Texts: Lamentations 3:22-33; 2 Corinthians 8:1-9;
Mark 5:21-43
Our bulletin cover has the picture of an offering
plate being passed and the words underneath it are from our Epistle reading,
“Excel in this grace of giving” (2 Corinthians 8:7). Why is it that the Bible
makes so much about “giving”? What does it mean that giving is a grace? And how
then should giving be a part of my life? These are some of the questions we
would have God help us to answer through his Word this morning.
Why does the Bible speak so much about giving? That
is because giving is an important part of our relationship with God and with
each other. God Himself is the greatest giver of all. Luther summarizes it well
in his explanation to the Creed in his Small Catechism:
I believe that God has made me and all
creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my
members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them. He also
gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children,
land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I
need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards
and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine
goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is
my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.
Giving is part of what God is all about. He gives
generously to us everything we need. The Apostle John wrote that God is Love (1
John 4:8, 16) and giving is one of the most practical expressions of Love. But
giving is also important for us. God created us in His image. That is why
giving is an important part of what it means to be human. We are creatures who
were meant to reflect the character of the Divine Giver. We were created to be
givers.
Unfortunately, rather than being generous givers who
reflect our Divine Giver we tend to be misers, keeping what we have to
ourselves. We tend to be ungrateful, thinking that somehow we have deserved
God’s gifts, or that we should be getting more. In spite of our wrong attitude
and infantile thinking, God keeps giving to us. That is the amazing character
of God’s love which king Solomon wonders about in our Old Testament lesson.
That “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions
never fail. They are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22)
But in order to teach us to love and to be generous,
God doesn’t always give us what we want and when we want it. Sometimes we must
suffer. At times we are given a burden to bear, or must suffer grief and
disgrace. But we are told that this is only for a short time (32), “For [God]
does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men” (33)
concludes Solomon. Afflictions are meant to be an opportunity for us to
recognize the Giver of all good things and to praise and thank Him and to seek
His will for us. When we suffer afflictions, it is also an opportunity for us
to excel in the grace of giving: For example, when my friend suffers grief, it
is an opportunity for me to come along and comfort him. In that way,
afflictions are an opportunity for us to become givers and to excel in this
grace of giving.
Luther’s explanation to the First Article of the
Creed we just heard deals with material things, things needed for physical life
and well-being. But there is more to giving than money and goods. It is not
really that difficult to give from the surplus of what we have received from
God. Sometimes we secretly (or openly!) despise the person we give to. We know
that only too well when it comes to giving change to the beggar on the street.
This kind of giving is comfortable giving. However, it becomes more difficult
when giving involves making a personal sacrifice.
When you give sacrificially, when you have to make a
significant sacrifice in order to give, then you are giving at a higher level.
It is only when you make a personal sacrifice for someone that you show that
that person really matters to you. When for example, you sacrifice the
opportunity to earn more by working overtime to be with your family. Or when
you sacrifice the opportunity to justify yourself or to be critical of your
spouse for the sake of your marriage relationship. It is with these kinds of
sacrifices that you show that your giving comes from a genuine love for the
person you are giving to.
God Himself is not to be excelled in that grace of
giving. He sacrificed Himself for us. He took on human flesh and came to live
among us. He gave his own Son to be despised, ridiculed and beaten. His let his
body hang shamefully exposed on the cross, while suffering and dying. By this
self-sacrificial giving of Himself, God shows that His giving to us is motivated
by true love and not to satisfy His own ego. When God gives to you, His giving
is not reluctant or half-hearted. When He gives, He invests Himself 100% in
you.
Now, if you can just imagine Jesus among us today,
walking up Sherbourne St. and coming to that kid who sits beside the subway
station asking for change, do you think He will just pop a quarter into the
extended hand, and walk away with a smug sense of self-satisfaction? I think
Jesus would stop and look the kid into his eye and say “Hi, how is it going?”
He would get down and sit beside the kid on the sidewalk and begin a
conversation to find out how he is doing and what’s happening in his life.
Perhaps the next time he would invite him for hot chocolate at Timothy’s.
Perhaps Jesus would issue the call, “Come, follow me,” and the street kid would
follow him into his home and become a part of Him for the rest of His life. As
you can see, this kind of giving involves a lot more than just spare change.
This is exactly the kind of thing God does for us when, for example He invites
us to his Table. Here he welcomes me and you, people who are often not very
much in tune with Him. He gladly welcomes us and extends to us the full measure
of His grace even as we would treat our own children. In spite of all our
shortcomings, that is who we are: His beloved children.
So when it comes to giving, giving is first about
loving the person unconditionally whom we give to. We don’t love him because he
is lovable, or because of his potential to become something that is respectable
in our eyes, but because God loves him. And because we love God, that is why we
love our neighbour. It is in giving ourselves sacrificially to our neighbour
that our love for God is given an opportunity for concrete expression. It is an
opportunity for God’s character to shine through us.
This brings us back to why giving is so important
for us. Giving helps us to be God-like, to be fully human as God designed us.
Giving done in the right way is what gives meaning to your life and gives you
joy. That is what giving should do for you. It should come from a willing
heart; it should make your heart leap for joy! If your giving is not like this
then you are missing out on some of God’s richest blessings for you.
Let us look at what it means to excel in the grace
of giving. First we must recognize that to excel in this grace means to strive
for excellence, for perfection. There will only be limited joy if your effort
in excelling is shoddy. So let us strive to excel in the grace of giving so
that our joy may be complete!
The Apostle Paul cites the example of the Macedonian
Christians who in spite of their extreme poverty, begged him for the privilege
to be involved in giving. (2 Corinthians 8) What brought this about was that
they first gave themselves to the Lord. Giving themselves to the Lord, they
were able to discern His good and perfect will for them. Then they were able to
give in such a way that would have been impossible under any other
circumstance: Their giving welled up in rich generosity, even beyond what could
humanly be considered their ability. The best thing about their giving was that
it brought them God’s richest blessings of joy.
Therefore, if your giving is not generous or
inspiring and joyful, then first give yourself to the Lord. Spend time in
prayer and meditate on His Word. Pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you and to
show you God’s way for true joy and happiness. Next, check your motive in
giving. Do you give in order to receive? Would you still give if you did not
receive an income tax receipt? Or do you give in order to show others or
yourself what a good person you are? The only motivation that counts is that
God be glorified.
Excelling in giving can also include trying to
increase the amount and the quality of your giving. To do that you need to
manage your resources of time, talents and treasures well which God has
entrusted to you. Good quality giving
also means that you ensure that your goal in giving is that another person will
be enabled to also become a giver. Unless by your giving you are empowering the
recipient to also become a giver, you are not allowing that person to become
the person God wants him to be.
For example, Canadian Lutheran World Relief which
provides relief aid to famine stricken areas, recognizes the self-perpetuating
problem of providing relief aid. If you keep providing aid, you are making it
impossible for the people to provide for themselves and the recipients become
dependent. That is why besides providing emergency relief aid, CLWR is also
very much involved in providing the communities it serves with the tools to
help them become self-sufficient. Likewise, when you give to someone you should
also provide them with the opportunity to become a giver. That is important so
that as, St. Paul writes, “There might be equality. At the present your plenty
will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you
need. Then there will be equality.” (2 Cor. 8:13-14)
Mission teams that have gone out from our church to
the third world often come back wondering whether they have not received more
than they have given. Even though they have brought material goods, they were
blessed far more in return through the gracious hospitality they received and
the many ways they experienced appreciation for simply being there as fellow
brothers and sisters in Christ. When Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give
than to receive” (Acts 20:35), he did not mean that we should proudly refuse to
receive anything from anyone. Rather, in this context, it also means allowing
others to be blessed when they have the opportunity to give to you.
So let us then joyfully praise the Lord, our great
Giver for sharing the privilege of giving with us so that we can excel in this
grace of giving. Amen.