2 Corinthians 8:16-24
A couple years ago, there was this huge project put on by a local church to have the biggest cross in Houston. It was deemed "the mark of Houston." Driving down Interstate 45, you can't miss it. It stands above every structure around it. It's big.
There was another local church that thought it could build an even bigger one. Plans started developing on how a bigger cross could be made, how much money it would cost, and so forth.
A friend of mine who was part of my church decided to take it on himself to go talk to these pastors. He wanted to know what the driving force behind this sort of thinking was, and why the pastors felt it was so necessary to spend millions of dollars on symbols. The pastor with the biggest cross told my friend that he'd had a vision to build something that stood out to Houston drivers. My friend couldn't really argue with that, because when it comes to visions, it's hard to argue that. What was he going to do, tell the pastor he was wrong in doing what he thought God was telling him to do?
With the pastor aspiring to build the bigger cross, my friend asked him the same questions. I don't know what resulted from that conversation, but I know the bigger cross never got built. Perhaps it was unsustainable financially, or the pastor changed his mind, I don't know.
In today's passage, Paul talks about reputation. Specifically, he talks about the church's reputation when it comes to money. He says that he keeps a close eye on scandal. He doesn't want anyone to think that he or anyone he works with spends a penny on themselves. The work that they believe needs to be done gets done, without fundraising and campaign building. There are no salaries or benefits other than the satisfaction that comes with taking good news to people who are dying to hear some.
But, there is also another key ingredient that Paul and his counterparts had when it came to financial responsibility. They had desperation. They were desperate to share with people what they had found for themselves. They were desperate to share the freedom they had discovered. The two ingredients of desperation and satisfaction were what kept their reputation and their success high.
Desperation to share something that has changed one's life is something money can't buy. The satisfaction that comes with getting to share that knowledge and application is also something that money can't buy. Whatever money people gave to the church went into sharing this knowledge with the world, and taking care of needs as they came. There wasn't a need for a budget, because everything went outside the walls of the church.
I don't think Paul was lying when he said they didn't spend a penny on themselves. No salary, no financial benefits or profits. The money required to get the job done depended solely on the desperation of the people to see change in the world. Giving wasn't a static, uneventful, burden. There was transparency because the needs were real and tangible. No one had too much, and no one had too little. The needs were taken care of among each other, not budgeted out as insurance.
Paul connects reputation with the church's financial stewardship. People were watching the church spend its money just like they do today. I wonder if the world sees a church that spends more money on symbols, buildings, and salaries than on bringing the Kingdom of God to earth through helping the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized.
Individuals of that ear, just like today, had to make a living in order to live. When we look at our own budgets, we realize that we just don't have much left over, at least I don't. I don't think Paul is saying that individually, we're not to spend a penny on ourselves. That would require each of us to be homeless, and that's just not very practical. So, we give what we can to the church or the community that we spend our time with.
The problem as I see it, the church has taken on the characteristics of the average working person. We've put our churches in a position of having administration and building expenses, when they were never intended to have set expenses. The only expenses that were supposed to be involved were the expenses of taking care of the poor and the oppressed. So, instead of having a pool of resources that are used specifically for going out into the world, churches are struggling just to get a few pennies out into the world. The bills and salaries have to get paid.
I think Paul would agree that it's up to the individual to give as much as they can, but the church should have everything to give. The church wasn't created to be a business, but an outpouring of time, presence, finances, and compassion to the world. It wasn't created to wonder how much or how little salary could be given to the people who in Paul's days volunteered for their roles. The church was created to give everything to the world.
It's the people who make up the church who can't possibly give all of their resources. They're the ones who have to pay the bills and make a living. The church's living, however, is giving everything away.
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