“ The Pledge Card ”

 

Dear “Stewards” (of God’s Kingdom’s harvest),

Growing up as a PK (“Preacher’s Kid”) I never received a pledge card from the congregation I joined as a confirmand.   Even when I joined a congregation as an “affiliate member” (a special status in which you don’t transfer your membership, you just “borrow” a congregation where you’re living for a time) when I was attending college, the pastor made it clear that I wasn’t expected to fill out the pledge card.  But when I joined a small Presbyterian congregation as an “affiliate member” as a seminary student …the stewardship committee chairperson asked me to fill out a pledge card in the pastor’s office! 

As a seminary student, my “income” was mostly out-go!  Sometimes, the difference between food to eat on the weekends and not was more than the amount of my pledge.  And being a long way from home, that felt more scary than faithful …and Jesus better have my back!  So, I wrote down a number I thought I could afford.  (Not much!)

But one of the highlights of participating with this congregation was a young couple joined as members.  The husband had never been a member of any church, and surprisingly for me, took the whole pledge card thing almost too seriously.  He, too, began with a number he thought he could “afford.”  But then, for almost a year, sometimes each Sunday, he would ask the pastor to give him back his pledge card so he could “revise” his pledge, marking through his previous pledged amount and putting in a new number.  Each revision, his “number” only got bigger!  When the pastor tried to explain that the amount wasn’t as important as the gift, the new member explained it to the Session  this way: “I keep finding more money!” 

His giving wasn’t coincidental.  His life had been changed—upended even—by Jesus.  His life became a testimony to his new-found relationship with faith, hope, love, and more “Jesus” than he imagined.  He shared every new insight with the whole congregation; not only the discipline of pledged giving, but other ways he’d found to share—using coupons to buy food for the food pantry, offering rides to people who didn’t have reliable transportation, inviting people to share meals with he and his wife.  Both Jesus and he were marvels to behold! 

It was his testimony.  But he told a story as old as Jesus, perhaps even as old as God and creation—that by walking humbly with God, our lives and realities are changed.  Suddenly we see the need for justice, kindness, mercy, faithfulness, and obedience …everywhere!  And for him, it began with pledging a gift of $1.25/week.  In a year, it had increased thousands of times over—NOT because he got a big raise or won the lottery, but because he was seeing Jesus everywhere! 

Stewardship is NOT about God’s need to receive; but it is about our ability to GIVE.  It IS NOT a miserable form of “pay what you owe;” but IT IS definitely a part of being and living into the Kingdom of God.  Every gift matters!  When we see that God has already given us everything …it changes all our realities.  When we participate in God’s vision (God gives and we give), we find that we only have more and more and more …to give …because God’s giving knows no ending! 

The “pledge card” isn’t simply about giving our money; it’s a mark of our transformation—because what we believe …changes the world.  God gives and we give; God’s commitment never gives up.  We can change the world.  We have to put our mind, our heart, our strength, our everything toward it.  Another word for “pledge” is “covenant.”  Matthew’s gospel reminds us over and over that stewardship is covenantal—because our commitment to neighbor, to one another, changes us …and our world.