“Mosaic: Resources” Mal 3: 6-12 Proverbs 3:9-10

We are now a few months past Christmas. However, I am an early Christmas gift buyer, so I have already picked out some of the things that I will start to purchase in the summer towards this coming Christmas. Why? Because I am not a very good last minute shopper. Santa’s secret workshop freaked me out in elementary school. It felt like I was cutting it too close. I want to have enough time to put real thought into gifts - often making gifts for people or picking out something that I feel that they will value.

However, I am not under the illusion that is true for all gifts. I am not a fan of buying generic gifts, but sometimes it just happens - for parties, or employers, or any host of other categories of people. Sometimes we just buy something because we feel that we have to buy something for that person, more out obligation than relationship. I want you to think about those gifts? Sometimes they end up being just the right thing. But how many more times do they end up being re-gifted or shoved into a closet or drawer to be forgotten or at a thrift store? Sometimes when we feel like we have to do something, it doesn’t end up being as thoughtful.

This same feeling can sometimes extend to our faith lives. The prophet Malachi has an interesting message for the people of Israel. God essentially tells the people that they are robbers. Specifically, that they are robbing God. Now, God is speaking to the Israelites about something very specific - that the tithe - or the ten percent of earnings - not being presented to God as a sacrafice. 

But I wonder if we are robbing God with our resources in other ways. Is it robbing God when we serve half-heartedly? Is it robbing God, when we give money, but not our time to the Savior? Is it robbing God, when we hold back what we fear that we will need? What exactly does it mean to rob God?

I often think back to the story of the loaves and fishes when it comes to discussing the resources we have been blessed by God. The story is recounted in different ways throughout the various gospels, with the numbers of those fed varying, but perhaps my favorite version is found in the sixth chapter of the gospel of John. The people have gathered from far and wide to hear Jesus teach, but when it came to be time for folks to eat, Jesus turned to his disciple, Philip, and asked where they were going to buy the food for folks to eat. Philip sputtered a little, perhaps wondering why he was the one being asked about this, before saying that six months wroth of wages would only begin to buy a little for each person, but not enough to fill them. But a little boy offered five barley loaves and two fish to Jesus. Probably all he had for his own lunch, but Andrew sort of rebuked the offering, asking what they were going to do with that. As if he was saying that there was no way that little offering was going to be enough. 

But it did end up being enough - Jesus blessed the boys lunch and started to distribute it to the people. When everyone had ate their fill Jesus asked the disciples to go around and collect the left overs - and oh were there left overs - filling twelve baskets.

The disciples in this story, were approaching the idea of feeding this many people - five thousand men and women and children - from a mindset of scarcity. There was no way that they could find enough food or buy enough food. There just wasn’t enough. In some other versions of this story the disciples actually tell Jesus to send the people away so they can go find food on their own, but that isn’t Jesus’s plan.

We, too, can approach life through the lens of scarcity. Thinking that we do not have enough. Often, when we think through this mindset, we actually end up wrapping our hands a lot tighter around that which we do have - not wanting to risk giving it up. Maybe we rob God when we approach life through a lens of scarcity, that leads us to no longer have an open hand. 

Recently I was listening to a discussion of the parable of the talents where this was identified as one of the problems. In the parable, Jesus tells the story of an overseer who left his servants with money. One with five talents. One with two talents and one with one talent. The first two servants invested what their master had given them, and upon his return they handed him a 100 percent profit - they doubled what they had been given. But the last servant simply hurried his talent in the ground. Often he is referred to as the foolish servant. In the parable he is even called the wicked servant. But I wonder if he was more the fearful servant - not wanting to risk what the master had given him. Maybe we rob God when we act out of fear instead of faith. 

In proverbs, the book of Wisdom, we find instructions to honor God with our substance, with what we produce. Often this scripture is mis quoted however to mean that we give to God in order to be blessed, which isn’t the point. The point is to simply give unto God what is God’s.

The truth brothers and sisters, is that we can’t do everything, but we can do something.  A few years ago my friend, Ellen, got married. When we arrived at the reception, instead of small gifts on the table, there were bookmarks stamped with animals, stating that the money that would have been used for favors was donated to the Heifer project. Ellen did something.

At one of the churches I served, there weren’t many children, but the children that were present wanted to do something. Their teachers thought that maybe they could raise enough money to buy a few chickens through Heifer international. But that wasn’t good enough for the kids. They got in their mind that they wanted to purchase a water buffalo. So they asked each member of the congregation to set aside money when they touched an egg - when they gathered eggs, when they had an egg for breakfast or when they baked a cake. The kids had a vision. They couldn’t do everything, but they could do something. 

Friends, we rob God in many ways, but perhaps most noticeably when we hold on so tightly to what we have that we don’t think we can do anything. That is our own brokenness in play, brothers and sisters. But God can take that brokenness and remind us that we have so much to offer. So much to give. We are simply invited to give what we have for God’s glory, including our very selves. Including our spiritual gifts. Including our time. And yes, even including our money. All of our resources matter, and when we give the little we have, the world can be changed. Amen.