He was caught and caught red handed.  He had cheated on his boss, embezzled a great deal of money, and now he was found out.  He needed some kind of an out --- some kind of insurance for the future --- and then he had his brainstorm.  Cheating had gotten him into this mess, maybe cheating could get him out. 

            He'd make sure some of his boss's best customers owed him a little something on the side.  So he called them up one by one and offered to doctor their final bills.

            You owe a million --- make it a hundred fifty.  You owe two?  Make it one.  I do you a favor - you do me a favor.  I scratch your back --- you scratch mine. He had it all figured out.  The future was all taken care of. 

            Then his boss found out what he had done.

            Now at this point, you probably think this guy has had it.  His time is up, and it's prison, not grace, that he deserves.  I, for one, thought for certain that his boss would come down on him like the wrath of God. 

            But instead, his boss swivels around in his chair, takes a drag on his big, old cigar and says, "I'm proud of you son.  You really put it to me.  You learned your lesson well.  It was a great scam.  You put your mind to work and you took care of yourself.  I couldn't have done better if I'd tried.  You're playing the game to win --- looking out for number one. Good going."

            Now I ask you, what kind of moral is that?  It may be Jesus' story, but how does He think I can preach it?  It doesn't make sense with the rest of the gospel --- use the skills of the world for the good of the gospel?  What was He thinking? 

            Well, to find out I decided to look at what it was Jesus said after the story was over, and lo and behold, just like any good preacher He had three points.

            The first point is that the men and women of the world just seem to act smarter about getting what they want than those of us who are working for the kingdom.  So maybe what we need to do is to take as much care and concern into what we do for good as people take who are just looking out for themselves - who are only concerned only with number one.

            A prime example of this may be the way we give to the work of the kingdom of God.  Why do we assume the church's bills will be paid as if by magic or that our good intentions will get the budget to balance?

            Do we really think the church runs only on faith?  Or that it will always be here whether we support it or not?  Or that inflation and rising prices don't affect it?

            No.  We need to be at least as wise as the people of the world when we're thinking about the needs and the cause of the church, because the cause we are dedicated to is so important.  We are dedicated to saving lives.

            And the same is true of the church itself.  We have continued to spend money we don't really have.  It's not that the session has been careless with our money.  They have spent our offerings on good and necessary things like Sunday School and worship, like heat and electricity.  But still, like you, we have too often assumed the money would appear as if by magic.  But it doesn't.  It isn't.  And so we have had to look at our budget in light of harsh realities, and we have cut wherever we can, including personnel. 

            The harsh reality is that the church is, in some ways, like a business.  We just don't like to think about it in those terms.  We want to be above such things.  But we're not.  When push comes to shove, the bills must be paid and we must be intentional about the way we do that and the priorities we make.  We must take some lessons from the world around us and be at least as wise as it is and maybe even wiser.  We need to take a close look at our priorities, using all of our resources including our money, our prayers, our talent and our time.

            So each year the session stops and talks about and prays about what God is calling us to be and do over this next year, and we are very creative as we strive to be the church God has called us to be.  We look for ways to get the good news of our church out into the community while spending as little as possible.

            One way we have done that is by our concert series and the articles I write each week.  We have used the presbytery's resource center for VBS programs instead of buying material on our own.  We have written our own curriculum for Sunday School and drastically cut the amount of music we buy for the choir, while continuing to meet the true mission of the church by feeding the hungry and spreading good news to the poor. 

            For Christ's second lesson is this: we must be faithful with what we have. We cannot fail to meet the true mission of our church, the mission of God, for then we will lose our soul.  We will cease to be the church - and will become just another close knit social group, not the family of God.

            Finally, Jesus tells us we cannot serve God and the power of money at the same time.  We can not look only at the bottom line.  While we must be good stewards of what we have, we cannot cut out the very reason God has called us into being.  Money and money alone can not dictate who we are as a body of Christ.  Our decisions, in the end, must be based on God's love and grace, as we pray and listen for the Holy Spirit to guide us.  We must live in faith.  

           All of this talk about the budget and our financial responsibilities may have made you uncomfortable.  I know it has me.  I would rather pretend such concerns don't exist.  But they do, and how we deal with money is as important to our lives of faith as anything else we do.  That's probably why Christ talks about it more than anything else after the kingdom of God --- because it is as necessary for the kingdom of God to come into being as prayer is.  So over these next few weeks, we ask you to think and pray about your financial support of this church at this time.  We ask you to be faithful.  We ask you to pledge.