October 26, 2025
• Rev. Mindie Moore
Stewardship 2025, Mine!
Week 1: My Gift
Exodus 4:1-5
Today we are beginning our Stewardship series. Every single year, we take a few weeks to focus on stewardship and generosity, and we culminate the whole thing with an opportunity to make a financial pledge commitment for the year ahead.
And I LOVE this time of year, maybe in a weird way. Like, I know that we don’t all enjoy talking about money, especially not in the church. But I do! And there are a couple of reasons I love it so much. First, Stewardship gives us this really unique way to look at our resources and how we use them to respond to what God is doing—both in us personally but also in our wider world. It helps us understand our purpose and participation in God’s work.
AND—it’s a season where we get to both REFLECT and LOOK FORWARD. We get to celebrate all that God has done at St. Luke’s and anticipate what the next year of ministry is going to bring. And at Midtown, there are some exciting things coming up in 2026 that I can’t wait to tell you more about over the next couple of weeks!
This year’s theme for Stewardship is “Mine!” If you’re around little kids very often, you might hear this word exclaimed from time to time. In fact, Pastor Rob has a two year old grandson named Geo who says this a lot! Geo’s mom Julie took this video:
(PLAY VIDEO)
Sometimes adult discourage this, and while we want to teach our kids to share, for sure, the "mine" stage is actually an important part of development. Obviously, all kids develop at different rates and some may experience this more than others, but OFTEN this stage happens at about 18-24ish months. It's a building block in a series of developmental building blocks, and it has to happen so that other things can take place.
18 months is when the window is open for "mine!" because by then most toddlers have developed object permanence (things don't stop existing when I can't see them), the necessary language skills to say "mine!," the necessary motor skills to grab something and hold onto it, and maybe most central, they've identified that they are a "me" distinguished from other people. Once they have all this in place, they begin to understand possession and experiment with it. Claiming MINE! Is a way of practicing and asserting their newfound boundary of self. Interestingly, kids who can say "mine!" Also begin to understand and use "yours!" Around the same time. It's more about self-differentiation as a phase than greed.
At this stage, they haven't yet developed to the point where they can take another's perspective easily. Their logic is still absolute: if I see it, I'm holding it, it's mine. Nuance has not entered the picture, and it won’t for a bit.
By age 3-4, though, they move to a new developmental task, which needed "mine!" as a building block, but calls them to take it forward into the next phase, which is to learn "OURS." They can begin to share and play WITH each other not just NEXT to each other. The self concept moves from "I have this" to "I can give/receive/share/trade this..." And I can be a "me" without having to assert what is "mine."
The development of a child has a lot to teach us. It shows us that it’s really hard to get to a place where we can view the world with a lens of “ours” if we don’t first understand who we are, what we have, and what we might have to offer.
Paul makes an interesting statement in 1 Corinthians 13:11. He says: (SLIDE) When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
On the surface, this sounds like it could be a little judgey about how children act or even those who are less developed in their character or faith. But I think it is less of a judgment and more a reminder that it’s a natural part of our spiritual process to BE evolving. To start with one viewpoint or understanding and then keep expanding it.
And stewardship is one of those places that we might find evolves a lot throughout our lives. Our St. Luke’s lay leader, and one of my dear friends, Stephen Hoskins told me this story about his now adult daughter Nikki. That when she was in high school, they had bought her a car once she got her license. And they were all loving that the parents were no longer the taxi service, she could get herself to school and practices and all that.
But then one day, Stephen had to take HIS car into the shop. So he told Nikki he needed to use her car for the day to drive to work. Which she replied--”Dad, that’s MY car.” Which did make him chuckle a bit because he and her mom had purchased the car, they were funding the insurance, the maintenance, even the gas!
Now, Stephen is one of those exceptionally patient and kind people in the world. And so he told Nikki—you're right. It IS yours. AND we’re part of a family, and the things we have as a family are for the family to use. Our family owns the car and you are a steward over it. We want you to use it and we know you’ll take good care of it. But right now I need it to drive to work today so I can pay for all this. So I’ll be glad to drop you off at school on my way.
That shift in mindset from ownership to stewardship is an important part of faith development. It helps us make that shift from “mine” to “ours” and it changes the way we view the things that we have. And as our viewpoints shift like this, the things that we DO shift as well.
We see this kind of development in the spiritual life of Moses...as he has this encounter with God and God asks him this simple but incredibly layered question: “What’s in your hand?” Do you see what you’re holding, do you recognize the resources in front of you? AND are you willing to loosen your grip on what you’re holding so that God can use it?
You may know that Exodus is my favorite book of the Bible and I just absolutely love Moses’ story. Because Moses does not start out as this epic leader. We get this really rich recorded history of Moses’ life...we see him as a vulnerable little baby, as an outsider trying to grow up in a culture that hates his people, as a person who is righteously angry but makes some mistakes along the way, and when we get to this point in Moses’ story, we find him as a simple shepherd having this not so simple encounter with God.
The Lord has spoken to him through a burning bush, has told Moses that the cry of the Hebrew people has been heard, that God is going to work in some miraculous ways to free them from slavery and that Moses himself is going to be leader that helps get them out of Egypt.
And this all sounds great...but Moses is less than enthused by this prospect. It’s really hard for him to see beyond what he knows about himself and what he believes is true. In his mind, he’s a guy who really struggles with public speaking, who has some relational baggage and anxiety around that, and who has become pretty good at tending these sheep so maybe he should just keep doing THAT.
He has a lot of insecurity about who he is and what he perceives as the gifts he either has or doesn’t have. The things that he would label as “mine”. Some of it, he’s holding on to INCREDIBLY tightly, and he’s pretty unwilling to give it up. And others? He can hardly believe some of the things that God is speaking over him could ever even apply to the person he believes himself to be. He’s got a lot of resistance to the life that God is inviting him into and it makes it hard to see things clearly and act accordingly.
And so The Lord invites Moses to change his perspective. And God starts by taking the ordinary things of Moses’ life and doing something miraculous through them. God asks Moses, “What is in your hand?” And Moses probably feels like he’s stating the obvious here, like, ok, you’re THE LORD but this is a staff. But then God tells him to do something kind of weird WITH that staff. God says, “throw it on the ground.” Stop holding on to it, let it go.
And when Moses lets it go the staff turns into something unexpected. It turns into a snake. My favorite thing here is that we’re told that Moses recoils, and that IS the appropriate reaction! But then God says, ok you see this snake? Grab it by the tail! The minute Moses does that, it turns back into his trusty staff.
At this point in the story, it’s important to understand that Moses is not fully bought into everything God is saying his life will be. BUT. Even with his doubt, and his fear, and all the reasons why this shouldn’t work, Moses still begins to take these small acts of faith. He still begins to use what he has to do something that is beyond him and his understanding.
God knows that Moses is pretty limited in what he believes he brings to the table. God knows that Moses is not initially very interested in letting go of his plans and what he thinks is going to happen with his life. But when God shows up and starts telling Moses to do things like let his staff be turned into a snake, what God is really asking here is Moses—what if there’s more? And what if the only way to experience that more is to lay some things down, to let some things go? Is that something Moses could do?
Is it something WE can do?
You know, when we think about our own lives and our relationship to all that we have, when we think about people who can’t or won’t let things go; who hold on way too tightly to their stuff or their time or their talents...who very much get stuck in a place of saying “mine!” over their whole lives...we often label that as selfish and kind of move on. And, you know what, maybe sometimes that is the case. There are selfish people in the world, for sure.
But sometimes we can be resistant to what we can give and what we can do in this world less because of selfishness, and more because of fear. What can keep us stuck in a place where we’re saying “mine!” or even “no! Not me!”...it’s a deep sense of “what if?”. What if I get it wrong? What if I don’t have enough? What if I can’t do this thing I’m feeling called to do? (SLIDE) Fear can be a significant barrier in our lives and it can makes us cling to things that God is nudging us to be a little more openhanded with.
There’s a book called War of Art by Steven Pressfield and in it he talks about the concept of resistance in our lives. Not like, good resistance like standing up to the evil empire Star Wars kind of resistance, but the destructive kind of resistance that lives inside of us and keeps us from doing the things we were made to do. It stops us from being curious about where are lives are going; that keeps us from being generous with our talents; that gets in the way of our creativity; that basically stops us from pursuing the dreams that God has given us and sends us in an utterly unhelpful direction. That kind of resistance makes us look at a staff and say—this could never be a snake! That’s ridiculous. This kind of resistance makes us look at ourselves and say—I could never be more than I am right now.
This kind of resistance shows up in Moses. And it shows up over and over again in his story, really until the very end. I think it is one of, if not his most significant struggles as a leader. Because even after he’s had this moment with God and this weird, supernatural demonstration, even after God has painted this picture of how Moses could use his life in this absolutely remarkable way, he can’t help but look back at God and say, “I really don’t think I can do this. PLEASE just pick someone else and let me stay right where I am.”
The good news is that even when it’s hard for us to let go, even when we can’t quite see how God is going to use our gifts...God is full of grace and God is so, so faithful. And it’s because of God’s faithfulness to him that Moses is able to move beyond that place of being stuck and resistant. He is able to hold what he has with open hands and trust that God will use his gifts and will use HIM for something good. His life is going to look different than he’s envisioned. He’s going to give things of himself beyond what he would initially think he’s capable of. He’s going to not only have to physically set down his staff, but he’s going to have to set down his expectations. He’s going to have to set down what he looks at as his deficiencies. He’s going to have to set down all the reasons why not...and embrace who God has made him to be...and what God will have him do.
Because when we believe that we have something to give and then let ourselves hold it with open hands to be used however it needs to be used, it changes US AND it changes others. By trusting who God has made us to be and living into that in a wholehearted and generous way, we impact people in ways we might not expect or might not even be looking for. But it’s those unexpected and sometimes simple ways that can make a significant impact.
Another UMC pastor who Rob and I both know recently shared a story about a teenager in his church. He had been baptized a few years ago, and at his baptism this pastor gave him one of these little palm crosses. And apparently this cross was incredibly meaningful to him. He carried this everywhere with him, he used it as part of his prayer practice, like it was not just something he got at a church service and then forgot about. But one day, during gym class at school, he lost it. They were playing football or something and it had been in his pocket—like, he carried EVERYWHERE—and then all of a sudden it was gone.
He was pretty upset about it. But then a couple of days later, he saw the cross again. One of his friends was holding it, sort of fiddling with it in class. And so he said to him--"That’s cool! Where did you find it?" He replied with "Oh it was on the ground at the football field. And I’ve been carrying it with me since."
The student told his pastor that while he was 99% sure it was his...it had the same worn marks from where he had held it and it looked the same...he didn’t ask for it back. He said I could tell that finding this cross had somehow made an impact on him, and I thought if it would be something that would bring him closer to God, he should keep it.
When we offer our gifts to God and to the people around us, the things we hold out to share and the pieces we trust God with enough to set down...don’t think that those things don’t hold an incredible amount of value for us. Don’t think that just because someone knows God’s calling on their lives and shows up ready to step into it that there isn’t usually an incredible amount of risk involved.
Maybe the only way we can take these risks and give of ourselves in these ways is to remember what we talked about at the very beginning of our time together. That (SLIDE) we are stewards of all that we have been given. And that God is the giver.
So as we remember that, I would just leave you with a question this morning—what is in your hand? What are the things you have been given that you can use to do something good in the world...and what might God be nudging you to do with these things today?
Let’s name those things and use those things, and let’s see what God can do.
Let’s pray.