“We Are the Church: Sharing Enough”

The Rev. Dr. J. Michael Solberg

(2 Corinthians 9:1-8, Philippians 4:11b-13)

Five and a half years ago, I preached a sermon that I know some of you remember.  That may be rare, for anyone, including me, to remember something I preached over five years ago, but this one stuck because I included a little demonstration, one that I am going to repeat today.  One of my favorite websites is a site call “globalrichlist.com.”…. (explain globalrichlist.com)

Let’s start over here.  I’m afraid you folks are the poorest people in the world.  The bottom ten percent.  Your income is just over one dollar a day.  Although you are ten percent of the world’s population, together you hold significantly less than one percent of the world’s wealth.

Now we move over.  As we move to your right, you will be glad to know, your income is increasing.  Higher.  Higher.  Aren’t you lucky?  Well, maybe not so much.  Because here I am at the middle of the world’s population.  You over there are the poorest half of the world, and you over here are the wealthier half of the world.  And you, sitting right here in the middle, your income is $850 a year – about $2.50 a day.  Altogether, you, over here are 50% of the world’s population and you hold less than 9% of the world’s wealth.

Okay, onward.  I’ll make a stop at the 85% mark.  Now you over there are 85% of the world’s population, and I bet you are feeling pretty good. There is only 15% of the world’s population that makes more than you.  You make more money than all those people.  Well, actually, you might be disappointed to hear that your income is only $2182 a year.  If you get paid twice a month, your check before taxes, is just under 84 dollars – 84 dollars every two weeks.  But perhaps it would be comforting to know that of the 6.8 billion people on Earth, about 5.8 billion of them live on less than you do.

And let’s take a step over and make a line now for the 90 / 10 split.  You all are 90% of the world’s population.  And you all are 10%.  And there is good news – for you.  Just you folks, 10% of the world’s population hold 51% of the world’s wealth.  And you (individual) make $25,000 a year.  Not bad.

Now, me.  Lucky me, my salary is published in our church budget book every year, so you know that  I make about $62,000 a year.  We don’t have records on this, but I imagine I fall somewhere toward the middle of income levels in this congregation.  To get to my income, I have to move over still farther on the scale of the world’s population.  And farther, and farther, and farther.  In fact, at $62,000 a year I have to move all the way to the wall, because I am in the top 1% of income distribution in the world.  In fact, of the 6.8 billion people in the world, I am the 54,369,871st richest person in the world.  Less than 1% of the world’s population has a higher income.

Think about where you fall on this spectrum.  If we had a real sample of the world’s population in here poorest to richest – we would all be sitting comfortably over in this section on your right, and many of us would be smashed up against the wall.  And adding the dimension of time: financially speaking, we live in the richest era of human history, and we are still pretty much all huddled over here in the top 10%. 

And now think about the word “enough.”  What is enough?

I read recently that researches have asked people this question.  “What is enough?”  The most common answer in our society is that enough is 20% more than I have now.  No matter what your current level of wealth is, whether you are here or here or even here, the spectrum, 20% more is enough.  Most people don’t need to be rich, don’t long to be rich, they just long for enough.  But we have created a world in which enough is 20% more than we currently have.

You know what that is?  It is the triumph of a way of thinking that is alien to our faith, alien to the way of Jesus.  The modern, consumerist world, with its relentless creation of artificial need, rules the day.  Enough as 20% more is great for the economy in the short term – but dreadful for our souls.  Because if enough is 20% more, then we never, never have enough.

"I have learned to be content with whatever I have,” Paul says.  Or to use a little different translation of the same words: “I have learned that whatever I have is enough.”   Whatever I have is enough.

How?  How can he say that?

Now some of you might be thinking “Ah, I know what you are going to say Mr. Preacher man.  Paul can say ‘Whatever I have is enough,’ because he doesn’t value earthly things, but only values his personal relationship to Jesus.  He is content because he has Jesus, and Jesus is enough.”  But, ehn, not so much.  Honestly, Paul just isn’t that spiritual.  Or rather, Paul doesn’t so much separate the spiritual from everyday, worldly life.

Whatever I have is enough.  Paul could write those amazing words, those destabilizing, counter-cultural words, because his sense of who he was, and his source of joy, was not found in his wealth or any other world based measure.  Paul’s self-identity, and his source of joy in life, was quite simply being part of God’s work in the world.  His joy, his contentment, his enough, was being involved in the work of God.

And, of course, he wants the same to be true of us as well.  Look again, if you will, at the last line of my first reading today – that last sentence.  “And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”  It’s all about the joy of being able to share in doing the good work of God.

While I was away, Pastor Matt and this year’s stewardship team, prepared this terrific booklet about the mission and ministry of our congregation.  It is terrific not just because it has a rare good picture of me prominently displayed on the cover, but because it is put together to show, rightly, that everything we do here involves us in the work of God.  Through worship and music we are shaped into God’s people and we share the good news – 28% of our budget.  Jesus said “Let the little children come to me,” and in so many ways we do just that – 32% of our budget, the single largest part of what we do together.  By caring for each other, and nurturing faith in each other, we are the embrace of God for each other – 20% of our budget.  And by outreach and community ministry we, well, we do, as Jesus did – 20 % of our budget.

We already have enough – we have enough because God has given us the gift of being able to share in the good work of God.  We have enough because we are involved in what God is doing in this place, in this community, and even around the world.

Last week, Liz Dickenson humorously made a great point.  She had some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that we will be able to meet our budget and do God’s work because we have all the money we need.  The bad news is, it’s still in your pockets.

I don’t normally get this direct when preaching, but one of my jobs as one of your pastors is to say what we all know needs to be said, but nobody wants to say.  Per member our giving has been increasing over the last few years.  People see the God infused value of what we are doing together and have been willing to support it.  But still, because of unavoidable cost increases, and slightly fewer members giving, we have been spending more than we have been bringing in for at least the last three years.  But we can do so no longer.  Because of decreases in the value of our endowment due the financial crisis, and because we can longer draw upon reserves, we are starting our budget process with at least a $75,000 shortfall.  If you are someone who just keeps on keeping on until there is some crisis, well I tell you now, your crisis is here.  The finance team has calculated that in order to continue participating in God’s work as we are currently doing every giver has to increase their contribution by 30%.  One additional dollar for every three dollars you already give.  That’s not easy to admit, but we all know it needs to be said.

The only way for us to make that happen is to adopt the spirit of St. Paul.  Whatever I have is enough.  Whatever I have is enough because my true security, my true sense of worth, my true joy, my true enough comes from being involved in the work of God.  Thanks be to God that we have been given such abundant grace, the gift of enough – the grace and gift of sharing abundantly in every good work of God.