What if someone came to Saint Matthew’s this morning with a check for $1 Million. The only thing that the benefactor would want is that we changed our Communion practice and let anyone who wanted to come forward to the altar and receive the body and blood of Christ, no questions asked. Oh, the benefactor would also like us to change that little “we don’t pray to saints” thing and allow prayers to the dead.

Then, we can have the money.

As a church, we’d say a collective, “No thank you.” Why? What is being presented is a bribe to change what we believe in order to make the church and our mission projects financially stable for a long time. While sounding very tempting, the money that is, the reality is that without doctrine, our church stands for nothing.

This morning in the New York Times, apparently the Anglican Union is facing a similar problem. Their international body wants their American counterparts to stop ordaining and consecrating as bishops openly homosexual clergy. Right now, the American Episcopal Church is standing firm against changing their policy.

But it seems that the Americans have something in their favor: Money. The Episcopal Church in the U.S. donates a third of the Anglican church’s budget. If the international union kicks out their American compatriots, they’d lose the money.

So they are facing a question – do they kick out the Americans and risk losing a third of their budget, or do they ignore the violations of doctrine that the American church has embarked upon and keep cashing the checks?