Jesus can be very direct. He says, “No one can serve two masters. Either
he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and
despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Matthew 6:24)
Jesus is direct, but he is not simplistic. Let’s look at the deep truth he’s
teaching us about our everyday lives.

All of us rely upon something for significance and security in life. We have to
lean on something or someone. Jesus teaches that, in the end, there is one
foundation upon which everything else rests. When forced to choose, we
discover our priorities. We will then see whether we have chosen to lean on
the right something or someone.

For instance, many of us derive enormous gratification from our vocations.
And yet, we may well decline a promotion when we realize that the extra time
and energy would harm our marriage or rob time from our children. In this
case, we see that we lean upon marriage and family more basically than we
lean upon career for our sense of significance and security precisely because
we choose to sacrifice the one for the sake of the other. Many of us would
find this a difficult decision to make, wrought with no small amount of
uncertainty and inner turmoil. So it is when we are faced with competing
priorities.

And yet most of us are rarely presented with such a stark choice between
career and marriage or career and parenting. The day-to-day decision is subtler,
so the power of career to usurp the place of marriage and family is in fact far stronger.
How easy it is to stay too long at our desk, to come home with too little energy, or
to run through the day’s business in our minds while distractedly responding to our spouse
and children when we finally see them at the end of the day! Without meaning
to do so and hardly realizing that we’ve done it, we sometimes choose to
lean on something less reliable than on the thing we know to be the surer
foundation.

The analogy holds when we consider choosing to lean on God or on Money.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are dedicated to leaning most fundamentally
upon God our Father through his Son Jesus. None of us would intentionally throw
Jesus under the bus for a few extra bucks. Very few of us will face the stark choice
of giving away all our wealth and following Jesus or keeping our material
goods and rejecting our Lord.

Our daily circumstances are far subtler, and so our financial resources can
begin to take hold of us in ways that we never intended. We can begin to lean
upon our material means for security. Ironically, when we seek security in our financial
resources, we end up growing increasingly anxious. We could always have more. We might
run out. Maybe we’ll lose what we have. Money turns out to be a very unreliable foundation
to lean upon.

By contrast, leaning on God fills us with a joyful power to take hold of life abundant and with
the tranquility that all will be well. When we put our trust in Him, we never have to worry
about losing our security and significance. He is always there and always enough. And yet,
it is no easy thing to break free of financial insecurity.

Again and again we find ourselves too fearful to give our money away joyfully and generously.
Mammon, as the KingJames Version of the Bible translates it, can get a pretty firm
grip on us.

This is where tithing comes in. Tithing is not a 10% tax. The idea of tithing is to give away our best first. Before spending on our own needs, we recognize by our giving that God is providing for us.
We become givers because we lean on God as our provider. Paradoxically, giving liberates us from
financial insecurity and results in an abiding joy.

What Are You Leaning On? Is our stewardship theme for this year. Our theme is an outgrowth of our Rally Day theme: exercise your faith. As you consider your pledge for 2011, prayerfully consider that question. I will say more about the importance of pledging and how each of us can work our way to
the tithe next month. For now, I invite you into a time of prayer and ask you to mark your calendars for October 31 as the day we will celebrate the ingathering of pledges at all services.

As the wonderful hymn puts it, Christ is made the sure foundation. Let’s focus together in this season on leaning more fully on his gracious strength and abundant provision by becoming joyful givers.