Sermon Text: 1 Tim 6.17 Title: "A Charge to Keep"

Preached: September 28, 1998

About three years ago, the Board of Directors of the Moravian Open Door, in New York City decided to stop accepting funds from the City of New York. For MOD, a small, Church supported, long-term housing facility for formerly homeless older persons, the decision to abandon City funding was brave -- even risky. Although the funding always came with strings, it had supplied about a third of our budget. We would need a lot of help in replacing it. To lessen the risk, we set up a finance development committee, to explore ways to effectively solicit and raise funds and to determine how to best manage any surplus money we happened to get. The committee developed an "investment policy."

It was a simple policy, written so that even youngish, fuzzy haired, semi-radical ministers could understand it. (I even understood it, somewhat.) It advocated putting a certain percentage of the mission's money in investments which would not get a lot of interest but which were very, very safe, and another percentage in more risky investments which could earn more interest. They even suggested a specific mutual fund to help with the latter. In other words, they advocated a diversified portfolio.

I've gotten lots of financial advice lately. These days there are lots of radio shows and newspaper articles on the stock market. Just about everyone advocates a diversified portfolio. Put some into equities, some into bonds. Find a solid no-load mutual and add in some t-bills, maybe a few ginny maes or tax-free municipals. (Whatever all that is.) I do know that they all seem to push the idea of spreading it all out into several different kinds of investments. It's not a good idea, evidently, to place all of one's nest eggs in one basket. As I read 1 Timothy 6, however, I am beginning to believe that the writer does not like the idea of a diversified portfolio.

It is very clear, in the sixth chapter of Timothy, that the writer is talking about money. A couple of our favorite Biblical sayings about money are contained right here: "We brought nothing into the world, we can't take anything out." {verse 7} And... Money is the root of all evil. {That's in verse 10, although a better translation would be something like: love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.} Mostly, though, the writer is just concerned about how money is effecting the church.

Some people have begun to view serving God as a way to get rich, he says. Others have left the church in order to get rich. And then he worries that some who are rich might place their hope more in their earthly riches than in God.

It's when he talks about hope that the writer seems to favor a non-diversified portfolio. He wants people -- he does specifically mention rich people, but I imagine it applies to everyone -- he wants people to place all their hope in God. He adds his own little investment strategy for the well-to-do Christian: do good deeds, be generous and ready to share. {Read verse 19.}

That sounds a lot like what we do, we Christians, amid the rest of those out there in our secular world. We do good deeds, mostly; we're generous, very often; and we really are ready to share, most of the time. We are quick to admit there are times that we feel a little bit less than generous -- we're not always ready to share a quarter with that guy in front of the Berkeley Bowl. And some of our deeds have not always been good -- be we confess that, and have confessed it readily. Based on a quick inventory, we all are probably storing up a lot of treasure in heaven. Except, I wonder. This hope thing has me a bit bothered.

"Command those who are rich with things of this world not to be proud. Tell them to hope in God, not in their uncertain riches... " Where is it, I wonder, that we put our hope?

We live, after all, in a society which values money. Money gets into the way we think about everything. We take it for granted that a normal newspaper should have a business section. We're not surprised that young athletes forego several years of free education for multi-million dollar contracts. It's become the norm for businesses to seek profit for their share-holders rather than needed goods and services for the people. It's now a trend to think of hospitals as profit-generating businesses. What does it tell us that people spend their income on lottery tickets, with the hope that a jackpot will save them? We should be surprised if society's valuation of money has not invaded our minds, hearts, and souls.

Since Lynnette and I moved and changed jobs, we've had occasion to think a lot more seriously about the future; but it's meant thinking mostly about life insurance, health insurance and retirement packages. We've begun to hope that Kaiser-Permanente [our new health care plan] will be responsive to our medical needs. We've begun to hope that M&M [the American Baptist Pension program] will be everything it's supposed to be. We've begun to hope that the Social Security system doesn't collapse under the weight of the baby boomers who all retire right before we do. We've begun to hope that we have time enough to save up enough to ride it out if it does. In other words, simply because of the way we live life in 20th Century North America, we find ourselves hoping in a lot of things that have more to do with money than with God.

It's understandable, right? It's natural for us to live in the world we live in. But I wonder if there's not some way we can hope for something better. For by investing so many of our hopes in the securities and assurances that money can buy, we find ourselves with one foot foundation built upon sinking sand. Sometimes I wonder if I can really sing "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand," with as much conviction as those who struggle day to day on the edge of destitution. How can we who have much, live our lives in a way which witnesses to a belief that God is all that matters? How can we, who have much, show that "we hope in God, not in our uncertain riches?"

At first, I wondered if one way to face the challenge of 1 Timothy 6 was to remember God within every financial transaction. I thought that maybe we should say a prayer every time our lives involved finances, to try to remind ourselves of God's presence and power. Every time we acquire, or spend, or invest even a dime, we could offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God, or a prayer acknowledging our responsibility as a steward. I realized that my thought was a bit simplistic to say, but still I wondered what effect it might have on our outlook.

But then, I began to think about the good news possibilities of the passage: what is the good news in Timothy's charge to the rich?

It would, indeed, be remarkably freeing if we did not need to worry so much about finances. It is easier to have a clearer vision of God's Realm without one eye on the stock report. It is easier to move forward when we're unburdened with lots of stuff. In real terms, it is easier to imagine an ideal world, when we stop thinking about the financial cost. And it is easier to move toward the city of God, when we are unconcerned about how our generosity will effect our portfolio.

Then, perhaps, by not concentrating so much on our financial well-being, we can diversify our portfolio of hope in another way, in a way which extends the mission of God. We can invest by showing respect for and stewardship of God's creation. We can invest by extending warmth and appreciation to others, embracing children, welcoming the outcast, reaching out to the suffering. We can invest by demonstrating our expectation of God's realm, by consciously avoiding the snares of consumerist thinking.

Then, perhaps, we will build upon the foundation of hope, not just for ourselves, but for everyone we influence. Hope may increase its yield in the hearts, minds and souls of those around us: a hope for the end of exploitation and violence, a hope for a world of love, peace and justice, a hope for a life which is eternal, a hope for things unseen.