Giving

A Sermon preached by Reverend Patricia Rowe-Jones

Poland Community Church, UCC

November 12, 2000

We are all familiar with what has been dubbed ‘the story of the widow’s mite. It is an event that took place in the life of Jesus in which a poor lowly widow gave all the money that she had to an offering in the synagogue and, for this action, she received the praise of Jesus, the Master of life, himself. The story is generally thought to be a story about giving, and clearly that element is there; but there is more to this story as well. In terms of the actual amount that she gave, it was a mere pittance. But don’t get too excited thinking this is an indication that we too need only give a mere pittance too, for Jesus praises this woman not for how much she gave, but he praises her for giving extravagantly from the heart; for this woman gave all that she had. The question for each of us this morning is: How extravagantly from the heart do we give? In our culture the size of the gift still weighs more heavily than the proportion of the gift. People who can give big get buildings named after them, whereas the one’s who give little gifts often go unnoticed, even though their gift so often represents a larger personal risk born out of a life lived out in a larger faith. In this mornings gospel passage from Mark, Jesus wants to illustrate something about God’s Kingdom, about giving, and about to whom we give credit and recognition to. But first we should understand the historical context in which this story is taking place. It’s important to understand that Jesus had been watching the Pharisees giving practices. For the Pharisees were deliberately open about their giving. Everyone knew it; indeed they made a point that everyone knew it. So it was in the light of that that Jesus told about this particular woman. Jesus uses the outrageous generosity and extravagant spirit of giving that this woman demonstrates to teach the Pharisees, and subsequently to teach us, that it is not how much a person gives that honors our Great and Holy God, NO! It is rather why do we do what we do. The Pharisees gave to receive peer recognition. And, said Jesus, they received their reward. People did praise them. The woman, on the other hand, gave out of love for God. According to Jesus, she also received her reward. For a few moments this morning I want to talk not about dollar amounts that are given to the church, I want to talk about motivation. Why do we do what we do. And I’m going to break it down into four motivations that I believe determine why we do what we do. The first motivation for giving, I believe, is that we have first given of ourselves. In speaking of his Gentile churches, the Apostle Paul said: First we gave of ourselves, and then we gave of our resources. Too many of us have gotten it backwards. I know of many people from the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ who after traveling to Honduras to help these people re-build their communities after the total destruction of Hurricane Mitch, have since come back and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for our Honduran brothers and sisters, with relative ease When I think of this I think hard on the words of Paul: First we gave of ourselves. Then we gave of our resources. Giving is an outgrowth. It is the inevitable result of the warmed heart. As we give of ourselves in ministry and outreach, then we will want to give of our resources. Have we put the cart before the horse? We too often think that because we give we are Christian Jesus challenges us to follow his example The Lord gives first of himself; because of a deep love of the Father and the woman too, gave as a response to her own love and commitment to God. Secondly, your money follows your heart. Jesus worded it this way: where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You show me your checkbook and I’ll show you what is important to you. Show me how much you give to the Kingdom of God and then compare that with how much you spend on your personal hobbies. You see, money is nothing more than congealed personality. It is a barometer of our Christian discipleship. Of course it is not the only barometer, but it is a barometer. I once heard a story of a minister who, before putting down the offering plates on the altar, instead held them high in the air and said:” Lord, regardless of what we say about you, this is really what we say about you, this is what we really feel about you.” Amen. In other words, our money follows our hearts and if our commitment to Christ doesn’t challenge our billfolds, it has not yet reached our hearts. Third, I think that we should support the church because it makes God happy! What about you? Do you think this too? The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians “God loves a cheerful giver” Dr. James I McCord, once president of Princeton University Theological School, often told the story of a man who commented that he was never going back to a particular church because all they ever talked about was give, give, give. To which Dr. McCord was purported to have said:” I cannot think of a better definition of Christianity than that: give, give, give. I am convinced that unless you learn to give, then you can’t be fully human. We are created in the image of God, male and female, we are therefore like God, we know how to be givers. We are not animals; dogs who hold on to their bones despite the other hungry dogs that surround us. OR Are we? God is a giver. God gave us life itself. And God’s ultimate gift was that of his Son; our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If we want to achieve God likeness, we must be givers too. God doesn’t ask that we renounce our possessions, only our spirit of possessiveness and our human propensity to greed and isolationism. We don’t have to give up our necessities, but it gives great joy to our God to see us sharing our abundance with one another. God is enough; there is enough; and it is only our walls of faithlessness that keep us in the position we are in; some having more than enough and others literally starving with not adequate food and shelter. And the irony of it all? True joy in life is not to be found in taking all we can get. True joy is found by sharing all that we have got. And finally, a fourth principle it seems to me is to give out of a sense of gratitude and not simply to pay the churches bills. That is why this year our stewardship committee has determined not to focus on what you give, but instead of why you give what you give. There is no joy in giving because the roof needs repairing or the driveway needs re-paving, rather the joy is found in giving out of a heart felt gratitude of God’s many blessings. I was overwhelmed last week with gratitude for our visitor, Roberta Howard, who spoke so openly about the saving grace of God so real and powerful in her life. Roberta’s powerful testimony touched the hearts of many of you; and even though Roberta was looking for money, no one that I’m aware of felt put upon. When someone has authentic gratitude towards God it helps to lift each of us out of our own inability to truly see the miracles that we are literally surrounded by when we have true gratitude towards God that is based on our own awareness of God, then giving doesn’t hurt; giving is a pleasure and a joy. It is as wonderful as giving a gift to a child who just turned one; there is true joy when we give to God, not because we have to, but because we fully appreciate the transformation and the grace which has come to us; not because we deserved it, but simply because we are loved by God and we can feel that love as we live out our day to day existence. Roberta more than anyone could have felt angry at God for the hand she’d been dealt, But instead, when Roberta learned that God was real and that God loved her, her gratitude towards God was so large that she has since given her heart and life over to God. For too long our appeal for money in the church has been more about paying the bills and less about our gratitude towards our awesome God and our joy in giving to our generous God. This year lets all work together to change our relationship to money through changing our relationship to God. Lets give because we enjoy giving to a giving God, in whose image we are created in. Lets ask God to deepen our faith and touch our hearts in order that we become more about action and less about ideas. Let us review the Pharisee within and, Like the woman who gave out of her poverty; let us take her example and learn to give more from not only our billfolds, but to give more from our hearts and our minds and our souls to God and to one another. And let us remember that it is Man’s law that says, “You cannot give what you do not have.” God’s law says: “You cannot keep what you refuse to give away.” AMEN.