The Reformed Church of Locust Valley Pentecost XX October 21, 2001 Mt. 5:13-16, II Cor. 9:6-15
“Cheerful Givers”
“Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.”
That’s the theme of our annual stewardship program called Consecrating Stewards.
What I just said is a quote – “Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.”
That’s a quote. And in a little while I’m going to tell you who said that, and you will be shocked when I tell you who said, “Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.”
I’m preaching my stewardship sermon this morning because it’s my last chance. On November 4, our guest steward will join us in worship, Roger Leonard. I’ll be here, but Roger will preach. Next Sunday is my turn to give a stewardship sermon, but next Sunday’s worship is going to full of surprises and neat stuff. In fact, there will be so many interesting things in it, I’m not even sure of them all yet – but it might have to do with a goat, a skit, award Bibles, and lay presentations. Whatever else, it will be interesting and different. But there won’t be time for a stewardship sermon from this church’s pastor, so it is being preached THIS Sunday.
The theme of Consecrating Stewards is always, “Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.” Consecrating Stewards emphasizes NOT the need of the church to receive, but the need for the giver to give.
So I am quoting this piece of writing to you in saying the theme of consecrating stewards, “Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.”
If I gave you the rest of worship this morning – all 35 of the minutes remaining between now and the benediction, I’ll wager you wouldn’t guess who said that. Someone might guess – “It came out of the consecrating stewards manual, right?” Wrong. Someone would say, “It was from a great preacher, like Billy Graham or Thomas Long or James Forbes, right?” Wrong. Someone would say, “A great theologian said it, someone like Karl Barth or Reinhold Niebuhr, right?” Wrong. Someone would say, "A denominational executive, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson or Jon Norton said it, right?” Wrong.
But somewhere in the congregation, there might be someone saying to herself, wait a minute, I just read that somewhere. Maybe one of our quilters, or one of the women in the Reformed Church Women’s group. And suddenly it would dawn on her. “I know where I read that, ‘Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.’ I read it in this month’s Family Circle magazine. And guess who wrote it? Someone who, until this very moment you would never have regarded as a national spiritual leader – Stephen King!
Yes, you heard me right. Stephen King.
I hardly believe it either. But it’s true.
It is a little one-page piece from the consummate author of spine-tinglers and movies that give you the creeps.
Let me quote some more, because Stephen King can preach for us this morning. The little piece from Family Circle magazine is called, “What We Pass on.”
“A couple of years ago, I found out what ‘you can’t take it with you’ means. I found out while I was lying in a ditch at the side of a country road, covered with mud and blood and with the tibia of my right leg poking out the side of my jeans like the branch of a tree taken down during a thunderstorm. I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you’re lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard.”
“We all know life is ephemeral, but on that particular day and in the months that followed, I got a painful but extremely valuable look at life’s simple backstage truths. We come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we’re just as broke. Warren Buffet? Going to go out broke. Bill Gates? Going out broke. Tom Hanks? Going out broke. Steve King? Broke. Not a crying dime.”
“All the money you earn, all the stocks you buy, all the mutual funds you trade – all of that is mostly smoke and mirrors. It’s still going to be a quarter past late whether you tell the time on a Timex or a Rolex. No matter how large your bank account, no matter how many credit cards you have, sooner or later things will begin to go wrong with the only three things you have that you can really call your own: your body, your spirit and your mind.”
“So I want you to consider making your life one long gift to others. And why not? All you have is on loan anyway. All that lasts is what you pass on.”
Thank you, Stephen King. This sermon was nicely planned. But when I started to commit pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard as we might say in 2001 and one, I was suddenly ashamed. I was ashamed because a novelist like Stephen King has more guts to tell the truth than I have as your preacher. Stephen King isn’t putting icing on it, or cutting the booze with water, he’s telling the truth. So let’s listen some more. He next deals with that well-known dodge – charity begins at home. Because of most people, even if charity does begin there, it also conveniently ends there.
Stephen King writes, “Now imagine a nice little backyard, surrounded by a board fence. Dad – a pleasant fellow, a little plump – is tending the barbecue. Mom and the kids are setting the picnic table: friend chicken, coleslaw, potato salad, a chocolate cake for dessert. And standing around the fence, looking in, are emaciated men and women, starving children. They are silent. They only watch. That family at picnic is us; that backyard is America, and those hungry people on the other side of the fence, watching us sit down to eat, include far too much of the rest of the world; Asia and the subcontinent; countries in Central Europe, where people live on the edge from one harvest to the next’ South America, where they’re burning down the rain forests; and most of all Africa, where AIDS is pandemic and starvation is a fact of life.”
This is still King writing: “It’s not a pretty picture, but we have the power to help, the power to change. And why should we refuse? Because we’re going to taker it with us? Please.”
“Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver. One doesn’t open one’s wallet to improve the world, although it’s nice when that happens; one does it to improve one’s self…A life of giving – not just money, but time and spirit – repays.”
The primary beneficiary of your giving to the church is you.
The story is told of an itinerant preacher who used to go from church to church on Sundays. One time he had his young son tagging along. As they entered this tiny country church, the preacher spotted a wooden box mounted to the wall with a slot in the top. Figuring it for an alms box, he reached into his pocket and dropped two quarters in it. The time of worship came and only one old farmer came to worship. The preacher held the service, and when it was over, the elderly farmer went to the box, put a key in it and opening it. He felt around, fished out the two quarters and dropped them into the hand of the preacher. It was his pay for the morning. His little son, who watched this whole ritual, commented to his father. “Gee, dad, if you’d have put more in, you would have received more.”
We’ll never know.
We’ll never know, how much we’ll receive unless we trust God.
God say to tithe, to give ten percent. Most people don’t. Most people are afraid, I think. Afraid there won’t be enough left. Some may be afraid other will think them foolish or reckless giving like that to the church. I don’t know.
But I know this. Most churches face periodic financial problems. People give a set amount, which is enough for a while, but then inflation eats up the giving and more is needed. So the leaders of the church get more and more nervous and finally communicate the shortfall to the congregation and then people give more. And things are okay again for a while, until inflation raises the costs of the church and the giving once again becomes inadequate and the leaders of the church finally go to the congregation and people increase their giving and things are okay again for a while. And the cycle goes on.
But you know, if we would just keep giving the same percentage of our incomes that we are giving now, the church would never have a financial problem again. Because as your income slowly rises over time, so would your gift.
But we need to ask ourselves if that’s pleasing to God. God asks for the tithe. So the tithe should be what we do. And if not what we do, then at least our goal.
I think the notion of tithing is usually just dismissed. Not tried. Dismissed.
“Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly, or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (II Corinthians 9:7).”
I wish I could stand here and say, “If you tithe, you’ll be happy.” One of the most miserable church members I have ever known was a tither. She was always mad at someone, always griping, always finding fault. But she tithed. So, she’s living proof that tithing doesn’t guarantee joy.
Steve Page, a Baptist minister tells the story of twenty year old woman in his new members class who wrote on her prospective members form – “I was baptized in High School, but would like to be…and she had crossed out the word REIMBURSED and written, reIMMERSED!”
Tithing doesn’t guarantee joy.
In fact, if tomorrow you became a tither, the struggle in adjusting your lifestyle to tithing might be a severe burden for you.
But asking whether or not tithing would make you happy is the wrong question. Rather, this is the question we need to ask, “Does what I give to the church make you happy, God?” That’s a prayer, isn’t it? Please pray that prayer this year as you approach your pledging. And please pledge. Many people pledge because it makes you focus on that question. Am I making God happy?
I know this much for sure – the right kind of giving is good for the giver. It brings a deep-down joy and satisfaction.
Have you ever made something with your hands? A project like a bookshelf or a piece of furniture? A well-written note or letter? A special drawing? Have you ever cleaned up a messy room then stood back and said, “Yep – that’s good!” Has your child done something good and your chest swells with pride. Why? Because you offered yourself in the work, or the child-rearing. Something of you is in it.
Life is only good when it’s given, poured out, offered.
Churches can be like that. The minister of small Presbyterian church tells of a young woman who came to him – she had given birth to a child out of wedlock. Theirs was a small community, and the woman was shunned and made to feel ashamed. But she brought her baby to the village church for baptism anyway, all alone.
She stood alone, cradling her baby in her arms. The Presbyterian minister, being, let’s say distracted as SOME clergy tend to be, hadn’t realized how awkward this might be and when he came to that part in the ritual of baptism he asked, “Who stands with this child to assure the promises and commitments herewith will be carried out? Who will be there for this child in times of need and assure that this child is brought up in nurture and admonition of the Lord?” He realized with a start that their were no godparents to answer the question. But before he could gulp his embarrassment, his congregation was on their feet and said with one voice, “We will!”
The church can do that. The church must do that. The church must be the group offering itself.
Giving isn’t about he receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.”
Please struggle.
The world needs people who are struggling to give themselves away.
I can still remember my surprise when I first saw a picture of Desmond Tutu. He wore an Anglican collar! It was surprise seeing a black South African as an Episcopal bishop! He was once asked jokingly, why he wasn’t a Baptist.
Nobel prize winning Bishop Desmond Tutu tells the story how, in the days of apartheid in South Africa, when a black man walking on the sidewalk was approached by a white man, the black man was expected to step off the pavement into the gutter to allow the white person to pass, giving the white person this gesture of respect. “One day,” Bishop Tutu relates, “when I was just a little boy, my mother and I were walking down the street when a tall white man, dressed in a black suit, came toward us. Before my mother and I could step off the sidewalk, as was expected of us, this man stepped off the sidewalk and, as my mother and I passed, tipped his hat in a gesture of respect to her.”
The bishop said, “I was more than surprised at what had happened and I asked my mother, ‘Why did that white man do that?’ My mother explained, ‘He’s an Anglican priest. He’s a man of God, that’s why he did it.’”
“When she told me he was an Anglican priest, said Bishop Tutu, “I decided then and there that I wanted to be an Anglican priest too. And what is more, I wanted to be a man of God.” (told by Tony Campolo)
An offering of himself. Now you and I know that priest, probably in a tiny parish unworthy of note, had no idea that he had just begun the work of creating a man who, in his acts of righteousness would become an international figure, premier justice worker and winner of the Nobel prize!
But that is what God will do with our offerings and gifts and magnanimity. So there should be giddiness – a recklessness about our offerings to the Lord.
We heard the scripture this morning – II Cor. 9:6,7,8a – “The point is this: to one who sows sparingly, will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he or she has made up their mind, not reluctantly, or under compulsion, for God loves the cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance…”
Every blessing in abundance – you will get that no where else than in God.
Please take a chance when you set your pledge for 2002. You can’t go wrong by being more generous. And in the end, no for sure, no matter the greatness God does with what you give, no one will get more out of it than you, because
“Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift but the giver. It’s for the giver.”
Fred D. Mueller
