MUMC

Mamaroneck United                Loving God and Neighbor...

Methodist Church                         

Home

Who we are

Worship

Programs

Outreach

Newcomers

News

Contact us

 Today is

Resources»

Sermon Archive

 If one purpose of a vacation is to relax, another is to learn.  A vacation gives time to see the unusual, to visit the remote, to discover the hidden, and to learn the unexpected.  So it was that when I least expected it this summer, relaxing in a living room in San Francisco with Lynne’s cousin and her husband, Michael, I learned about tokens and the genesis of a common expression.

 After we’d talked about their work (a bit), and their children and the process of college applications (a lot), I asked Michael about his passion:  coin collecting.  He showed me a few coins, but then told me that his collector’s heart is less focused on coins than on tokens, especially British tokens from the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

 This was new to me.  Michael was excited to talk about it, and I was fascinated to listen.  I found tokens surprisingly remarkable.  As he told me the story, during that time in England, tokens were an organic, somewhat egalitarian development.  The problem was that the smallest coin minted by the government, in silver, was worth a week’s wages in the mines or the factories.  Nothing of lesser value could be minted in copper, or pewter, because it was reasoned that doing so was beneath the value and the dignity of the government. 

 But that created something of a problem with the masses making the minimal worker’s wage.  On Friday night, at the end of a week’s work, Michael explained, the worker would leave the mine or factory with his wages:  one small silver coin, smallest denomination minted by the crown.  Needing to relax a bit, often he stopped at the pub for a pint and a bit of rest at the end of a hard week.  There, he handed over the coin and began his evening. 

 So far, so good.  But here’s the rub:  because his week’s wages represented the smallest coin minted by the government, there was no way for the business to make change. The worker had only one option:  he had to stay long enough to consume his entire week’s wage.  This practice of drinking away one’s weekly wages (as well as enjoying the pub’s other temptations, and buying a round for the boys) seemed tragically common, and too many men saw no way to “save” their wages. The practice was so common that it was referred to as  “liquefying your assets.”

 Everyone knew that such “liquid assets” were socially and morally destructive.  But minting cheap copper coins was, for the government, unthinkably beneath its royal dignity. In effect, the government said that money wasn’t meant for the masses.

 In time, however, businesses, local governments, even pubs themselves addressed the problem.  Independent of the national government and of each other, they began to make tokens.  These are similar to coins, but stamped instead with the name and sometimes and image of the business, rather than the country’s name and insignia.  Sometimes they were imprinted with the initials of the business owner.  Soon, even the mines and factories were making tokens.  These tokens, made of copper, pewter, and occasionally even leather, were of varying values, but of low enough value that they could used to give change at the shop or tavern that produced it.

 As Michael told the story, I was fascinated.  John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist renewal movement in the Anglican church that became the Methodist Church, also worked with these very miners and factory workers.  He taught them the value of hard work, discipline, prayer, temperance, and generosity.  But even under Wesley’s teaching, people needed to be able to see their wages in smaller units, so that portions could be used variously for food, for coal, or for rent.  And for saving.  And, yes, Wesley called on them to give as well.  Tokens made that possible.  A lump payment, turned quickly to liquid assets, could only be selfishly consumed.  But a wage that could be broken into parts could be seen in its smaller components.  And there could be a “method” to living and giving as well as to praying and singing.  One’s wages could be managed as deliberately as one’s hours and minutes.  Wesley even had a slogan for his people:  “Earn as much as you can; save as much as you can; give as much as you can; as long as ever you can.”  Faith transformed the passions of Wesley’s working followers; tokens gave them the means to divide their income.

 We have that same capacity today.  We can see our financial resources not as one lump, but as many smaller units.  Our giving can start small and grow gradually.  Stewardship is not an ‘all or nothing’ endeavor.  We don’t have live selfishly, putting our assets to use in only one area.  Nor do we have to consume all that we have.  We no longer use tokens, but we can still think of dividing our assets rather than liquefying them.  We can, if we choose, commit our resources to a variety of efforts, including God’s work in and through the church. 

 Through the years I’ve been committed to proportional saving and giving.  Our financial system gives us choices.  It makes all the difference, I believe, NOT to see all our assets as “liquid,” in the sense of using everything merely for ourselves, we are consuming too much and sharing too little.  We don’t use tokens any more; but the principle, the method, of discipline stewardship of financial resources still applies.

 Last Thursday’s New York Times included its annual philanthropy section.  Perhaps you saw its lead article, “New Fame for the Everyday Donor,” that reported a renewed emphasis on smaller donations across the non-profit spectrum.  The article recalled the impact of the coins given by children to “The March of Dimes.”  The organization still gets 22% of its income from gifts averaging just $14.

 The article also celebrated “One Can a Week,” a charitable organization founded in Tucson by Peter Norback, who asked his neighbors to put just one can of food on their doorsteps every Sunday morning, and he collected them and took them to the community Food Bank.  His first collection from the homes of just ten of his neighbors has grown in a few months to 140. So far, Norback and his neighbors have together contributed over 6,500 pounds of food and over $1,200 in cash, enough to feed more than 1,500 people three meals.  By making a small regular contributions, Norback and his neighbors make a significant impact.  They don’t liquefy, but share, their assets.  (NY Times, Thursday, November 12, 2009, Giving Section, “New Fames for the Everyday Donor,” pages 1 and 10.)

 As Michael told me the story of 19^th century English ‘tokens,’ I was struck by two connections to today’s lesson.  First, these British copper tokens, almost insignificant, but so important to a developing transitional economic system, recalls the copper coin given by the woman at the temple.  It was a small amount.  In another generation, this small copper coin is just a “token.”  And I wonder if that’s where the phrase comes from, “To give just a token.”  Still, Jesus knows that what looks to some to like merely a small gift is a very large gift, proportionally, and it denotes a meager monetary amount but a large faith.

 But I’m struck by a second observation: the gifts of the rest of the crowd at the temple that day are not insignificant.  These others at the temple treasury give a proportion, too. Some give, as the lesson says, “large sums.”  Maybe those sums are, in their own way, merely “tokens,” small sums when compared to what was possible for these givers.  And maybe not.  Maybe they were giving a proportion, too; and maybe their gifts challenged them, too.  I’ve seen people whose major gifts indicated a depth of commitment of Christ and to the work of Christ’s church.

 So today I revisit that lesson of the givers at the temple. I don’t believe that God expects us to give every bit of our means, leaving ourselves destitute, or a financial burden for our neighbors. Of course we’re called to live responsibly for ourselves and for our families.  Lucas, whom we baptize this day, reasonably expects his parents to provide for him.  And he and his friends will look to us, his neighbors, to help them on their way in the world.  They will need us to help provide schools and roads and housing and playgrounds, and, yes, even medical care for them, just as those things were provided for each of us by our families and our neighbors when we were his age.

 Wesley and his generation, and people of faith throughout our history, knew the truth that seems now so obvious:  we need not liquefy our own assets to enjoy them.  Some of the enjoyment of all that God gives comes in our own discipline in sharing the blessings God gives to each of us with neighbors, family, and friends, and even with coming generations.

 God, I believe, gives us abundantly, and expects that with our whole selves we return a portion – a significant token, to use that word in a newly generous way.  God the giver lovingly blesses us all.  And we share that love by returning a token of our love to God, a portion of all God gives, in gratitude for all we’ve been so freely given.

Amen.

Mamaroneck United Methodist, November 15, 2009. SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1

Go to Top

© Copyright 2005 Mamaroneck United Methodist Church

546 East Boston Post Road, Mamaroneck,  New York 10543, (914) 698 4343