Sermon: "Your Money or Your Life" (Luke 9: 18-27)

Our worship leaders do a wonderful job. Nine of you are currently on the official rotation, and a few others of you fill in from time to time. Each of you brings to worship your own unique flavor, and though you may not realize it, that adds tremendously to our worship experience.

I have heard from one of our worship leaders – with whom I happen to be a little more intimately acquainted – that it’s really not that hard… except for the stewardship moment. That’s the only challenging part about the whole thing, she said; coming up with something to say to invite people to give to the morning offering.

Well, I decided we should work on that. Over a month ago, I turned to our elders, the spiritual leaders of the church, and asked if they would each write one or more articles on stewardship that I could share in the newsletter, and that they could use as their stewardship moment when they themselves serve as worship leaders. And I know that many who have been elders in the past have much wisdom to share, so I included them. That’s fifteen people in all.

A week went by. I sent out a reminder email, and another week went by. Then another. The first two articles were then submitted, three weeks after my invitation. They are great articles, very different from one another, reflecting the diversity of background and theology that make us the congregation that we are. I can’t wait for you to read them.

I’m still waiting for the other thirteen. I know they’ll come in time. I have faith! It’s just taking a little longer than I thought.

I get it though. Talking about stewardship usually means talking about money, and we’re not comfortable talking about money. People already give so generously to the church; do we really want to ask them to give more?

Part of the challenge comes from how we think about money.

Normally, when we talk about money, we talk about what to do with it: how to get it, spend it, invest it, save it. But what is money?

Back in 1992, a successful Wall Street financial analyst named Joe Dominguez, and his partner, Vicki Robin, wrote a book called Your Money or Your Life. One of the things they did in that book was ponder the question: “What is money?”

They wrote that our first response to this question might be to pull out some dollar bills, hold them up, and say, “Here. This is money.” But what can you do with those dollar bills? You can’t eat them. You can’t wear them. In many places in the world you can’t even buy anything with them. They’re just pieces of paper.

So: What is money?

Should we say that “money is security?” Having lots of money can protect you from all kinds of things. But Dominguez and Robin ask: “If you were a courier walking through downtown Chicago at night with a briefcase filled with money handcuffed to your wrist, would you feel secure? If money were truly security, you would.”

Well, what about power? Is money power? Does money give you power?

One of the most powerful people the world has ever seen was Gandhi. Yet when Gandhi died, he had less than ten possessions, including a watch, spectacles, sandals and an eating bowl. He didn’t own a house or a car. And what about Jesus? He didn’t have much money, either, yet look at his power.

So. What is money?

Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin invite us to look at money in a whole new way. Think of it this way, they said. Each person on earth is given so many hours of precious life. We don’t know exactly how many hours of life we are given, but we know it is limited.

If you have a job, what happens? You go to work, and you trade some of those hours of life in exchange for a paycheck, right? You say to your boss, “I’ll give you eight hours of my life’s energy today,” and if you earn, say, $15 an hour, the boss says “OK, in exchange for your life’s energy, I’ll give you $15 an hour, or $120 for 8 hours work.”

So at the end of the day you have $120. That $120 is equal to eight hours of your life energy. Right? You gave eight hours of your life energy to the boss, and the boss gave you $120 in return; $15 in exchange for every hour of life energy you gave.

So, the definition of money is this: “Money is something we trade our life energy for.”

Now, as I said, we have a limited amount of life energy. Someone my age can expect to have about 280,000 hours of life left – 279,999 by the end of this worship – but of course a lot of those hours will be spent sleeping and eating and other types of body maintenance, so the actual number of hours I have left that I can exchange for money is a lot less.

Most of us would agree that life is precious, a precious gift from God. We shouldn’t waste one single hour of our life energy. All those hours will be gone before we know it. I don’t know about you, but I want to make them count.

So let’s say I have $120 in my pocket. (Wishful thinking, right?) That’s the equivalent of 8 hours of life energy.

And let’s say I walk by a store and I see something for sale that costs exactly $120. Do I buy it? Is that item in the store window worth eight hours of my precious life energy? Is that item for sale worth the sacrifice of eight hours of my life?

Do you see how every dollar you spend is so much more than just money? Do you see how it’s really your life that you are spending? Every dollar you have, you gave up your life energy for. Maybe you gave up that life energy last week. If you are retired, you might have given up that life energy years ago.

Maybe you’re saying to yourself, “But it was my spouse who worked; I stayed at home.” OK, it’s your spouse’s life energy that you are spending. But if your spouse had a job and you stayed home, you probably did more than your share of housework so that your spouse could devote more life energy into earning money, which means your life energy still helped make it possible for you to have the money you have.

Unless you’ve won the lottery, your money is your life energy.

This puts a new perspective on things, doesn’t it?

Jesus said: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” In other words, when it comes to how you use your life energy, follow the way of Jesus. His life energy was given over to doing God’s will. And since money is life energy, how we spend money shows whether or not we are following Jesus. Every time we spend money, we are sacrificing our life, our life energy. The question is, what are you sacrificing your life for? Is your life energy being sacrificed for cable bills and upgraded appliances and property maintenance? If you are going to sacrifice your life energy, don’t you want it to be for something more than that, something greater?

Jesus said: “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” Again, since money is life energy, anything Jesus says about how to live also applies to how we spend. Are you willing to spend your life and your money for the sake of Christ and his kingdom? Or do you seek to save it and use it only for yourself?

Jesus said: “What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” You exchange your life energy for money. If you spend your life energy and your money on luxuries that benefit only you, haven’t you exchanged your very life for selfish pleasures? That’s called “making a deal with the devil.”

But if you spend your life energy and your money on things which help not only you but those around you find wholeness, won’t you gain so much more than material pleasures could ever give you?

God’s command to give, to be generous, is as much for our own benefit as it is for anyone else’s. When your life energy becomes money which is then used to do good in the world, you experience a kind of satisfaction that is deeper than any other satisfaction or joy. You become spiritually whole, knowing that the sacrifice of your life energy has made a difference in the world.

There’s a basketball player named Steph Curry. I don’t follow sports much, but maybe you’ve heard of him. I hear he’s pretty good – best shooter in NBA history, or something like that.

When he was named MVP a week and a half ago, the distinction came with a brand new SUV. Curry donated that new SUV to an organization that helps homeless youth. He knew that the joy and satisfaction he would get from giving his new car away would be greater than the joy and satisfaction he would get from owning it.

It really is a blessing to give. It is a blessing to have the opportunity to share our gifts with the church. And God’s command to give, to tithe ten percent of our income, is a blessing in disguise. It doesn’t sound like a blessing. It sounds like a burden. But as Jesus says, those who willingly lose their life by sacrificing it in this way will find their life renewed and restored. They will be made whole.

No person of faith ever gave to the church and then felt buyer’s remorse. No one has ever regretted it. Because they know that their life energy which has been converted into money is then converted into the healing and salvation of the world. They know that their life energy has not been given in vain. It has been given to God, for the sake of the world God has made. And they are filled with joy.