Introduction

What are pastoral leaders doing when they ask their congregations for money?  Fundraising, obviously; but they are also doing much more.  For in fundraising, as in any other pastoral activity, they are subtly, yet powerfully, shaping people’s images of God, themselves, the Church and their world.  If fundraising is done by emphasizing needs in special collection after special collection, or financial drive after financial drive, a certain insidious sense of the Church as an institution of never-ending needs begins to develop.  If the needs are always causes which do not involve anything other than people’s pocketbooks, the congregation slowly learns a lesson in ecclesiology.  If people are cajoled into giving through a sense of guilt, they learn that God is one who is very demanding and that they cannot do enough to please him.  It need not be all negative, however.  People can learn to see God as the source of all they have and are, and they can learn to see themselves as sharing in the work of God by the use of their time, talent and resources.

A Wider Approach to Fundraising

While it is important to recognize what subtle messages we may be giving in our fundraising efforts, it is far more important to fit fundraising into the larger scheme of pastoral work.  It is essential to ask ourselves what it is we are trying to accomplish in the broad scope of our work.  How do we want people to image their God?  How do we want them to see themselves and their relationship with God?  How do we want them to look at their world and measure their lives?  In short, where are we trying to take them spiritually?  Implicitly and unintentionally, or explicitly and intentionally, we are constantly shaping the religious vision of people.  It would be good if we could first name what we are trying to accomplish overall as pastoral and spiritual leaders and then make our fundraising not only fit that larger project, but also serve it.  Fundraising would not then stand out on its own as an isolated task, but it would be integrated into our overall task as spiritual leaders.  It would help shape vision in congregations and enable people to see themselves and their resources in a new way, a gospel way.  There are many approaches to fundraising and many theologies to back them up.  Tithing, stewardship, and sacrificial giving are but a few of the key concepts used in fundraising programs available today.  The problem with many of these theologies is that they take giving as the starting point for their theological reflection.  Giving is the response that is sought and theology is used to provide a rationale for that giving.  It would be far better pastorally, however, to think through theologically one’s whole pastoral approach and allow the theme of giving to flow naturally out of that.

Giving Thanks in the Good Times

In this reflection I would like to look at two ways this wider approach might be taken.  One is rooted in the Hebrew scriptures, the other in the Christian scriptures.  Both are holistic in the sense that they deal first with how pastoral ministry seeks to shape the vision and lives of people and then raises the issue of giving from that larger context.  Let us consider first a reading from the book of Deuteronomy:

When you have come into the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage and have occupied it and settled in it, you shall take some first fruits of the various products of the soil which you harvest from the land which the Lord, your God, gives you, and putting them in a basket, you shall go to the place which the Lord, your God, chooses for the dwelling place of his name. There you shall go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, “Today I acknowledge to the Lord, my God, that I have indeed come into the land which he swore to our fathers he would give us.”  The priest shall then receive the basket from you and shall set it in front of the altar of the Lord, your God.  Then you shall declare before the Lord, your God, “My father was a wandering Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small household and lived there as an alien.  But there he became a nation great, strong and numerous.  When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and he heard our cry and saw our affliction, our toil and our oppression.  He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders; and bringing us into this country, he gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.  Therefore, I have now brought you the first fruits of the products of the soil which you, O Lord, have given me.”  And having set them before the Lord, your God, you shall bow down in his presence.  Then you and your family, together with the Levite and the aliens who live among you, shall make merry over all these good things which the Lord, your God, has given you (Dt 26: 1-11; NAB).

This passage is obviously about giving; its main point is an instruction on how it is to be done.  But look at the context in which giving is discussed.  In the first place, the person who is presenting the first fruits of the land has a clear set of images that shape his notion of God, himself, and his world.  God is a liberator who frees his people from oppression, protects them, and blesses them with a fertile land.  The person sees himself as one who has been gifted by God with freedom and the land he works.  The world itself is viewed as under the rubrics of gift and blessing.  Given the vision of life that is shaped by these images, it is natural that one of the fundamental attitudes of this Israelite is gratitude.  The way he sees himself, his God and his world inculcates a basic stance toward life.

Secondly, the ritual or liturgical action that takes place in this passage enhances those images.  The liturgical recitation of an ancient Hebrew creed once again tells the story of salvation in such a way that it draws the participant into the story.  He becomes so much a part of the action that it is no longer his ancestors whom God was saving with his mighty outstretched arm, but the Hebrew farmer as well.  It is that story which shapes his images and his basic orientation toward life.  The liturgical action of giving the first fruits of his harvest back to God is not, therefore, an isolated act to meet an ecclesial need.  It flows out of a story in which the ancient Hebrew is involved.  It is one of the ways in which the story continues in his life.  The ritual action is important because it shapes the character of this Hebrew farmer.  It gives depth and meaning to his life by informing all his actions with a sense of who he is, how his relationship with God is structured and affects his life, and what his word is about.

Fundamental Principles in Pastoral Activity

There are some fundamental principles here which are worth preserving as we think about fundraising or any other pastoral activity.  First, it is important that we always keep an eye on the fundamental task which is shaping the vision, the character and the lives of people.  Everything we do should be informed by a basic sense of who our God is, how God is involved in our lives, and how that ought to make a difference in how we see ourselves and our world.

Secondly, creed and story are vital instruments in this first task.  They provide us with our fundamental vision of God, ourselves, and our sense of life.  They provide the values we live by and give meaning to our actions.  Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the story we tell with our lives and try to instill in the lives of others.

Third, liturgical action flows out of this vision and story and carries it forward, shaping the present.  Liturgical action gives expression to the story and the vision, shapes the lives of those involved in the liturgy, and enhances the vision.

Finally, giving finds its meaning in the vision and story and is best carried out through liturgical action.  Giving does not stand out by itself as an isolated action in our lives.  It is a liturgical action which captures and expresses our basic approach to life.  It is liturgical even if it does not occur within a formal liturgy because it gives expression in concrete action to our faith and vision.  Giving emerges as an expression of our fundamental orientation in life.

Giving Thanks in the Bad Times

There are problems, however, with the approach we find with our Hebrew farmer in the book of Deuteronomy.  What happened in the years when there were bad crops and there seemed to be little to thank God for?  What happened when their freedom was threatened by foreign invasion or by despotic kings in Israel and Judah?  In encouraging people to give from a sense of thanks for the many blessings they have received, we may be assuming some things about their lives that may not be true.  It may not be all that apparent that life is full of blessings.  The problem is not simply that the foundation for giving then disappears, but the foundation on which their vision of God, their relationship to God, their sense of themselves, and their view of the world collapses.  It’s wonderful to call God our Father and thus come to understand God more deeply through an analogy based on the love, care and support we received from our fathers.  But what happens in the faith life of a person who has only known a physically or psychologically abusive father?  To move beyond this dilemma, our faith can turn to Christian scriptures.  As an example, let us look to the story of the multiplication of loaves and fish as we find it in Mark’s gospel:

The apostles returned to Jesus and reported to him all that they had done and what they had taught.  He said to them, “Come by yourselves to an out of the way place and rest a little.” People were coming and going in great numbers, making it impossible for them to so much as eat. So Jesus and the apostles went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.  People saw them leaving, and many got to know about it.  People from all the towns hastened on foot to the place, arriving ahead of them.

Upon disembarking, Jesus saw a vast crowd.  He pitied them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them at great length.  It was now getting late and his disciples came to him with a suggestion:  “This is a deserted place and it is already late.  Why do you not dismiss them so that they can go to the crossroads and villages around here and buy themselves something to eat?”  “You give them something to eat,” Jesus replied.  At that they said, “Are we to go and spend two hundred days’ wages for bread to feed them?”  “How many loaves have you?” Jesus asked.  “Go and see.”

When they learned the number they answered, “five, and two fish.”  He told them to make the people sit down on the green grass in groups or parties.  The people took their places in hundreds and fifties, neatly arranged like flower beds.  Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven, pronounced a blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to distribute.  He divided the two fish among all of them and they ate until they had their fill.  They gathered up enough leftovers to fill twelve baskets, besides what remained of the fish.  Those who had eaten the loaves numbered about five thousand men.  (Mk 6:30-44, NAB).

Again, what we are looking for in this passage is not a theology for giving.  Rather, we are trying to define the fundamental shape of Christian consciousness.  Out of that fundamental orientation, giving and the reasons for giving should flow.

The first clue to who we are as followers of Jesus lies in the question:  who fed the five thousand?  I have chosen Mark’s version of this story because here it is clear that Jesus is not the one who did the feeding.  The disciples did.  When the disciples wanted to send the people away so they could find food, Jesus urged the disciples to give the people the food they needed.  The story comes at a point in Mark’s gospel where Jesus is handing his mission over to his disciples.  They have just returned from their first missionary journeys in which they did all that Jesus had been doing up to that point in the gospel:  teaching, healing, forgiving, driving evil out of people’s lives.  The command to feed the people is an extension of this carrying out the mission of Jesus.

This sense also provides us with a clue to a Christian’s basic sense of self.  We are disciples who have been charged with the ongoing mission of Jesus.  We are in the Church not only for what we can receive, but also for what we have to offer.  We are the ones charged to feed the people what they need.  At times that may be simply bread to eat, but it is often breads of a vast variety which meet the many physical, psychological and spiritual needs of people.  Our basic sense of who we are and what we are about in our world ought to be shaped by this mission of Jesus.  If that does not give some shape to how we use our time, talent and treasure, then we might ask how much of our self-consciousness is shaped by our Christian faith.

A second clue to the shape of Christian consciousness is given by the fact that Jesus took the loaves and the fish and gave thanks.  There is nothing remarkable here until we remember that he was in the midst of hunger and want.  Even though he and his friends did not have much and there was hunger all around them, Jesus was still giving thanks.  There is a sense here that God is faithful even in our times of hunger, hurt and wanting.  God is still to be thanked no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in.  This pushes our sense of God, our sense of how God might be working in our lives and our sense of thanksgiving, far beyond the earlier situation in which God was found in the midst of a plentiful harvest.  To discern the presence and the workings of God even in desperate situations means we have developed a deeper sensitivity to God’s presence and how God acts in our lives.  To give thanks in those kinds of circumstances is to be shaped by a deep faith.

There is a later passage which further develops this sense of God’s presence and work in the midst of hurt and hunger.  All three synoptic gospels describe Jesus on the eve of his death, knowing what was awaiting him the next day, taking bread and giving thanks to God.  If we can fathom how he could do that, we would come to a much deeper sense of how a Christian sees God and understands how God works in our lives.

The third clue in the miracle of the loaves and the fish lies in what Jesus did with the little he and his friends had.  Jesus broke the bread and gave it to his disciples to share with the people.  In spite of the meagerness of what Jesus and his disciples had to share, there was enough for more than five thousand people. The giving was not from surplus or plenty but arose out of a situation in which there was barely enough to go around for the twelve.  Yet, somehow, there was enough for the five thousand.

Life, Death and Resurrection

We are at the heart of the Christian sense of life here.  The central Christian mystery is found in the death and resurrection of Jesus and can be summed up by saying that where we take the gift of life, break it open and share it with others, life returns abundantly.  When Jesus gave his life for the world on the cross, life returned in abundance, not only for him in his resurrection, but for all of us.  The same fundamental dynamic is at work in this miracle.  When Jesus took a part of what he had and shared it with others, then there was abundance.

This central Christian reality shapes our very sense of how we ought to live and what the fundamental dynamic of our world is.  Life is to be broken and shared so that it might blossom and grow.  It is a mystery that we all know in our everyday lives.  To teach it we ought to start not with the gospels or with theology, but rather with our everyday experience.  People know this mystery is a reality when they reflect on their relationships.  Parents know what a task it is to give life to their children in all the different ways they are called upon to do so.  They know the personal cost of giving life day in and day out.  But they also know that they find life in doing so, life in greater abundance.  In the giving life blossoms, grows and returns multiplied.

The same is true of the relationships of spouses, lovers and friends.  When we take of ourselves, break our lives open and share them with one another, miracles of life occur.  We all know of hard situations we have faced when someone close to us grieved, suffered or struggled with life.  There seemed to be little we could do to help the situation except be present to the person and simply share the situation.  There was nothing we could do; the suffering and the struggle continued, but the situation changed simply because we shared our humanness and our hearts with one another.  This mystery shapes the Christian sense of what the gift of life is for and what the fundamental dynamic of life is.  It tells us what we are about in the world.  Life is given to be shared so that it might blossom, grow and come back to us in abundance.  That sense of life ought to shape our sense of what we are about in the world.  Out of that fundamental orientation we shape how we might give of our time, talent and treasure.  Why?  Because we expect miracles where life is broken open and shared.  We expect life to blossom, because at heart that is what the fundamental dynamic of life is.

The final thing to note about this miracle story is the eucharistic overtones that Mark has given it.  How many times have we heard the words, “Jesus took the bread, gave thanks and praise to God, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and . . ..”  Mark places the eucharistic words of consecration in the middle of this passage because the miracle is eucharistic.  Wherever the fundamental Christian miracle of the abundance of life that takes place where life is broken open and shared, there we are reminded of the eucharist.

Sacrificial Giving is Life Giving

The Eucharist we celebrate on Sundays is a celebration of our basic Christian sense of life and how it should be lived.  We celebrate it there not only because bread and wine are to be transformed into the presence of Jesus, but because all of life is to be transformed.  We are eucharistic people because the Eucharist is the center of our worship.  But the Eucharist has this central liturgical role because it is at the center of our sense of who we are and what we are about in the world.  This fundamental eucharistic approach to life will shape how we give of our time, talent and treasure.

Sacrificial giving, stewardship, and tithing are all important themes in our lives as Christians.  We need to pay attention to them.  But they should not stand out by themselves as themes and actions which have little to do with the rest of our faith lives.  They should be anchored in a Christian sense of who we are and what we are called to do as disciples of Jesus; of who God is and how God is active in our midst; and of how we see the fundamental dynamics of life in our world.

Where we break bread and remember the Lord and continue to do what he taught us to do with our lives, Jesus is present and continues to work in our midst.  What we do with bread, we do with life and with time, talent and treasure God has given us.  Eucharist is not an isolated act, but a liturgical symbol of how we see life and understand God.  As a liturgical symbol, it shapes our vision and actions and should lead naturally toward lives that are marked by sacrificial giving.

Fr. Michael Raschko is a graduate of St. Thomas Seminary, Seattle, and a priest for the Archdiocese of Seattle.  He received his M.T.S. in Theology at Harvard University in 1973 and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from the University of Chicago in 1982.  Fr. Raschko is currently on the faculty of the Institute of Theological Studies at Seattle Univ. and serves as a Theological Resource for the Archdiocese of Seattle..

Possible Reasons for Giving:

      1)      To meet recognized needs.

      2)      To meet moral or legal obligations.

      3)      To live out a Christian way of life.

The last of these reasons serves as the basis of Sacrificial Giving.

Theological Points Which Serve as a Basis for a Christian Way of Life Expressed Through Sacrificial Giving:

         1)   Sacrificial Giving expresses a basic attitude of gratitude toward God for God’s many

               gifts to us and the trust we have in God as the ultimate source of our security.

                  l    The sense of our relationship with God:

                        -     God unconditionally loves us; we are unconditionally loved by God. 

                        -     We have been gifted in many ways by God.  All that we have and all that we are,

                              our very lives, are gifts from God. 

                        -     We recognize that our ultimate security lies only with God.  We are called to

                              trust God with all we have and are.

                  l    The expression and realization of this relationship:

                        -     We need to acknowledge and accept the gifts God has given as coming from

                              God.

        -     The gratitude and trust we have in God should be expressed throughout our

              entire lives, in our use of everything we have and in how we live our entire lives.

      -     As human beings we need to express this basic relationship and this basic

            attitude toward life in symbols which, in a small portion of our life, give

            shape to the whole of our life, e.g., prayer, liturgy, sacred space, etc.

l Sacrificial Giving is another such important symbol:  By giving a certain portion

     of our time, talent and money to God, we are giving symbolic expression to an

     underlying attitude about life which should be expressed with the entirety of our time, talent and money.  Sacrificial Giving is not only a symbolic expression of the

     larger direction and meaning of our lives, but an expression which brings that basic

     attitude into focus for the rest of life.  Thus Sacrificial Giving is a symbolic

     expression of our thanks to God and our trust in God as the ultimate source of our

     lives.  We give it unconditionally as God has given to us.

2)   Stewardship of God’s gifts:

     l    God’s love and his pouring out of life for us has creative purpose and direction.

                  l    As stewards of God’s gifts to us we are called by God to use these gifts to further

                        God’s creative and redemptive purposes; as stewards we use God’s gifts for God’s

                        purposes.                         

        3)   The pattern of discipleship:

                  l God’s creative and redemptive purposes are most fully revealed in the life, death

                        and resurrection of God’s son, Jesus.

                  l    The basic pattern of Jesus’ work is found in the paschal mystery.  It is a pattern of

                        giving life for the sake of others and, in the giving, finding life more fully realized

                        for ourselves and for those to whom we give.

                  l    It is a pattern rooted in the reality of the Kingdom.  It is a pattern of trust in the

                        promises God has made to the people and living as if these promises are real

                        possibilities in our lives.

                  l    We are called to be disciples of Jesus.  This means that we are called to live a pattern

                        of life based on trusting God’s promises and living as if they are possible in our

                        lives.  We are called to use our time, talent and money in such a way that God can

                        work through them to realize the Kingdom.

l       We are called to be disciples of Jesus.  This means we are called to find life by

giving life to others.  The gifts God has given us are to be used to continue the work

of Jesus and bring life to all our brothers and sisters whom God loves with an

                        unconditional love.  Concretely this means that we are to use our time, talent and

                        money and even our very lives to give life to other people.

l Sacrificial Giving as a symbol of our discipleship:  Sacrificial Giving is symbolic of the larger pattern of discipleship which shapes our lives.  Our entire lives are to be used to serve and give life to others and to open the world to the promises of God’s Kingdom.  Sacrificial Giving is both a symbolic expression of this attitude and one of its primary realizations.

        4)   Sense of the Church:

              l    The Church is a gathering of disciples who nurture and encourage one another in

                    discipleship, whose lives of faith and salvation are interdependent, who work

                    together to accomplish the service and work of discipleship in ways which

                    individuals cannot accomplish.

              l The practice of discipleship in and through the church is one of the primary ways

                    we are called to follow Jesus.

              l It is the whole church, all of its members, who are responsible for the carrying on

                    of the work of Christ in the world today.

              l Therefore, one of the primary ways we are called to use our time, talent and money

                    is through the work of the Church.

              l It is the body which most clearly expresses the meaning and values we find at the

                    center of our lives.  Therefore, we call on one another in and through the church to

                    support the work of the church and the parish through a significant proportion of our

                    time, talent and money.  This is not an option but a basic part of our call to

                    discipleship.  Our proportion should come not from our abundance but from our

                    substance.

        5)   The notion of sacrifice:

                  l A sign of gratitude.

                  l    A sign of praise to our creator and savior.

                  l    A sign of our trust in God who is our ultimate security.

                  l    A sharing in the paschal mystery of Jesus.

                  l    A willingness to give from the very core of who we are and what we have; from

                         substance rather than abundance.

                  l    A giving of life to others through which we find new life—this is not a matter of

                        bargaining or trading, but a realization of the very core of what life is about in giving

                        and loving.

This last notion is not to be taken in the sense that by giving we manipulate God or bargain with God to ensure our well being in this life; what we receive when we give to another is what we become in the giving.

An analogy:  The bread and wine we offer at the Eucharist represents the whole of our lives.  When they are transformed, the whole of our lives is transformed.  So, too, the symbolic offering of a significant proportion of our time, talent and money is a sign of our giving our whole lives to God, and our whole lives are transformed in the action.