November 01, 2026
• Rev. Dr. Rob Fuquay
St. Luke’s UMC
November 1, 2026
All Saints’ Day
I Hate to Admit This But…True Confessions from a Pastor about Stewardship
“I Struggle with Being Generous”
2 Corinthians 9:6-11
This morning I begin a stewardship series unlike any I’ve ever done. It’s called I Hate to Admit This, But…True Confessions from a Pastor About Stewardship. I think some church people believe pastors love talking about stewardship as if giving comes easier for pastors than most folks, or, that pastors get some kind of sadistic delight in talking about a topic that makes many people uncomfortable.
Well, in this series I am flipping the script. I am going to talk about what I struggle with when it comes to stewardship. And this morning, I Hate to Admit This, But…I struggle with being generous.
Now let me put an asterisk on that. I don’t struggle with being generous to the church. I was challenged on that decades ago by a pastor I worked for in college. When stewardship season rolled around, he asked if I would be turning in a pledge card. I said, “I didn’t think what I had to give was enough to matter.” He talked to me about tithing, giving ten percent of my income. I earned about $50 a week washing dishes at the school cafeteria. I said, “What difference will $5 a week make?
He replied, “Well, first off, $5 a week is more than $250 a year. That’s half our missions budget right there.” That made me pause. And then he said, “But that’s not why you give.” He explained the biblical understanding of tithing. It goes back to an agricultural society where people brought their “first fruits,” the best of their initial harvest to the temple. It was an expression of gratitude believing that God provides for them. What they produced was not just the result of their hard work. They didn’t make the soil or sun or rain. They depend on God. So their response is an expression of gratitude.
And secondly, it is an expression of trust that God will keep looking after them. He said, “Tithing is a belief that God can do more with our 90% than we can the full 100%. And don’t think,” he continued, “that tithing gets easier the more you have. If you can’t give ten percent when you make $50 a week, you won’t do it when you make $500, or $5000 a week.”
So I have tithed ever since then, and you know, I’ve never missed it. I have been generous to the church and other causes, so that’s not where I struggle. My struggle with generosity is different. Let me explain.
This past April Susan and I went to visit our daughter and her husband who were living in France. Much to our surprise the other two daughters and their families wanted to go as well. So the whole family went to France. Before we left, Susan said to me, “Now I want to tell you something and I want you to hear me. The kids are paying their own way to get there, so I want us to pay for several things—a few excursions and a nice dinner one evening. And when we do, I don’t want you to ask, ‘How much does this cost?’ If you do that, it will take the joy out of it. Understand?”
That story isn’t a description of Susan. It’s a description of me, and all the times I have given her all across all the years to need to say that. Whenever we spent money on a family event that seemed extravagant to me, I would say things like, “We can’t afford that! That’s too expensive. We don’t need that.” And it would drain the joy right out of things.
Now in my defense, I came by this honestly. My parents grew up in the post-depression. Every cost had to be evaluated carefully. They based expenses on need. Even when they got to a point of earning good incomes, this spirit was still hard to shake. And it got passed down. So when I learned about stewardship it just fed into my tightfistedness, because I now had a spiritual reason to be stingy, so that I could give to the church and other worthy causes.
I tithe, but I admit I still struggle with being generous. Not just with my family. Sometimes to myself. Sometimes to strangers. I get uncomfortable walking by the person holding out a cup asking for a little money. What will happen if I get carefree with my money? If I just start giving things away?
It’s a conundrum, I know. I can be so generous to good causes yet still struggle with being generous. But I’m not a lost cause. I’m in therapy, and my therapist is the Apostle Paul. I didn’t realize what was missing in my stewardship equation…until I understood Paul.
He wrote to the Corinthians about giving. Not because they weren’t generous. The Corinthians were known for their giving. In fact, it was kind of competitive. Who could outgive others. But Paul saw a hole in their generosity. So in his second letter he wrote to them about it. The issue was the collection for the poor widows in Jerusalem. They were falling behind. They could be generous to good causes, but they struggled being generous to people in need. In fact, they weren’t always generous to each other. So Paul said,
“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Cor. 9:6-7)
It is not only important that we give. It’s important how we give. There should be cheerfulness. If giving becomes a duty, we make the people and organizations we give to just recipients of our obligations versus really giving them something. And that’s the aim, to consider what we really give people when we give.
One of the saints we recognized in our tribute this morning is Jeff Peek. Jeff was our treasurer for the last 30 years. Jeff was generous. He did so much for this church, as did so many of those in our tributes this morning. But Jeff’s generosity was really about what he gave away, its about what he added to others. An example of this is how he taught this principle to his kids.
When his son, Stephen, was old enough to start playing youth sports, he towered over his peers. He was just so much bigger than other kids his age. Stephen dominated in basketball, scoring most of his team's points each game, until...his dad gave him a sign from the stands. A fist in the air. That meant no more scoring. He was to spend the rest of the game passing the ball and helping his teammates. Jeff wanted his son to understand that part of winning is how you make others feel.
Generosity. It's about making others feel special.
There are so many ways to be generous. With our words. With our consideration. With our time and attention. And, yes, with our money. And as odd as it sounds money can be the biggest obstacle to generosity. Giving can be done under compulsion. And the joy just gets deflated.
Or giving can be done reluctantly where we go around asking, “Now is that really needed? Can we afford that?” And the same thing happens to joy, it just evaporates.
Susan challenged me so long ago, that while I can be generous to good causes, see my family and myself as a good cause. Remember that our generosity helps them feel special.
Now, that doesn’t mean just give your kids or yourself whatever they want. Love and self-esteem can’t be bought. And I’m not suggesting that giving to the church isn’t important. In fact, I am saying give more to the church. Because the aim of life is to be generous. Generous with everything. Our actions. Our words. Our resources.
It is to see that God gives us what we need to make others feel significant. Whatever we give away, God fills back up. As Paul went on to say, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity…” (2 Cor. 9:10-11)
We can always afford to be generous.
For all his miserliness, I know my dad did actually understand that.
At least once every other year growing up, my family went to see my grandparents in Cincinnati for summer vacation. I was about 9 or 10 years old and we went to a K-Mart. This was before Wal-Mart became so popular. Well, we didn’t have K-Mart yet in NC, so this was like going to an amusement park.
In the sports section they had Cincinnati Bengals’ helmets. I had never actually seen a football helmet you could buy. My friends and I played football in the backyard and I became fascinated. I thought, “Wow! What if I had an actual helmet to wear.” I begged my dad to get it for me, but he said, “No, you don’t need that.” And I let it go. I’d heard it before, so I wasn’t surprised.
That night I got ready for bed which meant helping my mom put a sheet and blankets on the sofa bed in my grandparents’ living room. She got ready to turn out the light when my dad came through the door. He tossed a bag to me and said, “Catch!” It was a K Mart bag. I honestly had no idea what this was. I opened it, and there was a shiny new Bengals helmet. I was speechless! It was like Christmas Day.
He said, “Put it on, make sure it fits.” So I did. I began banging my hand on my head to hear the strange sound it made inside the helmet. Then I got up and starting headbutting the walls, and doors, and my parents legs. My dad said, “Son don’t make me take it back.”
I was shouting and dancing around, and I looked at my dad, and he was smiling. My dad did something generous, and he was smiling.
I still struggle sometimes with generosity, until I remember all the generosity that’s been shown to me. And I realize, I can afford to be generous.