic action is an important part of the liturgy. She also lives by an important principle, namely that if there is only one bill in her wallet, that is what she will offer. She came home a few months ago and with a glint in her eyes told me of her morning’s struggle of conscience when she looked in her wallet and discovered that all she had was a very large bill. Then she looked at me and said, “What do you think I did?” “That’s easy,” I responded. “You gave it!” “Right,” she said. “I’m glad you did,” I commented with a chuckle, “but next time why not check your wallet before you come to church.” I knew she wouldn’t.

      The Economics of God

      One of our problems in the church is that we rarely discuss the relationship of theology and economics, the economics of God. Rarely do future clergy study economics in seminary, or future business executives study theology in business school. For too long we have appeared content to maintain a heretical dualism between a material and spiritual world. Regretfully, it is a position still present in the church’s canons, which speak of the vestry being responsible for the temporal affairs of the church and the rector the spiritual.

      Nevertheless, for Christians there can be only one reality and it is spiritual, a reality that has two dimensions, one material and the other nonmaterial. For this reason, when we discuss the spiritual life in the church we need to include the material, that is, money. As we correct this misunderstanding and consider the spiritual life and the economics of God we become aware that we have typically misinterpreted the biblical tithe. For example, the tithe of ten percent of all one’s holdings was to be an expected beginning point, not a goal to work toward. In fact, there is some evidence that there might have been two tithes, one paid to the temple and priests and the other to the poor and the needy. And when the people came to worship they were to bring both tithes and offerings. The offerings were a tithe of their time and talents to the service of God and the needy.