Money and Tithing and Stewardship! OH MY!

My church is beginning our yearly stewardship program. Every fall we spend several weeks talking about what being a good steward means. I used to cringe at the thought of this time at MCC Lubbock. Just the word stewardship brings back stressful memories.

My childhood church talked about stewardship one Sunday a year. Normally we would go to Sunday school and then go into the church service. However when Mom would look at the bulletin and see stewardship on the schedule, she would hustle us out to the car. I felt confusion and fear over why we had to leave so quickly. As I grew older, I found out the anxiety I picked up from Mom was associated with STEWARDSHIP!

Mom's attitude reflects what many people feel about stewardship. Churches often fixate only on money and giving "10%." Guilt is one of the major tools that is put on church goers: "Give us your money. Commit to an amount each month. Really YOU should give more money." Mom definitely felt pressure that she had to give a certain amount to the church. Considering that she supported our family with her salary as a teacher, she felt that the church's pressure was too much for her to handle. Also I think she felt that the church was trying to make her feel guilty.

What I've learned about stewardship at MCC Lubbock is that it is about so much more than money. Being a good steward means that I use the gifts which with God has blessed me. I am a natural teacher and I use my talent to educate others through a Bible study group as well as from the pulpit.

AND yes stewardship does aim to help each of us wisely use the money that we earn. God has given me the ability to earn a living and I chose to turn some of that back over to God. For more than five years I've been committing each year to give a certain amount of money to my church. I don't give 10% of my income. Each year I have allocated a little bit more money to the church. The important thing to me is following through with my commitment. I also feel it's significant for me to try to grow a little bit each year.

One thing that I have learned about giving to the church, 10% is expressed in the Hebrew Bible and not necessarily appropriate for me as a follower of Christ. I believe that for me as a Christian, I can use 10% as a goal and as a suggestion. God wants me to get my finances in order rather than living from paycheck to paycheck.

In 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, Paul says:

Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.

I sometimes wish Mom could experience stewardship the way I have at MCC Lubbock. Her story is only one of how churches hurt people over money. I continue to share my childhood observances and my current understanding of stewardship with hopes that others will be able to overcome negative feelings and that we as a church remember to offer understanding and love to those who have suffered.

Anticipation

Saturday morning was chore time when I was growing up. Mom taught us to clean the bathrooms, dust, and vacuum. David and I stripped our beds and put fresh sheets on them. We helped Mom wash and dry clothes and then fold them. Usually while we folded clothes we could watch cartoons. Mom let each of us pick one 30 minute cartoon. We could watch both programs and after the hour the TV was turned off.

Once a month or so we spent the night at Grandma's house. Of course they doted on us as many grandparents do. We were allowed to watch as many cartoons as we wanted. I remember waking up early on these mornings. David and I would turn the TV on real low and wait for the morning programing to start. We would watch the broad vertical bars with anticipation. We were in cartoon nirvana.

When we were older and my younger cousin, Stephanie, also stayed at Grandma's, I would wake Stephanie and leave her sitting on the floor in front of the screen. She had specific orders to come wake us when the cartoons started. Then I would go back to bed and sleep until the programing starts.

As an adult I don't often feel that childlike expectation. Grown-up life often becomes all about seeing life as mundane rather than looking forward to everyday activities. The most recent occasion for me to feel this anticipation and thrill is concerning this call I feel from God.

The difficulty for me is what to do when elation fades into reality. I am finding ways to continue feeling excitement in God's call. I am actively seek opportunities to praise and worship in ways that allow me to encounter God in a meaningful way. For me that often means enjoying services at locations other than my traditional church. Sometimes I have to make a point to not serve others and just receive. For several years I've made an effort to remove myself from the worship schedule a couple a Sundays a month. Sometimes I have to be able to relax and enjoy the celebration and nourishment that I can receive during worship.

Each of us have to find ways to keep that joy and excitement in our lives. When we feel this way, we are able to again find the anticipation we felt as children. Like those special Saturdays at Grandma's we are able to see the simple things in life as the wonder that God intended.

Forgiven

My Bible study group studied Phillip Yancy's book, What's So Amazing About Grace. Yancy told stories that expressed different ways people have shown grace to others as well as how God exhibits grace to us. Many of the accounts made a significant impact on me and my way of thinking. One in particular really helped me think about grace and forgiveness.

This story is of two missionaries who were working with a group of Polish Christians a few years after World War II. The missionaries told the Poles that a group of German Christians wanted to meet with them so that they could apologize for what their people did to Poland. One Pole fiercely declared that they could not possibly forgive the Germans or even be expected to do so. He said that every brick, every street of Warsaw was drenched with Polish blood. How could they ever forgive the ones who cause so much hurt?

To end the meeting the group said the Lord’s Prayer. When they got to “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven…,” the group stopped praying. The man who earlier had spoken so intensely said, “Of course we will meet with them. We must. God will only forgive us as much as we are willing to forgive others.” Over a year later the two groups met and formed a lasting friendship.

Whenever I read this story, I think about how God gave the ultimate gift to us by allowing Jesus to be crucified. God must have wanted to rant and rave against all humanity while watching his child die. Instead of reacting out of anger and disgust, God continues to offer us grace.

In John 12:44-45 (The Message) Jesus says:

Whoever believes in me, believes not just in me but in the One who sent me.
Whoever looks at me is looking, in fact, at the One who sent me. I am Light
that has come into the world so that all who believe in me won't have to
stay any longer in the dark.

Forgiveness freed the Poles from their pain and anger, just as it can free us. All we have to do is turn to God and let go of all these feelings.


*Image from http://www.letterrip.net

Fear and Death

Dad blamed Mom for my apprehension of funerals and dead people. Because Mom was so uncomfortable with open caskets at funerals and visitations, Dad thought I had picked up Mom's views. Neither of them realized how terrifying Grandpa's death was for me or that what I was feeling was actually a phobia. I didn't really get over the anxiety or fear until I was in college and oddly enough until I was an agnostic.

Grandpa, my dad's father, died after being ill for many years. Grandma and Grandpa lived just a few miles from our house and over 15 miles away from the closest funeral home. The family decided to have the visitation at the house rather than the funeral home because so many of the people who would come to visit were from the farming community. The funeral would take place at our little community church.

When we drove into Grandma and Grandpa's driveway, I must have been horribly excited. Visits to my grandparents were always fun and usually meant whatever special treats that my brother and I wanted. We got Dr. Pepper floats and biscuits with homemade syrup. It also meant sleep-overs and domino games and as many morning cartoons as we wanted to watch.

I'm sure my parents tried to explain again that this was not a fun visit and I really didn't understand what was going on. I was seven or eight years old and the permanence of death didn't really make sense to me. When I ran in the front door, I skidded to a stop in front of the coffin with Grandpa's body in it. Suddenly death felt very real to me.

I immediately knew that Grandpa wasn't alive. He didn't quite look like the real Grandpa. I backed away and edged toward the dining room. I avoided the living room as much as I could. When I had to be in there I sat as far away from the casket as I could.

This was the beginning of my anxiety of death and dead bodies. As a child living in a small community that usually had open-casket funerals, I had many opportunities to experience this fear over and over. After this when I did go to funerals, I avoided the line that would go past the body or quickly went past without looking.

I was afraid that the people who I loved would turn into zombies and vampires and otherworldly creatures when they died. My overactive imagination started worrying that these beloved ones would become strangers who wanted to hurt me. I certainly couldn't explain these fears as a child. I knew that what I thought was irrational and that my parents would tell me that I was being silly. I understood enough to know that others didn't think about bodies the way that I did because they went to visitations and they didn't cringe away when coming near coffins.

Now that I am an adult, I can see value in the closure that comes from funerals. That release of emotions act as a means for us to be able to eventually move on. Now as I begin my path toward ministering, I am extremely thankful that I got over my phobia. My ability to provide comfort would have been greatly limited by that fear.

In God's Time

I was absolutely miserable. I hated my job. The school year had started and I had a new boss who thought that I was useless and that my position wasn't necessary. For the first time since I started teaching my boss was a man. AND he was an extremely opinionated man who had no qualms about telling everyone his political views. My co-workers noticed my gloominess and tried to offer support with little success.

Earlier that spring I had applied for a job that would not only give me more money and would definitely be a move up the career ladder, but it was also my dream job or at least a few years ago would have been my dream job. I didn't know if I was supposed to stay with teaching in a public school or if I was supposed to become a minister. I knew that if I got the job I would have a hard time committing to something like seminary. If I was supposed to get my masters of divinity, then I knew God wouldn't allow me to get the job. If I was supposed to focus on avocational ministries, I would get the job.

School started and I didn't hear anything. I felt like I was standing on a limb that had a crack through it. At any moment everything would fall out from under me and I was terrified. At school I was miserable. I barely made it through my days. Finally about two weeks in, I prayed to God that I needed peace with my job. If I was going to have to stay at Lorenzo and EPEC, I needed God to help me get through this. I couldn't stand the way I was feeling any longer.

I said to God, "Okay, I can't live like this anymore. I need your help. If I have to be at this job, I need you to give me peace with it. Give me strength to finish this year." I suddenly felt an ease that I would be all right and could survive this school year.

When I got home from work that afternoon, I had to hurry because I was leading Bible study and had to get ready for that. I didn't bother getting my mail, but when I was leaving for the group, I did check it and there was the letter from the ESC telling me that they had hired someone else.

If I had gotten that letter a day earlier, I couldn't have handled the realization that I was stuck with a tiresome job. I knew that God had only allowed me to receive the bad news when I was able to handle it. I also understood that when I had finally asked for help God had immediately given it. I could have saved myself a lot of hassle if I'd relied on God from the beginning. I'm just glad I eventually turned to God.

Home of the Free and the Brave

I'm telling you now "DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ MY
OPINIONS!" I'm not asking for your approval and I'm not seeking arguments
from you. I just want to let out some of my feelings.


I feel very frustrated by the whole discussion about the Obama health care plan. So many of the middle and upper class people are angry and are opposed to socializing health care. My boss is massively opposed to it and extremely vocal about his opposition. Many of my facebook friends and my family are just as vocal about their disagreement with Obama's desire to insure that all have access to health care. MY concern is how many people can't afford insurance and don't qualify for Medicaid. What do we do about the older folks who have to pay some things out of pocket even though they qualify for Medicare or when Medicare/Medicaid refuses to pay for certain meds because they are too expensive, but they are the meds that work for you?


My friend Michael Chaney had a pretty heated discussion with his friends on facebook. He made an argument that really got to the crux of the matter. Michael said, about Peter Kinnear who is CEO for FMC Technologies and who has been vocally opposed to socialized health care: "This CEO took home 725 times the amount of an average paid employee! I guess he can afford to oppose health care for the working class!" The arguments to Obama's plan have mostly come from those who don't need it and either have insurance through their work and/or can afford to pay for their own insurance.

Here is my problem: I hate confrontation, especially about political issues. I have my opinion and you are not going to change my mind. AND I figure that you have your opinions and I am probably not going to change them. Political discussion is very rarely a true exchange of thoughts. To me it feels more like an attempt to convince the other person that s/he is "wrong." So when people express their beliefs on Obama's desire to create a health care system for all, they don't really want to hear or understand why I think differently, just like they don't want to hear other ways that I think or feel otherwise from them.

One argument that really started me writing this piece was that Obama was being racist for trying to get health care for people who can't afford it. His opponents argue that Obama is racist because most of the people who need the help are people of color. Okay... so when W promoted tax cuts for the wealthy, no one cried, "Racist." I don't remember anyone saying racist when Reagan also cut taxes for the upper class. No one called Clinton racist because he expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons. When I hear someone trying to complain about Obama being racist, I hear them saying that really they are threatened by the fact that he is a man of color and is now in a place to make changes that help all people.


Why did I decide to express my opinion now? I finally voted on the FB poll about health care. I did it because I got tired of having to listen to everyone else's opinions. I felt like my silence said that I agreed with those people who were expressing their beliefs. I also noticed that after I voted my facebook friends who saw my vote started posting their opposing views. They have a right to feel that way just as I have the same right.


On the actual issue of health care, I spend over $150 a month on my health insurance and that's after my school district has chipped in its share. I could have chosen a cheaper option. I have to have this extensive coverage because I have a number of health issues. In addition to the amount I pay for my insurance, the amount I pay for my monthly out of pocket expenses for medication is over $200. If I get sick, I will shell out at least an additional $50 to $60. AND I thank God every day that I can now afford this amount of money. During my early teaching years, I had to make choices about what bills I would pay so that I could get my meds. At times I also made choices about what medicines I absolutely had to have and which ones if I didn't take, I wouldn't die or seriously damage myself.


I truly don't know if socialized medicine is the way to go. I do know that if I as a single woman with no children struggles, how do others make it? Do I say to the mom with two kids and a dumb ass ex-husband who can't be bothered, "Sorry your children have to do without"? Do I ignore the friend who goes to the county hospital and can only afford treatment by claiming to be indigent because he doesn't qualify for disability or Medicaid yet? I don't know if I could live with myself if I didn't support health care for these people. Is this going to change my coverage? I don't know. But we, as a country, have to start doing something about the distribution of resources. We have made it almost impossible for some people to ever thrive and we proudly stand there and say that we are the land of the free and the brave. I truly want to be brave and maybe my first step toward that is expressing this opinion even though it differs from most of my friends and family

Freedom Songs

Last night I watched Freedom Songs: The Music of the Civil Rights Movement. I expected to hear spirituals and was surprised to find out about popular songs of the time that were often written as a means to express the singer's desire for freedom. Many of the artists had to talk in ambiguity just as slaves had to sing songs with a second meanings. The people in power would have shut down the radio stations if they had known to what some of the songs referred.

I'd heard many of these popular songs before and had never made the connection between the words and the civil rights movement. I never really understood what Sam Cooke meant when he sang about how "it had been a long time coming, but a change was gonna come." Or when the Impressions sang, "People get ready, there's a train a comin'," I didn't realize that they were talking about a figurative train. I can't help but think about the underground railroad, which of course didn't really have tracks or a locomotive, but was an unstoppable movement for some to reach freedom.

When I actually look at the lyrics for Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On," I realize that sometime the words were laid out there for everyone to hear. I think the music blocked some of people's realizations that Gaye was callling for action and I don't think he means action against the Vietnam War. He sings

Picket lines and picket signs. Don't punish me with brutality.
Talk to me, so you can see. Oh, what's going on. What's going
on....

Some of Gaye's words talk about long hair, but as someone pointed out in Freedom Songs, women stopped wearing their wigs and let their afro's grow out. Gaye may have hidden his call to action for civil rights within the Vietnam struggle.

Many of these songs talked about chains. I never really thought about chains as meaning those of white oppression. Even though slavery had been outlawed in the later 1800s, people of color knew they were still not free. In some ways as I watched this doc I kept thinking, "We're not finished. We still have a long way to go." At one point a picture from the late 50s/early 60s showed a marching man holding a sign that said "End poverty" because he knew that poverty was one way to hold people down. Poverty is still holding people in a silent place.

This music still has a place in our world. When a person of color has to work twice as hard to prove him/herself, we still need to sing about "Unity" and "Eyes on the Prize". Until banks give loans equally to all people, we have to keep saying, "Stand!" and "Respect." And until all people can walk down the street without hearing names yelled at them, we have to keep believing "I Shall Not Be Moved."

Will Power!

I'm working on losing weight. Okay, not really working. The doctor wants me to. I KNOW I need to. AND I don't really have any motivation to do work on it. The more the doc nags the more I rebel. I keep wondering how I will have time to use the gifts God is giving me if I don't get myself healthier. Am I really going to waste all of these things with which God is blessing me just because I can't find the incentive to lose weight?

Over the next five years I will spend a lot of energy, time, and money to become an ordained minister. I'll be forty-six by the time I can actually complete ordination with MCC. I know God wouldn't have pushed and shoved me to where I am if there aren't BIG plans for me.

Just this afternoon I pulled into the Dairy Queen drive-thru line. I really wanted BOTH tacos AND a Blizzard. I was trying really hard to talk myself out of getting both. I pulled into one of the parking spaces and quietly said to God, "Please help me make a good decision here." As I backed up, I realized I didn't want either tacos or ice cream AND walking the dog sounded like a good idea.

One of my biggest problem with using this technique is that I have to be able to STOP and pray before I shove food in my mouth or even buy it. Obviously I'm not good at thinking before eating. In fact I have a tendancy to totally not think when I want to eat. I'm way more likely to feel when eating. When I'm bored, I eat. When I'm sad, I eat. When I'm lonely, I eat. When I'm mad, I eat. And I eat when I am happy.

For me I really have to focus on eating healthier food. I also have to stop eating when I'm full. I have gotten better at not eating all the food on my plate when I'm eating out. I have a harder time at home when I swear the food is whispering from the fridge. It says, "You KNOW I taste good. You KNOW you want me. Come on! EAT ME!"

During these times I will try to stop and ask God for help. I know I can't do it by myself. Isn't that one of the first step in AA? I am admitting that I'm powerless over alcohol (or food in this instance) and that a Power greater than me will have to restore my sanity. So tonight I remember that God has a plan for me and if I am going to fulfill it, I have to focus away from food and on God. I've fought the idea of joining Overeaters Anonymous. As I write these thoughts, I am begin to wonder if God is trying to encourage me to step out of my comfort zone and try OA.

Okay, God, I know that You're in charge and that I have very little willpower concerning food. I will try OA. Thanks, Dude.

Studying the Bible

The times that I have really delved into the Bible are those times that I have had to prepare sermons for church. I work my buns off trying to follow what God is asking of me. Unfortunately the burning bush doesn't jump up and tell me exactly what verses and words to say. I think God likes for me to work at finding what I need to say. I wouldn't have bought a Bible or utilize it to the extent I've already used it if God didn't want me to explore these words.

Sometimes I know what I want to say and feel God is giving me these inspirations. AND I am not sure what scriptures to which I should tie these thoughts. I start digging into the concordance at the back of my Bible, trying to find the scripture that really speaks to the ideas that I have. I usually don't find what I am to use until I've looked at many different verses and subjects.

Other times the minister assigns me a scripture and I have to find a way to make it relevant to modern life. I read the notes associated with the verses and try to find discussion and commentary by others. I may read back several chapters to see what led to this particular story or compare the story with the other Gospels' versions. Now that I have some of Christopher's books, I also read in them seeing what information I can find that will help me.

When I finally complete the sermon or at least my notes because I don't usually write the sermon into complete paragraphs, I feel as though I understand a tiny little bit more about the Bible and God. It's not that I think I know everything about this one scripture. The feeling I have is that I've started to peel back a layer or two of the Bible. Next time I use these verses I will peel another layer. Each time I examine the scriptures I learn something new.