Let Go and Let God with Money

It’s pledge drive time, and that’s got me thinking about the theology of giving. Pledge drives by their nature are detail-oriented, focused on nuts and bolts — budgets, needs, targets, goals. I find sometimes I need to come up for air, look around the larger landscape a bit, and remind myself of the spiritual reasons for doing what we do. How do we think of church giving as a matter of the spirit?

One thought I’ve been working on is that giving is a way to “let go and let God” with money. The phrase comes from AA; but the idea of letting go as a spiritual imperative has deep, deep roots in Christian spirituality. Many prayer practices, many spiritual disciplines, include some form of giving up conscious control — or, more accurately, the illusion of control — in order to be more open to the experience of God. We believe that God is always everywhere already at work in the world around us; if we often fail to recognize that divine prevenience, it is largely because we are so full of ourselves, so intent on our own plans and projects and being-in-charge, that we have no room in our consciousness to take in the larger-scale action of the God in whom we live and move and have our being. Sometimes we just need to let go of our intentions, we need to “intend not to intend” as one spiritual writer puts it, we need to give up some control, in order to let ourselves become aware of what God is doing that’s bigger and better than we ourselves.

For instance, in the practice of meditative prayer, it is important to give up the illusion of control over our own rational, discursive thought-processes in order to open up to a deeper awareness of God. By repeating a simple prayer-phrase, or by attending to our breathing, or by inhabiting a scripture story in our imagination, we still the constant background chatter of our internal monologue to the point where we become attentive to the love and grace and presence of God — and our own prayerful response to God — that run too deep for words. The letting-go is essential to the experience of God.

The same is true in the practice of pastoral care. In having a pastoral conversation with someone, for instance, one technique I was taught and now try to teach others is “active listening.” In active listening, it is important to give up our own desire to control the conversation, it is important to let go of our own agenda and allow the other person to speak what is truly in their mind and heart. So often care-givers want to “make everything better” or cure the situation or bring comfort; but sometimes the other person is not ready to be comforted; sometimes there is pain and grief and anger to be acknowledged and borne and worked through; and a true care-giver must give up the desire to control and instead provide the safe place where such pain can be laid before God, from whom alone real healing can come. The letting-go is essential to the experience of God.

What if the same thing is true in the spirituality of giving? What if a central part of giving as a spiritual discipline is letting go of the illusion of control over our material well-being? In our culture money is a powerful symbol — perhaps the powerful symbol — of our ability to control life; money is the measure of the capacity we have to secure our food, our shelter, our clothing, our basic needs and our greatest luxuries; spending power is the effective form of the power we have to shape the world around us the way we want it. But, as Jesus’ parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21) tells us, as our own experience time and again tells us, such control is an illusion. Part of the spiritual practice of giving is to give up that illusion, to give up control over some of our money as a reminder of the fleetingness of all of our money. Part of the reason the biblical standard of giving emphasizes giving a proportion of the first-fruits — rather than, say, a carefully calculated amount based on a rational analysis of needs after all our important personal expenses have been paid — is the very fact that a tithe-off-the-top symbolizes that over which we have no control, it is the sign of our willingness to let go of something that matters to us, so that we can be more open to see what God will do in that space.

That’s not easy for us to hear. Our American culture is very conscious of the responsibility of money. When we give philanthropically — say to charitable organizations or schools or foundations or symphonies — we want to know that the money we give is being used wisely and well and for the purpose for which we gave it. When we give, we want to exercise due diligence about the recipient of the gift, and we want the recipient to exercise due diligence with our gift. When we give philanthropically, we give with strings of expectation and oversight and control attached. That is only prudent.

But in church giving, there is that extra added component of the spiritual practice of letting go. We give partly to remind ourselves that the flow of energy and activity and resource in God’s world is bigger than we are, that it is ultimately beyond our control. Part of church giving is to give with no strings attached, not even the strings of making sure the money goes where we want it to go. That’s a bitter pill for our contemporary consumer culture to swallow. But the letting-go is essential to the experience of God.

And if stewardship is about letting go of (some of) our money, then it is also about “letting God” with money. We are called to give to the church free and clear, off the top, no strings attached. But we are equally called to participate in the life of the church, to take our places in the councils of the church (as the Prayer Book puts it), and part of that calling is to use the monies committed to the church in the active work of ministry. Vestries and Finance Committees are charged with the specific duty of administering monies committed the church through budgets; but every member of the church has some share in the ministry that is funded through monies received. The practice of stewardship is about good administration as much as it is about generous giving. Sharing in the work of the church is the space in which we discern together what God is doing in our midst and how we can join in that doing — and that space is opened up by the letting-go of our first-fruits as free-and-clear gifts.

So that’s the thought I’m working on. What if the spiritual side of the practice of stewardship is letting go and letting God with our money? How might we approach church pledging if we had this spiritual practice in mind?

Forgive Us Our Sins

One of the things I truly love about Trinity is the variety of liturgies with which we worship. The early, middle, and late services on Sunday all have their particular characters, and weekday services like Taize and Healing and Morning and Evening Prayer add extra dimensions of liturgical richness as well. The use of Rite I and Rite II gives us a variety of traditional and contemporary expressions for prayers that have been shared by Christians in many centuries and many languages. One of the best examples of this constructive variety is the Lord’s Prayer.

The prayer that Jesus taught his disciples was recorded first in the Greek language, of course, in which the Gospels were written. In the Western Church, where Latin was the dominant language, the prayer was for centuries best known in that form. During the Reformation prayers and liturgies were translated into local languages, including English. English has changed quite a lot from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century, and the Lord’s Prayer has been translated and re-translated into different versions in that time. At Trinity, we use an older translation at the early and late Sunday services; the current translation is always used at the middle service and sometimes at weekday services too.

In the newer translation of the Lord’s Prayer we pray “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” For a number of people, this is one of the more noteworthy changes in the translation. Some of us grew up praying “Forgive us our trespasses.” Others of us grew up in churches where the Lord’s Prayer was traditionally said “Forgive us our debts”; that wording is also used, for instance, in the famous Malotte vocal setting of the Lord’s Prayer which is sung both in concert and in church. We might, understandably, wonder why there are so many ways of translating this basic petition of a basic Christian prayer.

But the difference in wording reflects more than just a difference in translation: it also represents a difference in gospel tradition. Both the Gospels of Matthew and of Luke record Jesus’ teaching the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples, and there are some major variations in the two texts. In the verse about sins, Matthew uses the Greek word opheilemata, while Luke uses hamartia. Opheilemata comes from a root meaning “obligation” or “something that is due,” and we usually translate it into English as “debt.” Harmartia comes from a root meaning “to miss the mark,” as in archery, and it carries further connotations of going out of bounds or straying from the path; it finds a good equivalent in the English words “transgression” or “trespass.” The versions of the Lord’s Prayer used in worship draw from both the Gospel accounts: the version that says “Forgive us our debts” reflects Matthew, the version that says “Forgive us our trespasses” reflects Luke, and the current version that says “Forgive us our sins” uses a more general word to reflect both.

These are not just differences in terminology, however; the different terms express different understandings of just what sin is and how sin affects us. Sin as “debt” indicates something we lack, something we ought to have but don’t, something that is missing from us and makes us less than we could be. That is a profound understanding of sin, drawing attention to the many ways in our lives in which we genuinely want to be good but find ourselves unable to do it. St Paul gives poignant voice to this reality of human experience in Romans 7 when he writes “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.” Sin is not just “doing bad things,” but is the tragic situation of desiring the good and being unable to accomplish it.

But sin is also the experience of trying to do the good and having it go wrong. That is expressed more in the notion of sin as “trespass,” of going out of bounds, of starting out in a good direction but then veering off into unintended consequences. “Trespass” indicates being too full of ourselves, stepping out where we really know we shouldn’t go, making decisions that go beyond the pale of our real time and place and responsibility to the realities around us. It is classically represented in the Genesis story of the fruit of the tree of knowledge: the woman desires the fruit because it is a delight to the eyes, and good for food, and will make one wise — all of which are good things in themselves! — but taking the fruit before God gives it is a terrible breaking of trust in her relationship with God. Sin is not just our inability to do good, but is also our overreaching.

And if sin has these two aspects, then forgiveness must have these two aspects as well. When I pray “forgive us our debts,” I think of God making up what is lacking in me, like the parable Jesus tells in Matthew 18 where the king cancels the debt of the slave, simply making up the loss out of his own royal treasury. I think of God forgiving the debt of my sin as God empowering me through the Holy Spirit to do the good I am not able in myself to do. And when I pray “forgive us our trespasses,” I think of God bringing me back to the path, like the parable Jesus tells of the shepherd who goes out into the wilderness to find the one sheep that has strayed. I think of God forgiving the trespass of my sins as God working in me through the Holy Spirit to regather my overreaching and guide me into right pathways and lead me in the way that is best for me to go — even if I myself might think another road looks more attractive. When I pray “forgive us our sins,” I try to keep both those meanings in mind, and I find great comfort and strength in the double image of God making up what is lacking in me and leading me to the next good possibility.

And of course there is more to this clause of the Lord’s Prayer than just the petition for forgiveness: Jesus also tells us to pray that we be forgiven “as we forgive those who are indebted to us, those who trespass against us, those who sin against us.” That same making-up-what-is-lacking and regathering-of-overreaching that God gives to us is what we are called to give to each other. The forgiveness with which God empowers us also empowers our forgiving those around us. We live this out in everyday life as we bear one another’s burdens, as we use our strengths to help others’ shortcomings, as we allow our shortcomings to be helped by others’ strengths, as we keep our boundaries healthy and respect the boundaries of others and gently but firmly restore boundaries when they have been crossed. We are forgiven precisely in the act of forgiving, as we and God work together to make up what is lacking and regather what is overreached and grow the next potentiality for justice and peace and love.

All that meaning in so few words! Debt and trespass and sin and forgive — words that resonate with worlds of significance in our lives in the Spirit. As is so often the case in prayer, we need many words to reflect all the aspects of meaning we seek to express in our relationship with God. As we pray together the different versions of the Lord’s Prayer in our liturgies, I invite you to be mindful of all these meanings, and pray for the joy of forgiveness with all your hearts.

Consumers, Benefactors, and Ministers: Three Models of Church

Over the past several months, in newsletter articles and sermons and Vestry retreats and Parish Hall meetings, I’ve been talking about how the American religious scene has been shifting, how people are participating and attending and giving to churches in different ways and with different expectations. How people interact with their congregations, and how congregations give their people something to interact with, can be a bewildering maze of feelings and programs and habits and patterns. Sometimes it is a helpful mental tool to bundle that variety into manageable packages or extended metaphors called models. Different models of the church can highlight different bits of church reality, so that we can see and understand them more clearly. Three models of church that I find useful are models of the congregation as a market for Consumers, as an organization of Benefactors, and as a community of Ministers.

In the Consumer model, people think of the congregation as a provider of religious goods and services, and the congregants as consumers of those goods and services. The church is likened to a business, where branding and marketing are of paramount importance. The clergy and staff of the congregation are responsible for being entrepreneurial, up-to-date, and creative in crafting the sorts of liturgies, music, and activities that will attract, engage, and retain the highest number of attendees. Congregants, for their part, are expected to be savvy spiritual shoppers: they give generously in exchange for the goods and services they consume, they provide customer feedback that clergy and staff can use to improve their offerings, and, if they don’t find the goods and services they want at a given congregation, they go elsewhere, leading to a healthy competition in the religious marketplace. Congregants are often eager to assist their church in providing the goods and services they consume, by volunteering to help out with tasks usually performed by clergy and staff — not unlike the way customers of a co-op grocery, for instance, will volunteer to stock shelves or ring checkout, jobs usually given to employees, to keep their store in business.

Turning to the Benefactor model, we find that the principal metaphor here is not business, but philanthropy. In the Benefactor model, people think of the congregation as a benevolent society, and the congregants as the benefactors who give to the society to support its good works. The congregation is seen as one of many institutions that support and improve community life, along with things like libraries, museums, symphonies, service clubs, arts centers, and non-profit agencies which benefit causes close to their supporters’ hearts. Clergy and staff are expected to be community leaders, who are in touch with community needs, able to identify opportunities for benevolence, and skilled at major fundraising. Congregants come to worship services in order to maintain social ties with like-minded benefactors, and to be encouraged in their good works for the world. Parishioners may serve their church by sitting on vestries, committees, and ad-hoc projects, in the same way many of them also sit on boards of other civic institutions in the community. Generous giving is encouraged, both to maintain the congregation as an institution respectable among other institutions, and to work through the congregation to benefit the wider community.

Finally, in the Minister model, people think of the congregation as an assembly of disciples, all of whom are called and empowered for ministry by their baptism. Clergy and staff are not the sole providers of ministry to recipient congregants, but are regarded as organizers, trainers, coaches, and encouragers of the congregants’ own ministries. Clergy especially are expected to be trained (or re-trained) as ministry developers for their congregations. Congregants are expected to identify their own gifts and passions for ministry, with the help of clergy and other congregant-ministers, and to actively seek opportunities to do their ministry both within and outside of the institutional church. The congregational programs focus on worship, prayer, and Christian education, but may actually include few “social service” programs, preferring instead to encourage members to engage their social ministries through already existing secular organizations. Leadership in a Minister-model congregation is often grassroots, “bottom-up,” networked rather than hierarchical, and sometimes a little chaotic. Financial giving is seen as only one part — and perhaps not the most important part — of one’s giving of time and talent and body and soul for the work of ministry.

Of course, the real world is always more complex and interesting than our models of it; and real congregations and real congregants cannot be reduced to simple models. The Consumer, the Benefactor, and the Minister models each have their pros and cons. The Consumer model points to an important dynamic of contemporary religious life in America, but it tends to turn religion into nothing but one more market transaction; the Benefactor model leads to real good works in communities, but it tends to reflect and reinforce prevailing patterns of social privilege; the Minister model empowers many people to do Christ’s mission, but it can also fracture a congregation if different individuals and groups follow their ministerial passions with little regard for the overall shared mission of the church. All three models have some truth to them, they each point to some important traits, and they each leave out some significant facts. In practice the models overlap, and churchgoers can go from being benefactors to ministers to consumers and back again, depending on the program or situation or ministry in which they find themselves.

But looking at our congregation through the lenses of the Consumer, Benefactor, and Minister models can help us see some important things about ourselves. Which model seems most attractive to you? Where do you see yourself, and your reasons for coming to church, reflected in the models? Which model seems closest to your own experience of Trinity? Are there parts of the models that seem to clash or conflict with each other? Are there elements of different models you think we should try to develop at Trinity?

As we begin a new program year at Trinity, it is helpful to consider the models we use to understand and motivate our actions. Whether we’re here to receive religious goods and services, or to benefit the community, or to develop our ministries, or any combination thereof, what matters most is that we model the creating and sustaining love of Christ.

Seeing the Oil Spill in Context

From July 2010

The other day I overheard a snippet of conversation about the oil spill in the Gulf, and got just enough of it to hear one person say “If this had happened on land, it wouldn’t even be a problem.” That got me to thinking. In the first place, I’m not entirely sure I agree — I think any oil spill, anywhere, anytime, is a problem. But that comment did lead me to two further reflections.

On the one hand, it reminded me of the simple but inescapable truth that context matters. Nothing we do ever happens in a vacuum, but everything is connected, and every action has a context, and the context affects the action and the action affects the context. In this case the context is deep in the Gulf of Mexico, and that context makes a huge difference. A blown-out oil pipe would be relatively easy to fix on land; there are tools and techniques and technology that oil riggers know well for such problems. But the fact that this pipe is blown out under 5000 feet of water makes all those tools and techniques and technology nearly useless. In fact, there is no technology competent to handle this, and so the leak goes on out of control for days and weeks and months, while BP and the Coast Guard try to invent new ways to deal with it. The context magnifies the problem.

But the problem is also damaging the context. Oil behaves differently in water than it does on land, and it behaves differently on the surface of the water than it does in underwater plumes, and it behaves differently when it comes ashore than it does when it’s afloat. As the oil spreads, it reveals that the real context of this disaster is wider and broader and deeper than we’d thought: the offshore drilling affects not just the drill site, but the surrounding ocean, and the surrounding shores, and the beaches and the marshes and the lands adjacent to the shores. The context is not just the physical elements like water and sand and mud, but the context includes living things, plankton and fish and pelicans and dolphins and sea turtles, and as they are poisoned and damaged and killed by the oil, that sends ripple effects throughout the entire Gulf ecosystem, effects that may take decades to heal. And the context is not just the natural system, but includes all the human systems as well, the fishermen and shrimpers whose fishing grounds are curtailed and whose livelihoods are threatened, the families who have worked on the Gulf for generations and know no other way of life, even the tourists who are staying away from Gulf beaches in droves and are thereby crippling the local economies. The threads of connection keep reaching out and out and out from that blown-out pipe, until uncounted numbers of places and creatures and people are caught up in its context of destruction.

Theologically speaking, the largest context of all is God, the one to whom belong the earth and all that is in it (Psalm 24:1), the one in whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), the one in whose Word, incarnate among us in Jesus, all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). The loss and sadness and tragedy streaming out through water and creatures and people comes at last even to God, whose Holy Spirit is grieved at our waste and pollution.

One thing this oil spill is teaching us, painfully but truthfully, is that context matters, that everything is connected, and that the context affects what we do and what we do affects the context.

But I hope this disaster is teaching us something else, as well. And that is the second thought I had after hearing someone opine that this wouldn’t be so bad if it had happened on land: that this is such a mess because we took it to such an extreme. What we see now so clearly in hindsight is that we don’t know what we’re doing when we drill for oil at 5000 feet. Technically, to be sure, it is BP and Transocean and Halliburton — the companies who employed the engineers who designed and oversaw the work — who had the know-how to drill but didn’t have the know-how to stop when the drilling went wrong. There is a tremendous amount of anger out there, directed at those companies, and understandably so. But it is important for us to remember that those companies would not be drilling at such extremes if we, the consumers, did not demand and crave and consume such vast quantities of oil. Our profligate habits of energy use and consumption of plastics and other petrochemicals have made it necessary to go looking for oil in more and more unlikely — and evidently more and more dangerous — places, places where even relatively simple incidents rapidly escalate into major problems, whether they be political problems in oil-producing countries or environmental problems in oil-producing waters. Our thirst for oil — what some people have called our national addiction to oil — has driven us, acting through our corporations, to engage in risky, ill-prepared, not-well-understood oil extraction behaviors. And our extreme behaviors have led to extreme consequences.

Perhaps we can learn from this disaster that some extremes simply aren’t worth it, and that rather than risk more and worse conflicts and spills and poisonings we should look for another way. Perhaps we can learn a greater respect for the Creator who is made manifest in all the creatures and who dwells in all the contexts. Perhaps we can increase our efforts to develop alternative energies, to reduce and reuse and recycle, to promote a greener economy, to live materially simpler and spiritually richer lives. Perhaps even our horror at how we have fouled this particular context may lead us to care more about all the contexts in which we act, up to and including our ultimate context in God.

May God grant us the wisdom and the will to live within our context, with humility and service, for the flourishing of all creatures.