Sun. Sept. 2 (Don Teichroeb)

Don Teichroeb (our congregation's moderator and former treasurer) presented the final talk of the summer's series of 2 Corinthians, focusing on chapters 8-9, the most extensive passage in Christian scripture dealing with stewardship. "Stewardship is the link between what we believe and what we do." In the early part of the Book of Acts we read about the more wealthy Christians in Jerusalem selling their assets in order to share resources freely with impoverished believers. This unusual action is lauded even today, and Paul referred to those people as "the saints in Jerusalem". However, when economic disaster struck the region and internal resources could no longer sustain the community of believers in the capital city, Paul and others organized a relief programme. The appeal for generosity took various approaches, including an appeal for helping those in the larger community of faith, responding to God's generosity, responding to faith in concrete ways, and even being inspired by the giving of others (the Macedonians not only gave but begged to be allowed to give-"a church treasurer's dream come true"). It would seem that people were no longer tithing to the Temple or synagogues (though we do not know for certain) because they were worshipping independently of those institutions, and so their giving appears to be in response to specific needs (famine) and causes (missionary work and the slowly emerging class of church workers). Paul urged the Corinthians to give "according to their means", not according to an institutionalized budget. In fact, tithing would not be widely practiced by Christians until at least the 700's when the church became institutionalized and required a predictable budget. Don noted that we have received so much, not only from God, but from our culture, our society, Canada's vast good fortunes-and that we hold all of this 'in trust' from God. It is therefore not just a question of whether we give regularly (as our means enables, and this changes as we pass through life's various stages) but we must also think carefully about what we do with the remaining 90% or less. John Neufeld addresses this and other stewardship-related topics in his publication, "From grateful to generous". Erin Teichroeb brought the morning's meditation to a close by describing her volunteer work this summer at Camp Squeah (kitchen, leading rock climbing, etc.), reminding us that we also need to think carefully about being good stewards of our time. [JEK] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday Sept. 2nd using your browser's preferred media player.