By Rob Deitcher
Good morning. For those of you I haven’t met yet, my name is Rob Deitcher. My family and I have been members of the parish for about a year and a half, mainly attending the 9 o’clock service. A few weeks ago, Robin approached me about speaking to the congregation on stewardship. She said that the vestry had suggested I might be a good person for this. I don’t really know why they thought that, but I can tell you it isn’t because I am such a phenomenal giver to St. James. If I’m going to speak on stewardship, the first thing I need to do is confess to all of you that my family does not tithe 10% of our income to the church. The fact is, we’re really not even that close.
Robin’s advice to me in preparing for today was to tell my story. As I reflected on this, I realized that stewardship is really about our relationship with God. And so I thought I should share the story of how I came to my current relationship with God, and what it means to my view of stewardship.
Growing Up
I grew up in the Episcopal church. In fact, I attended a church called St. James, not too far from this one. I was an active Sunday Schooler and even served as a crucifer and an acolyte. However, when I went off to college, I started questioning my beliefs and went away from the church. Years passed, and I wasn’t attending church and didn’t really know where I stood. During that time, a lot of good things happened in my life, and I took all the credit. Honestly, I became a very proud person.
As some of you may know, my wife Christine and I have formed our family through adoption. For several years, we tried to start our family the old-fashioned way, just with lots of doctors, fertility treatments and testing involved. We would try not to get our hopes up, inevitably get our hopes up, have our hopes dashed, then do it all over again. It was as emotionally exhausting as it sounds. Eventually, we decided to pursue adoption instead. Not long after starting down that road, we also decided to start attending church. This was no coincidence. It was partly about wanting our future children to be raised in the church, but I think also because the toll of the prior years had made us realize more than ever that there was something, besides children, missing from our lives.
We began attending an Episcopal church in our town that a couple who we were friends with also attended. I liked the people, and was comforted by the familiarity of the service. But even though I was trying, I could tell that I wasn’t completely bought back in. But then something happened that profoundly changed my relationship with God.
Over a few months, Christine and I had been in contact with several expectant parents who were considering adoption plans for their unborn children. Things hadn’t worked out yet, but we were still hopeful. Then there was a situation that seemed like it was really going to happen. We were excited, but just as Christine was about to book a flight out of town to be with the expectant mother, she received an email calling the whole thing off. We were both very upset, but Christine had been emotionally all in. She was devastated.
Rock Bottom
After all we had been through to that point, that was rock bottom, at least for me. Seeing the woman I loved so hurt, and being powerless to do anything about it, I was humbled. That week in church, as I prayed, I opened my heart to God in a way that I hadn’t done before. As I knelt in the pew, with tears in my eyes, things felt different.
A few weeks later, we received another email from a couple who were making an adoption plan. Christine was instantly dismissive; she wasn’t ready to have her heart broken again, and understandably so. But as I read that message, hope sprung within me. It just felt like this was what I had been praying for. About two weeks later, we brought our daughter Ella home from the hospital.
Obviously, I love this story, but what does it have to do with stewardship? To me, it has everything to do with the difference between the “proud” version of me that I used to be, and the “humbled” version of me that I think and hope I am today. Ask yourself, when your pay or other income arrives, whose wealth is that? The “proud” me would have said, “That’s mine, I earned it by putting myself through school, working hard, and doing well at my job.” But the “humbled” me says, “You know, this is really God’s money. After all, I couldn’t have finished school if my advisor hadn’t been able to scrounge up that extra scholarship in my senior year. Think God had anything to do with that? What about all of the times I’ve been in the right place at the right time, or happened to meet the right person? Or even the talents that make it possible for me to be in my profession? All thanks to God.”
So I’ve come around to the view that the material wealth that we possess isn’t ours at all – it belongs to God. He asks us to be “stewards” of the world He has created, including its material wealth. And in return, we’re asked to use it according to His will, including giving back to the church – 10% according to scripture. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask, a pretty good deal really, and yet many of us don’t do it. I don’t do it. Why not?
I can think of a few reasons – nothing Earth-shattering, but probably worth saying out loud. The first is that it is simply easy to fall into a rut of giving the same amount to the church, week after week, year after year. Christine and I definitely fell into that trap – other expenses seemed to keep going up, so it was easier to just keep our offering at the same level.
Another reason is that I think we are biologically programmed to prioritize our own needs. Survival of the fittest, natural selection, and so forth. We put the wants and needs of ourselves and our loved ones first, sometimes even before God. We probably don’t even know we’re doing it.
Setting Priorities
In preparing for this talk, I looked at the spreadsheet I use to keep my family’s household budget. For each month, at the top is my pay, then underneath are all of the different expenses we have. Where do you think our church offering was? Literally the very last thing on the list. God is getting what’s left over, after everything else has been taken care of, both needs and wants. I hadn’t done that on purpose, in fact I had never even noticed before. I was a little shocked, but there it was, right in front of me.
I think there’s something else, too. Do we really trust God to take care of our needs? Even as I have recognized that all I have in this life, material or otherwise, I owe to God, there’s a part of me that still struggles to let go of control and trust Him. Where is the line between being financially responsible, which is presumably following God’s will, and being untrusting of Him? As the sole provider for my wife and two children, I ask myself this question a lot. I wish I knew the answer.
Action Points
It would be a great way for me to wrap this up by saying that my family and I are going to increase our offering to 10% of our income next year, its going to be easy, and everyone else should do it too. But that wouldn’t be honest. The truth is, with the adoption of our infant son, who has Down syndrome, in progress, that line between being responsible and trusting God has never been blurrier. Here’s what I can say with honesty this morning:
· My family’s church offering will be at the top of the list on our budget – we live on what’s left over after giving back to the church.
· Our pledge for 2015 will be more than it was this year, and by a far greater percentage than any income increase we might be blessed to receive. If we can’t make it to 10% in one shot, we are at least going to close the gap.
· And before Christine and I decide what our pledge will be, I am going to do a lot of praying, and a lot of thinking about what it says about our relationship with material wealth, and what it means for my relationship with God.
I hope my words this morning will inspire some of you to do the same.