Sunday 09/14/14 Freeville/Homer Ave
UMC’s
Sermon Title: “How do Christians do business?”
Old Testament Scripture Lesson: Exodus 15:1b-11, 20-21
New Testament Scripture Lesson: Romans 14:1-12
Gospel Lesson: Mathew 18:21-35
My
brothers and sisters, welcome once again on this the Fourteenth Sunday after
the Feast of Pentecost. Pentecost, that day so long ago that Holy Spirit fire
filled the disciples and the early followers of Jesus Christ. On that day, the
Christian Church was officially born.
Today
though, I want to talk Christian business ethics and being honest with one
another.
To start this off, I have a question
for everyone here. Here goes, has anyone here ever gotten uncomfortable buying
things, when it requires intense negotiations? You know the type of venue like
a flea market, where everything is negotiable. For me, this is also why I don’t
like buying cars. I so dislike the haggling process over the price. In business
and in shopping settings such as this, we might find ourselves sometimes being
a little protective or a little defensive.
I know for me, when I am in these
situations I often ask myself a lot of mental questions. The first mental
question I often ask myself is, is this salesperson being honest and
trustworthy? I then think, is this car, or that item fairly priced? These
mental questions could continue and continue in our minds far beyond just these
two questions?
Yet sometimes when we are doing
business, shopping, and etc., we have concerns about being tricked, lied to, or
cheated, don’t we? Do all people in this world do business honestly, fairly, forgivingly,
or in love? No, unfortunately they do not.
So, brothers
and sisters, how do those of us who claim the title Christians do business? Are
we forgiving with one another, fair, just, and decent, or are we the opposite
of all of those things?
I remember one
time that Melissa and I were doing some shopping for food and some other things
that we needed. After we paid, the cashier then handed us our change and our
receipt. As we were exiting the store, I began to count the money that was
handed to me by the cashier. I quickly realized as we were exiting the store that
the cashier had given me an extra 10-dollar bill. I was a little shocked by
this at first.
I think for
some of us in a moment like that we say, what do we do? On one shoulder we have
that little angel and on the other shoulder we that little devil. The angel
says, “give the money back, it’s the right thing to do.” The devil however
says, “that cashier screwed up, and because they did, you get more money. Just
take the money and run!”
What to do,
what to do. I then quickly headed back into that store and gave the extra
10-dollar bill back to the cashier of the store. I remember that the cashier
was so grateful that I had done that.
As Christians,
are there expectations that God has of us around how we do business, how we
conduct ourselves in commerce, how we live?
You know, I
remember back when I was a tutor for the Ithaca City School District, the
school had a tutoring policy that if a student didn’t show up for a tutoring
appointment, or if a student failed to let the tutor know they would be in
attendance, then we could mark down a half-hour of paid time.
I remember one day that I showed up
to a student’s house and the parent answered the door when I rang the doorbell.
When the student’s mother came to the door, she said, “Oh I am sorry that I
didn’t call you, but my son is sick today.” I then asked the mother if she
would sign my time sheet for tutoring her son, and she then told me, “just mark
down that you were here the full two-hours.” I then said to the student’s mother,
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.” She then said, “but who would know?” I said, “I
would know.” My tutoring was paying for part of seminary education at the time,
so believe me that little devil on my shoulder pushed my\e hard to put those full
two-hours down.
For us here though,
as Christians, how do we do business? How do we conduct ourselves in the
commerce of our daily lives? Do we do business fairly, honestly, decently, and
consider the other person. Sure we seek to make a living, but do we have care
and concern for the other person.
In our reading
from the Book of Exodus from this morning, we hear some of the story of the
Jewish people, the Israelites, leaving or making an Exodus or exit from slavery
in Egypt. For God had taken them through their hard time, and was delivering
them to freedom. If God has delivered us to freedom, is that reflected in how
we conduct ourselves? In how we do we business? Are we fair, giving, and
decent?
In the Apostle
Paul’s letter to the church in Rome from this morning, he tells the church in
Rome, or the Romans to, “Welcome the person who is weak in faith—but not in order
to argue about differences of opinion.” When we are weak in faith, we are more
vulnerable. When someone is seen as weak and vulnerable, how do we as
Christians do business with them? How do some people though do business with
someone who is weak and vulnerable?
The Apostle
Paul then goes on to discuss the great diversity that exists among people, and
among people in the church. Yet he says, “We don’t live for ourselves and we
don’t die for ourselves. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we
die for the Lord.”
Do we live for
each other, do we do business with each other fairly, honestly, and justly? Do
we seek unity, to accept, to love, or do we seek our own methods of gaining
wealth and power. Are willing to do dishonest and do sinful things, to get
ahead?
This brings us
to the gospel of Mathew reading from this morning. In this reading, Jesus tells
Peter that he we must be forgiving, “Not just seven times, but rather as many
as seventy-seven times.”
Jesus then
says, “the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle account with
his servants.” Jesus then says, “When he began to settle accounts, they brought
to him a servant that owed him ten thousand bags of gold.” The servant of
course didn’t have this much money to pay the king, so the king ordered that
the servant and his family be sold to help to settle to the account of the owed
money. Yet as this order from the king was being given, the servant fell to his
knees and said, “Please, be patient with me, and I’ll pay you back.” The gospel
then says, “The master had compassion on that servant, released him and forgave
the loan.”
So then this now
forgiven servant, who was discharged from his debt, leaves the king’s presence.
When he exits the king’s castle, this same servant then sees a fellow servant
that “owed him one hundred coins.” Then the just forgiven servant, “grabbed him
around the throat and said, “Pay me back what you own me.” Likewise this
servant fell down and begged to forgiven servant to be patient with him,
promising to pay him back. Yet the forgiven servant put his fellow servant who
owed him one-hundred coins in prison.
When this all
happened, some of the other servants of the king or master saw what the
forgiven servant did to his fellow servant, and then they went and told the
king. The king then was furious and called the first servant back in to the
castle. The king then said, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt
because you appealed to me. Shouldn’t you also have mercy on your fellow
servant, just as I had mercy on you?” The master then reinstated the first
servant’s debt, and made him repay the whole debt.
Jesus lastly
explains, that forgiveness and love of each other is required if we expect the
same from God, our king, our master.
So when we do
business, we buy and trade, we are out about doing our daily business and
activities, are we doing so like Christ? Are we doing business like Christians,
or like the unforgiving servant?
“I would like to close this morning
with a story about the founder of the Methodist movement John Wesley, called “Wesley’s
Wealth.” Here is how it goes: “the modern Australian way is to spend, spend,
spend, to the very limits of your income and then some more!”
“A few hundred years ago the great
preacher and evangelist John Wesley showed us another way. Wesley lived in
economically uncertain times, yet from humble beginnings he became so well
known that his income eventually reached 1400 pounds per year. In 2001 this
would be the equivalent of earning around $300,000.”
“So what did he do with all this
wealth? Did he tithe it? No. Wesley went way beyond tithing. He disciplined
himself to live on just 30 pounds of the 1400 pounds he earned every year. He
gave away 98% of all he earned and lived on just 2%!”
“Wesley once preached a sermon on
Luke 16.9. In it he spelled out his philosophy: money is a tool that can be
used for great good or great ill. “It is an excellent gift of God” he claimed,
“answering the noblest ends. In the hands of his children, it is food for the
hungry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked: It gives to the traveler
and the stranger where to lay his head. By it we may supply the place to the
widow, and of a father to the fatherless. We may be a defense for the
oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of ease to them that are in pain; it
may be as eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame; yea, a lifter up from the
gates of death! It is therefore of the highest concern that all who fear God
know how to employ this valuable talent; that they be instructed how it may
answer these glorious ends, and in the highest degree.”
“He went on to spell out three simple
rules which can guide us: gain all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
Wesley lived out these principles, on another occasion remarking: , “If I leave
behind me ten pounds…you and all mankind [can] bear witness against me, that I
have lived and died a thief and a robber.”
So
my brothers and sisters “how do Christians do business?” Are we sacrificing like
this? Do we earn what we need, and give away much of the rest, or are our business
methods that we utilize more brutal, more unforgiving, and more harsh?
My challenge
to us all this week then, is to forgive someone who owes you a small debt. Give
something away to someone who needs it. Be flexible with someone who needs your
help, and above all be forgiving. For this is how “Christians do business.”
Amen.
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