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1999 Sermon Contest Winner
The Rev. Timothy L. Fountain, Vicar
St. John Chrysostom Mission, Rancho Santa Margarita, California

So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God Luke 12:21
Anybody here used a thesaurus lately? If you search your closets, you'll probably find a dusty little paperback thesaurus from your college days. I need not tell you that computer word processing programs have a thesaurus feature.

A thesaurus gives you choices. If you are stuck using the same word over and over, you go to your thesaurus to give you options. For example, if I'm composing a sermon and find myself with a sentence like, "God is the great God who created all things for God's pleasure", I might want to find some other words for God to make that sentence say something you can follow and understand. The thesaurus gives me wonderful choices: deity, divine being, divinity, Allah, almighty, heavenly Father, lord, supreme Being, effigy, icon, idol, image. So, I can make a selection from that list and fix my clunky sentence to say, "God is the supreme Being who created all things for his divine pleasure." Choices are great!

Now, in Luke Chapter 12, verse 21, we hear Jesus warn us of the dangers of "storing up treasures for ourselves." Guess what Greek word is used here for "treasure"? Thesauros. The Greek word "thesauros", for treasure, meant "a place of safe keeping", like a treasure chest. Just as our word processing thesaurus gives us a supply of word choices, our earthly supply of treasure, our thesauros, is a supply of choices we can make. You might have intuited this at one time or another. Have you ever said something like, "It's not the money that's so important, it's the freedom of choice that the money gives"? We just moved from renting to owning a home. One of the resulting pleasures is freedom of choice. Don't like a room's color scheme? Paint it. Don't like that wall over there? Tear it out. The kid is running through the house with a cup of grape juice? Oh well, it's our rug. I choose not to panic.

Treasure gives choice, but choices carry risks. Most of us are old enough to have experienced that piece of TV history called Let's Make a Deal. Contestants would pile up the prizes and then, at the end of the show, the biggest winners would be offered a choice... "Do you want to keep what you've won so far, or trade it for whatever is behind door number three?" The choice was a risk. The door sometimes concealed a vacation package worth twice as much as the contestant's winnings, but other times might be hiding a joke prize like a stuffed moose head.

Jesus tells us that our earthly treasure is meant for choices - it is our thesauros - and that our choices carry risks. The key choice is between enlarging what we have and enlarging what God has. Jesus warns us of the "eat, drink and be merry" risk taken by the rich man who had enlarged his barns to store his abundance of goods. Certainly, he had provided well for his own needs. The risk says Jesus, is that there comes a point where our life is set before God and our provisions and comforts are meaningless.

But we have the choice to enlarge what God has. Jesus tells us to be "rich toward God". English here doesn't do justice to what the New Testament records in Greek. 'Rich" is presented as a verb, an action in this verse. Jesus is saying that we should be "being rich toward God". We can choose a life style based on the risky choice of giving treasures away so that God's presence is enlarged in this world. Our earthly barns will be more risky - less full of goods - but our treasure in heaven is infinitely great.

Next week will bring us to Luke 12:33-34 and we'll hear Jesus say:
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure (thesauros) in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasures (thesauros) is, there your heart will be also.

The choices you make out of your supply of treasure will take your heart closer or further from God. This month, my family is hosting a young woman from Spain during her visit to this country. I have to tell you, adding a teenager impacts the grocery, travel and just about every other item of the household budget. But that risky giving takes us closer to God, whose word says, Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people entertained angels without knowing it. And, in keeping with God's economy, our visitor has been something of an angel. She has been much more than an extra mouth to feed, she has been an incredible extra set of hands. Working in a second language and across the formidable barrier of autism, she is able to bring incredible joy and affection to our youngest son. She helped our middle son to get over his resistance to jumping into a swimming pool. When we take the risk of giving treasure away, God gives back with something priceless.

Money choices are central to the teachings of Jesus Christ. The New Testament gives us many more (and more detailed) teachings about money than about sex, or child raising, or conducting church ceremonies. I'm not talking about institutional fund raising here, but about the impact of money choices on our souls and our relationship with God. Talking about money is not a "necessary evil" of church life - it is at the heart of who we are and who Jesus is asking us to be.

The man in the story shows us a troubling dimension of our struggle to choose well. Common sense would seem to say that the more we have, the more generous we can be. But Biblical knowledge teaches us that the opposite is true... that wealth can make us more self serving .. "relax, eat, drink and be merry". Research on religious giving has shown that people who earn about $10K per year give away about 3% of their income; at an income around $30K goes down to 2.5%, and in the income range of $75-100K down to 1.5. The demographics of the communities around St. John's would show most of us to be in this risky place, where the ability to enlarge what we have competes with and overcomes our willingness to enlarge what God has.

The relative affluence of this area inhibits our giving in another way. I believe that many of us would give more if we had a sense that our giving alleviated human suffering. We are doing a good job of meeting the fixed costs of our congregation as it exists today, but I really believe that our giving would change dramatically if we experienced it as an enlargement of what God has...that is, if we could see suffering alleviated by our giving, or see lives changed. But, we live in an environment where that kind of human need is hidden. The very poor don't live around here and people who do come here are very slow to admit to need or weakness. There are some fine things being done for God here at St. John's, but no one of them seems to have turned on the light in this congregation. You fund our Chaplain, Patti Werrlein, who is on retreat with our teenagers today. Did you know that she conducts a support group for school students whose parents divorce? Did you know that there is a pastoral care fund in the school budget that allows me to help families with their school tuition in times of financial crisis? Did you know that a number of addiction recovery groups rent campus space during the week? Are you aware that we have a church member in on going contact with a number of homeless and crisis shelters? You might consider special gifts to these or other good works as a way to expand your giving above what you give to the operating budget. We need to pray to God and ask that our church be shown inspiring ways to give beyond its own survival.

There is, of course, one giving opportunity staring us in the face right now As I've written, the building of the worship space for this campus will call for a sacrificial gift from as many of us as possible. The construction of this building sends a powerful message - that a house of worship and prayer is as important to the well being of this community as an industrial park or a soccer field, or a housing tract, or a custom built home or any of the other things springing up around here. A place where God is worshiped and Jesus' words are taught daily...a place where you can walk in and pray during your busy day... a building that says, "God's business is as important as any other business" - this is a chance to reach into our chest of choices, our thesauros - and take the risk of using our treasure to enlarge what God has around here.

I recognize that there is some frustration building - It was relayed to me that some of you are anxious for the campaign to get going and to be asked to give. (Of course I've heard the other perspective - "Oh no, not another money appeal"). The asking is coming. Your Bishop's Committee is committed to a well organized time of asking, beginning this fall, that will result in the successful construction of the church. I have to admit, I'm glad to hear that some of you are frustrated and anxious to give! But please, use this time to pray. Ask God how much treasure you should offer up to enlarge his presence here. If you want to talk about this in all confidentiality, I will be available to you. You can also discuss your gift with Dennis Walsh or Judd Jessup, our capital campaign chairs, or Pete Wilkinson, our Bishop's Warden.

Most of all, discuss it with God. You have a choice, not just to build a structure, but to come to terms with what Jesus teaches, that you can be a person who is "being rich toward God".

AMEN.