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11.08.09

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

INVESTING IN THE COMMUNITY

1 SAMUEL 29:10-20; MARK 12:13-17, 38-44

• To Benefit the Community
• The Value of Local Currency
• The town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts is printing its own currency
• This money is called the “BerkShare,” a play on words for the Berkshires region in which it is located
• The money looks a lot like Monopoly money and it is accepted as legal tender only in the town of Great Barrington
• Printed locally, the BerkShares feature pictures of local artists, heroes and historical figures and come with individual serial numbers that make them tough to counterfeit
• The idea behind the BerkShare is to encourage the residents of Great Barrington to buy locally
• For every 95 cents spent, local residents get one dollar’s worth of BerkShares, which they can use to buy goods and services from any of 400 participating businesses in the area
• Buying locally is good for the economy
• It keeps money flowing between friends, neighbors, and local businesses, and that helps everybody have a better life
• It supports the local tax base, keeps people employed, and encourages the creation of new job opportunities
• Investing in the community benefits everyone who lives and works in the community
• The residents of Great Barrington aren’t alone in their creation of a local currency
• From Detroit to North Carolina to Upstate New York, at least twelve other communities are trying to encourage people to buy and spend locally be printing up their own Monopoly-style money
• In fact, the first community to undertake such a project was Ithaca, NY
• Since 1991, many businesses there have accepted the use of a locally printed currency called “Ithaca Hours”
• Each Hour note is meant to be valued at one hour of work, and these notes can be traded in exchange for goods and services at over 500 area businesses
• The primary function of the Ithaca Hours system is to promote local economic development
• Businesses who receive Hours must spend them on local goods and services, thus building a network of inter-supporting local businesses
• The Church As A Community
• Investing in the community benefits everyone in the community
• As this is true for the communities in which we live, it is also true for the faith community in which we participate
• The local church survives and thrives only insofar as its members are willing to invest themselves in the ministry of Jesus Christ to the world
• It is only through the giving of our time, talents, and treasures that the local church can be faithful to the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ to which it is called
• Investing in the community of faith benefits those who are part of this community of faith, and it benefits our neighbors who are outside the community of faith as we reach out and move out into the community around us to meet the needs of those who live there
• In 1 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul likens the community of faith to a body—more specifically to the Body of Christ
• As each member of the Body contributes what he/she has been gifted by the Holy Spirit to give, each of the other members of the body are supported and encouraged, and the entire body is strengthened for the task it is called upon to do
• Investing in the community of faith helps us to be a healthier and stronger community, enabling us to better fulfill the mission and ministry of Jesus Christ to which we have been called
• While there are personal benefits from investing in the community of faith, those personal benefits must never be our primary motivation for giving
• We must not give with the expectation of getting something in return
• Our motivation for investing in the community ought only to be to strengthen the Body of Christ so that we, as a Body, might be better equipped to carry out Jesus’ ministry in the world
• Giving to God What is God’s
• The Offering for the Temple
• In 1 Chronicles 29, we hear the words of King David’s prayer of dedication over an offering received for the building of a temple
• This temple was to be the house of God, the dwelling place of God in their midst
• It was to be for them a reminder that God is always in their midst, and it was to be a place where all who gather there might have a life-changing encounter with God
• The giving by the Israelites for this offering was an investment in their community of faith
• While the bulk of this particular offering was in gold, silver, bronze, jewels, and materials for the construction of the temple, the actual construction of the temple would only occur through the giving of time, talents and strength by various members of the community who had the skills necessary to complete the various tasks of construction
• So this offering was so much more than just the giving of money; it was the giving of themselves, an investment of their whole life into a project that would honor God by providing a place from which ministry could be carried out
• As David humbly dedicates this offering, he repeatedly recognizes one significant fact: the people of Israel were able to give of themselves so generously because they have been so richly blessed by God
• The gifts they were giving were not the result of things they gained for themselves, they were the result of God’s love and grace
• Therefore, what they were now giving back to God belonged to God in the first place
• They were enabled to give because God had so richly given to them
• Their offering, then, was their response of thanksgiving to God for all the blessings God had bestowed
• What Belongs to Caesar vs. What Belongs to God
• This is the same point that Jesus makes in the words he says to the Pharisees and Herodians when they questioned him about paying taxes to Caesar
• The Jews believed that paying taxes to Caesar was idolatry because the Roman coin bore the image of Caesar along with an inscription indicating that Caesar himself was divine
• So Jesus asks, “Whose image and inscription is on this coin?” to which they reply, “Caesar’s”
• To that, Jesus replied, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s”
• By using the word “image,” Jesus takes these Jewish leaders back to the story of creation, reminding them that humanity was created in the image of God
• Therefore, God is entitled to the best we have to offer since the image of God is imprinted upon all our life
• The only thing Caesar could require was the return of his coins to him since they were the only things that bore his image
• But our loyalty and devotion belong to God since God imprinted God’s image upon us in our creation
• Everything we have and all that we are belong to God since it is God who made us what we are
• What we offer to God we give back to God as an investment in God’s community
• We see this illustrated as well in Jesus’ praise of the widow’s offering
• Many people dropped in large sums of money as Jesus sat and watched, while the widow could offer no more than two coins worth a fraction of a penny
• The difference was that those who gave much gave out of their abundance, and they wouldn’t even miss what they gave
• The widow, on the other hand, gave sacrificially—she gave all she had to live on—literally, her whole life
• It is not the amount of the offering that Jesus praises, it is the attitude of the widow’s giving
• Everyone else who gave, gave only enough so they could remain comfortable in their living
• The widow gave until it hurt—she had no more to give because she gave all she had
• Reinvesting the Gifts of God
• Investing in the community is good for the community because the members of the community benefit from it
• While investing in the community of faith benefits the community of faith and makes it stronger, our motivation for investing in our community of faith must never be done for selfish reasons—to benefit ourselves
• The purpose of investing in our community of faith is so that this community of faith can, in turn, invest itself in the community in which we are called to serve
• Our giving to the church, whether in time, talents, or treasures, is for the purpose of enabling the church to be faithful in mission and ministry to the community, to expand its outreach, and enable the church to share the love and grace of God as it responds to people in need
• We give to the church so that the church can give to others
• In this way, we are faithful to Christ’s Great Commission
• In Jesus’ words from Mark 12, we hear his condemnation of the church if the church is not investing itself in its community
• This condemnation comes in his harsh words about the teachers of the law
• Those teachers of the law that Jesus condemns were the leaders of the temple to which the poor widow contributed
• But instead of ministering to the needs of the poor and seeking justice for the oppressed as God’s word commands, these teachers of the law sought self-glorification
• They “devour widows’ houses”—literally, the stole from those who were most in need—and they did so for their own benefit
• If we seek to have people give their offerings to the church so that the church might benefit from those offerings, we are acting no differently than the teachers of the law that Jesus condemns
• If we are only concerned about a healthy bottom line, we can expect to be disappointed by the offerings we receive
• The facts bear it out that people will not give to the church to support a healthy bottom line
• People will invest themselves in the community of faith when they see that community of faith actively investing itself in the lives of others through ministries that genuinely respond to human need
• When a church is truly being the church as Jesus called it to be, people will invest themselves in it freely and generously
• Communities like Great Barrington, MA, and Ithaca, NY, and others who have developed their own form of local currency are beginning to see the benefits
• Not only do the businesses benefit from the local residents investing in the local economy, the community as a whole benefits as local businesses reinvest their earnings, their time, and their gifts to make the community a better place to live
• This is a lesson the church needs to learn
• We are a people who are called together into community through a common faith in Jesus Christ
• As the Body of Christ, what each of us has to bring into the community of faith makes the Body stronger
• And we are strengthened, not for the benefit of ourselves, but so that, through our strength, we might be a benefit to the larger community and the world as we respond in loving and caring ways to meet the needs of those around us and minister the love and grace of God through Jesus Christ
• Investing in a community of faith that models the values of Jesus is an investment well made