“Flinging Seed”
2 Corinthians 9:1-15
A story is told of a minister who received
a telephone call from a man who had a concern. His father, 96 years
of age, had just won the lottery -- 30 million dollars. But they hadn't
told their father yet. He had a weak heart, and they were afraid that
the news might kill him. So the minister agreed to go and speak with
their father. After talking with this man about a number of things at
the church, the minister said to him, "What would you do if you
suddenly came into a great deal of money -- say 30 million dollars?"
To this the man replied, "It wouldn't change my life much -- I
would still have arthritis. It would bring no great joy to me to spend
the money on myself. What would make me happy would be to give the money
away. I would give it to the church!" With this the minister had
a heart attack and died.1
We continue the theme of Stewardship.
Last week we talked about the basis of stewardship as thanksgiving and
joy. Next week, we will have a special Sunday that focuses on our Stewardship
of the environment. The following week, the Sunday before Election Day,
we will focus on the theme of stewardship in the area of our public
life. In totality, we hope that you will discover that stewardship is
not about money, it is about faithful and joyful response to God's love
in all of life, or, using other words, loving God with all your heart,
mind, soul, and strength, and loving neighbor as yourself. All this,
because God has first loved us. Having said that, this morning is about
the real life issue of finances.
From one perspective, it is the age
old story. Church and money. Money and church. It is Fall, and the finance
committee has put together a budget, and it has been approved by the
Session. Those of you who are connected to this congregation will receive
it for your perusal.
Traditionally, tied to the church budget
is the Stewardship Campaign, when we raise money to fund the budget.
But I want to ask you to do something today. For the moment, I am going
to take this budget and put it away.
I don't want to talk about the church,
this morning, because stewardship is not about the church's need or
budget line items. It is not about the pastor's salary, or keeping the
lights on. At its heart, it is about God and you. Personal stewardship
is about joyfully and thankfully reflecting your faith and its values
in every area of your life, including how you spend your money.
I would like to raise an image for you
in today's reading. In the beginning, Paul is not above a little arm
twisting. He talks about not wanting to be embarrassed, and not wanting
the Corinthians to be shamed. Paul sounds very human here. But then
he gets to the nitty gritty. He begins to dig deeper to the foundation
of stewardship. Based on the lavish gift of the grace of God, “It
is time, he says, to fling some seed.”
He quotes Psalm 112: As it is written,
“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures
forever.” You don't quite catch the image from the translation, but
in the Psalm, the image is of the righteous person sticking her hand
into a bag, grabbing a handful of seed and flinging it about extravagantly.
Flinging it here and there. Seeds of peace, justice, and love out of
that big bag of seeds that God has given to us.
God has given us seeds of all types:
time, talents, and yes, our finances too.
With our finances, God has given us
seed to sow goodness love and peace. It is not to meet the budget. This
congregation gives us an opportunity to gather our seeds together so
that we as one body can effect real change, in your life, and my life,
and the world. Stewardship is not about obligation, but (as we grow
in faith) about flinging seeds. Our scattering, our sowing, our flinging
reflects the call and goodness of God in our lives.
We are receiving new members. I am overjoyed,
because this means that we can fling seed together.
One of Lydia's and my favorite stories
for story time, back when she was young, was a story called Miss
Rumphius,2 who was known as the Lupine Lady (lupines,
of course being a kind of flower).
She is also known as That Crazy Old Lady.
The Lupine Lady lives in a small house
overlooking the sea. In between the rocks around her house grow blue
and purple and rose-colored flowers. The Lupine Lady is little and old,
but she has not always been that way.
Once upon a time she was a little girl
named Alice, who lived in a city by the sea. Many years ago her grandfather
had come to America on a large sailing ship. On many evenings, Alice
would sit on her grandfather's knee and listen to his stories of far
away places. And when he had finished, Alice would say, “When I grow
up, I too will go to faraway places and when I grow old, I too will
live beside the sea.”
“That is all very well, little Alice,”
said her grandfather, “but there is a third thing you must do.”
“What is that?” asked Alice.
“You must do something to make the
world more beautiful,” said her grandfather.
“All right,” said Alice, but she
did not know what that could be.
In the meantime Alice got up and washed
her face and ate porridge for breakfast. She went to school and came
home and did her homework. Pretty soon she was gown up, and she set
out to do the three things she had told her grandfather she would do.
Miss Alice Rumphius visited tropical islands, climbed tall mountains,
and went through jungles and deserts. Then she hurt her back when she
fell of a camel in the land of the Lotus eaters. “Maybe it was time
to find her place by the sea,” she thought, and so she did.
But there was still one more thing for
her to do. “I have to make the world more beautiful,” she thought,
but she did not know what she could do.
She had planted lupines in her garden
one summer. The next summer, when she had to stay in bed because of
her back, she came to love the different colored flowers that she could
see from her bedroom window.
Another winter past, and then came Spring.
Miss Rumphius felt better. One afternoon she started to go up and over
the hill, where she had not been in a long time.
“I don't believe my eyes!” she said
as she knelt in delight. “It was the wind that brought seed from my
garden here, and the birds must have helped.”
Then Miss Rumphius had a wonderful idea. She hurried home and got out her seed catalogues. She sent off to the very best seed house for five bushels of lupine seed.
All that summer, Miss Rumphius, her pockets full of seeds, wandered over fields and headlands, sowing lupines. She scattered seeds along the highways and down country lanes.
She flung them around the schoolhouse
and in back of the church. She tossed them into hollows and along stone
walls.
Her back didn't hurt her any more at
all. Now some people called her “That Crazy Old Lady.”
The next spring there were lupines everywhere.
She had done the third and most difficult thing of all. And the world
was a more beautiful place.
Friends, in this place, we see and experience the wonderful seeds of God's grace and love for you and for me. We learn to recognize the seeds that fall each and everyday from the
divine sower's hand. These seeds bring
life. We come to know that we have seed from the very best seed house
and we are called to abundantly, extravagantly scatter those seeds here
there, and everywhere.
We scatter them in Westminster Hall
and down Center and Main Streets. We toss them around in the work place
and in the class room. We fling them at parties and at committee meetings.
We sow them in our relationships with our parents and children, our
spouses and friends.
We scatter them with our words and our
acts of compassion. We toss them with our singing and our listening
ear. We plant them with our time, our talents, and yes, our money.
It is time to fling a little seed, brothers
and sisters. Will you sow with me?
1 from Emphasis: A Lectionary Preaching Journal, sermonsuite.com
2 Miss
Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney
October 21, 2007
Rev. Paul Heins
First Presbyterian Church
Logan, Utah