Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost

June 10, 2007


1 Kings 17:17–24
Psalm 30
Galatians 1:11–24
Luke 7:11-17
Lectionary 10
Proper 5
Year C
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)

I’m going to talk a little bit about money today, money that we baptize, money that we consecrate, money that serves as fertilizer, money that becomes a sacrifice of praise.

I was thrilled at the New England Synod Assembly to leave knowing that over $45,000 was raised for the Mount of Olives’ Housing Project on the grounds of Lutheran World Federation’s Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem.

I cannot tell you how proud, how genuinely thankful I am that Christ the King tithes its income for Mission Support to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Out of the worship offerings that we receive each Sunday, ten percent goes to the New England Synod. Ninety percent of what we receive is used for our own ministries, like youth retreats, confirmation ministry, education resources, the office copy machine, postage stamps, a subscription to the web-based worship resource that enables us to print our liturgies, all that keeps our building functioning, and to pay our staff. With your generous gifts, we are more than able to serve in the name and for the sake of Christ.

Ten percent of our offerings are tithed to the New England Synod. From their own receipts from the 190 congregations, 55 percent of what the New England Synod receives goes to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA then uses funds to produce educational resources, to assist the World Hunger appeal and Domestic Relief, to promote the Peace Not Walls Campaign in the Holy Land and other advocacy efforts. Some of it even comes back to the New England Synod, so that its 45 percent can fund urban ministry and anti-racism training, or to fund mission developers like Kari who with Steve Kennedy and others is starting a young adult initiative in Nashua.

I can’t tell you how proud I am that Christ the King tithes its income for Mission Support to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. When I received the materials in a binder at this past week’s Synod Assembly, and found my way to the income pages of our financial report, like most pastors I thumbed through to find how our congregation’s mission support stands up. I rejoiced to see our $24, 994 figure standing out among many.

You may have heard of first-fruit giving and tithing, or ten percent as models or frameworks for our giving that may be represented in our offerings (take out envelope) or in the new Automated program we’ve started called Simply Giving.

These models have biblical foundation in the 26th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 26 describes the way of living once reaching the promised land. Out of the years of slavery in Exodus, now arriving at the land flowing with milk and honey, the biblical message describes the giving of first fruit and ten percent as a spiritual act.

First fruit is eloquently described thus:
When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us."

Can you imagine giving your offering and saying, “I am so thrilled with God’s love and grace for me in Jesus Christ that I am giving my offering out of the abundance of God’s blessing!?” That would be a first fruits kind of statement.

Deuteronomy 26 also describing ten percent as the tithe:

12When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year (which is the year of the tithe), giving it to the Levites, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, so that they may eat their fill within your towns, 13then you shall say before the LORD your God: "I have removed the sacred portion from the house, and I have given it to the Levites, the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows, in accordance with your entire commandment that you commanded me; I have neither transgressed nor forgotten any of your commandments: 14I have not eaten of it while in mourning; I have not removed any of it while I was unclean; and I have not offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the LORD my God, doing just as you commanded me. 15Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our ancestors — a land flowing with milk and honey."


Here the tithe has a specific intent—giving in particular for, the aliens, the orphans, and the widows, which in scripture is shorthand for the poor.

As a direct result of coming into the land of plenty, and recognizing the abundance of God’s blessing and mercy, that blessing and mercy must ripple out. The passage from Deuteronomy 26 is Biblical Social Security. It guarantees that widows, who in those days relied utterly on the largesse of their husbands, would be taken care of by the community.

What is God’s intention for the widow and by extension for the poor in our midst and in our world, if it is not a restoration to the care and support of the community which has been damaged through death or broken through job loss, lack of services, rampant violence, or inadequate education?

In the book ended readings today, we see 2 widows utterly bereft because they have lost their sons, their sole means of support after their husband. They have double and triple grief, to lose life partner (1), then an only child (2), and finally exclusion from the community (3) as they have no status. We do not see that the framework in Deuteronomy 26 to care to the poor has or will be effective.

In the stories retold today, we do see open grief is real and raw, even as the widow of Zarephath lays into Elijah the prophet who has been living off her cakes and oil during a drought. Now, Elijah’s a man of God. The widow feels as if she has suffered more than her share, and dumps on the prophet. Elijah, being the prophet he is, pleads his case before the Lord, and in his prayer and prostration God revives the beloved son. The widow is restored to a sense of well-being.

I do not know what I would do without my family support. They are my strength, my foundation, the beloved upon which I rely. I do not know what I would do without Kari, and without my children. I wonder how I could handle my grief.

But what I do know is that from a very young age, I was taught that through baptism into the family of God, each one in church is brother and sister, mother and father, family to me.

I would have no other recourse than to rely on the support and care of those who shore me up in faith, who would pray when I would run out of the ability to pray, who would sing when my breath was overtaken by sobbing, and who would love me when I would wonder if there would ever be any love for me to find.

I believe that Jesus, attending to the leper, to children, to hungry crowds, and to the widow whose story was told today, brings in God’s kingdom to return the lost and destitute, the poor and troubled, and hold them in this restoration to well-being. It is as if Jesus wants to baptize the whole world to become something altogether holy and new.

I believe that this is our mission as the community of Christ, and that it is most visible, most public in our weekly liturgy where we give voice to that kingdom through the proclamation of the Word, where we enact the abundance of the kingdom by feasting on Christ’s outpouring of his body and blood in bread and wine, and by our own giving money through our worship offerings that is our first fruit and our tithe.

I also believe that most of how Christ is made known through what happens outside of Sunday morning, as you engage in conversation with neighbors and friends, as you work to support your families, and as you live Monday through Saturday. How is Christ’s work of restoration, of bringing into community, of abundant grace and blessing given voice and put into action in you? I look forward to hearing about it, and seeing it, so that I can continue to say, I cannot tell you how proud I am of you, my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I.N.I.

The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
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