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  • Marriage In And Out of Favor

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    Marriage In And Out of Favor

    William Van Arnold

    Union Theological Seminary, Richmond,

    Virginia

    The book market is flooded with publications defending and attacking divorce rates. Ministers speak of tremendous demand for marriage counseling. People ask for stronger words from the pulpit on the sanctity and permanence of marriage. Many teen-agers and young adults vow that they will never marry and have children because “it’s not worth the hassle/’ Dire predictions are given on the disappearance of marriage and the family as we know it. It would appear that the idea of family is out of favor. Nonetheless, marriage enrichment groups are booming in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. The field of marriage and family counseling is surging with new practitioners and literature. Marriage is still revered by many. Why all the fuss? Why all the attention? There was a time when one didn’t have to have a well thought-out rationale for the importance of marriages and families. Sociological textbooks provided a description of the functions served, but it was fairly bland and certainly not a stimulating topic for debate. Now we find ourselves in a world that does debate the value. How do we explain the intensity of feelings that lie on either side? My impression is that we are living in an era which provides potential for marriage becoming what it is intended to be, and such a possibility is indeed difficult and frightening to many people. Our technology, which itself is regarded as both blessing and curse, has slowly removed many of those activities which the sociologists held to be the functions of marriage. Protection, education, and recreation are now the tasks of the culture, not the family. Production is no longer the family business; it is the job or jobs which family members “go out” to do, returning to the family when they are “off.” Religious instruction is provided primarily by the church. Even reproduction or procreation has radically lost its centrality in the purpose of marriage as zero population growth and genetic engineering become stronger forces. Single parenthood is “in” as an alternative. Depending on your point of view, we are being freed from the necessity of marriage or freed for its real intent. Stripped of the functional necessities, marriage can now be for two people, and they can be with each other with uninterrupted depth in a way that was formerly more difficult to arrange. But now it is very much a matter of choice. What are our options? What is our assessment about the favor in which marriage should be held? One option is presented very strongly now. It derives from the technical feats brought about by our technology and the vast amount of information at our disposal. Such accomplishment is very soothing to our pride. We can “see” and “feel” the assurance that our possibilities are limitless. A sense of optimism is bred by such an array of opportunities—an array so tempting that many people pursue them almost breathlessly. It is almost as if there were a desperation to experience every new offering in existence, accompanied by the fear that “missing something” would spell out a falling short of real meaning.

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    That desperation, ironically, carries with it a fear of relationships of permanence , or at best a reluctance to form one. To “tie oneself down” would be to accept limits, to deprive oneself of a possible “better one” out there in the future. And so there comes a dash from one to the other, an avoidance of intimacy. Robert Weiss, a well-known sociologist, has referred to such behavior in our culture as the “ethic of self-realization.” As he puts it, “we Americans seem to cherish our right to the unimpeded pursuit of happiness, no matter how much sorrow that pursuit may engender.”1 Thus, if our quest to realize our potential runs into an apparent snag, including a marriage, the ethic says, “get out of it.” For such an ethic, marriage is indeed out of favor. It is my contention that such an ethic, which is powerful in our society, emerges out of a fear of depth in relationships that is as old as that first couple hiding in the garden. For us to know who we really are and what shame, guilt, anger, and prejudice we carry with us is too much to risk. We are quick to provide barriers to prevent such “knowing” between two people to occur. Our technology has eliminated the old barriers, such as having so many things to do that we have no danger of being and knowing. Now it has presented a new pursuit to avoid that risk—the quest for self-fulfillment through constant change and stimulation. Michael Novak astutely observed that our description of marriage as boring means that it is terrifying. And our description of children as brats comes in the face of our having to be parents in the face of too much clarity about the importance we hold in that developmental process through which children (and we) must go.2 So, to those who are fearful, who don’t want to face those risks, my hope is that marriage will be out of favor until their views and their hopes have deepened . My desire is to offer a different ethic for those with whom marriage is in favor—an ethic that takes depth more seriously than flight and commitment more seriously than self-gratification and achievement. Genesis 2:18 is an important source for that ethic. There it is observed that being alone is “not good.” It is not in our intended nature to be in flight, though that is an inclination when faced with being known. The choice is to create a partnership characterized by “correspondence,” a partner who is “equal and adequate” but by no means the same. The Biblical view consistently is one of emphasis on permanence, making frequent comparison between the marital relationship and that of God to His people. At the same time there is no shortage on descriptions of problems and difficulties in marriage. Such moments frequently become occasion for growth rather than excuses for separation, and they are not always short-lived. That kind of intimacy and caring is more demanding than many people want to risk. At the same time, there is a richness and depth that I would want to affirm. It is interesting to find writers such as Masters and Johnson, who have no vested interest in defending marriage, commenting on the apparent deepening of richness in the sexual experience when there is a bond of commitment between two persons as compared to a more fleeting, non-limited, promiscuous character.3 Such a relationship calls upon partners to take responsibility for declaring their needs openly, rather than expecting them to be known. At the same time there must be a willingness to cooperate with and contribute to the requests and needs of the partner. This is a relationship built on giving and receiving, rather than fulfilling one’s own potential. The two are not mutually

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    exclusive, but their nature differs. The intimacy that comes in a relationship that can be trusted to endure brings more depth than one which carries a temporary character. As Ed Thornton expresses it, intimacy that has such trust carries a new depth of solitude along with the deepened sense of communion. The sharing may provide more fulfillment than a quest for self-fulfillment.4 The many functions of marriage may well have prevented, or provided an excuse to avoid, the risk of exploring the meaning of differences, of finding what “corresponding” with each other really means. Marriages held together because they were “necessary for the fabric of society” or “for the sake of the children.” Perhaps we could say they were fulfillng the law. But now technology, which we at times regard as demonic, has stripped away many of the laws and functions and provided a freedom to experience partnership and bonds in even more depth. No longer do we have to marry, but we are free to marry. We may find that depth doesn’t mean a continual “high,” but rather that faithfulness through good and bad times brings a far greater sense of worth and value. That may mean that there are not as many marriages, because that freedom is frightening to many. But it may also mean there won’t be as many divorces. There certainly are many occasions when a marriage can be viewed as having fallen short of the mark (been sinful!). And there may not be a feasible way to repair the damage. But there must be more reason than that marriage “doesn’t meet one’s needs anymore.” If we hold marriage in favor, then we must take it more seriously, looking beyond what it does for two people socially, sexually, economically, etc. Instead, what can it be? Are these two people prepared and committed to living together as different, yet equal partners, and are they adequate to care for each other? If they are, then let us celebrate with favor. But if the risk is one not willingly taken, then let us not look with favor on it simply because it is a marriage. Marriage is more than a label for two people who are happy with each other for the moment. And it is only when we acknowledge the risk and commitment that goes beyond those two people and their needs of the moment that we truly hold marriage in favor.

    1 Robert S. Weiss, Marital Separation (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1975), p. 8.

    2 Michael Novak, “The Family Out of Favor,” Harper’s, April 1976, pp. 37-40.

    3 William Masters and Virginia Johnson, The Pleasure Bond (Boston: Little, Brown & Company , 1974). 4 Edward Thornton, “Intimacy in the Christian Life,” Review & Expositor, Winter 1977, pp.

    43-50.

  • Prophets in Toyotas

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    Protagonist Corner

    Prophets in Toyotas

    James S. Lo wry

    Orange Park Presbyterian Church, Orange Park, Florida

    The theological bases for our salaries and all they represent are illusive at best. Like the corporation, we have concluded the only way to motivate and/or reward successful performance is through salary raises.

    Statistical data recently released by the Office of Professional Development of the General Assembly Mission Board (PCUS) indicates that the mean level of remuneration for pastors in churches of 250 to 499 members is $17,300. That is to say half of the pastors in churches of that size are returned more than that amount for services rendered and half receive less. The mean for pastors of churches of 500 to 999 members is $21,710. The mean for General Presbyters of Presbyteries is $24,166 and for Staff Directors of the GAMB is $30,006. The lowest mean is for pastors of churches of 55 to 99 members ($13,415). The greater meaning of the statistics shall be left to the statisticians. For purposes here three observations are important.

    1. Happily we have passed through the day when clergy were kept humble (and, in some instances, silent) with the lever of low salaries. 2. Even so, if our salaries (and allowances) are compared to other professionals we are significantly underpaid for the contribution we make to the culture in which we work. However, it is far more likely, that the other professionals are overpaid. 3. But still again, at the present level of remuneration, there is little wonder a surplus of capable theologically trained persons exists in our denomination. The established structure of the church quite simply cannot afford to provide salaried fields of service for all who are available. The great tragedy, of course, is that while there is a shortage of places for clergy to serve within the present structure, the world groans in its need for theologically trained leadership. Clearly, salaries, or structures, or both must change.

    As important as these issues are, the statistics show several symptoms of a more basic and severe cancer which is beginning to emerge across the church. The cancer, until recently, has gone largely unnoticed as it has gnawed at our entrails. In my view, the most alarming message of the figures I have quoted is that ecclesiastical structures in general and the Presbyterian Church in the United States in particular are chasing headlong after a value system established and championed not by Christian theology but by a corporate management mindset . The theological bases for our salaries and all they represent are illusive at best. Like the corporation, we have concluded the only way to motivate and/or reward successful performance is through salary raises. As salaries increase, ^

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    prices increase and raises serve only as carrots held before jackasses. Additionally , we have established a hierarchical system more complex than General Electric in which the relationship of financial need to salary is secondary to the size of the congregation served and status in the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Again, the theology of such values is illusive. Alas, salaries are not the only symptom of the pot of diseased gold we seek. We locate new churches more with the wisdom of Ronald McDonald than with the wisdom of the Christian faith. Or does it just appear that in placing new congregations we seek first a prosperous support base rather than a felt need for Gospel? The answer to the question is painful in its clarity. If the ghost we seek is still not made visible, consider the popularity among our clergy of post graduate degrees in Church Management. Tragically enough, the influence on the church of those who have earned such degrees is disproportionate to their wisdom. Again chasing after the corporation, we have been so busy setting goals and managing processes that few goals have been accomplished and ecclesiastical processes, from the local church to the General Assembly , are bogged in their own mire. To be sure, hidden somewhere in the cobwebs of the corporate management mind there is truth for the church to borrow. Since there seems to be no shortage of those who will glean that truth let me turn to an attempt at inspiring those who would speak against it. Clearly the day has come when the prophets of the Lord in the pulpits of the PCUS must rise up and boldly suggest alternative “models/’ We must speak in words understandable to the management mind of those we address. Namely, if we are to be heard we must decline raises; we must, by choice, move to lower cost housing; we must dare to find avenues of ministry as yet undreamed; and we must lead the funeral processions of our departed corporation executives in used Toyota Corollas. In short, we must change the image of the clergy so that we provide leadership in the establishment of sane lifestyles across the socioeconomic spectrum in which we are ministers. Shallow, transparent, sweet piety will bring only nausea. Boldly speaking truth with the way we live will bring change. We have things to learn from the value system of the corporation. However, as Christian disciples, we have truth more profound by far to teach. We are living in a day when the world’s resources, if divided equally among the world’s people, would leave us all to starve. The prophets of the Lord can no longer afford the luxury of being plastic poets belching at a neon savior. We must speak the truth of God in language that can be understood.

  • Pessimism or Hope

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    Protagonist Corner

    Pessimism or Hope?

    Robert J. Lake

    Trinity Presbyterian Church, Starkville, Mississippi

    In his book Brother to A Dragonfly, Will Campbell likened the church to an Easter chicken. The Easter chick is of purple hue but as it tries to associate with the other chickens, it experiences persecution and ostracism. Because of its strange color, an Easter chicken is pecked into isolation. When it begins to sprout feathers, it still looks different, but is well on the way to looking like all the other chickens. Finally, except for the purple ring around its neck, it begins to act the way the other chickens act. The density of the Easter chicken is to take on the ways and values of the others. This story points to some disturbing trends of the church and ministry today. The signs are quite obvious and well known that both have accommodated themselves to many of the expectations of the surrounding culture. Rather than daring to be different, the church has reinforced the prevailing cultural values. For example, the clergy often finds itself in the uneasy role of ‘ * cheerleader’ ‘ or “promoter” after the style of the Chamber of Commerce. The success idol in America pervades the ministry as seen in the career ladder from small church to large church, from small salary to larger salary. A recent pamphlet advertising a church-growth seminar listed the guest ministers in order of the size of their respective congregations as if a certain sense of virtue and prominence were to be equated with size. How often does a church find itself evaluating its “success” at the end of the year by the number added, or deleted, from the church roll! Search committees sometimes prioritize the ministers they will consider according to the statistical data of growth by numbers. Richard Niebuhr’s classical typology of the “Christ and culture” helps to describe our dilemma today. Though we live within the Reformed tradition, we find that we are hard pressed to define ourselves as truly the “transformers of culture.” It is much easier to see ourselves identifying with the “Christ of culture ” motif. To borrow James Smart’s phrase, there is indeed a Cultural subversion ” of the church. Certainly the above diagnosis of the present day ministry and church could be quite disheartening because we have a vision of what church and ministry could be. We live between the “is” and the “not yet” and our vision and hope of what could be always makes us uncomfortable with what is—and it should. We cannot totally resolve that tension on our own power. Nevertheless, simply to analyze and complain about the church’s shortcomings is a cop-out theologically and is personally irresponsible. It is to share in the same cultural pessimism of the society which we so often attack. It is, in fact, a reenforcement of the “Christ of culture” motif. Loving the church means not only that we are able to see her faults and be

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    prophetically critical when her life fails to match her affirmations, but also that we emphasize those areas of strength where the church has made and can make a major impact upon people and society. Loving the church means that we emphasize what’s right with the church; we underline the tremendous possibilities it has for changing lives of people and the structures of society. The church not only has suffered a failure of nerve but also a failure of hope. We have acted sometimes as if the sovereignty of God would not be able to prevail over our little mistakes. Therefore we have not risked much failure nor lived much hope. The local church is still that unique place in our society where the opportunities for dealing with life and death questions are unparalleled. The local pastor has more influence than the pastor often thinks. For example, the necessity and potential for responsible preaching and teaching is almost overwhelming . To try to shed some light on the mystery and meaning of human life and to challenge people to respond to the radical call of Christ are awesome tasks that cannot be taken lightly. We never know the impact of our words in peoples’ lives. Our culture likes instant coffee, instant replays, instant gratification. The ministry, however, cannot and should not expect instant and tangible gratification for its work. If we do, we had better re-examine what we’re doing. Among other opportunities the church has is that of enabling both intimate and disciplined fellowship to take place. People hunger for community and yet so often find purely secular groupings empty. What some churches are doing in this area is commendable and the possibilities are numberous both in new church development and within established churches. Certainly, the impact the church has had on the local and larger community is notable despite a checkered history. Church people attending city council meetings and going to court houses and jails have had an influence in terms of personal and social justice and compassion that many other groups have never had. We have not even tapped this area of witness and response. Concern for world hunger usually begins with local problems of poverty. The involvement of some churches and presbyteries in this area, even though just a dent, points again to the vitality and possibility of the church if it takes its mission seriously. To complain about the church and the “identity crisis” of ministry is too easy. Surely we have been subverted by our culture in ways that we do not even recognize. But these questions remain: Are we going to bow down to the current gods of our culture—even pessimism—and allow the church to become another promoter of the status-quo? Or, are we going to proclaim and live out our hope for the church as God’s channel of radical humanity? Shall we live by pessimism or by hope and courage?

  • Practical Ecumenism: Lament and Challenge

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    PROTAGONIST

    CORNER

    Practical Ecumenism: Lament and

    Challenge

    O. Benjamin Sparks

    First Presbyterian Church, Jacksonville, Florida

    I suggest that we begin to pray for Catholic and Episcopal bishops, Baptist clergy, Methodist District Superintendents, and Pentecostal preachers by name in worship on the Lord’s Day.

    It is a tragedy that ecumenism among major denominations is languishing, if not dying, in the latter part of the 20th Century. Ecumenicity (though not so named) has been real in the 1970’s among conservative, independent, and neofundamentalist churches and movements, and among charismatics of all persuasions . For the rest of us, fragmentation is the norm. There are many who now despise and fear the idea of a “super-church.” That fear has been nourished by disappointment in and frustration with unresponsive church bureaucracy in every denomination. Often the culture of the church itself has become as standardized and homogenized as the televised world-view of corporate America. Underneath some ecumenical disinterest is a genuine desire to uncover one’s own unique heritage as an avenue to decent personhood in the face of continuing depersonalization. Other people think that the issue of church union has prevented forward movement in areas of mission and ervice; or that church union is a red flag, symbolic only of further divisiveness and fragmentation. It has been—at least for the PCUS. Indeed, it is tragic that we who are Christians take so lightly the prayer of Jesus Christ that all who believe become one. Yet for the church to speak for peace when her very existence is a testimony to internecine war are does not promote belief in a Gospel of reconciliation. For the church to agree at the picket line but disagree at the Lord’s Table undermines the very nourishment and calling which leads her to the picket line in the hope of promoting justice. For some Christians to pour energy and time into strengthening themselves at the expense of other Christians does not inspire anyone toward an understanding of the meaning of sacrificial love. For Presbyterians to maintain buildings that require heating and cooling right down the street from Methodists and Baptists and Catholics who do likewise does not lend great credibility to calls for a simple lifestyle from these same Christians who have recently discovered the urgency of energy conservation and its relationship to world hunger. An Ecumenical Consultation of the PCUS at Kanuga Conference Center in 1975 put before the church two recommendations: there is the urgent demand of the Biblical imperative for visible unity, and our own first step toward that

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    unity is reunion with the United Presbyterian Church. At present it appears that reunion is lost, or if put to the vote, would bring such division in the PCUS as to make moral nonsense of attempts to further it. One is doubly disadvantaged as a Southern Presbyterian (a much more accurate name than PCUS), for we are twice removed in our talks with Lutherans and Catholics when we cannot get together ourselves. All those features of our past which we can and ought to celebrate only prove God’s greatness: that good can come out of every Nazareth. They prove that God can use the most misguided understandings of Christianity to raise up women and men committed to justice and peace and decency as the legitimate expression of the good news of Jesus Christ in the social order. It is cause for great thankfulness that our denomination can claim thousands of people of integrity and faithfulness in these days when it has not been easy to be either honest or faithful. And yet what other American denomination has any more sordid birth than we: born of a nationalist cause as surely as any state church in Europe, but self-justified at birth as a spiritual act? And so the lament. Read well the challenge: As preachers, liturgists, and theologians we have every obligation to pray and act for visible unity with every Christian—not just those with whom we share emotional, cultural, and theological sympathy. Not to do so is to give curious support to the doctrine of the spirituality of the church (which many people worked so hard to defeat in our relationship to the world) as it applies to denominational boundaries. For the One who became flesh for us calls us to take seriously and penitentially those brick and mortar, constitutional and ecclesiastical , extensions of His flesh and ours which are yet the occasion of division instead of unity. Therefore I suggest we begin to pray for Catholic and Episcopal bishops, Baptist clergy, Methodist District Superintendents, and Pentecostal preachers by name in worship on the Lord’s Day. It is especially important that we pray for those from whom we feel alienated. I suggest that we preach regularly (at least as frequently as we are required to celebrate the Lord’s Supper) about the achievement of visible unity—there are so many texts that lend themselves quite clearly to this exposition. I suggest that we join or organize groups of Christians across denominational lines who practice as much of the faith as their consciences allow. I suggest that we apply seriously the connectional polity of our church to all Christians, recognizing that we are bound with them in the same broken body. In every local place we can see and move toward those deeper bonds through which the Spirit can give life. I suggest that the laity of the church are years ahead of us in this, that they long for far more ecumenicity than we ever provide leadership. And finally, I suggest that we can all pray from our pulpits for the day when we will no longer be able to afford the emotional or financial luxuries of denominationalism. That day may be moving toward us faster than we know or care to think.

  • What’s So Bad About the Good News

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    Protagonist Corner

    What’s So Bad

    About the Good News?

    Murphy Davis

    Southern Prison Ministry

    Clifton Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia

    If we cannot hear the invitation to join hands with sisters and brothers in the faith for concrete sharing, prayer, fasting, learning, common meals, then we will not likely muster the courage for simple acts of compassion. During the Vietnam War years complaints against the press were often loud and long for reporting only bad news. Why not report some good news once in a while? Why is it we must hear about war and death all the time and nothing about the “good” things that are happening? The response is so often the same when any one of a number of “social issues” is raised among church folk. Workshops are even offered in the seminaries on “How to Preach on Controversial Issues” (or, “How to Preach the Bad News and Get Away With It! “) Again and again we raise issues of world hunger, poverty, racism, war, political repression, sexism, criminal injustice, ecological crises, the death penalty, inadequate housing. . . . And they become substance for special observances, sermons, offerings, and studies. The Bad News seems so clear for middle class American Christians: that we must give up, give away, fast, do with less, share, simplify, repent, reduce, turn around, and stop doing one thing or another; that we must live out of an ethic of resistance against the powers and principalities; that we must struggle against the rich on behalf of the poor; that we must feed the hungry, visit the sick and the prisoner, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger. The New Testament ethic unmasked is so direct, so simple, that it overwhelms and depresses us as if it were Bad News. To think of simple justice embarrasses us: we are so much better equipped to write about and study social issues and learn pastoral psychology to creatively handle the guilt and anxiety that grow from the gap between our words and our deeds. But the Biblical demand for justice does not call us to the task of social analysis, however helpful analysis might seem. The Biblical call is to simple acts of compassion: feed, clothe, visit, welcome, share, give. But we, like the rich young ruler, often go away very sad because we are very rich and very lonely. And because we are very rich and very lonely the Good News sounds so Bad. And because the Good News sounds so Bad, we can hardly hear the promise: Sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me. Is this the call that sounds so harsh? Is this the Bad News that sends us scrambling for some more complex and ambiguous passage of scripture for our meditation?

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    We cannot hear the Good News because it is easier to hear the Bad News. We cannot hear the Good News because we are rich and because we assume that we must act alone. And does not Jesus often point to a relationship between being wealthy and being separated from other human beings? Part of the power of the Good News is that Christ does not call us as solitary individuals. “Follow me” is not an invitation to the lonely wandering of heroic individualists but an invitation to join with trióse others who also follow after the Christ. “Follow me” is an invitation into the community of disciples—-that motley band of misfits who joyfully join hands with the leper, the lost, the least, and the last. Who can alone give up the burden of anxiety about food and drink for tomorrow? Who can bear the loneliness of a decision to give away possessions? to share? to follow the Christ who leads us to such poor and vulgar folk? But what happens when one lives in a Christian community in which economic resources, meals, prayer, and fasting are shared? Do we tire of hearing of the early Church whose members held all things in common? “They spent their time in learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship and sharing in the fellowship meals and the prayers.” Note the central activities of the early Christian community. Every day they shared meals, prayer, learning, and taking part in the fellowship. They held their possessions in common. And the Holy Spirit worked powerfully among them. The themes are those of joy, gladness, and awe as they were shaped by the hearing and re-hearing of the Good News and the witnessing of miracles and wonders as they were discipled in community. Jesus’ command to “Follow me” and the persistent biblical demand for justice, mercy, and compassion are Good News because God gives the gracious gift of community to those who have ears to hear. Living in a Christian community of sharing and discipleship can not only change our lives but can also shape our hearing: opening our ears to the Good News and the promises of the Kingdom and making our hearts glad and bold as we hear and experience the power and joy of the gospel. But if we wander alone, trapped by our wealth and possessions, the Good News continues to sound like just another guilt trip. The radicality of the gospel demands things that we simply cannot do. If we insulate ourselves from the poor, the hungry, the despised, then poverty and hunger continue to be “social problems” to us, and they always sound like Bad News in a sermon. If we cannot hear the invitation to join hands with sisters and brothers in the faith for concrete sharing, prayer, fasting, learning, common meals, then we will not likely muster the courage for simple acts of compassion. Ours is an ethic of the promised Kingdom. The task now is to mend the gap between word and deed: the gap between speaking the words of the Good News and hearing and doing the deeds of the Bad News. Responsible preaching must share the Good News that the Lord binds together the faithful disciples; and preaching must be bound to the task of building the community of the faithful. The Lord promises to bind together those who love the Kingdom. Hearing the promise, let us be about the task of joining hands to share, visit, welcome, feed, clothe, and give.

  • Waiting in America (Or Growing Antsy at Advent)

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    Waiting in America

    (Or Growing Antsy at Advent)

    P. C. Enniss

    Central Presbyterian Church, Atlanta,

    Georgia

    Edmund Steimle uses a phrase, which I believe he borrowed from Niebuhr, to suggest that preaching should be incarnational. By that, he means preaching should be human, worldly, relevant. The sermon should meet people where they are, as the incarnation meets us where we are—in the world. Surely Advent, of all the seasons of the year, calls for incarnational preaching. This means that those of us who are serious about the task of preaching Advent sermons must give some consideration to the state of the world we are addressing. Advent is shorter than it used to be—literally shorter. There was a time when Advent consisted of six Sundays. It later dwindled to five, and today of course, it is four: a bit of history which must gladden most Americans. Because the truth is, we Americans do not wait well. We are impatient and anxious for action. (“Antsy” is, after all, an American word.) No marketing technique in America can insure more immediate success for virtually any commodity or service than those two simple words “No waiting.” Americans are indeed the “now generation”: reared on throw-away diapers and fast food, entertained by instantaneous electronic media, educated by digests, condensed novels and crash courses, culturized by pop art and pop music, indoctrinated by an economic system which insists on “instant” credit for which we are encouraged to fly now and pay later, programed by a society which promotes immediate gratification , cured of ills by miracle drugs and laser beams, and evangelized by a religion which tilts decidedly more toward freedom than discipline. Is it any wonder we grow weary of waiting? To wait is a contradiction of the values of the very culture which has birthed us and which shapes us daily. Goldie Hawn expresses the majority mood of America in the movie version of that delightful American drama Butterflies Are Free, when in response to her new acquaintance ‘s question about her college background, she replies “Oh, I started to go to UCLA, but I couldn’t find a place to park.” America is a land where the level of commitment is more frequently in obverse relationship to the length of the line. But wait! If we tire of waiting, we know also that we have no choice but to wait. The human gestation process still takes nine months. Old wine still tastes better than new wine. Even the most romantic among us knows there is no such thing as “love at first sight.” No speed reading course can ever accelerate the acquiring of wisdom. And it still remains so that “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.” We have no choice but to wait. Thus our dilemma. Perhaps the best clue to the true American frustration is to be found in that old Army phrase, now appropriated to the culture at large, “Hurry up and wait.” Americans are we who find ourselves increasingly encouraged to hurry up, only to discover that still we must wait. This is the tension in which we live, a tension which of course is no different

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    from that of any age or place, except perhaps in its intensity. In truth, the whole world waits. Incarnational preaching, however, not only meets men and women where they are in the world; it breaks into their world the person, the word, the purpose of God. Thus, the sermon can never be simply a replay of the “Today Show.” The sermon’s unique contribution is the truth which God introduces. So, since “to wait” is our human condition, it is instructive to remember that God also waits. The images of God one finds in scripture are those of one who takes his time—no hurry; who, in truth has all the time in the world, who will indeed work his purposes out, but who will do it in his own good time. Creation pulsates to a divinely ordered rhythm which reserves a place for waiting. God, we are led to believe, is one of interminable patience. Moreover, Jesus, the paradigm of our own humanity, identified with us in our waiting. The Gethsemane experience gathers together all the agonizing emotions that go with waiting—fear, anxiety, sadness, impatience, frustration, helplessness—all human emotions. Plus, of course, there is anger at those who would not wait with him even one hour. The biblical story hints at that strange wisdom which is to be found in waiting. It is a wisdom which refuses to be rushed, a wisdom contradictory to the values and goals of American culture, a wisdom which will come for us only in time and by faith. Harold B. Sanderson, Jr., is a young minister who seems to have glimpsed this mysterious wisdom of waiting. He speaks of it in a poem which, he says, “grew out of my visits with Chrysynda Lee Ellis, a terminally ill high school girl. After six months, trying to keep her alive, all efforts failed and she died. The poem was written when there was still hope for her physical recovery, but now it takes on a far more important dimension, pointing to a life beyond our struggles and striving, waiting to welcome us home. Faith sees the world as nothing else sees the world.” The poem can only be understood in the context of that life situation.

    “The Waiting” The waiting in early spring On dark grey afternoons Requires such patience as Only snow-bound crocus buds Can share. Long winter watches for Some signs of sun returning To warm the barren earth And stir still silent life Are over. Yet once warmed and wakened Beginning, petal by petal, Blossoming—an interminable Pause only fragile crocus buds Can bear. This seems to us no answer In our waiting for new life, But petal by petal bright Against the snow, why we wait We come to know.

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    Why we wait, we come to know—in time. We wait in order to discern more distinguishably the one who waits for us. It is God. Theilike’s theological insight is never more keen than when he reverses subject and object in the parable of the impatient prodigal son and renames the parable, “The Waiting Father.” All our anxiety at waiting, our fury, frustration and despair at having to wait—for faith, or truth, or peace, or love, or meaning (whatever that overworked word means)—all our waiting must be understood in the larger, ultimate context of God’s waiting. “In the fulness of time (God’s own time) God revealed to us a Son.” Christmas addresses the problem of our impatience. Christmas reveals the one for whom we have waited. But wait! The one who came is also the one who is coming. While Advent properly celebrated has always had about it the element of history, recalling those pre-Christmas days in that pre-Christian era as the world awaited the Bethlehem birth, Advent has never been exclusively the recollection of history. Properly celebrated, Advent has always had about it also the element of hope. Even as we celebrate the one who came, we await the one who comes. Paul Tillich is particularly perceptive at this point: “Waiting means not having and having at the same time. . . .The fact that we wait for something shows that in some way we already possess it. . . .If we wait in hope and patience, the power of that for which we wait is already effective within us. He who waits in an ultimate sense is not far from that for which he waits. He who waits in absolute seriousness is already grasped by that for which he waits. He who waits in patience has already received the power ofthat for which he waits. He who waits passionately is already an active power himself, the greatest power of transformation in personal and historical life. We are stronger when we wait than when we possess. When we possess God, we reduce him to that small thing we knew and grasped of him; and we make it an idol. Only in idol worship can one believe in the possession of God.” Thus “waiting” becomes descriptive of the life style of those who live in the theological tension between having and not having. “Waiting” is the Bible’s way of describing the kind of relationship we have with God in the world. But waiting is not despair. As Tillich puts it, “It is the acceptance of our not having, in the power of that which we already have.” Waiting in America is essentially no different from waiting in Bethlehem, for every time is a time of waiting. It is the human condition. We wait, but we wait not as those who have nothing for which to wait—no hope. We wait for that which we already have. We wait for God. Jesus, of course, is the one whom God sent to show us what it means to wait. He is the unique one who came to tell us it is all right to trust our hope. He is the model for our own waiting, who demonstrates in history the nature of that hope for which we wait. Jesus revealed the nature and purpose of God, who has come but who still comes; whom we have, but do not have. Thus the season of Advent, in which we celebrate both our past history and our future hope, becomes a parable of our own existence. That is where we are, as W. H. Auden accurately describes it, “in the meantime .” So what do we do—in this meantime—while we wait. Even the Advent sermon ought to offer the suggestion of a response on the part of the hearers. An incarnational sermon, after all, ought to be as specific in its call for action as the incarnation itself. So, in the style of Paul Lehmann whose ethics is an attempt to answer the question of all church people “What am I as a believer in Jesus Christ and a member of his church to do?”, so the sermon should

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    conclude with some specific, incarnational suggestions. One thing certain, the scriptural understanding of waiting is not idle inactivity. The patience of God is not passive, nor is Jesus’ waiting depicted as indifference. Neither, then is our waiting period to be characterized by inactivity. Father Henri Nouwen writes of rediscovering an old legend in the Talmud, which seems to suggest a stance for our waiting:

    Rabbi Yoshua ben Levi came upon Elijah the prophet while he was standing at the entrance of Rabbi Simeron ben Yohai’s cave. . . .He asked Elijah, “When will the Messiah come?” Elijah replied, “Go and ask him yourself.” “Where is he?” “Sitting at the gates of the city.” “How shall I know him?” “He is sitting among the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and then bind them up again, but he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself, Terhaps I shall be needed: if so I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.’” (Taken from the tractate Sanhédrin).

    According to the legend, the Messiah is sitting among the poor, binding his wounds one at a time, waiting for the moment when he is needed. Thus the clue to the character of our own waiting. While we wait, we tend to our own wounds, but we do it in such a manner that we are not so preoccupied with our own self that we are prevented from ministering to the needs of others. We are, as the Christ before us, in Father Nouwen’s words “the wounded healer.” It is a mystery to be sure, that “by his stripes we are healed.” So un-American! The selfsufficiency of the American character prefers that I “do it myself.” That another ‘s suffering is the source of my health is an offense to my American individualism . Nevertheless, that is the mystery of God’s grace which is the context of our waiting. Likewise, that is the clue to the character of our own waiting—not idleness, despair or indifference. While we wait on the Lord, we do the Lord’s work, and the repeated mystery is that our sufferings too possess the potential for healing. No one understood this mystery, or demonstrated this life style, any better than Martin Luther King, Jr. In his volume Why We Can’t Wait, King includes his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” addressed to his fellow clergymen who were suggesting that the “timing” was wrong, and that King and his civil rights colleagues might do better to wait a little. In that epistle, which bears remarkable resemblance to some of St. Paul’s, Martin King wrote “For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait.’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity . This’Wait’has almost always meant’Never’. . . .We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. . . .1 hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.” There is a legitimate impatience that belongs to those who wait on the Lord. Even as we wait, we grow impatient with injustice, suffering, loneliness, oppression, and despair

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    precisely because we live in the faith knowledge of a kingdom where all these are already overcome. We both await and possess citizenship in a kingdom where God rules. Thus even as we wait, we live ready to bear witness to the one who has already come. And the mystery is that even our waiting, when it possesses those qualities of trust, expectation and impatience, becomes the source of another’s redemptive insight into their own human situation. According to the Talmud, when Elijah explained to Rabbi Joshua ben Levi where he could find the Messiah, the Rabbi went to him and said

    “Peace unto you, my master and teacher.” The Messiah answered, “Peace unto you, son of Levi.” He asked, “When is the master coming?” “Today,” he answered. Rabbi Yoshua returned to Elijah, who asked, “What did he tell you?” “He indeed has deceived me, for he said ‘Today I am coming’ and he has not come.” Elijah said, “This is what he told you: ‘Today if you would listen to His voice.’” (Psalm 95:7)

    The ancient legend bears a strange resemblance to the more recent American legend by Frank Baum, “The Wizard of Oz.” In Baum’s American tale, Dorothy and her three companions (the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion) went searching for those ingredients which would make them whole again; in their case, brains, a heart, courage, and for Dorothy, a home. Only, as every child knows, the story ends with the discovery that the very things they sought—waited for—they already possessed. It is an American secular version of the eternal drama. We wait for what we already have. We long for the one who is already here. It comes as no surprise that Americans are less than enthusiastic in the observance of Advent. Who wants to celebrate having to wait? Theologically, however, that is unfortunate, because to understand the meaning of Advent is to gain insight into his own human situation. Even impatient America must wait. But we wait not in idleness or without direction. There is meaning to our meantime. It is a meaning fashioned from our hope in the one who has come, and for whom we wait. The one “who waits in an ultimate sense is not far from that for which he waits,” as Paul Tillich has said. And so we wait—rejoicing in the ancient arrival of him who has, in truth redeemed all our waiting from despair—while in the meantime, joining with the church both ancient and modern to pray again and again the Advent prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

  • Stewardship in a Time Of Limited Resources

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    Stewardship in a Time

    Of Limited Resources

    M. McCoy Franklin

    First Presbyterian Church, Auburn,

    Alabama

    Stewardship season is probably not the favorite time of the year for most parish ministers. Many find stewardship sermons difficult to prepare and the details of the other stewardship activities frustrating to manage. And it seems to be getting more difficult. Maybe this feeling only reflects that after so many stewardship seasons it is becoming more and more difficult to find a new idea or a fresh approach to the subject. Or maybe it is a feeling that the changing economic situation is simply making it much more difficult for people to give. We can look back with some nostalgia on the 1960’s when affluence was all around and seemed to be the wave of the future. Stewardship in Contemporary Theology, a collection of essays on the “contemporary” understanding and implications of stewardship, published in 1960, had as its concluding essay one entitled “Stewardship in an Economy of Abundance.” No one would write such an essay today. “Double digit” inflation coupled with a dramatic economic slowdown and high unemployment has awakened us from the dream of the “affluent society.” The fuel shortage last winter has made us painfully aware that the resources of the earth are indeed limited. While the fuel shortage was exaggerated by the unusually cold weather, government officials , industry spokesmen, and the scientific community all agree that these shortages will continue, that they will get worse, and that petroleum and natural gas are only the first of many raw materials which are becoming increasingly scarce. The point is not that we are about to use up all our petroleum, natural gas, copper, and chromium. The point is that as they become more scarce the price will increase and the percentage of our income necessary to purchase these materials and the products produced from or by them will increase, leaving less to spend for other things. In this changing economic situation the church gets caught in a double bind. On the one hand, inflation has raised the church’s expenses, while on the other hand church members have a smaller percentage of their income with which to support the church. This then is the context in which we have to talk about Stewardship in 1977. From the preceding description, it may seem like a bad time to be talking about stewardship. It may, in fact, be the very best context in which to explore the meaning of stewardship. It may be a time in which we can see most clearly the implications of the assertion that we are “stewards of the grace of God.” Martin Marty, speaking to the National Council of Churches Commission on Stewardship, observed that these “hard times” of the 1970’s bring an opportunity to the churches to develop a sense of Christian realism. The same conditions which highlight the insecurity of our economic props also make us more aware of our need for lasting values. Marty suggested to these stewardship

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    leaders that they concentrate on this hunger of people for durable values rather than on their insecurity over having their earthly props knocked away. That is a good suggestion for us all. It encourages all of us who are responsible for stewardship education to make the growing realization of our limited resources an occasion for reconsidering the basic meaning of stewardship. The realization that there are limits to our resources also forces us to recognize that there are limits to our power to manipulate the world and its processes. It has not been long since we were talking about completely eradicating poverty and hunger. Cybernation was being hailed as the new liberator which would both expand our productive capacity and free it from dependence upon human labor. Affluence would come to be determined simply by how much a nation could consume since production would be almost limitless. Now we know that the limiting factors to such a formula for unlimited affluence are fuel and raw materials. The specter we now see is one of more hunger and a more limited economy in the years ahead. Year by year in one area after another we are seeing the limits of our ability to manipulate the environment and to remake the universe to our plans. The realization of these limits to our power has called into question the very nature of our relationship to the universe. The image so dear to western culture is the vision of “Man the Titan,” the conqueror who goes out and subdues the earth. This image has been especially dear to Americans. We have all been nurtured on the stories of the pioneers who conquered the wilderness, of the entrepreneurs who rose from rags to riches by their own shrewdness and hard work, and of the scientists whose knowledge and technology have brought the very processes of nature under our control. There has been both a secular and a religious version of this image. The secular version projected a vision of human existence in opposition to God or in isolation from God. The religious version pictured men and women as partners with God or co-owners with God in the universe. The recognition of limits to our power to subdue, control, and manipulate the universe has raised serious questions about the adequacy of this image of our relationship to the world which pictures us as owners and controllers. It puts us in a better position to reexamine more openly and realistically the biblical image which pictures us as tenants in God’s universe. This biblical image is the foundational principle of Christian Stewardship. Stewardship is not fund raising or budget building or program promotion or even tithing. All of these may result from stewardship, but should not be mistaken for stewardship. Stewardship is an attitude toward life, a view of the world, a concept of reality which acknowledges God as Creator and Owner and accepts life as a sacred trust to be gratefully received and responsibly tended. Any approach to stewardship which nurtures the illusion of ownership or even co-ownership is ultimately destructive of stewardship no matter how successful it is or how much money or other support it produces. Appeals which urge us to be “generous” or to give “our fair share” may be psychologically correct in producing a response from affluent people, but they are theologically questionable in that they feed the illusion that we are owners of resources who can choose to be generous with what is ours and share fairly what we own and control. Even the appeal for tithing often has carried with it the, sometimes not-

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    so-subtle, assumption that if we give God his tenth we can do whatever we please with our nine-tenths. Stewardship involves ten tenths. Any appeal which reduces stewardship to generous giving or even to church tithes is a perversion of biblicial theology. The present economic bind which is affecting the “success” of these appeals may provide just the incentive we need to make us reexamine our understanding of stewardship. The growing awareness that control of the universe by human knowledge and technology is more illusion than reality may also awaken us to hear again the affirmation of the Psalmist: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein. . . ,” as well as to ponder again the words of Paul “you are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” The knowledge of our limited resources may be the very thing which also awakens us to the truth that we are guests in a world we have not created. If it does, then this is the best time to slice through the fund raising techniques which have often been substituted for stewardship and come to see Christian stewardship as it really is: a particular way of relating to life which accepts it and manages it as a sacred trust from God. A second aspect of stewardship which a time of limited resources helps us to see more clearly is the relationship between stewardship and commitment. Economics is usually defined as the allocation of scarce goods among competing demands. Likewise stewardship can be defined as the effective use or management of available resources. We spoke earlier of how affluent times encourage us to think of stewardship in terms of how to use our “surplus,” i.e. give generously , share our wealth, etc. But in times of limited resources when the demands are greater than the goods, we are confronted with the fact that responsible stewardship really has to do with setting priorities for the limited resources we have. For this reason times of economic hardship can be creative periods for persons, for churches, and for the society as a whole since they raise clearly and insistently the questions of value and priority. One cannot help wondering what the American involvement in Vietnam would have been if back in the early 1960’s the American people and their elected officials had been forced by the economic situation to choose between “guns and butter.” One cannot help wondering what shape the church would be in today if 20 years ago congregations had been forced by their limited resources to choose between lavish new buildings (with long-term mortgage payments and large utility and maintenance requirements) and the mission program of the church. Nationwide debates or churchwide discussions about what was really important for our national or church life—what was in line with our civil and/or religious principles—were really needed. But our affluence and the illusion of limitless resources it nurtured allowed us to avoid such discussions . Hard times make us face up to the need to set priorities and make decisions about what we value most. For this reason hard times can be the most creative of times. Such a time of priority setting is the very best time to talk about stewardship . Jesus voiced the primary concern of Christian stewardship when he said “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Christian stewardship is more concerned about the commitment of the giver than it is about the size of the gift. Christian stewardship is concerned about the orientation of the heart.

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    And the allocation of our treasure is one of the clearest ways we reveal that orientation. When resources are abundant we may be able to hide our basic orientation with token gifts from our surplus, but during hard times our real commitments become evident to all. Such a time provides the opportunity for us to see clearly that Christian stewardship is the living out of our faith in Jesus Christ and our commitment to his kingdom. To say that stewardship is basically concerned with commitment is to say also that stewardship has to do with ethics. We may have begun to see this relationship already. Many thoughtful people around the world are raising questions about the implications of churches enjoying wealth in the midst of poverty or about Christians growing fat in the midst of starvation. What is required of the churches in America in this last quarter of the 20th century? The requirement is the same as it has always been: to keep before all their members the reality of the Lordship of Christ and the insistent call of Christ to serve in his name all the children of God. The shape that service takes in this time of limited resources cannot be divorced from the issues of hunger, freedom, justice, and human rights. Jesus himself asks, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I bid you?” Jesus himself summed up the moral law in terms of love for God and love for neighbor. And in his parable of the Last Judgment, Jesus identifies the Christian ministry with feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and ministering to the sick and imprisoned. Stewardship theology defines our existence as that of tenants responsible to God for how we use what he has entrusted to us. Stewardship ethics describes the shape ofthat responsibility for the time in which we live. Let us then look at some of the ethical implications of stewardship in a time of limited resources: implications for our personal decisions and life style, implications for our civic responsibilities, and implications for our life together as the church. There are definitely ethical implications for those of us who have under our care such a large proportion of the world’s resources. We have heard the statistics many times. Americans are responsible for 33 percent of the world’s consumption of petroleum, 68 percent of its natural gas, and 44 percent of its coal. The United States, with only 6 percent of the world’s population, is responsible for 33 to 35 percent of the world’s consumption of all resources. It doesn’t take much arithmetic to figure out that, at this rate, 20 percent of the world’s population would consume it all, leaving nothing for the other 80 percent. Stewardship as a life style has definite implications for the level of our consumption. Whenever the subject of hunger, of polluting the environment, or of using up the earth’s irreplaceable resources is raised the immediate response (from those who live in affluent societies) is to place the blame on overpopulation: if those poor nations with birth rates of 4 or 5 percent would stop overpopulating the earth, these problems could be handled. And there is no denying the fact that overpopulation is a very real problem of crisis proportions. More mouths to feed and lives to sustain mean greater demand on the world’s resources and greater pollution of its environment. Zero population growth is an essential ingredient for a stable, sustainable global society. But the rate of consumption in the more affluent countries is also a real problem of crisis proportions. The average U.S. citizen consumes 22 times as much energy as the average Chinese, so 22 Chinese could be born for every single American without consuming any

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    more of the earth’s irreplaceable resources. One average U.S. citizen pollutes the environment 50 times as much as the average Indian, so 50 Indians could be born for every American without any greater pollution of the environment (data from Earl Barfoot, “Life-styles and Hungry People,” United Methodist Board of Discipleship). If resources are limited, it is not possible for some to have more without others having less. It has been difficult for most consumers to perceive this truth. The most hopeful aspect of the fuel shortages last winter was the beginning of that kind of perception. A surprisingly large number of natural gas users voluntarily turned down their heat even to the point of some discomfort. They did this because they could see how their failure to conserve natural gas would mean closing more factories and putting more people out of work. They could see how excessiveive consumption of natural gas in one month would mean less gas or even no gas the next month. If the winter of 1977 helped the American consumer to see how excessive consumption by one group means extra suffering by another group, even in this one area, then maybe there is reason to hope that we can begin to broaden this perception to other areas. Maybe we can begin to understand how our excessive consumption of gasoline is related to the plight of the hospital in Zaire which must turn sick patients away because of the price and scarcity of the diesel fuel needed to run its generators. And some day maybe we will be able to perceive how our heavy consumption of feed grains is related to the suffering of malnourished people around the world. Not until we begin to make this connection will we begin to alter the wasteful consumption habits we have developed. A second dimension of excessive consumption is the effects it will have on future generations. The ethical implications of our stewardship are not exhausted by our responsibility to people around the world. We also have a responsibility to future generations who follow us. Seward Hiltner has laid out these implications in a parable (he calls it a dream). A man and a woman are marooned on a deserted island with no hope of escape or rescue. They discover that the island food supply grows at such a rate that it will provide them each with 2500 calories per day for 50 years, which is also the length of time it will take for a new crop to begin producing. If they over-consume they will run out of food before the new crop comes in. Things go well until they realize they are going to have a baby. They have to decide if they will reduce their consumption in order to have enough for the three. The man says they should maintain their 2500 calorie diet because he is confident that they will find other sources of food before they run out. The woman does not want to gamble with their child’s life and thinks they should reduce their consumption accordingly. (“Starving the Future’s Children,” CHRISTIAN CENTURY, 1-21-76). What right do we have to gamble with the lives of our grandchildren by naively assuming that new resources will be found to replace those we are wasting today? We have not understood the meaning of stewardship if we do not see its implications for the shaping of our personal life style and consumption habits . If these times of limited resources help us to see these implications, then this will prove to be the best of all possible times. Stewardship implications for our times have to do with more than personal life styles. As basic and as important as this is, it is not sufficient for these crucial times. The worldwide problem of hunger will not be solved simply by

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    all of us skipping a meal a week. Neither will riding a bike to work automatically improve the lot of an Asian farmer or an African mine worker. We need better systems of distribution. One of the resources of which we Americans are stewards is citizenship in the world’s principle economic power. American agriculture policy, trade agreements, economic policy, treaty arrangements, etc., have far-ranging effects on people around the world. Responsible stewardship includes the way we use our influence to work for policies that will encourage a more equitable distribution of the world’s resources among the world’s people. This is the kind of stewardship our Christian brothers and sisters in Africa are requesting of us when they speak of a “moratorium” on mission activity. They are saying that if we really want to help Africans, we will put our efforts into trying to influence our own government to step up its economic assistance programs , to increase its agricultural assistance programs, and to stop supporting repressive governments controlled by white minorities. If we really want to help Africans and Asians and Latin Americans, we should put our efforts into changing the wage scales and working conditions set by the large multinational corporations which control such large portions of the economic life of these poorest countries. Since most of these corporations draw their leadership and their capital from North American and Western Europe, the opportunity we have to influence their policies is an important resource of which we are stewards and for which we must some day give an accounting. How will we be able to justify the maintenance of our high standard of living when the price of its maintenance is the misery and poverty of farm workers and mine workers around the world? These are some of the civic dimensions of our stewardship responsibilities. The realization that the earth has limited resources which must be shared by all the earth’s peoples makes these dimensions stand in sharper relief. Finally, the practice of stewardship in these times of limited resources carries important implications for the church itself. The failure of the churches’ receipts to keep pace with their rising expenses is forcing the churches to reexamine programs and to set clearer priorities. And it is forcing churches to do more things cooperatively. Numerous ecumenical consortia are being developed to prepare economical curricula, to administer relief efforts, to strengthen theological education, to coordinate social inquiry and action, to plan and implement mission strategy, and to perform many other tasks denominations did alone in more affluent times. Cooperative arrangements are being worked out for new church development and old church consolidation to prevent costly competition and duplication of efforts. Congregations are learning to share buildings, staff, and programs. Could it be that the unity for which our Lord prayed—a unity which our mutual love and commitment to the same Lord has not been able to bring about—will eventually be brought about by the common experience of limited resources?”The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” 1977 may seem like a terrible year to be faced with the responsibility for leading a congregation in another stewardship program. This is especially true if part of the congregation thinks of stewardship only in terms of collecting enough pledges to meet next year’s budget and the rest see the church’s stewardship emphasis as one more demand on an already over-loaded family budget. And this talk of changing our life style, reducing our consumption, changing policies that will cause us to pay more for goods so that people we do not even

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    know will get higher wages is not likely to make either group in the church happy. It could even make them so mad that they will give less instead of more. That is a serious risk. But if we have correctly understood the meaning of stewardship for 1977, if we really are tenants in God’s world and are responsible to him for how we use his resources, if the resources of the earth are limited so that one group can have more only when another group has less, if God loves and cares for all his children in all parts of the world as well as those generations which are to come, and if Christian discipleship shows it self in obedient response to the call of Christ—then do we have any alternative? Who knows what long term effect such an approach to stewardship will have. As Martin Marty suggests, maybe this is the time to develop Christian realism. The freezes and shortages of 1977 may have stretched the perceptions of people to such a point that they can begin to see what has to be done to develop a sustainable global society. After all, the future of the church has never been guaranteed by the size of its budget. Neither has the future of any person been guaranteed by the level of his or her standard of living. The only guarantee any person or institution (civil or religious) has is the guarantee given by the one who said: “Whoever would save his life shall lose it, but whoever would give his life for my sake and the gospel will surely find it.”