Talking Wallets
Luke 21:1-4; Joshua 24:14-15
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
November 9, 2008

The top drawer of my bedroom chest is vital.  Into it I put all those things with which I don't know what to do.  You have to have such a catch-all for important information, mementos and heirlooms which you can't bring yourself to throw out yet.  For years there was the article torn from the newspaper on how to tie a different knot for my ties -- never did get around to learning it --  finally threw it away when we packed to move here.  There was the wooden yo-yo made in their factory that the Days gave me as a memento of their daughter's wedding.  Wallets lived in that drawer for decades, new wallets.  Let's close that drawer, after we take out a wallet. 

The wallet could tell a story.  It resided in its original box, although many year's old.  It was given to me by Mrs. Sell.  She and Mr. Sell lived next door to us for sixteen years.  She had an alcohol problem.  When loaded, she would be either mad at the world or pleading for help.  More than once when I was up on the ladder painting or cleaning the gutters, she seized the opportunity to lambaste all the neighbors, the Roman Catholic Church, and life generally in a voice which compared well with the public address system of a football stadium.  Numerous times she phoned me in the middle of the night, until she awoke me a 1:00 a.m. on Easter Sunday morning.  That time I was not patient! 

Her husband never said a word -- wouldn't even say, "Hi!"  In sixteen years, he did not speak a paragraph to me, although our houses were fourteen feet apart.  He always looked mad at the world, stomping along the walk, eyes fixed on the concrete.  We could hear them scream at each other in the house.  Their twenty-six year old daughter became ill with cancer, and in a matter of months died.  But, there was no way that we neighbors could help them.  One day as I was about to get into my car, she hailed me to tell me that Mr. Sell was very sick.  I visited.  He had cancer, he claimed.  His insides were inflating.  "What do the doctors plan to do?" I asked.  He virtually shouted to me what I assume was a frequently repeated defiant statement: "I'm not getting treatment for it!  Both of my parents died of cancer and my daughter died of cancer.  I am going to die and I am not going to no hospital."  Mr. Sell died in his bed.  I went to his mass at the Roman Catholic Church -- with a dozen or so others -- on a very rainy, gloomy day, which seemed to match the life which I had witnessed for sixteen years.

She called me one day, saying, "I have something for you."  I went over.  She handed me the wallet in its box.  It was Mr. Sell's, but he had never used it.  She wanted me to have it for being so nice to them, a memento of him.  It wasn't the style that I use, so it went into the drawer which was its home for twenty-four years. 

I received an empty wallet from what appeared to be empty souls imploding on themselves, spiraling downward into spiritual poverty, shrinking like people do who cannot accept love and give love.  In my mind I saw Jesus standing outside, knocking, wanting to enter, to break the pattern, and give the gifts of love, respect, generosity and joy.  What a sad spiritual story that wallet knew. 

I moved into a new community and needed to see a physician for my chronic sinusitis.  The church secretary gave me several names.  We phoned about ten physicians' offices and could not get in -- none were taking new patients.  Then, I asked her about the physician whose shingle I saw on a residence only a few blocks from the church building.  She did not know him, but I phoned anyway.  He answered the phone himself, and set an appointment immediately.  That surprised me.  I waited in a room in his basement until he finished with the only other patient.  That made me question his competency.  While examining me, we struck up a conversation during which he learned that I was the new pastor of the presbyterian church.  Wow!  That set him off!  He told me about coming to worship years previously on a Sunday when the pastor had urged tithing.  Very firmly, he informed me, "No way am I going to give away ten percent of my income!  I never went back to that church!"

I tried to become acquainted with him, but never reached him.  He seemed to be fearfully clutching life and money, always angry and defensive.  He held back from people and charities.  Regrettably his practice suffered, too.  I think that people felt his self-absorbed posture and did not trust him as a physician.  That seemed to be the case.  I witnessed no evidence that he had learned the insight -- that I know to be true but struggle so hard to live -- which Jesus encapsulated in this saying, Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life?  Matthew 16:25-26  

What a sad spiritual story his wallet could tell! 

Wallets talk!

Mrs. Fritz' wallet did!  Marie Fritz immigrated alone from Hamburg, Germany when she was twenty-five.  When I knew her she was 74 to 93, and spoke very broken English.  I still can hear her delightful chuckle.  Always she greeted me, "How are you today, Reverend?  Okay?"  She married another German immigrant.  He died when she was about sixty, after years of being an invalid which consumed all their savings.  To support herself, she literally took in wash and scrubbed floors.  She had no money, except for $800 which she preserved to help pay for her burial.  She received SSI.  Her housing was a tiny one-room efficiency apartment in an old building.  When visiting, I thought that I would pass out from the heat -- she could not control the temperature -- whatever came is what she got.  She depended upon public transportation or friends to drive her anywhere.  Yet, during periods of long illness when I called on her, she was very apologetic for being behind in her donations to the church.  She waddled to her purse, the only one that she owned, one of those with two handles which hung over the forearm.  From it she removed dollar bills, one dollar placed into the offering envelop for each Sunday that she had missed.  At one very low time, people of the church gave her a TV set and furniture because she could not afford them--but she gave her dollar donation to the church every week!  If we had a special appeal, for disaster relief, e.g., she gave a dollar for that, too.  Once I suggested that she did not have to give the money; God understood.  Shaking her finger in my face, in her accent, she insisted, "Oh, yes, I do!  I get by.  I be Okay.  God's been good to me."  Thereafter, I took the donation--even though I knew that she needed the money more that the church did.  Why did I take the money?  Because giving it maintained her dignity.  She needed to give to be true to herself as a Christian. She needed to participate with her church family. Further, she received joy from giving. She chose the attitude, “As for me, I will serve the Lord.”

What happy spiritual stories her purse could tell!  Though it was empty, she overflowed. 

Reminds me of another woman. Her husband had died, too.

Jesus was at the Temple entrance where money was collected to support the Temple and the poor.  They did not pass the plate as do we, but had a receptacle near the entrance.  He watched the people as they dropped in their money.  Many rich men dropped in much money; then a poor widow came.  Remember this was in the days before Social Security, pensions, Medicare, and women having their own income.  The worst financial tragedy to afflict a woman was to become a widow.  It meant abject poverty for many.  She dropped in two little coins.  Not worth anything, really.  This impressed Jesus.  He called his disciples around him and said, I tell you that this poor widow put more in the offering box than all the others.  For the others put in what they had to spare of their riches; but, she, poor as she is, put in all she had to live on. Luke 21:1-4; Mark 12:41-44  God knows what we give up when we give.

What a happy spiritual story her wallet could tell.  Though it was bare, she overflowed.

Are these stories a comfort?  Are they a prod?  Depends upon with whom you identify in the story?

We pray with our money.  Did you hear me?  We pay with money.  We also pray with money.  We serve with our wallet.

Your wallet is talking about you.  What is it saying? 

Does God hear more than money?  God is interested in money, of course, for what it represents. 

Why would I say that?  Because money is a tool that we may use in God’s service.  It is a tool that we use to express our faith and commitment.  It expresses our spiritual and emotional lives.

We chose the theme from Joshua for stewardship: “As for me and my household we will serve the Lord.”  Then we altered the original meaning to be, “As for me and my church family, we will serve the Lord.”

Let me review the original scene in the book of Joshua.  It was dramatic!  It was a powerfully  emotional time!  We have wars, racial strife, sexual battles, ethnic tensions,  discriminations.  We certainly should know, living as we do with the memorials of the worst battle of 1863, a horrific battle over differences.  Well, in the time of Joshua, they did not get along any better than we do.  The Israelites did not have a central government.  Their unity was limited to a shared religious tradition.  Broken into twelve tribes, they squabbled.  In times of war, Joshua pulled some of the tribes together for protection.  Centrifugal forces constantly spread them. 

Joshua aged.  Sensing that, as he put it, “I am about to go the way of all the earth,” he called the leaders of all the tribes together at Shechem.  To them he delivered his farewell  address, really a sermon.  He reminded them of their history, of how God had brought them together, rescued them from slavery, given them the promised land.  Then he challenged them:
Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the [Nile] River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

He did not call for them to make a contribution.  He did not ask for them to get out their wallets and put in a few dollars for the cause.  He did not ask for them to include the church in their wills. Those might happen.   They were not what he sought.  He sought the commitment of their lives, their souls, their minds, their hearts, to God.  Forsaking all others.  Make God your real God!  That is the call.  Then the wallet will reflect the soul.  The checkbook will express the interest of the mind.  The change purse will jingle to the tune of the heart.  The wallet will be a tool in the service of the Most High God.

In the spirit of Joshua, I challenge you to refresh your allegiance to God Almighty, Eternal, All Loving, our Salvation, our Eternal hope, our Companion. 

Whom will you serve?  Who is your God?   What does your wallet say?

Join me in saying, “As for me and my church family, we will serve the Lord!”

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