Extravagant Generosity 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 Sunday, November 20, 2011 The Rev. Sharon Snapp-Kolas, preaching Scripture. Prayer. Opening. I just have to say, before I get to the sermon for today: Wasn t that a great party last week?!!? We had such a great time of reuniting with old friends and celebrating this church s great history and great promise for the future. So many folks made it a great day to remember. I just want to say a big Thank you! to everyone. We did it up right! Now on to the topic for today: Extravagant Generosity. Robert C. Shannon & J. Michael Shannon share this story in their Stewardship Source Book: Children were reciting Bible verses as the offering was being taken. One said, God loveth a cheerful giver. Another said, He that giveth to the poor leadeth to the Lord. A third said, A fool and his money are soon parted. Likewise, One pastor told his congregation, Your church is in real financial need. Quite frankly, it is fit to be tithed. Yes, today is Stewardship Celebration Sunday. Early in Chapter 9, Paul reminds the Corinthian church that they have promised a bountiful gift to help the Christians in Jerusalem. He sends the brothers to go on ahead to arrange for the promised gift, so when Paul arrives he can receive it as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion. 1
My hope and I am sure our Finance Chair, Susan Wamsley, would agree! our hope for this church is the same that your pledges for the coming year would be voluntary! I. Paul quotes the Book of Proverbs Paul quotes Proverbs 22:8, that God loves a cheerful giver. But you won t find this in your Bible, because Paul quotes from the Septuagint, an ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Many of us are familiar with this saying. God love a cheerful giver. On this Sunday when we look forward to the Thanksgiving holiday, and when we dedicate our financial promises to the church for the coming year, it is a helpful reminder. Because it is so familiar to us, we may slide over the idea of cheerful giving, without really thinking about it. Paul reminds us that we must each give as we have made up our mind. Paul implies that we have given the matter some thought. Perhaps even some prayer. Paul expects Christians to have taken the matter of their gift to God, and asked for His guidance in deciding what they should give. As Christians, we make up our minds by studying the Bible and by bringing our decisions before God in prayer. Next, Paul urges the Corinthians not to give reluctantly or under compulsion. I don t think any of us here today feel that we are being compelled or coerced or extorted in terms of our giving to the church. However, we might feel reluctant to increase our giving. We might feel, instead, the compulsion of our bills and our other worldly responsibilities. Rather than increase our giving, we might consider reducing it, so we can pay the rent or buy groceries or pay the electric bill. In this economy so many have lost their jobs, lost their homes, seen their incomes reduced. 2
So we may come to this Stewardship Celebration, this day of Thanksgiving, and feel a bit reluctant, a bit less than celebrative. Paul does well to remind us that God loves a cheerful giver, because we may not feel so cheerful about our giving right now. Cheerful is something we may need to work on a bit, like the man in this story: One day a pastor was summoned to the home of an obviously poor man who was trying to live on $4,000 a year. The pastor talked with him for awhile and finally said, Let's begin at the beginning and have a word of prayer in which we will dedicate one tenth of your income to the work of Christ. No problem, thought the man, that's only $400 a year and that isn't much nowadays. Why, that's only $8.00 per week. So they prayed together, and he promised to give back 10% to the Lord and the Lord's work. Over the years this man became quite wealthy, and eventually came to the point where he was making almost $100,000 a year! He came to the pastor and said: I'd like to be released from that promise I made many years ago. One tenth of my income is now $10,000 a year, and I have some other plans for that. No problem, said the pastor, and as they bowed in prayer the minister prayed not for the release of the promise, but that the man's salary would be reduced to $4,000 once more so that he could again afford to tithe. The man jumped up from the prayer and stamped out of the room muttering something about, That isn't what I had in mind at all! (source unknown). We love our money and our comfort and our financial security. It s difficult to be a cheerful giver. II. Paul quotes the Psalms Paul gives us more help. He turns to the scriptures once again, quoting Psalm 112:9: 3
He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever. In Paul s way of looking at things, God provides us with every blessing in abundance, and we are called to share our abundance with the poor. According to Paul, we are not deserving of the blessings of God. But God blesses us, nevertheless. Another way to say this is that we do not have to do anything to earn the blessings of God. God blesses us because God wants to bless us. We freely receive the blessings of this day. We woke up this morning. The sun came up. The birds were singing. The rains came to nourish the earth. We arrived at this place of worship, and our brothers and sisters in Christ were here to greet us. We shared in the afterglow of our 100 th Anniversary celebration. Most importantly, God was here to greet us. The Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ was here is here! to greet us, to move among us, and to fill us with love and joy and power through faith in Him. We are called to be cheerful givers, ministering especially to the poor, because we ourselves have been so blessed. There is an old story about a very wealthy man who died and went to heaven. An angel guided him on a tour of the celestial city. He came to a magnificent home. Who lives there? asked the wealthy man. Oh, the angel answered, on earth he was your gardener. The rich man got excited. If this was the way gardeners live, just think of the kind of mansion in which he would spend eternity. They came to an even more magnificent abode. Who's is this? asked the rich man almost overwhelmed. The angel answered, She spent her life as a missionary. The rich man was really getting excited now. Finally they came to a tiny eight-by-eight shack with no window and only a piece of cloth for a door. It was the most modest home the rich man 4
had ever seen. This is your home, said the angel. The wealthy man was flabbergasted. I don't understand. The other homes were so beautiful. Why is my home so tiny? The angel smiled sadly, I'm sorry, he said. We did all we could with what you sent us to work with. (source unknown). Out of the abundance we receive, we are to cheerfully give to the poor. We are to cheerfully support the ministries of the church. We are to respond joyfully to the extravagant generosity of God. III. The Extravagant Generosity of God This is the heart of giving, isn t it? God has been and continues to be so extravagantly generous with us. We, then, give extravagantly out of gratitude for His great gifts to us. Our giving is a participation in God s generosity, God s justice, and God s righteousness. When we give to the work of the church, we participate in God s work in the world. We show the world how generous God is by being generous ourselves. Paul carries the idea a bit further. Not only do we give extravagantly in response to God s extravagance. But those who receive our extravagant gifts and ministries are moved to give thanks to God. Did you ever think of it this way? When we give to the ministry of the church, we are engaging in a form of evangelism. This is what Paul tells us. Through our giving, others benefit from the ministries of the church. And when people benefit from the ministries of the church, they feel a sense of gratitude. And when they feel a sense of gratitude towards the church, they begin to think about the God we serve, the God we worship, the God we love, the God we pray to. It is a slow, patient, steady process of faithfulness. By our presence in Yucaipa as the United 5
Methodist Church, we witness to the love of God. By our financial pledges, by our tithes and offerings, we support ministries that bring people to Christ! Well now I m startin to feel a bit cheerful! Closing. If you have not yet made your pledge for the coming year If you have made your pledge, but you are feeling a nudge from God to be more extravagant in your generosity this year Write it down and put it in the offering plate! We will dedicate the Joash box in a few moments. Joash was a king in Jerusalem, and he did good among the people under the counsel of Jehoiada the priest. He commanded that a chest be made, to collect money to restore the temple. Let me read the story for you, from 2 Chronicles 24:1-16. [Read 2 Chronicles 24:1-16.] As we dedicate our Joash box today, we trust in God to provide for our every need as a church. We trust that we will have money in abundance for all our ministry needs, as the story of Joash says. May God bless you with a heart of extravagant generosity. Amen. 6