HBO’s widely popular series, The Sopranos, is something like Father Knows Best meets The Godfather.  Tony Soprano is the head of a New York crime outfit.  He is also a husband and father of two teenage children.  He runs his mob like the cold-blooded, profit-driven, ruthless sociopath he is while indulging himself in virtually every pleasurable vice known to man.  In order to keep a good cover at home he also indulges his wife to excess, disciplines his children and is just generally the suburban New York good old boy next door. 

One night, his teenage daughter balks at her dad’s strict discipline.  This all takes place in the kitchen, with dad staring out the window into the backyard.  She yells at him to wake up to the fact that it is now the 21^st century.  Then, dad, Tony Soprano, the ruthless mob boss, points out the window and tells his daughter, “Out there it may be the 21^st century, in here, it’s still the 1950’s!”

And, so it goes for Tony Soprano.  When he’s outside, away from home and family, he lives by one code; when he’s behind closed doors, he lives by another.  There is a very blatant disconnect between the values that govern his public and private lives.  If he were a churchman, he’d be called a hypocrite.  In his HBO world, he’s a very successful 21^st century businessman.

It’s actually a very common problem, even among those of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus.  I have yet to meet a Christian who doesn’t struggle on some level with integrating the values to which Christ calls them and the values they’ve been told it takes to make it in the world they live in every day.  Enter the words of God’s word, all the more vital for everyday living in the 21^st century, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” 

It’s a soulful command, literally.  To do more than just intellectually adhere to Christ’s teachings, but to actually internalize his way of thinking about God’s world and his relationship to it.  The command implies a choice, and a responsibility, to work at integrity, which means to minimize the separation between what we claim to believe and the code by which we actually live.  There is no automatic transmission even in the most driven life for those who claim to be Christian.  Being Christian means working at integrating Christ’s way of viewing all of God’s creation and himself in relationship to it with our own, to work at making it our own.

Today, we come to the last of our four messages on “Promises God Never Made.”  First, we discussed the promise God never made that God helps those who help themselves.  Second, we discussed the unmade promise that God will never give us more than we can handle.  Last Sunday, we talked about the promise God never made that all things happen for a reason.  This morning, in a little play on words, let’s discuss the promise that God never made that, early to church, early to tithe, makes a man healthy, wealthy and . . . well, you fill in the blank with whatever you’d like. 

Many times, we’ve baptized that sentiment by reading our personal dreams back into scripture then back out again as the promise of God.  We’ve put the words we want to hear in God’s mouth, especially words that express the mainstream values of middle and upper middle income America, in particular, the sentiment that we are somehow or another entitled to health and wealth, then preached it as the gospel of upward mobility.  Is it true?  Did God promise us that entitlement?  Is it, in fact, for sale?  From many American pulpits today, you’d think so. 

If so, perhaps we should begin this discussion with more familiar texts, such as Malachi 3:10, Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (KJV).  Or perhaps, Luke 6:38, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (NIV).  Do those promises of God indeed mean that if we are quick to tithe and quick to faithful living that the certain reward can be materially measured?

As an aside, let me rush to say that, while it is a good place to begin, tithing is not the highest standard of Christian giving.  I can even go so far as to say that, if you are a follower of Christ and you are not at least working toward tithing as a minimum standard for giving, then you ought to check and see if your priorities are what they should be.  I allow for the fact that there are times when people cannot tithe.  There are times when the church ought to give to instead of expect from some people who are in dire straights.  At the same time, there is no such thing as a guarantee, even in scripture, that if you tithe all things will always go your way.

In just the last two weeks, the tile on our shower fell in and had to be replaced, we had an expensive car repair bill and we found a tumor in our dog’s eye that had to be surgically removed.  We’ll be a while recovering from all these hits at once, despite the fact that Nancy and I have strived to be faithful stewards by giving at least a tithe as a minimum.  If tithing is a guarantee of financial increase every time, someone forgot to tell Beau, my dog!  Yet, one of the greatest perversions of the 20^th and 21^st century American pulpit has been that of using it as a platform to reinterpret God’s word to mean that all who are faithful to him will never suffer financially or do without material wealth. 

What is the true standard of Christian giving?  We have it before us in these words, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human

form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.”  While tithing may be a good standard for Christian giving, the highest standard has been set by Christ who gave away all of his rights and his power in order to empower the weakest and most undeserving.  True Christian giving, true generosity, is giving without any expectation of reward other than the simple joy of being faithful and trusting God for the long term results, even if those include giving yourself, literally, to death.

So, why this obsession with defining the blessing of God in strictly material terms?  Why is it that we so easily read our culturally shaped dreams back into scripture and then back out again as the word of God, transforming the pulpit into an instrument of truly secular, 21^st century American middle and upper middle values?  Is it true that God has promised us, as the result of our faithfulness, that we will always be debt and disease free?  Or, does the mind of Christ with regarding self-sacrifice pose other questions our minds and hearts ought to be pondering?  If Jesus himself is the model for our living and giving, if the way he perceived the world and his relationship to it are to the ways in which we are to think about the world and our relationship to it, should we not also ask ourselves where it is our lives are centered?

Almost forty years ago, one person who was struggling with God’s call on his life penned words that reassure me that this 21^st century struggle is timeless.  “I was afraid that if I began to venture forth in faith, God would send me to the mission field which would of course mean Africa, India, or some remote place.  But I have seen why it is that I have always thought of the ‘end’ of the earth’ as some far-off place.  It is because the center of the world has always been wherever I am.  But where is the end of the earth from God’s perspective?” (Keith Miller, Taste of New Wine, Word Books, Waco, 1965, p. 127).  Is it possible that one of our greatest struggles with all of these issues related to the acquisition and control of material wealth is the greater question about what should be the authoritative center of our world?

We’ve jumped off, again, into the wonderful world of Driver’s Education.  Suddenly, after thirty-three years of driving, I know absolutely nothing!  At least according to one young man I don’t.  I don’t know why it takes me so long to learn this or why I have to relearn it.  But, when a fifteen-year-old is behind the wheel with his dad in the car, the issue isn’t really about what is technically right or wrong, it’s about who’s in charge, who has the right to say what is right.  Isn’t that always the struggle in nearly every area of our lives?  At the heart of nearly every church conflict, or denominational conflict or, for that matter, family or marital conflict, lurking in there somewhere is a question about authority, who has it and who should have it and how they should use it.

Having the mind of Christ in us, thinking about power and control the way Jesus did, will mean that the greater question is not whether we are at the center of all authority, whether we are in control, but how we can use whatever power and authority we have to empower those who have none.  All questions of Christian stewardship, issues related to the management of the material world, should have their beginning there. 

All of which relates to yet a second and very closely related question that is of equally great import.  Exactly what is it we are ultimately seeking?  What is it we ultimately value? 

I’m going to take what may feel like a real step away from the main issue before us this morning.  But, I’m only coming at this whole matter from another direction.  Please stay with me while we read a passage of scripture frequently used to discuss one of the most hotly debated issues today on both the religious and political front.  “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Romans 1:24, NIV).  While this passage does not specifically mention homosexuality, few would deny that the apostle Paul meant to include it in these words.  From the perspective of most so-called “conservative” believers, this passage clearly condemns homosexuality as a lifestyle.  I have heard it used many times from Christian pulpits, so-called pulpits of grace, to single out gays with words of judgment and condemnation.   What is interesting, however, is what is found in the words immediately following in the next verse, Romans 1:25.  “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised.”

The very same churches that are so often quick to condemn homosexuality mysteriously pole vault right past those words.  And, unless I have completely misunderstood their meaning, if we are going to read them as words of judgment, please note that they reserve just as much harshness for the worship of the material as they do issues related to sexuality.  In other words, though we are quick, for some reason, to so quickly single out homosexuality as the moral issue of the day, how is it that we also ignore the moral issue of materialism?  Are we free to do that?  Is it possible that we are so quick to read our values back into scripture that we are blind to the values of scripture?

This past week I received an unsolicited book in the mail, a hardback copy of The Gay Agenda.  It is written by a Southern Baptist pastor and was apparently sent to all 30,000+ Southern Baptist pastors across the nation.  The author is the pastor of a very wealthy and large church.  I know the story of his wealth.  I’ve heard him preach.  I’ve never once heard him discuss materialism.  I’ve heard him condemn homosexuality plenty.  His church, in my opinion, is a model of 21^st century power-brokering and upward mobile materialism.  What’s that about?

This is what I believe, in case you are wondering.  The greatest moral issue facing the church today is not homosexuality.  It is not fundamentalism, as dangerous as that is and as much as I once thought it was the issue.  No, in my opinion the greatest challenge to the moral stability of the 21^st century church, both inside and outside these walls, is nothing less than materialism, the worship of the created instead of the creator.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, does more damage to the stability of marriages and families and churches on a broad scale than the mismanagement of the material that grows out of misplaced worship and trust. 

We often “preach” to, if not down to, gays.  Has it yet to capture our attention that, by and large, gays have boycotted our churches and worship services.  Is it possible that they are uninterested in what we have to say about Jesus because our “gospel” is too often preached from gold-plated microphones being used to do nothing less than promote upper-middle class values as the standard of what is truly Christian when, in fact, the mind of Jesus should ask to think otherwise?  Why are we so blind to truth we don’t want to see?

Just after I came here some years ago I was asked to lead the prayer at the Dallas City Council one day.  Some are asked to pray before Congress.  I was asked to pray before the Dallas City Council on the day, of all days, they were considering whether to legalize the ownership of roosters within city limits.  Needless to say, my invitation wasn’t much to crow about.  After I finished my prayer, I left the council chambers and started down the hall toward the exit.  It was darker in the hallway than in the chambers and my eyes hadn’t adjusted.  So, I didn’t see the freshly cleaned solid glass door about midway down the hall.  My feet didn’t even get there first, my face did.  There was a loud shotgun-like blam! as I hit full force.  It threw me back.  And, in the embarrassment of the moment, I was painfully reminded that, just because I can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Just because I cannot, or will not, see what scripture says about God’s created world and my relationship to it doesn’t mean it’s not there.  And, just because I want to see a promise he never made me doesn’t mean it is there, either.  We should pray for the mind of Christ that we might also have the eyes of Christ to see God’s greater promises, his greater purposes for us and this world.  Like a man who called me just this week.

“Pastor,” he said, “I have something to confess.”  I’m not used to late Saturday night telephone confessions.  So, he had my attention.  “I’ve not been faithful to the church as I should have been,” he said.  “I’ve decided to start tithing, either $60 or $65 a month.”  He went on to say that his monthly income is only $585 per month.  “I may have to eat beans and rice now and then,” he said, “but, that will be O.K.” 

It was a short conversation, really.  That’s all he wanted me to know.  That he’d be tithing at least, actually more, than ten percent of his gross income!  He’s not expecting anything from God.  He’s expecting more from himself.  He’s just grateful, by his own confession, for all that God has done for him, specifically, through this very congregation.  He’s so grateful, not giving is not an option anymore, no matter what it costs him.  So very grateful, he said, that he just had to say thank you. 

When he called, I was just finishing up this message about “early to church, early to tithe.”  I couldn’t help but wonder.  I know this man.  For many reasons, he will almost certainly never be wealthy by any standard to which most Americans or even any of us would aspire. 

Then, again, if measured in terms of the mind of Christ, in terms of spirit, well, isn’t he already wealthier than most of us will ever be?