Rich in Heart: Trust
October 30, 2016
Dr. Tom Pace
Luke 21:1-4

Our Scripture today is from the Gospel of Luke. You’ll know it as the story of the “Widow’s Mite.” It’s a very brief Scripture. I hope you’ll look inside your Inside Out Habits guide and follow along. There’s a place for you to take some notes during our message today. I’ll tell you that we know that if you write things then you’ll remember them better. So this is a way for you to really engage and interact with our message and with the Scripture. So I hope you’ll follow along as the Scripture’s read and then maybe make some notes in our message today.

He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury;he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them;for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4 (NRSV)

It’s my privilege to introduce to you Mike and Tamara Palmer. Mike and Tamara have led our Generosity Campaign this year. He is also our Treasurer and Chairman of the Generosity Committee which meets year round to try and develop generosity as a value in our congregation. I’ve asked them to share a bit of their generosity journey with you this morning.
Mike Palmer: Thank you, Dr. Pace. I first want to thank you all for the opportunity we have. We’re honored and humbled and very grateful to have this opportunity to serve as chairs of the Generosity Campaign. It’s such an exciting time in the life of our church.
When I got the call from Dr. Pace last year asking me to serve as Treasurer and Chair of the Generosity Committee and Campaign my initial reaction was “Who? Me?” I was going about my own business, active by my standards but not really all that active with the church. We’d gotten our kids through college and just finished a nightmarish and expensive home renovation. Finally, I thought, I’ve got the financial bumps in my rear-view mirror. It’s my time to relax, to settle in and enjoy the life I deserve. I’ve earned it.
Between my work, family and other volunteer commitments I’m spread pretty thin. What reason can I come up with to get out of this? I had plenty of excuses but no good reasons, so I prayed and got an answer, but not the one I was looking for. So I prayed again. I took a deep breath and reluctantly accepted. Here I am, Lord.
As Generosity Chair I began to reflect on why Tamara and I should be generous to St. Luke’s. Most of my adult life I gave because that’s what my father did, and I tend to do the right thing, so that’s what I did. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that I really give, because I’m so very blessed. I’m a person who’s always appreciated the little things in life, watching one of my kid’s soccer or baseball games or my beloved LSU Tigers, a dinner with friends, mowing my lawn, taking a nap, or watching the sun rise and listening to the day wake up from the bench of a duck blind.
And the more I thought about it the more I realized so many of the little things were also here at St. Luke’s, the friends who greet me each time I enter the church, the Christmas Eve candlelight services in the balcony, the Easter egg hunt on Blanton field with the tallest Easter Bunny ever, the beautiful music every Sunday, supper clubs with our Sunday school class friends who’ve become our best friends, playing soccer with the kids on the Gethsemane fields, and sharing life’s joys and challenges with my Men’s Life group. When I really thought about it, I realized that all of these little things really were the biggest and the best things in my life.
God has given me so much, and I’ve learned not that I have an obligation to give, but that I really want to give my time and treasure. What I had first seen as being another volunteer job and potential drain on my precious time soon presented itself as an opportunity to step outside my comfort zone, to strengthen my faith and practice my inside-out habits.
I was given a backstage VIP pass, a peak behind the curtains. I want to share just a few things I’ve learned about this church and myself over this past year. I learned more about the Outreach ministries and the Mission programs and their impact on our community, most recently the help we provided to the flood victims in Louisiana. I heard inspirational stories of faith that were shared at the meetings I attended. I witnessed the amazing talent, the passion and the dedication of the leadership team and staff and have prayed with them and for each other. They’ve become my friends.
The parking challenges that we had to deal with during construction presented more opportunities. Our golf cart Uber ministry introduced me to people I would not have otherwise met. I had to enter the church through the Children’s Wing to attend church or a meeting which I hadn’t done since our children were younger. I had no idea of the number of young families with children who attend church and Sunday school. I better understand and appreciate why we need new buildings. In my role as Treasurer I reviewed the financial statements and am both proud and assured that the numbers tell a story of good stewardship.
God has nudged, pushed and encouraged me during this past year to stretch further to give more of myself. He opened my ears to hear and listen to his calling. He’s opened my eyes to see what little I give and to appreciate how abundantly I received back.
As we look toward this coming year and beyond, I hope and pray that you tap into the richness and the treasures that lie within your heart, and invest generously in the ministries of St. Luke’s with intention and gratitude, and that you experience the joy of giving.
Dr. Pace: Thank you very much. I am so grateful for the great leadership. Thank you. You guys have done a great job, and I’m so grateful. It has been a lot of fun to begin to think about how we on a regular basis foster generosity that there would be an explosion of generosity out of this congregation not just for St. Luke’s but for our whole community, the time and talent and energy to make a difference in our city.
So we’ve been talking about what are the drivers of generosity. What is underneath them that leads us to be generous? What is it that we value that we practice that leads us to generosity? And then, second, how those same things are the very things that make our very lives rich and full.
So, for example, we talked about gratitude. That gratitude is what’s behind generosity, that we give because we are grateful that we’ve been so blessed. And when we come to understand how God has blessed us, there is a natural sense in which we want to give, to pay it forward. That gratitude in and of itself makes our lives rich and full that when we’re grateful people we are rich in heart.
The second thing we talked about two weeks ago was the idea of vision, that we give towards a vision. I like to think of gratitude as sort of pushing us along and a vision as sort of pulling us along. We see what God can do, what God intends to do in the world around us. We catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God, and we want to be a part of that. We want to be God’s agents in bringing about the Kingdom, so we give to fulfill that vision, to be a part of it. And when we are a part of a vision, when we’re living lives of purpose, then we are incredibly rich in heart. That makes life full of meaning and purpose.
Then last week we talked about we give out of duty, and that duty isn’t such a bad thing. We kind of give it a negative connotation, but duty is a noble thing, and it’s what happens when you choose to be a part of a covenant community. We give because we said we would. We give because we’ve made a commitment, so therefore, we’re going to live out that commitment throughout our lives. And when we made a promise to support St. Luke’s with our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness, we’re going to live that out, to follow through on that. And in the midst of that we find ourselves feeling like we belong, and we’re a part of something.
Today I want to talk about the last value that drives our generosity and that is trust. We give because we trust God, and we give in order that we might trust more. So would you please join me in prayer as we look at this Scripture?
Let’s pray together. O God open us up, open our eyes that we might see, and our ears that we might hear what you speak to us today. Open our hearts that we might feel, and then O Lord open our hands that we might serve. Amen.
The Widow’s Mite – the smallest little coin, a tiny little gift. I want to put this story that most of us have heard in context, because when you catch where it falls you understand some things that you might not have understood before. It is in the last week of Jesus’ life. He is in Jerusalem. He’s ridden in on the donkey and been proclaimed king, but very first thing he did was go to the temple and turned over the tables of the money changers and really made some people mad. It became clear that by the time he was doing his teaching that they were coming for him.
So he sees the widow, actually he sees both those who are wealthy and the poor widow giving their gifts to the treasury. He says, “Look, she has given more than any of them, because she has given all that she had.”
He’s about to give all that he has. He’s about to give his life. And he’s using that as an illustration to say, “Look, that’s what it means. That’s what it means to follow me.” And just three verses later or so after this he goes into a long explanation that you his disciples are going to suffer and be persecuted and you, too, are going to be martyred. You’re going to be like the widow who gives all that you’ve got.
The first thing we learn from this poor widow was that she was all in. She was all in, she was giving all she had, she was pushing all of her chips into the middle. There weren’t many chips but she was pushing them all in.
I have a great story that a pastor friend told me. He was playing racquetball with one of his wealthier members, and the wealthy member in between games looked at him and was kind of blunt. He said, “You’re only playing racquetball with me so you can have some of my money.” My friend told him, “Sir, I have to tell you that I don’t want any of your money. And I will tell you that God doesn’t want some of your money. God wants all of your money. And God wants all of your time, and God wants all of your life, and God wants all of your heart and God wants all of your prayers. God wants all of you, the whole thing, the whole deal. He wants you to be all in.”
One of the things that I struggle with about the idea of a tithe… last week I talked about why a tithe is the Biblical standard and how it came about. But the reason I struggle with it is that most of us interpret it this way. We think, “I’m going to give my ten percent to God, and the other 90% is mine. It’s all mine.”
That’s not the point. Ten percent might be for the work of the church but all of it belongs to God, one hundred percent. Over and over we see this in Scripture where Jesus says to the disciples, “If you want to gain your life you must lose it for my sake, and if you lose it for my sake you’ll gain everything. You have to give it all.”
The rich young man comes to him and says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus says, “Sell what you have. Give everything to the poor, and come and follow me.”
Now what does that mean for you and me? It means that every single part of our life, all we’ve got, is to be given to God - all we’ve got.
Some years ago we were having a Stewardship campaign, and we invited people to give what we called “Stewardship Moments,” brief moments where they made decisions about how they would be stewards of what God had given to them. What I became aware of was that they weren’t always talking about the church, and they weren’t always talking about charity. There were lots of things that were “stewardship moments,” moments when we were going to manage what God had given to us.
I began to think, for example, about all the money I had spent in all of my life on my children. I added it up. I added up the ballet lessons, paying all the soccer trainers, all the trips we’d taken, all the orthodontist bills. This was before the days of weddings too, and I hadn’t even added those in. School and tutors and everything. I looked at that number and thought, “This is not worth it. They are not worth this much money. The cost benefit analysis came through, and I’d made a grievous error.”
Okay, that’s not true. They’re worth it – they’re certainly worth it. It’s just a funny line, and I was going to use it anyway.
Here’s what I would tell you, though. I did realize that that moment was a stewardship moment, because here’s what it means to be all in. When we’re all in we realize that God calls us to do all sorts of things, calls us to be citizens, calls us to be parents, calls us to be married, calls us to be friends, calls us to be…. You make a list. Everybody has a different calling.
And what God says is, “I’m going to give you everything you need to achieve that to which I’ve called you. I’m going to give you everything you need to accomplish that to which I’ve called you, and you have to be a steward of it. You have to manage it. And don’t waste it – don’t blow it on stuff. Use it on the things I’ve called you to do.”
So when we choose to be all in it isn’t saying, “Oh, I’m just going to make a huge gift to the church.” It’s saying, “I’m going to give all my life, every part of it, to honoring God.”
Now here’s the truth. I know that in my life I hold some things back. We might think, “This part? I don’t really trust you with it. I don’t want to give you my career yet, because you may not want me to be successful, and I really want to be at the top of the heap, God! I don’t really know if I want to give you my marriage yet, God, because I know if I do I’m going to have to start behaving differently.” Right? We hold stuff back. To be all in is to say, “I’m going to give it all to you, God, every bit, all my time, my energy, everything.”
This widow, we learned, was all in.
Here’s the second thing. This widow was a truster. She trusted God. I want you to think about this. Here’s this woman, and she’s a widow. In that culture it wasn’t a culture full of working women where they supported themselves. In fact, often when a man died his brother would take his wife as his so that someone would support her. Well, here she is, and she’s a widow, and she only has two coins, and she puts them in. And I would suspect she’s done that before.
And here’s what I imagine her doing. She’s standing there saying to herself, “I’m still standing. I’m still here. I’ve made it. God, you gave me manna yesterday, and you gave me manna the day before, and you gave me manna the day before that. And I’m still here. And I believe you’re going to give me manna tomorrow, and I’m going to put these coins in, because I know you’re going to take care of me tomorrow.” That’s a realization that we can trust God.
I hope you’ve had some hard times in your life. I hope you’ve had what the TV calls “Ramen Noodle Days” where all you have is Ramen Noodles to eat. I hope you’ve had some of those. We’ve never actually been hungry, but I will tell you that there have been times in my life that I’ve wondered how we were going to pay the bills. And I didn’t know if I would be able to make ends meet and seemed it like the expenses were more than the revenue.
And what you learn from those is that you make it. I’m now 58, I think. I’m not sure – I haven’t done the math quite right. Yes, I’m 58 – no, I’m 57, I’ll be 58 this year. That’s it. No, I’m 58… it’s October. What are you laughing at? Stop that! I’m 58 and here’s what I know. God has gotten me this far. I’ve made it. And God will take care of me tomorrow and the next day and the next day.
Have you seen that commercial? I’ve seen it on the Golf Channel since that’s the kind of place they put it. It asks, “What is your number? Once you get to that number you’ll be secure! Is your number a million dollars? If you have a million dollars you know you can retire. Or is your number 2 million or 5 million? Or 100,000? I don’t know. What is your number?”
And the implication is that once I get to that number I can go, “Ah! That’s good!” But nobody ever gets to the number. Because once you get to that number you’d think, “You know, I’d be a little more secure if I had a little more than this. Then I’d really be secure, and once I get there maybe a little more would even be better than that.”
There’s no number. I used a term here in this sermon that isn’t a real word and that’s “truster.” I know that’s not a word because it had a red line under it in the Microsoft Word document that shows that “truster” isn’t a real word. But I wanted to use it because I wanted to demonstrate that trust is not a matter of the circumstance, it’s a matter of character. One becomes a “truster” – one becomes a person who trusts as a matter of character. It’s not dependent on our circumstance, it’s not dependent on how others treat us. We don’t trust people just because they’re trustworthy. We trust because it’s part of our character to be trusters. And we learn that, we learn to trust. We learn by trusting God.
So the essence of the Christian faith is in our relationships, the way we treat and act with other people. Maybe this isn’t the essence. Maybe it’s an outgrowth of the Christian faith; part of what it means to live a Christian life is that we treat others not based on how they treat us but out of our relationship of love with God. We love because God first loved us. Jesus says, “If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek…” Well, what’s the point of that? It’s saying, “Don’t let that person define who you’re going to be. You be who you’re going to be based on who you are and what is your identity in Christ. “Love your neighbors and pray for your enemies,” then Jesus says, “If you only love those who love you, you’re no better than the Pharisees. They do that. Anybody does that.” If you only love people who love you, only trust people who are trustworthy, anybody can do that. But no, we are trusters. We have built this relationship with God that allows us to live a life that’s full of trust.
Here’s another way to look at it. The opposite of being a truster is being insecure. It’s a matter of character, isn’t it? People who are insecure instead of trusters are always worrying and working and needling and trying to get their place in the sun and get their place at the top of the heap and to make sure they’re getting their credit, making sure they’re acknowledged. That’s not living a life that’s “rich in heart.” But when you develop the character of trusting, you look at the world in an altogether different way.
One of my favorite stories or parables – I’m sure I’ve shared it with you before – is the Parable of the Monk and the Scorpion. The monk is crossing a river that’s rising and he gets half way across the river and sees a scorpion sitting on a rock. He knows that as the water rises the scorpion is going to drown. So he scoops up the scorpion with his hand and he carries it the rest of the way across the river. Then as he’s walking across the river the scorpion begins to sting him and sting him the whole way across the river. And he’s wincing in pain and he’s struggling with that and when he gets to the other side he lays the scorpion down on dry ground. Then he begins to nurse his wounds. The other monks say to him, “Why did you do that? Didn’t you know that scorpion was going to sting you? He doesn’t know you’re trying to save him. He doesn’t know you’re trying to save his life. It’s in his character to sting – it’s in his nature to sting you.”
And monk says, “Yes, but it’s in my nature to save.”
It is in our nature, it is in our character as followers of Christ to be trusters and one of the reasons that we encourage – I encourage you and that Dee and I together will choose a number that might make us a little uncomfortable when it’s time to give. It’s because in that discomfort we learn to trust.
We’re not doing something crazy, we’re not thinking, “Well, I’m just going to give whatever I have left.” The idea is to continue to try and grow in your trust of God and trust of the people in the world around you, because that’s the character of a Christian, not insecure. But we rest in trusting God’s love for us no matter what.
The last component of this has really taken hold of my heart in this year as I’ve read this story. I guess I’d never really seen it before or thought of it this way. The Scripture says, “She gave out of her poverty, while they gave out of their abundance.”
I began to think, “What does it mean for me to give out of my poverty? So that’s not money. To give out of poverty means to give what you don’t have a lot of, not to give what you’re particularly good at but what you’re not so good at, not what your great strength is, but maybe what the thing that is hardest for you.
We have a friend who had a stroke a year ago, and she has been struggling. She’s my age – either 57 or 58 – and she has been struggling to try and come back and speak again. She worships at a church in Kingwood – Strawbridge United Methodist Church – and she stood up in the front of her little congregation, and she recited the Lord’s Prayer. Not a dry eye in the house. Everybody was so thrilled and excited and it was hard for her to get through it. But that was an offering to God, because it was hard. If it had been easy, it wouldn’t have been such an offering. But because it was hard, it was an offering.
So to give out of our poverty means to give out of that which is sometimes difficult for us. Let me give you an example. Let’s say that you are a person who is scheduled edge to edge. You think, “I don’t have time to do everything I need to do. I’m just overwhelmed.” I bet there are a bunch of you who are that way. Just edge to edge. You say, “I don’t have time.” Well, then maybe to give out of your poverty means to take an hour a week and be a Kids’ Hope mentor every single week. “I’ve got to put it on my calendar, I’ve got to force it in there somehow and in some way. I’m going to give out of my poverty; I’m going to give out of what it seems I don’t have much of.”
Or maybe prayer is really hard for you and it seems silly for you to sit and pray and as you’re praying, you think, “What am I doing this for?” Well, maybe if that’s hard for you then you say, “I’m going to be on our prayer team, and I’m going to pray for an hour a week in the prayer room here for all the prayer leaves that have been placed in the offering plate, and over all the prayer concerns that are lifted up on our prayer line. I’m going to spend time doing that because that would be a gift out of my poverty, out of what’s difficult for me.” You can figure out what it is that might be hard for you, but that gift is a way of moving yourself toward all in.
I wrote this in my e-mail – those of you who get my weekly e-mail - and if you’d like to get it you can sign up on line. I send out an e-mail each week with a prayer in it. And in that weekly prayer this time I acknowledged that lately my giving hasn’t been worth much. And I don’t mean that the number isn’t right. I mean that I don’t attach much meaning to it. It’s perfunctory. And it isn’t a gift of my whole life, as much as it should be. And it isn’t an “all-in-ness” and in the midst of it I’m not learning to trust in God more.
So for me this year it is a time for making that commitment have more meaning and more purpose for me. I want to invite you as you come today, as you kneel here, whether you’re bringing a card or whether you’re not, that this would be a time in which you begin to attach more meaning to your commitment, to your giving of your time and your talent, and your prayers, and your presence and your service, your witness. As you come forward that those really matter and this is a time of meaning and purpose for you.
So let’s pray, and then the choir’s going to sing, and I’ll invite you to just come as you wish. If you’d rather remain in your pew but would like to give a card, if you’ll just signal an usher, they’ll be here with baskets and can bring them forward.
Let’s pray together. Lord God, as we come to the altar today, we do pray that this would be a time in which we have attached a real worth, real meaning and purpose to these commitments, that they really do become signs of the gift of our whole lives, that we are a people who are all in to be followers of your Son Jesus, that we see this as a call to live lives of compassion and justice, that we do what’s right with our lives with all of them, and we don’t hold anything back. And that in the midst of that we would learn to trust you, to trust you just as you trust us. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.