A stewardship message featuring Luke 12, Genesis 41, Mr. T, and lots and lots of coffee.

I’ve got good news for you. Really good news. You’re rich. Did you know that? Maybe some of you already knew. You might already agree that you’re rich, right off the bat. You’ve done well, have made some plans, set some financial goals, and met many of them. Life has gone well for you. Good job. Well met.

But perhaps you find yourself thinking, WHAT? I’m not rich! You should see my bank account! I’m barely making it. Still, for most of you here, like it or not, you’re rich. What, you don’t agree? You look at your neighbors, see all they have, and think, there is no way you could be rich.

If that’s the case – perhaps we need to take a wider view of what we have. Wider than Ames, Gilbert and Nevada. Wider than Story County. Wider than Iowa. Wider than the United States. So how do you stack up, when your neighbors include the entire world?

The website, Global Rich List, can tell you just how rich you are when compared to the international neighbors we rarely see. Just type in your annual income, with benefits minus taxes, or enter an estimate of your net worth. Then click show my results. This website will tell you exactly how your wealth ranks compared to everyone else on the planet.

• So if you make twenty thousand a year, congratulations, your income puts you in the top 3.65% of wealth globally. To frame that a little differently, making ten dollars an hour, working full time, for forty hours a week will net you twenty thousand dollars a year. Now America has higher costs of living than many places, that’s true. And I recognize if you’re earning twenty thousand a year making ends meet can be difficult. But, globally speaking, our planet has 7.7 billion people on it. And if you make 20k a year, after taxes, you make more money than almost 7.5 billion of them. Globally speaking, you’re doing pretty well.

• If you earn a little more, and make the grand sum of twenty-five thousand a year, that puts you in the top 2 percent of earners in the world.

• This may sound crazy, but if you make a little more than that, and earn thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars a year, well, you’re in the top 1% of income globally. Remember that Wall Street movement last decade? The one called We Are The 99%? That was a U.S. phenomenon. But if it were done globally, at that level, with your annual income of thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars a year, well, then those 99% are talking about you. You, are the 1%.

• If you make a bit higher than that, fifty-two thousand six hundred, in this area you’re kind of typical. That’s the median annual income for people living in Story County. So for you, earning fifty-two grand a year you’re kind of average, locally. But globally you’re doing really, really well. You’re in the top 0.3% of wage earners globally.

• And if you make 80 thousand a year, including benefits, and after taxes, you’re in the top 0.1% of wealth globally, even more impressive. In a random sample of 1,000 people on earth, you would be the wealthiest. There are only about six million people in the world that make as much or more than you, at $80,000 a year. Only six million people in the world. Out of 7.7 BILLION. Six million people is about as many people as live in all of Minnesota. Six million people is also about as many people as live in just two Chicago counties: Cook and DuPage. Imagine, all of the people in the world that make $80,000 or more a year could live in just a part of Chicago. In just two counties in the US.

So congratulations. Maybe not to all of you, but to most of you. In a very real way most of you are rich. Some of you are extremely, extremely rich. In terms of how long you’ll live, your access to healthcare, and financial stability for you and your family it is really, really good news.

And yes, this includes your pastor. By these global standards I, too, am rich.

Troubling News
But I’ve got some troubling news for you too, fellow rich person, and it comes from our gospel reading today in Luke 12.

Here we see Jesus, teaching in a crowd, a fairly common setting in scripture. Someone says to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to give me my fair share of the family inheritance.” Jesus responds with a question, asking, what makes you think it’s my job to be a judge for you?”

If you were asked to help with a family inheritance squabble, well, you might say something similar. Or, if you were feeling helpful maybe you’d pull up the contact list on your phone and recommend a good attorney that specializes in that sort of thing.

But Jesus, sensing a teachable moment, returns his attention to the crowd, and offers some wisdom. Protect yourself against greed, he says. Jesus continues, telling those gathered that life is not defined by what you have. Even when you have a lot.

Life is not defined by what you have. Even when you have a lot.

That’s great advice, by any standard. But wait, there’s more. Jesus was not done with this teachable moment.

He then launches into the story of a rich man, a farmer, who found himself with a terrific crop. With such a great crop the man now had a problem. The crop was so big that his barn was not big enough for the harvest. “Ah, I’ve got it”, the rich man says. “Here is what I’ll do. I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll gather all my crops in this bigger barn. And then I’ll say to myself, Self, you’ve done well! You’ve got it made! You can retire! So kick back, take it easy and have the time of your life!”

Now I don’t know about you, but to me, that sounds like a pretty smart plan. Work hard, do well, increase your holdings, save, and then retire in style. This is the kind of advice you’d expect from a skilled financial advisor like Suze Orman or Dave Ramsey. It kind of sounds like the American dream.

But then the plot twist. God shows up, in this parable from Jesus, and has something to say to this rich farmer. “Fool! Tonite you die!” Ouch! I can almost picture Mr. T – that’s the popular actor from the 80s tv show The A Team – with his trademark Mohawk, extend his index finger, pointing it this rich farmer and saying his most famous line, “I pity the fool!”

Now God doesn’t kill this rich farmer, it was just his time to go. And after all the effort this farmer put into storing those bumper crops, ironically he won’t be around to reap the benefits of what he’s sowed. But still, that’s strong language right? Especially when it’s a parable from Jesus. And a word that’s spoken by God. God just called this rich man a fool.

Wait a second…we’re rich, right? At least many of us. Did God just call us all fools? Hold on to that thought for a little bit.

Pharaoh and Joseph
There’s another story in scripture, in Genesis chapter 41, about storing a bumper crop. In this story Pharaoh has a dream, is troubled by it, and none of the wise men in his court could interpret it. Getting desperate, Pharaoh calls in a Hebrew slave named Joseph, who had gained a reputation for accurately interpreting dreams. After describing this dream Joseph replies that it is beyond his power to interpret it, but that God can tell Pharaoh the meaning.

It is only cheap cialis visit this men for men are suffering from ED issues which they ignore to recognize. It’s all wikipedia reference buy cialis without prescription matter of personal choice and preference. There are several symptoms of a heart attack pharmacy online viagra and they are unable to make a successful love. This will discover for info generic cialis online not only restore your sexual confidence but will also help you have pleasurable sexual life. The dream interpretation turns out to be fairly straight forward, and it’s all about feast and famine. Seven years of bumper crops, Joseph says, followed by seven years of drought. To get through the drought Joseph recommends collecting a fifth of the crop each year, and then putting that crop in Pharaohs’ massive storehouses. Sensing God was speaking through Joseph, Pharaoh gives Joseph all the resources he needs to put that plan into action.

And for the next fourteen years, the first seven with bumper crops, the next seven with severe drought, that’s exactly what happens. In the bumper crop years, a portion is put away in the storehouses. In the drought years, when the people cry out for food, Joseph opens up those storehouses and distributes grain to anyone who asks. In this way this story has a happy ending; God’s people are cared for.

Two Stories
So what do you make of these two stories? Both are about storing bumper crops. And we’ve got some rich people in both stories; scripture tells us that Pharaoh, Joseph, and the rich fool are all very well off.

But in one story the bumper crops are a good thing. In the other story, not so much. I noticed a couple of other tidbits in these stories that might impact how we look at them as well.

In the Genesis story it was God’s idea to store the bumper crops, born of a vision from Pharaoh, and interpreted by Joseph. In the Luke parable it was man’s idea.

In the Genesis story the bumper crops serve a higher purpose, to feed an entire people throughout the land. In the Luke parable, the crops were for the good of the man, for himself only.

God’s fingerprints are all over the Genesis story, from giving Pharaoh the dream, to providing Joseph the interpretation, to guiding Pharaoh to put God’s plan in motion. God isn’t even part of the Luke parable, at least until the very end. Instead it’s all about the man, his ideas, his work, his patting himself on the back for a job well done. I think God pities, truly pities, that fool.

Mr. T and Coffee
Mr. T, he who also pities the fool, is famous for wearing huge gold chains around his neck. He started doing this when he worked as a bouncer in his 20s, and became known for it. He kept up that look up for decades. Mr. T estimates that the gold he wears daily is worth about three hundred thousand dollars.

But then, when helping cleanup New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, he gave up virtually all his gold. Mr. T is quoted as saying “as a Christian, when I saw other people lose their lives, and land and property, I felt it would be wrong before God to continue wearing my gold. I felt it would be insensitive to the people who lost everything, so I stopped wearing my gold.”

During our For Such A Time As This campaign no one is going to ask you to sell all your gold. And honestly, if you have three hundred thousand dollars of gold chains like Mr. T had, wear it to church some time. I’d like to take a selfie with you.

Better yet, bring those gold chains and place them in the offering plate.

You don’t have to sell them. We’ll sell them for you ?

But, this campaign, for you, might require some sacrifice. If you’re a fan of Starbucks, what if you gave up one coffee, at 4 bucks a pop, each week, and reinvested that right here, at Bethesda? That would come out to $208 for the year, or $624 over the 36 months of this campaign. If one person from each of the 400 families in this church did that it would come out to a quarter of a million dollars. That’s a decent chunk of the way to our goal.

And it’s only drinking one less coffee, per household, per week.

Tho if you’re more of a Dunkin Donuts person like I am, with their two-dollar coffee you’d have to give up two cups of it per week for the same impact. Which honestly just makes Dunkin Donuts customers smarter than Starbucks customers, it tastes better anyways…a sermon for some other time.

Closing
So be rich. There’s no shame in that. But be a certain kind of rich.
Don’t be like that rich guy in today’s parable.
Because that’s a pretty sad story.

Instead, be like Pharaoh.
Dream big dreams.
Keep God in the middle of those dreams.

Even better: be like Joseph.
Work to make God’s dreams a reality.
For God used him mightily.

And when the time comes – and this is an opportunity for you – open the silos of your bumper crop. Or wear a little less gold. Or drink a little less coffee. And give, joyfully, for the betterment of those around you.

For when you do, For Such A Time As This, you, my friend, will be blessed. Amen.

Benjamin Franklin once said that money has never made man happy, nor will it.

And maybe that’s true. But talk of money, when looked at from a certain vantage, can definitely contain some humor.

Here’s a few antidotes about cold, hard cash that just might make you smile.

A woman once wrote columnist Ann Landers a letter about her aunt and uncle. In it she describes her uncle as “the tightest man I’ve ever known. Every time he got paid he took $20 out of his paycheck and put it under his mattress.” Later in life, as his health declined, and the end was near the man asked his wife to promise him something. “What is it?” his wife wondered. “Promise me when I’m gone you’ll take the money under the mattress and put it in my casket. I want to take it all with me.”

When the man died his wife kept the promise. She collected all those $20s, went straight to the bank, and deposited them. She then wrote out a check, drove to church for the funeral, and made sure to place the check in her husband’s casket.

Then there’s the story of two women marooned on an island. While one paced back and forth, all worried and scared, the other sat sunning themselves. The worrier said to the woman busily getting a tan, “aren’t you afraid we’re about to die?” “No,” she replied, setting down her paperback. “I make $100,000 a week and tithe faithfully to my church. “My Pastor will find me.”

One more. A farmer went into the church office and asked to speak with one of the “head hogs at the trough.” The receptionist replied, “if you’re referring to one of our beloved ministers, please call them Reverend or Pastor. It’s not proper to call them a hog at the trough.” The farmer said, “well ok. I just sold some sows and am going to donate $50k to the capital campaign, so I was hoping to speak with one of them.”

“Oh, just a minute, sir,” the receptionist replied, sounding somewhat apologetic. “I think I see one of those little porkers walking in!”

Our Time
This weekend begins a six-week sermon series that kicks off our three-year capital campaign. And while there may be nothing overly ha-ha funny about fundraising per se, I’d suggest there is plenty of joy, plenty of lightness in the air here of late.

Why?

Perhaps it’s that our 2019 income was the highest it’s been in at least 11 years.

Or that we’ve been named the Best Place to Worship in Story County, two years running.

Or maybe it’s new spaces recently reimagined around here, like the outdoor patio and the Crossroads.

It could be our new ministries like Days for Girls, that empower women worldwide with better access to education.

Or is it the youth mission trips to Tanzania, to learn more of what God is doing on the other side of the globe.

Or maybe it’s the joy our pastoral intern Sonja has brought us these past few months. She’s in St. Paul right now as part of her seminary education, and will be back with us later this month.

Or the silly scriptural improv of Lenten pastor chats, coming to Wednesday services soon? We’ll try to stay off any scaffolding that may pop up here this year as best we’re able. No guarantees ?

There is so.very.much to be excited about around here at Bethesda right now.

Because of that we’ve given this campaign a theme that describes the particular moment we find ourselves in.

For such a time as this.

For it is a new day,
a new chapter,
a new season –

Of our life, together.

In the community that first gathers at 1517 Northwestern, grows in our faith, then goes out to take part, in the sacred transformation of this world God so loves.

Backstories
Today’s text is from the second section of the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6. As with any other sermon, or movie or book series for that matter, you can’t just pick up the sequel and expect to understand the back story from the first part.

Pastor Bryan made a Star Wars reference last week, so I’ll keep with that pattern here.

Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back is an amazing film; those AT-AT walkers are great. It’s one of my favorites of the entire Star Wars canon. But to fully grasp the film, you have to go back and also watch the original Star Wars: A New Hope, or you’ll be lost.

So let’s go back, to the first part of the Sermon on the Plain, and make sure we cover the important plot lines there.

Mountains
We begin with a scene change. Prior to arriving at the outdoor sanctuary for his message, Jesus had been in the mountains, praying. Getting away from others. Getting close to God.

Next, he gathers the disciples twelve, heads down the mountain and stands on a level place, among a great crowd.

Which is an excellent lesson from Christ we can model.

Have your mountaintop moments, for sure.
Spend the night in prayer, definitely.

But don’t stay in isolation. Come down that mountain, find the plains, get close to humanity. Because Christ’s lessons are best delivered where God’s people are on equal footing.

Blessings and Woes
The plains sermon begins with some blessings; a smaller subset of Matthew’s Beatitudes.

Jesus blesses the poor, the hungry, those who weep.

For the poor receive the kingdom of God,
The hungry are filled,
Those weeping now laugh.

Christ has words for others gathered there that day.
The rich, those with bellies full, those who already laugh.
His words for those groups are, well, something less than positive.

At first blush this section seems to create some winners and losers.

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Yet the rich, the full bellies and the laughers, not so much.

What is good news, for some, just might be heard as bad news, for others.

Isn’t Jesus a uniter of people? Why is he separating the audience into disparate groups? Wasn’t there enough division among people then? Isn’t there enough of that now?

We’ll come back to those questions in a bit.

Doings
Christ’s sermon then moves into our text for today.

These dozen verses represent a veritable how-to manual of Christianity 101. It’s a passage with all sorts of bite-sized nuggets of wisdom.

Love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you.
Bless those who curse you.
Pray for those who abuse you.
Do not judge, do not condemn.
Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

Each of those could be a sermon in itself.

And nestled in with all those tidy actions we hear a lot about comes another call to action.

A call to give.
And to give in a particular kind of way.

Lend, expecting nothing in return, verse 35 implores. Ouch.

That doesn’t sound like a good investment plan.
You’re not going to hear that kind of advice from your financial advisor.

And who should we give to? If we give, expecting nothing in return, maybe it’s to people who can never repay the favor. At least when it comes to dollars and cents.

#Blessed
It’s here where we are called to give to the people Jesus blesses earlier in the sermon, the people of the Beatitudes.

We people of means, and I’d suggest most of us are, to some capacity –

We give to the poor, to meet basic human needs.
We give to the hungry, in search of their next meal.
We give to the sad, providing hope for a joyful tomorrow.

And we expect nothing, financially, in return.

The Sermon on the Plain begins in large brushstrokes, with Jesus proclaiming blessings to people that could really use it. It kind of reminds me of a politician on the campaign trail, busily making promises to everyone they meet. Hearing those promises makes you feel good, for a little while. But down the road, if they get elected, you might wonder, will the promise be kept?

There are reasons Congressional approval ratings are often in the teens and twenties, with high disapproval ratings the norm. Aka politicians don’t often deliver.

But Jesus? He doesn’t offer a blessing to those in need and then walk away.
He gets into the action of making those promised blessings reality. More specifically he gives *us* the divine imagination, and the means, to make those earthly blessings reality.

This is our call.

When we give, with no financial return expected, we receive blessings from another realm. It is in those moments we give as one who already shares in the riches of God’s kingdom.

Just as we all do.

Sum
For such a time as this, we give.

Some to outward mission, local, national, global.
Lifting up the poor, feeding the hungry.

Some to help us better see, and hear, the word of God in our worship.
(Screens, and speakers, an elevator, oh my)

And some to pay down debt, and pay up our endowment. Taken together they ensure the Word of God is proclaimed, and goes out from this congregation, in healing ways, for a long, long time to come.

Close
For our giving unites the earthly haves and have nots. Our giving widens the table. Our giving ensures each of us a seat. It takes us from a world of winners and losers and toward a kingdom where all needs are met.

For when poverty is no more, when each belly is filled, when all tears are dried the kingdom of God will be fully here. And we will laugh, and sing, and dance and dine, in the glory of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit.

For it never was, and never will be money that brings us happiness. It will be the fulfillment of Christ’s blessings for all.

For when we give, without expectation of earthly return, our sacred reward is great. We will be, both in identity and action, children of the most high God.

For when you give here it will be given to you there. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, a cup running over, with all the best God has in store for you.

Now is the moment. For such a time, as this.  Amen.