“Bringing the Kingdom in under Budget”

John 2:13-22

Three seemingly unrelated thoughts:

There was once a church that raised money to build a new sanctuary by selling doughnuts door-to-door. When the building was finished someone remarked that, instead of adorning the steeple with a neon cross, they should have topped it with a neon doughnut.

It has been said of Presbyterians that, when we have to choose between doing things decently and in order, we’ll choose order every time.

Several years ago, when asked to define the mission of a church, an elder responded by saying that the mission of the local church was to preserve the local culture.

It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of using fundraising projects to pay for the church’s mission. I grew up in the old Southern Presbyterian Church at a time when such fundraising was specifically forbidden. The work of the church was to be supported by the tithes and the offerings of the congregation. Guess which story of Jesus was quoted to support that prohibition? The cleansing of the Temple.

When you’ve had that pounded into you from the age of four until you finish seminary it tends to stick with you. Although my response to fundraising has mellowed a great deal I’m still a little nervous about it. Whenever we have a car wash or yard sale I keep my eye out for lightning.

Although I can make a fairly solid biblical and theological argument against fundraising, I cannot use today’s text to support it. The business being conducted in the Temple was appropriate and necessary. The Temple needed financial support. The priests had to put food on the table. Pilgrims coming to the Temple from a distance needed a convenient way to procure animals for sacrifice. Conducted properly these business transactions were very much decent and in order.

So what was it that set Jesus off? What drove him to quite literally crack the whip? The Temple officials and the businessmen who provided the sacrificial animals were cheating those who came to worship. The fee for exchanging money was exorbitant. The animals were overpriced and often disfigured. The Temple was taking in much more money that it would ever need. The businessmen were involved in unethical practices. Furthermore, all this business was taking place in the Court of the Gentiles, making it impossible for Gentiles to worship. Everything was being done in its proper order. But somewhere along the way decency had been eliminated from the equation.

The Temple and its cult-like priesthood had taken on a life of their own. Instead of a place to worship God the Temple had become a god in itself. The building, its customs and traditions, and its heritage had become ends in themselves rather than a means to the end of worshiping God. The Sabbath rules were being kept but the spirit of Sabbath-keeping was being perverted. The Temple’s mission had degenerated into a form of maintaining and enriching a particular culture.

Verses 20 and 21 are interesting. Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” To which his opponents replied, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” Jesus wasn’t talking about a building. He was describing his own crucifixion and resurrection. A time was coming when the Temple would no longer be necessary to the worship of God. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus would liberate worship, while maintaining its order and its decency, its spirit and its truth.

Looking back on my younger days as a Southern Presbyterian I can see how its prohibition against fundraising, while biblically and theologically appropriate, was long on order and short on decency. I also am aware of the history of a small Presbyterian church near Radford, VA, a church I served as a summer intern in 1974. In the mid-fifties their building was falling apart, literally about to fall off its foundation. The presbytery was advising the congregation to close its doors.

Well the women of the church were having none of that. Prohibitions against fundraisers or not those ladies made and sold enough apple butter to fund the rebuilding of their little church. It’s still in business, still open for worship, and every time they have a pastoral vacancy, still asking my mother if I might be interested. Those folks were out of order, but by-golly they were decent. Praise God for all that apple butter, which by the way is really good!

Since September of 2000 I have served two churches, the one in Belington, WV and this one, that did a lot of fundraising as a way of funding mission and ministry. The fundraising at the Belington Church paid for free end-of-the-month lunches for those whose food stamps had run out, a free community Thanksgiving Dinner every year, and Christmas presents for over a hundred children every year.

It was a lot of work, and I had to sort of turn a blind eye to the dime pitch they ran every year at the county fair – that’s when I really watched out for the lighting – but it was fun, it was honest, and I really don’t think Jesus would’ve disapproved. And while my personal need to do things in an orderly fashion, meaning the old Southern Presbyterian way of doing things, I never once doubted the decency of it. Even though they cause some discomfort, this old dog can learn new tricks when necessary.

By the time I got here I was almost fully trained. Although I’ve fussed and fumed a little bit about our fundraising efforts I’ve learned to stop trying to impose my old Southern Presbyterian style of doing things on you. And just as it happened in Belington, I’ve come to look beyond my personal sense of disorder and appreciate the decency of these efforts. I’ve learned, and am still learning, that the rules of financial stewardship are not written in stone. They can be changed as time and necessity warrant. I no longer use the phrase “I’ve never done it that way before” as a barrier to change; it has instead become an invitation to adventure. In my brief tenure at Grace I have experienced quite a few things for the first time.

A confession of sorts: as part of funding our 50^th Anniversary events we sold a few doughnuts. I could not get that image of a neon doughnut on the steeple out of my mind. However, I did buy a dozen. And to be quite honest the only real sin I committed was taking them home and eating all twelve before dark. That was disorderly and indecent, but it sure was delicious.

Enough of that. Serving God is not a profit-making enterprise. Try as we might we will never bring the Kingdom in under budget. We give our tithes and offerings to God as an act of worship, praise, and thanksgiving. We have special offerings on special occasions to celebrate God’s grace and goodness.

To be honest most of our fundraising is fun, a lot of work but fun. It is one of the ways we come together as God’s people to fellowship and break bread together. Our auctions can get a bit disorderly, but they’re still carried out with a joyful sense of decency, love, and Christian purpose. In their own way they become thank offerings to God as we give not just our money, but our very selves in the support of Christian mission. We don’t cheat each other or swindle the public. None of us make any money for ourselves. Although many of my old Southern Presbyterian forebears are rolling over in their graves, the risen Lord is with us in the Spirit, enjoying fellowship with us even as we enjoy it with one another.

Should fundraising ever replace tithes and offerings as the primary source of funding the work of Grace? No! Nor should we keep doing them year after year just because we’ve always done it that way before. Fundraising, just like any other endeavor, can become a form of idolatry. When it does it is an offense to God and needs to be driven out of the life of the church just like those money changers were driven out of the Temple by Jesus. No means to the end of serving and worshiping God should ever become an end in itself.

That’s true of just about everything that takes place in the life of a church. It’s also true of the building, the furnishings, the traditions, and the congregational culture. Such things are not sacred in themselves. Their preservation is not our mission.

Our mission is the proclamation of the Gospel. Our mission is making disciples. Our mission is to act as the healing hands of Jesus in the world. Such mission needs to be funded, primarily by way of our tithes and offerings, but when necessary by selling a little apple butter, having a yard sale, putting on a talent show, or conducting one of our riotous auctions. As long as what we do is decent, a little disorder is okay. Amen.