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If you've been around St Mary's for the past year or so, you won't be surprised at the subject I've chosen for my report this year. It's MONEY! I'm not so vulgar that money is the only thing I'm going to talk about - in fact I don't actually believe money is a vulgar subject at all: the Bible has a great deal to say about it, and in my book that means it's not vulgar. Our attitude to it maybe vulgar, or mistaken or faithless or ill-informed or a thousand other misunderstandings - but if we allow the Lord to teach us it can become more precious than gold and a wonderful channel of His blessing.
Nowhere is that better illustrated than the frequent misquotation of 1 Timothy 6:10, that 'money is the root of all evil'. If it is, then I should put my pen away immediately and/or choose a different subject. Except that it isn't the root of all evil: Satan and self are, according to God's word. It's when we love money more than we love God that big trouble comes. 'The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil' is what Paul actually wrote to Timothy, a young man capable of being dazzled by all the latest gizmos in the Ephesian markets and diverting precious resources away from the Lord's work in Asia minor of relieving hardship and spreading the good news of Jesus.
And it's still like that now. There's always so much more that could be done - if only we had the money!! Which is like saying "there's so much more that could be done ... if only we had the time!" Is it possible that we actually have enough of both, if only we used them properly? Now that can't possibly mean that we have enough time and money to do all that needs to be done in Haughton Green or Denton or Tameside ... but rather, enough to do all that the Lord of the church is asking us to do. "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's resources", said James Hudson Taylor, the best-known of all missionaries to China and founder of the China Inland Mission. "If I had a thousand pounds China should have it; if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?" And there lay the passion that took this gifted young medical student to the other side of the globe - to the unrewarding work of preaching to the unresponsive Chinese. Unresponsive, at least at first - in fact from 18 preaching tours in the vicinity of Shanghai there were no more than a handful of converts - but Hudson Taylor's message and methods proved in the end to be God's work done in God's way, and God's resources were enough:
"the Mission is supported entirely by the free-will offerings of the Lord's people. The needs of the work are laid before God in prayer, no personal solicitations or collections being authorised. No more is expended than is thus received, going into debt being considered inconsistent with the principle of entire dependence upon God."
In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, chapters 8 and 9, we learn where Hudson Taylor got these principles from: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ", he wrote, "that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich". If giving is at the heart of the gospel ("God so loved ... that He gave ...") is it any surprise that giving is at the heart of sharing the gospel? St Mary's lives by the giving of God's people, both past and present. We do not earn our income, as we do not earn our salvation. The God of love gives it to us that we may give it away, and as we do we share in His mission of love to a broken world. We can't save it, or anyone in it, but He can - and does, through the unselfish giving of time and money by His people, supporting the spoken message shared by any means possible.
Over many years this mission of love in Haughton Green has been backed by generous giving, and it still is. From the relatively modest income of around 150 people, nearly £90,000 was given last year. I have not the faintest idea who gives how much; I never have known, and I never will or want to; but I'm sure many sacrifice some of the good things they might otherwise enjoy in order to share in the Lord's work here and elsewhere. 'Giving till it hurts' is thoroughly Biblical: "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing", said King David. Except that the hurt is outweighed by the benefit, and talk of sacrifice is thought inappropriate: "I never made a sacrifice;" said Dr David Livingstone, "we ought not to talk of 'sacrifice' when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His father's throne on high to give Himself for us."
To what better and more lasting use could our money be put than transforming lives into the likeness of Jesus and preparing people for heaven? In this way it is possible to 'lay up treasure in heaven' - a far better thing to do with our money than leave it where moths and rust eat it away and thieves nick it or inflation renders it worthless!
We are not going to deny God's people the joy and privilege of sharing in His work of love by fund-raising - except to enable those who do not have cash to convert the time and talents they do have into cash (as in an auction of gifts). Why should cash be the only way to share in this privilege of giving? Or the only gift which is acceptable?
How much we give is almost beside the point. The example Jesus gave in Mark 12 of the widow who put two very small copper coins into the temple treasury, worth only a fraction of a penny, is crystal-clear on this point: as a proportion of her wealth it greatly exceeded the large amounts put in by the rich - and pleased Him far more. It's not just what we give that matters; it's what we don't give. And in the case of the Pharisees, what they didn't give spoke volumes.
The Bible's guideline is 10% - a 'tithe'. It's not compulsory: "God loves a cheerful (willing) giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). Don't grumble; the Lord leaves you nine times that amount to live on! Could you live on 9 times what you give away?
There's a challenge about getting stones into a jar. Do you put the little ones in first, then the slightly bigger ones, then the much bigger ones and finally the really big ones? You'll never get them all in that way. Get the really big ones in first, then the others in decreasing order of size - and you'll find they all go in. Give your tithe to the Lord first, and you'll always have enough; leave it till last, and it becomes impossible. Surely, if all of us were tithing our income we could do a lot more and give a lot more away than we do.
And I don't just mean pay more diocesan share! We have objected to paying a share of £64,000 this year for a number of reasons (and it has since been reduced to £55,000, on appeal). We believe in paying our way, and the Diocese of Manchester needs income in order to pay its clergy and maintain buildings and support ministry; but if we are asked to pay more because other churches are not paying their way - and we are thereby supporting churches and ministries which do not honour Christ by obeying His word ("doing God's work in God's way") - then we say "that's not what we give for or who we give to!". We do not waste the Lord's money and the gifts of the Lord's people on ministry which does not honour Him.
It is not just because we cannot pay a share of £64,000 that we are talking about money now. It's the standard of our giving, not the demands of the diocese, that should concern us. The fact that we can't pay what the Diocese asks us to pay is not in itself evidence that our giving falls short. The better way to rate it is by what we give, not by what the Diocese takes (or tries to). If tithing is right - and it's the only figure the Bible actually mentions (apart from Zacchaeus's 'half to the poor and four times the amount I've cheated anyone'; would you prefer that to tithing?) - then we will give £200 a month if our income is £24,000 a year - or £333 a month if our income is £40,000 a year. If pension income is only £12,000 a year then our tithe will be £100 a month, and so on.
If you're horrified at the idea, and know you can't afford it, why does the Lord ask you to give it? Because faith is like a muscle, and needs to be stretched frequently or it goes flabby. When it is stretched, it grows strong and tough and can achieve 'immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine'. "Abraham did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised" (Romans 4:20,21)
Many tithers never thought they could manage it, but launched out in faith. "Test me in this", says the Lord in Malachi 3:10, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." If the Lord fails the test, then you're quids in: go back to putting a pound or two on the plate and keep the rest for yourself! He can hardly complain, since you've kept your bit of the bargain and He hasn't. But I don't know anyone who's ever done that.
If it wasn't rather a personal business and might be thought pretentious, I'm sure there are many in St Mary's who could say they have tested the Lord in this way ... and found Him utterly trustworthy. Instead of just knowing the theory they have found it to be true in practice. Some households have had to cut back in the past year or two as their income has gone down; OK, so their tithe is less - the Lord understands! Except that some super-fit givers with bulging faith-muscles have decided to carry on giving as before ... high risk stuff! And the Lord has passed that test too. Jesus said that, when we give, our left hand should not know what our right hand is doing - a rather charming way of saying it's a secret between us and him. When I was a curate, an elderly man who could not persuade the Vicar to do something he thought should be done, said to me "Young man, if you knew how much I give Jesmond Parish Church, you'd persuade the Vicar to change his mind!" I responded to this very nasty threat by saying I did not know, I did not want to know, and even if I did know it would make not one scrap of difference to me or the Vicar.
It's often said that our giving is an accurate measure of our love for Jesus and our commitment to Him. It's a sign of how His Spirit is working on our selfishness, and replacing it with His love. I don't know how the £90,000 given last year is spread across the members of St Mary's, so I can only generalise: but it looks to me as though the Lord must be doing something really deep in many lives and in many bank accounts and purses - and for that we should all say 'Hallelujah!'.
This month of May is going to be 'Take my life' month, based on the lovely and well-known hymn by Frances Ridley Havergal. Our theme for 5 Sundays will be commitment to Christ: 'take my hands', 'take my voice', 'take my wealth', 'take my motives' and 'take my love'. What does my commitment to Him add up to? A little boy was at a Harvest Thanksgiving service and saw the offertory plate coming towards him; his pockets were empty, he had nothing to give. As the sidesman brought the plate to him, he knew what he had to do: he asked for the plate to be put on the floor, and then he stepped on to the plate. "Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee; take my moments and my days - let them flow in ceaseless praise!" How much cash on the plate? None! How much giving? Incalculable! How much joy in heaven? Immeasurable! How much blessing on earth? Unimaginable!
I've often said that the hymn is not "Take my life and let it be": if He takes my life, He won't let it be! He'll do all sorts of things with it, turning it right way round, right way up and front to back - using me for His glory. If we get past the first three words - 'Take my life' - God only knows what will happen! Our work, our speaking, our singing, our giving, our hearts, our minds, our priorities, our love, our past, our present, our future, our relationships, our worship, our families, our time will all be different. Even more different than they are now, and He's been at work in some of us since Adam was a lad. But He isn't finished with us yet, and He won't be until our names are in the Book of Remembrance over there.
Please pray for next month's "internal mission" - that the Lord will use this simple theme to stir us up to love Him more, to know His love for us more deeply, and to show it in all kinds of ways - of which giving us just one. If Holy Week and Easter have gone more than skin-deep, then we'll want to say with Isaac Watts:
Were the whole realm of nature mine -
that were an offering far too small;
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all!
Martin Dowland 2011
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