Oct 18, 2009 - The Power of Generosity and Our Need for a Theology of Giving

10.18.09

The Power of Generosity and Our Need for a Theology of Giving

Rev. Annie Arnoldy

Acts 20:22-24

Our annual stewardship campaign begins today.  One pastor said, “walking into the pulpit to ask our congregation to give while assuming that people do not want to give is a bit like a young man beginning his proposal of marriage with the words, ‘I know you’ll say no, but….’”   

I do not assume that you don’t want to give.  In fact, I believe you are hungry for wisdom concerning the use of money and how to be good stewards.  I know I am.  It is hard to find an applicable theology for how to live in America, blessed as we are, and find an appropriate balance between over-consumption and over-protection of our money.  The nature of stewardship is practical, it’s spiritual, and it’s communal. 

Stewardship is practical in that most people want the world and the church to be around after they die.  The practical element of taking good care of the earth, your home, your kids’ education, and your church is to ensure that its future is assured.  You know that it’s not practical to let your house get run-down because the future value of it will go down.  The reason many of us recycle is because we realize there is a way to ensure a sustainable future for our planet by re-using what we produce.  This is your church – you all lovingly take care of it because you want it to remain in good condition and you want it to be a place of warmth and hospitality for all who enter it.  This is a practical approach to stewardship. 

I realize now is the time of year when you all are getting calls and being asked to serve on committees.  Our committees are part of the practical way we maintain this 1000 person organization.  Everyone must do their part in a volunteer-based organization.  This is the communal nature of stewardship.  In a community, everyone is needed to put in as much as they take out.  Since biblical times, communities of people have been coming together to be in fellowship, to meet one another’s needs, to combine resources, and to grow together. 

Hear this morning’s scripture again, in a different version of the Bible.  This is from the well-written narrative interpretation of the Bible called The Message.  Paul is speaking and says of his journey: “But there is another urgency before me now.  I feel compelled to go to Jerusalem.  I’m completely in the dark about what will happen when I get there.  I do know that it won’t be any picnic, for the Holy Spirit has let me know repeatedly and clearly that there are hard times and imprisonment ahead.  But that matters little.  What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the master Jesus gave me of letting everyone I meet know all about this incredibly extravagant generosity of God.” 

Paul says two things that are critically important to our development of a theology of giving in our lives.  He says that he expects hard times ahead.  He also says that he wants to tell everyone about the incredibly extravagant generosity of God.  Those almost seem like mutually exclusive claims, but not so.  We are invited to see life through a unique perspective.  The perspective that transforms our lives from ordinary to inspired, from surviving to thriving, from manageable to magnificent.  This is the perspective of living out a life of faith.   

A biblical example that comes to mind in thinking of the extravagant generosity God offers to provide us with is Joseph.  Joseph’s story is told in Genesis, and is well-worth reading.  If you will recall, Joseph was the youngest of the 12 sons of Jacob.  His brother’s were jealous of him and plotted to kill him.  They ended up selling him into slavery in Egypt and letting their father think he had been killed.  Joseph sat in the jail of this foreign country for years.  He continued to let God speak to him, he never lost hope, and he eventually began using his spiritual gifts to interpret dreams for the Pharaoh of Egypt.  Joseph was so in-tune with God’s guidance that Pharaoh made him the ruler of all the land.  Joseph had a dream that the next 7 years would bring great excess in terms of crop production.  Then, he had another dream that the 7 years following would see a great famine.  God instructed Joseph to save up grain diligently, even when it seemed year after year, that the excess supply of grain would never run out.  Joseph did this and had stored grain in every town and city in all of Egypt.  When the famine hit, people began coming to buy food because Joseph was the only one who had saved enough to last throughout the 7-year drought.  Even Joseph’s brothers came to him, not knowing he had risen to be a leader in Egypt, and asked to buy grain for their family.  Joseph was not yet ready to forgive his brothers, but he did fill their sacks with grain, and he had all of their money put back inside the sacks without them knowing it, and sent them home to their father’s house. 

The story continues that as the famine wages a war of hunger on all the land, the brothers must come back to Joseph to buy more food.  This time Joseph instructs his servants to fill their sacks with grain and to put their money back on top of the grain.  He also plays a little trick on his brothers, who do not recognize him and who sold him into slavery.  He tricks them into selling their next youngest brother, Benjamin, into slavery.  When Joseph can’t stand it any longer, he reveals himself to his brothers and he says this, “I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt.  But don’t feel badly, don’t blame yourselves for selling me.  God was behind it.  God sent me here ahead of you to save lives.  There has been a famine in the land now for two years; the famine will continue for five more years – neither plowing nor harvesting.  God sent me on ahead to pave the way and make sure there was a remnant in the land, to save your lives in an amazing act of deliverance.  So you see, it wasn’t you who sent me here but God.  He set me in place as a father to Pharaoh, put me in charge of his personal affairs, and made me ruler of all Egypt.” 

The story was reported in Pharaoh’s palace and he told Joseph to send for his father and his brothers and all their families.  He said they should come to be with Joseph in Egypt and they would be given the best land in Egypt to live on.  Joseph did just that. 

From the youngest son of a family, mistreated by his own brothers, imprisoned for years, and finally delivered by God, Joseph was able to realize the true plan for his life.  God’s plan for his life.  It was greater than he could ever imagine.  He was asked to be a good steward during life’s years of plenty, and then to be a generous giver in the years of hardship and hunger.  Joseph got beyond the “why me?” of the deepest hours of loneliness and despair and discovered that he was called to live beyond himself. 

All of us, by our mark as Christians, are called to live beyond ourselves.  What does it mean to live beyond ourselves?  It means fearlessly investing our lives in a higher calling (Circuit Rider, May/June/July 2009, pp. 7-9).  This is the spiritual nature of stewardship.

Did you know that by our apportionments, or our tithe, as a church to the Rocky Mountain Conference of The UMC, we are giving money to worthy social programs around the U.S. and around the world?  When we say at our offering time that your money helps make a difference around the world, we mean it.  Our church is in a covenant relationship with the wider United Methodist Church and we all give about 13% of our revenue to the conference office to support staff, ministries, connectional mission, and to uphold churches and ministers who need support during times of hardship.  Our church models tithing for us as individuals.  We know that we could use that $4000-$5000 a month here for our building, for our ministries, but we don’t.  We choose to pass it on in a commitment to our denomination for the good of all people.  This is a macrocosm for us.  In our lives, there’s always something else we could buy, something else we need or want.  Our commitment and covenant to this congregation is to think beyond ourselves, to have faith that our generosity leads to greater things than any one of us can do alone. 

Imagine this scenario: over the next 10 years, you all, through First United Methodist Church, are able to expand the building to the east for more fellowship and classroom space, and build a parking garage underground.  You are able to start a downtown preschool for low-income families, you are able to hire a Parish Nurse, a full-time Christian Education person, you are able to create a Youth Center with the buildings to the north, you begin taking regular adult and families missions trips to Kenya and other places.  Worship grows so much that you need another worship service, perhaps even in another location to reach a new demographic of people.  You have after-school programs for all-ages of kids, you have more classes that engage the heart and mind, and less meetings worrying about the budget.  You are growing so much that you can hire another minister to meet the needs of our five generations of families.  The music program expands, the mission ministries grow, the annual church budget more than doubles.  While all the growth might seem a little scary and even unnecessary to some, imagine all the people this church would be ministering to.  Imagine all the new possibilities. 

A church like that may seem like it only happens in other places, to other kinds of churches.  But, that’s not true.  It is a complete possibility here and it wouldn’t put any greater burden on our current people.  In fact, it would offer community and faith opportunities to so many new people that the load on each person would be lightened.  You might be thinking this church would only be able to do that if some rich person gave several million dollars to do it.  I have news for you.  Not only is this a reality just with all of your contributions, it is a reality to work toward.  Our budget would double if we had most of our members working toward a 10% tithe to the church.  In each year, if each family went up 1% in their giving, within 10 years, this would be a reality.  That’s exciting – that’s something to invest in.  Church is not just about paying to keep the lights on and pay the ministers.  Church is about God’s Spirit working through the hearts of people to make a real difference in the communities they live in. 

Don’t get me wrong – this is not to say what you are giving right now is not appreciated.  Where we are right now is very important.  This is where God is with us.  And, I know, by faith, that God is not going to leave us where we are.  God is always moving and growing and transforming life within and around us.  It is applying that faith that makes all the difference.  Your invitation is to grow in faith each year by saying, “I will make this pledge to my church and I will consider taking a step forward in faith.” 

For some people, that step forward will be to say “I will fill out a pledge card this year to make my giving a regular discipline.”  The spiritual discipline of giving does not start with a certain amount, it starts with the practice.  All of you know how it feels to do something generous – you are all generous and giving people.  Acts of generosity lead us to a life of generosity.  Living with an open palm, instead of a clenched fist, lets God take out and give back.  Life with a clenched fist does not allow for any giving or receiving.  It is telling God you want to be in control instead of letting God be in control. 

Most of you know my story.  When I came here in 2005, I was giving 5% and that felt comfortable.  I had given about 3% for years and then moved up to 5% after grad school, with having an actual salary to calculate my income from.  But, I knew, as a leader of this congregation, I couldn’t ask you all to go beyond that if I wasn’t willing to do it myself.  So, I made the commitment to raise my pledge by 1% each year, which only turns out to be an extra $10 or $15 a week.  By automatically working that into my budget, I was no worse off financially for doing it.  In fact, my spiritual life has grown by leaps and bounds.  My trust in God is 100% deeper and stronger because I’ve watched God bring back everything I give out in ten-fold measure.  I started that commitment in 2005 and I can say that Eric and I have been tithing for over a year and we’ve never been more blessed.  Choosing the commitment to God first has helped us clarify our values and priorities.  We’ve made choices that we would not have made before that have helped us be not only financially stable, but living in abundance.  It is a promise that God makes to us.  When we give our first 10% to God, we will live in the abundance that God promises us.

To close, I have a story about golf that illustrates God’s generosity toward us.  It is actually a story from the Humble Hackers Golf Scramble that recently happened out at Adobe Creek.  I signed up to play after deciding I would never commit to try golf as a sport unless I actually took part in a game.  This was my first 18 holes of golf ever!  I was on a team with Larry Beckner, Don Dunlap and Wayne Smith, all who have been playing golf for years.  Not knowing at all what I was doing, except trying to connect the club with the ball, we set out on our game.  After several holes, I was feeling okay.  Their balls would soar 300 yards; mine would soar about 50 feet.  On one particular hole, we each took a swing from the tee box and then went to find the best ball and hit from there.  In an amazing drive, the best ball was really close to the green, but it had landed in the sand trap.  Now, for golfers, it’s really something to brag about if you make it under par.  I learned quickly what the goal was!  So, here we were, so close to the green and only taking our second swings on a par 4.  Between the four of us, we had 15 strokes left to still make par.  With confidence, each of us took our chip at the ball in the sand, and much like an ostrich, that ball stuck its head deeper in the sand.  After finally getting up on the green, we then took another round being sure that our putts would sink right in the hole.  Nope.  That ball was long, short, left, right, but just not in the hole.  Just when we were about out of hope to stay on par, we sunk the ball in the hole with our last stroke.  It took us one drive to get all the way from the box to within 10 yards of the hole, and then 15 strokes to get the ball that last 10 yards. 

The life lessons here are immense.  First, never assume that because the first ¾ of something was easy, that the last ¼ will be too.  Second, just because something seems stuck in the sand, don’t give up on it – just give it another whack.  Third, don’t assume you can take care of everything yourself.  You need other people around you and all those extra strokes you get by playing on a team.  Fourth, don’t give up hope or walk away.  It’s just when you think you’ll never finish or never get there with what you need, that you do.  God’s lesson to us – in the golf game of life – is to live in the spirit of generosity because just when we’re about to judge ourselves and quit the game, God comes in to say, “You still have another stroke.  It’s just not going to be played by you.  Your teammate will do it for you.”  Sometimes God is our teammate, sometime we are each other’s teammates, sometimes the church is your teammate.  When we act as teammates, we accomplish (almost) impossible things!

Amen.