“Paul on Giving” II Cor. 9:6-9; 16,2; I Tim. 6:17-19 Reformation Sunday.
For years I have been appalled at the preachers who fleeced their flock. I began my ministry in a time of reaction to the abuses of the televangelists. There were the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakers who asked people to give so that they could live in luxury. I remember they had an air conditioned dog house, and I remember going to Heritage USA in Fort Mill, SC and seeing the extravagance and waste. They had antiques from Europe in their cafeteria. They rationalized it by saying that “God deserves the best.” God does deserve the best, but that doesn’t always translate into the church should be wealthy. Jimmy Swaggart lived in a huge mansion and confused his ego with his ministry. However, there were the Billy Grahams who lived in a relatively modest house in Montreat, despite the hundreds of millions he raised in ministry. On this Reformation Sunday it is important to remember the Reformation really began because of the selfishness and greed of the clergy. The pope was trying to build St. Peter’s Cathedral. It is a magnificent place, still the largest church building in the world. But they were running out of money. So the pope told the priests to tell the people to sell indulgences. That is, if you gave some money to St. Peter’s your sins could be forgiven. A saying of the day was, “the minute a coin hits the collection plate another soul goes up to heaven.” That is abuse in the name of religion. It can happen in churches too. One of the reasons we suspended the capital campaign is we did not want to be hard on the people during trying economic times here. There is always a balance in wanting your church to be within the fire code of the land, and being extravagant with ivory faucets.
Calvin emphasized simplicity. So Presbyterian ministers wore black, simple robes, not extravagant, ornate, embroidered robes as some clergy wear. Unlike the European cathedrals, Presbyterian meeting houses in general don’t have a lot of gold, a lot of ornate tapestries. The salaries of Presbyterian ministers are always public knowledge and the original salary and any changes are to be publicized and voted on by the congregation and the presbytery. Calvin and Luther would both say, what matters is not what people say about giving to the church. It matters not what the tradition is, it matters instead what the Bible says about giving. We have been looking at the Apostle Paul on this 2000th year of his birth.
Paul said this (I Corinthians 16:1,2)”Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections have to be made.” This tells us a lot about giving.
1) It is to be done as a part of our worship. We give to the Lord because we love the Lord. It is a matter of the heart. Paul said we give not grudgingly or of necessity, but from the heard. I give money to my children, not because I have to give it, but because I want to give it. I may not be able to give as much as they want, but I give what I have been given. In the end giving is not a matter of obligation, it is a matter of oblation- or worship. If you love God, you give to His work. You don’t give out of guilt. It is not out of obligation that we give, but oblation (an SAT word meaning worship/.sacrifice). You don’t give because you pledge- pledging is hopefully a tool. The more you love, the more you invest in what you love. I cannot understand, sometimes, how people can invest so much in football. People spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on this game. I have spent a lot of money on football too. But people love the game so they invest in it. I have known people who love their car. They spend tens of thousands of dollars on cars. Everyone knows cars will not last long and rarely appreciate in value. There are people who spend thousands of dollars on clothes. It is hard for me to understand because as soon as the fashion changes, the clothes have to change for those who keep up with that. People give to what they like. Calvin said what we give to can become our idol. Jesus said it like this- where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is also. One way to set the tone to grow spiritually is to give. You may not have enough to give. But that is when the next principle fits in:
2) It is to be done proportionately. Paul later says “He who sows sparing will reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully should reap bountifully. Each one should give in proportion to what he has received.” This is very similar to the biblical principle of tithing, where people give a percentage of their income. A percentage allows proportionate giving. Luther said it is a good rule of thumb.
Paul and Jesus are one in this regard. Jesus pointed out it is not the quantity of what you give, but the sincerity of your gift. You remember the story of the widow’s mite. Jesus commended her for putting in all that she had. The danger is to leave the giving to a few people. The Lord wants everyone to play a role in the kingdom. I will not forget one time a homeless man came to our church in Asheville. He wasn’t looking for any help with food, or with shelter. He just wanted someone to listen to him as a hurting human being. Afterwards he wanted to give to the church. I told him not to give, that the church wanted to help him. He became angry that I wasn't allowing him to give. He asked if his gift wasn’t good enough or big enough. He was right. I was wrong. It is often 20% of the church that gives 80% of the budget. But we all have a need to give- for our own hearts. There is a temptation, especially during uncertain economic times to let the rich give. But we all really need to give out of our faith.
Calvin said about this passage that we have the feeling that when we are putting the seed into the ground that we are wasting it or losing it. We have the feeling that we are taking away or diminishing what we have when we give up the seed. But we forget that the season of harvest will come. Calvin said when we give to others God blesses it here as well as in heaven. There is danger in saying something like that. The danger is someone will think it is like a magic lamp. But it is like sowing seed. Some seed grows, some seed doesn’t. But the truth is if you don’t sow anything, it cannot be blessed. If we are only selfish, it thwarts the blessing of God.
For the past forty years Eunice Pike has worked with the Mazatec Indians in south-western Mexico. During this time she has discovered some interesting things about these beautiful people. For instance, the people seldom wish someone well. Not only that, they are hesitant to teach one another or to share the gospel with each other. If asked, "Who taught you to bake bread?" the village baker answers, "I just know," meaning he has acquired the knowledge without anyone's help. Eunice says this odd behavior stems from the Indian's concept of "limited good." They believe there is only so much good, so much knowledge, so much love to go around. To teach another means you might drain yourself of knowledge. To love a second child means you have to love the first child less. To wish someone well--"Have a good day"--means you have just given away some of your own happiness, which cannot be reacquired.
We do not believe that the gifts God gives us are diminished by giving them away. In fact, the more you love another, the more your ability to love grows. The one who is stingy in love is often the one who complains of loneliness. The more you teach and share, the better you are at teaching and sharing.
3) It is to be done without selfishness. This is a hard thing to hear in our day. But some of our gifts are not to be beneficial to ourselves. We often view any giving to the church as not being for ourselves. But a healthy church always has an outward focus. If I care only about myself I am selfish. If I care only about myself and my immediate neighbor I am less selfish, but having a good neighbor benefits me. If I care only about myself, my neighbor, my community, and my church, I am still doing things that benefit me- though not as directly. Jesus said to go into all the world. Paul lived that out- giving himself to strangers. Ironically, the church in America is sending out less missionaries than since the mid-1700s. In 1960 there were 5,000 ft missionaries from our denomination. Now there are 200. Counting inflation giving is down in terms of dollars per capita and down in terms of percentage. Why would God allow an economic downturn for America? I don’t know- but I hope it helps us be less greedy. I would rather not get a raise as a minister if that meant cutting back on missions giving. I believe everyone needs to know our Jesus. That is my passion. I believe we need to recapture that vision of benevolent giving that Paul had. One of the purposes of the church is that we can do more together than apart. That was illustrated yesterday at workday when many of us helped clean up limbs and cut up a huge tree that fell in front of the office.
Paul was writing to the Corinthians. There was a time when Corinth was a supremely wealthy city. Agamemnon, who headed up the Greeks in the Trojan War was from Corinth. It was head of a Greek league- capital if you will of half of Greece. Corinth has a beautiful harbor not too far away. But when the Romans conquered Corinth (146 BC) they killed every man, sold the women and children into slavery and torched the city. I believe in some ways we are in a perfect storm of selfishness in the church today. I think the world teaches us to care about ourselves more than our neighbor. We are a people more and more isolated with time spent in front of electronic computer screens more than time spent in front of people. Our world is asking us to ask “what’s in it for me” and “what have you done for ME lately.” This has seeped into the churches where more and more people see the purpose of God and religion as self-fulfillment instead of we are created to give ourselves to God. Combine that attitude with a declining economy (which I think is influenced by an attitude of selfishness) and we have a perfect storm of self-centeredness that can take away our ability to give benevolently. Jesus gave everything he had to others.
We have a choice as individuals to either be self-centered or generous. Giving to the Lord is one way of fighting selfishness. It starts putting our heart in the right place- where our treasure is. If you don’t mind a personal testimony here; I’ve always believed in tithing. Kay and I have tried to do it. There have been times when it is most difficult. When we first began our ministry we went from $10,000 a year to about $25,000 a year, and we thought we were rich, until tax day. I can remember April 15, 1985. We were naïve about quarterly taxes, and we had to take everything we had to pay our income taxes, and we had very little food. Yet we had set aside our tithe for that week. We were praying about all of this, very humbled by everything, and feeling a bit foolish. We asked God to help us, but we refused to ask anyone for help. That day a knock came at our door. It was a fellow we had never met. He was a former elder in the church who had drifted away. He wanted to meet us and he had brought a gift- 20 t-bone steaks! Here we were- we couldn’t afford the potatoes to go with the steak, but we had 20 t-bone steaks. I still feel that God was in heaven laughing. We had no food at all except for my very favorite: t-bone steaks! God challenges us to give. It is a spiritual challenge. It is a stepping out in faith- from the heart. During these uncertain, fearful, and I would say greedy times, I challenge you to walk by faith and not by sight.
John Calvin grew up in an upper middle class family. His father was lawyer to the bishop, and he went to a private school and to the university (a rare thing in those days). Calvin gave it all up for the gospel. He died virtually penniless except for his books. He gave all he had away. Today if you go to Geneva to find Calvin's grave you will not find it. You won't find it because Calvin made sure his grave was not marked so that people would try to give him glory instead of giving God glory.