Karen Hollis | Nov 5, 2023
Stewardship 3: Treasure and Currencies
First Reading: 1 Chronicles 29:10-17 Then David blessed the LORD in the presence of all the assembly; David said: “Blessed are you, O LORD, the God of our ancestor Israel, forever and ever. Yours, O LORD, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O LORD, and you are exalted as head above all. Riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. In your hand are power and might; and it is in your hand to make great and to give strength to all. And now, our God, we give thanks to you and praise your glorious name. “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. For we are aliens and transients before you, as were all our ancestors; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. I know, my God, that you search the heart, and take pleasure in uprightness; in the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to you.
Acts 20:32-35 And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified. I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
When you heard that today’s topic is money, what was your response? Did you tense up? Did you feel nervous or hold your breath a little? Or maybe you were curious or amused? In our culture money is a topic we kind of tiptoe around – it often comes with tension, feelings, a focus on privacy and confidentiality. It’s generally not thought to be a suitable topic for polite conversation, and many other situations. Some may even say it’s not appropriate for church, though I don’t know about that. I don’t really think of communities of faith as places for polite conversation. I do think this is a place for respectful conversation, honest, generous, and courageous conversation. As a community of faith, we gather in the presence of God, in response to God’s call to show up, to support, to serve, to learn and grow. We have always brought our resources together to carry out the ministry of the church, so we need to be able to talk about it with respect, openness, generosity, and even courage. So, I invite us today to be a little courageous as we embark on this exploration of money.
I’m going to begin by taking us back to money’s original purpose. Currencies were created for a very practical reason: to enhance human transactions of exchange. “Before money, individuals and communities exchanged goods by bartering. But sometimes the timing [and] availability of goods did not work out perfectly.”1 Goods were not always available at the same time, so currency became a temporary medium of exchange. Money wasn’t created for hoarding or power or control – those are corruptions of currency’s original calling to enhance people’s lives.2 Money was always intended to be circulated, to be in motion as a means of exchange.
This very practical system of currency exchange did something else, which was perhaps not intended . . . it created a layer of separation between us and gifts from the earth. When we are working fields and trading vegetables, it’s easier to remember that the things we receive and share are actually gifts from God. We live in this world, so we need to remind each other – we often do so in our worship practice. We remember that we cannot be credited with creating anything on our own, after all the raw materials come from God . . . and we give thanks for God’s generosity, God’s love and care for us. God’s goodness around us and within us, moves us to respond, individually and collectively. We come together in community, giving of our time, talent, treasure to the mission and values of our community of faith, because they matter.
King David always had a dream to build a Temple, a home for God, which makes it also a place for the people to encounter the Holy, come, gather, and worship. He saved his resources over many years for this purpose and offered them before his community. Then he asks the community if they will make their own free-will offering . . . he doesn’t try and twist their arms – and I’m sure there was plenty of that at the time. Rather, they have community solidarity and community consensus that building the Temple is important, urgent even, and among them they hear a collective call to respond. 3
Then we hear in this morning’s text David’s doxology or litany of praise to God. He proclaims: “God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.”4 He names the truth that as humans, we are merely moving through this world and this life, but God is eternal. Having a home for God means generations to come will have an ongoing relationship with God; it means safety and stability for their community . . . and God made it all possible.
While the community of faith looks and functions differently today, God’s blessings continue to flow through a variety of currencies, not just money.
During our series Called to be the Church, we’ve been talking about time, talent, treasure. Rev. Eric Law of the Kaleidoscope Institute, in his book Holy Currencies breaks it down a little differently with these 6 currencies. It’s just a different way of framing the conversation. (name them)
(See the image at the top of this page)
The principle is the same that money can’t on its own build a Temple or carry out a ministry. The most important parts of Law’s model are the arrows. Can you see them? Each of the coloured shapes is an arrow pointing in a clockwise direction. When congregation members are engaging with these currencies, not just the currency of time flowing or the currency of treasurer flowing, but each currency flowing into the others, the cycle of blessings turns. Sometimes Law represents this ring of currencies as a bicycle wheel. You may know that when a bicycle wheel turns, it will stay upright . . . when it stops turning, the wheel falls over. I know it’s kind of a startling image, but it makes sense, right? When the currencies of the church are flowing together, working together – in our case time, talent, treasure – when they’re in motion, the cycle of blessings turns. So, this is our invitation, to engage with each of the currencies, so the cycle of blessings can turn, so that our ministry lives and renews itself, so we can collaborate toward a sustainable future for the mission to which we are called now and the mission of generations to come.
