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"Fearless Giving in Fearful Times" Each week the parents gave their daughter a dollar to put in the offering plate and each week she dutifully did so. Until one day she held on to it and refused to put it in the plate. Not wanting to make a scene there in church, the parents passed the plate on down while the daughter tightly clutched her dollar. After the service the pastor was greeting people at the door. The little girl handed the dollar to the pastor. Surprised, the pastor asked, “What’s this for?” The little girl, with a parent on either side of her said, “It’s for you, because you need it. My daddy’s always saying you’re the poorest preacher this church has ever had!” …Well, I put that dollar in my pocket… Actually, I told that story in the last church I served and received 38 one-dollar bills at the door. You are hungry for spiritual nourishment. And because it’s October, I need to talk about money. But, you know what? As we journey together to seek the inspiration and the energy of God a good place to start is…money! Some ministers don’t like to talk about money. I’m not one of them. Here’s why: Jesus talked about money all the time. He talked more about money than anything else except the Kingdom of God. Almost half of the parables were specifically about money. He understood the spiritual importance of money. Typical questions church people ask themselves this time of year:
These are common questions. They are not scriptural ones. The questions we will look at today are ”Why and how to give?” Next week: “How much to give?” Why give? Well obviously, because the church needs money to pay the light bill, pay pastors’ salaries, run programs, right? Wrong! Wrong! We give not because the church needs money, but because we need to give. To express our gratitude to God who has given us everything, as we talked about in the children’s sermon. We own nothing. We are stewards of God’s gifts. The message of scripture from one end to the other. We are asked to return to God the first fruits of our labor in recognition of God’s ownership. (And, at least at our house, it has to be first fruits. If we wait to the end of the month there is nothing left.) John says, “We love because God first loved us.” Similarly, we give because God first gave to us. God made us to be givers. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? Do we look like God? My experience with people and my experience with God suggest that a big part of being in the image is the capacity and the desire to give. We learn something very interesting from the scientists in this regard. Dr. Richard Leakey, the anthropologist-archaeologist, in his book, People of the Lake, talks about (the species) homo habilis who lived a couple of million years ago and evolved into homo erectus, who in turn became homo sapiens. That’s us! The fossil record, not only of their bones and skulls, but of their artifacts provides a startling insight. To be sure, they had brain cages which were half again as large as any of their contemporary neighbors. But note what Leakey says, What truly separated them from their relatives, the chimps and baboons, however, was not their intelligence but their generosity. Sharing is what made us human. We are human because our ancestors learned to share their food and their skills. Giving is an expression of aliveness. Gordon Cosby, the pastor of Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., writes of an incident from early in his ministry when he was the pastor of a small Baptist congregation in a railroad town just outside of Lynchburg, Virginia. My deacon sent for me one day and told me he wanted my help. “We have in our congregation,” he said, “a widow with six children. I have looked at the records and discovered that she is putting into the treasury of the church each month $4.00 –a tithe of her income. Of course, she is unable to do this. We want you to go and talk to her and let her know that she needs to feel no obligation whatsoever, and free her from the responsibility. I am not wise now. I was less wise then, I went and told her of the concern of the deacons. I told her as graciously and supportively as I knew how that she was relieved of the responsibility of giving. As I talked with her the tears came into her eyes. “I want to tell you,” she said, “that you are taking away the last thing that gives my life dignity and meaning.” Now, I’m not saying that if you are on a limited, fixed income that you need to tithe. We’ll talk specifically about that next week. The point is that giving isn’t giving up something. It’s an expression of aliveness, of power! A fourth reason to give is so that we will love the church. Listen carefully. One reason God wants us to give substantially of our money to the church is so that we will love the church. That sounds backwards, doesn’t it? Usually we think, “I care about this project, therefore I will support it with my money.” But that’s not what I’m saying right now. Because that’s not what Jesus said. He didn’t say, “Where your heart is, there will your treasure be.” He said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be.” And that’s true. That’s sound, fundamental human psychology. I was once counseling with a young man stuck in malaise and lethargy. He said he didn’t feel good enough about himself to get a job. I urged him to get the job, any job, and then he’d feel better about himself. Actions affect feelings. Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” Treasure first. Actions affect feelings. That’s why I like to talk about money! Because it’s one of the best ways to impact our spiritual lives. Some televangelists claim that if you give them 10% of your income that God will substantially increase your financial condition. I’ll make you a better promise and a true one: You give sacrificially to the church of Jesus Christ and, 1) you won’t starve, and 2) God will increase your spiritual vitality. I’ve seen it again and again in the congregations I’ve served. The leap is made and the faith follows. I could cite you a dozen examples. I’ll quote just one. “I can remember just exactly when my wife and I made the decision to tithe. It was long ago. I can remember the effect that decision had on our lives. It made our commitment to Jesus Christ and the work of the church the center of our lives. It provided us a common ground for life and labor. We knew why we were alive. It has been a growing time ever since, and one area of that growth has been to be blessed with resources that permit us to grow beyond that tithe to a level of commitment around 15%. More than monetary matters, however, we have become centered in our faith, committed to the ministry of Jesus Christ, alive and excited about what the church can do with and through us.” And these are, I’m telling you, alive and vital Christians and they’ll say again that making that leap was a significant step in affecting their spiritual lives. We give so that we will love the church more. We give as an expression of our aliveness and power. We give because God made us to be givers. We give out of gratitude for all God has given us. Because of all these things we can be cheerful givers, as Paul writes: “God loves a cheerful giver.” The word translated, “cheerful” is, in the Greek, “hilaron”, from which we get our English word “hilarious”. Hilarious means “authentic, “carefree,” the opposite of grouchy or grumbling. We are invited to be hilarious givers. So enthusiastically give with outstretched hands, not because the church needs the money, but because we need hilarity! To God be the honor, and the glory, and the power! Amen.
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