In last week’s youth Confirmation class on the Eucharist, I asked the confirmands about the meaning of sacrifice. As predicted, one member of the class said that sacrifice means giving something up. That’s one way of describing a sacrifice, I explained, but then I offered a different explanation. While a sacrifice usually means parting with something—often something dear to us—it is also a way of offering something to God so that it can be made holy. Sacrifice, in the ancient sense, is setting something apart to be sanctified. This is what we do each week in the Eucharist. We bring to God’s altar many things: bread, wine, money, our selves, and our praise and thanksgiving, and we render them to God to be made holy.
It’s not that all those things are inherently unholy, but the way in which they are often used in the world can be so. Bread that should feed hungry stomachs is given a price tag, and the poorest among us lose out. Wine is abused and becomes a source of addiction rather than of joyful feasting. Money is stolen, and its greedy accrual means that those who have little have even less. Human bodies are still traded and sold into slavery and trafficked across continents. But when we bring these things into God’s temple to offer them back to God, from whom they first came, we are making a profound, radical statement. We are stating that creation is, from its origins, good, and its goodness is sustained by God, not by us alone. We are stating that all of life is a gift, not a commodity to be bartered or a means by which we can manipulate our neighbors. Above all, we are stating that everything we think we own or possess is not really ours at all but God’s.
Is there any more potent, visible indication of where our true loyalties lie than our relationship to money? The fact that people in churches are often so unwilling to talk about money demonstrates that we have an inherently uneasy relationship with it. And yet, our Lord talked constantly about money. Ordering our relationship towards money is essential to ordering our relationship to God. It is a spiritual practice that should go hand in hand with prayer, self-discipline, and fasting, among others.
This is the time of year in which we talk a lot about money, although we do try to keep money talk going throughout the year at Good Shepherd, and for good reason: our relationship with money is integral to the health of our spiritual lives. On Sunday, we will officially launch our 2026 pledge campaign. You will hear much more about pledging and its importance in the life of this parish on Sunday, so I will not say too much more in this message. If pledging is an unfamiliar practice to you, please make a point of attending Sunday’s luncheon after Sung Mass, which is hosted by our Advancement Committee. If pledging is nothing new to you, please come, too! The point of the luncheon is to draw the entire parish into a lively discussion about the deepening and expanding vision for ministry at Good Shepherd and to discuss the practical and financial aspects of supporting that vision. If you can’t attend the luncheon, a member of the Advancement Committee will be more than happy to talk with you privately about this year’s pledge campaign. For the flourishing of ministry at Good Shepherd, everyone should know as much as possible about the parish’s vision and needs.
A pledge is a financial contribution of any amount to support ministry at Good Shepherd. A pledge can be $50 or $5,000 or $50,000. Pledging is not only for those who have a lot of money; it’s for everyone. Indeed, the bylaws of our parish and the canons of the Episcopal Church count pledging as essential to being a communicant in good standing, not because the Church is a club but because being a member of the Church requires embracing spiritual practices that are essential to the Christian life. Sacrificial giving of our money to support God’s work in the world is such a practice.
So, how much should one pledge? There are various ways of addressing this question. The first step is to pray. Pray first before even looking at your financial situation. The Bible also offers some guidance through the mention of a tithe, which is giving 10% of what one has to God. Often, a tithe is interpreted as 10% of one’s net income. (For a tithing spreadsheet that might be helpful as you prayerfully consider your own sacrificial gift, please visit the pledge campaign portion of our website.) A tithe need not be idolized; it’s simply a helpful starting place to determine one’s sacrificial gift to God. But however a “tithe” may be interpreted, it demands sacrificial giving. Tithing or working towards a tithe requires giving to God first, rather than giving to God what’s left over after the bills are paid and money is put in savings. In doing this, one might need to give up some things or be more conscious in how money is spent. It doesn’t mean that one should not save for the future or care for loved ones; it just requires trusting that with God’s care, one can give sacrificially and tend to other important needs. Sacrificial giving is, quite simply, giving to God in such a lavish way that one feels the shift in priorities in one’s life and thereby is spiritually aware that nothing we think we own truly belongs to us.
My own spiritual practice of giving has changed over the years. I first started pledging when I was still in graduate school, accruing student loan debt and making very little money. I gave what I could. But over the years, I have tried to deepen my practice of spiritual giving from what I could give to what I should give as a token of growing trust in God’s gracious provision. Now, my practice is to calculate 10% of my net paycheck (estimated for the next calendar year), and then I try to make everything else work out. Certainly, that financial gift could instead go into savings or towards a nice vacation, but it belongs to God, not to me. And as I have pressed myself to believe more in God’s overriding narrative of abundance, I have been less inclined to cave to the world’s anxious obsession with scarcity. In short, sacrificial giving of my money has helped me to trust more in God and to open my heart with greater risk. I invite each of you to consider a sacrificial gift to God’s work through a pledge to ministry at Good Shepherd in 2026.
Please plan to attend Sunday’s luncheon after Sung Mass. Printed pledge campaign materials will also be mailed out next week. I urge you to review them carefully, pray, and then make your pledge to support the vibrant ministry that is growing at Good Shepherd by God’s gracious hand. And more than anything else, I ask you to think of your pledge as more than an obligation. Consider it to be an act of thanksgiving to a God who never holds back from giving us love and life. All our sacrifices to God, especially those in the form of money, are an offering to God of that which seems precious in our lives. We give it to God so that God can make it and us holy. We offer it all to God because God will work wonders with it for the life of the world.
Yours in Christ,
Father Kyle