Imagine that a large church burned to the ground somewhere in north Wisconsin, and that all the congregations of our district were asked to help rebuild it by collecting an offering. Every congregation was asked, all but one. This tiny little congregation could hardly afford to keep going. They couldn’t support a pastor on their own. They were elderly, and they lived on fixed incomes, small fixed incomes. Their church building—beloved and cared for—was nevertheless falling into disrepair due to lack of funds. This was the kind of congregation that many people would write off. They should disband and join other churches. That would be more practical. Yet this congregation begged and pleaded to gather an offering. No one thought they should. No one expected they would, but they did. They gathered an offering. It was more than their fair share. It was more than anyone thought they were able. It was an offering to God. It was a testament to the power of God and to His promises. It was motivated by God’s love. It was an example for all the rest. Not once did they complain that they had their own problems. Not once did they complain that an offering should be taken up for them, instead. No, they freely and joyfully gave.
This is no imaginary congregation. Once it really existed, and it was called the Macedonian church. I just changed a few of the details. The Macedonians had a Sunday morning offering every Sunday, just like we do, and they pleaded to have the privilege of being a part of the collection being taken up for the church in Jerusalem. They were poor in some ways but rich in others. They heard about the need: how the Christians in Jerusalem were socially and economically excluded because of their faith, how these brothers and sisters in Christ were suffering the effects of famine and double taxation, and how they were still trying to bear the burden of being the “mother church.” So the Macedonians gave. They gave sacrificially. They gave joyfully. They gave themselves. They even gave beyond their ability. This is the example that Paul shows the Corinthians and us.
What was their secret? What was their power? What was their reason? Was it a sense of duty… of obligation… of this is what we are supposed to be doing, or else? No. It was all because of a Savior who became poor for them.
I was at Lifest last weekend, along with our group of a couple of dozen wonderful people. It changed me, no really, and I’m not just talking about getting my head shaved. (You should have seen me when it was a mohawk!) Lifest is a contemporary Christian music festival that’s held every year in Oshkosh with a huge variety of Christian artists and speakers. As great as that is, it’s so much more, so much more than I could ever put into words. On the Lifest website, Wendy O’ Brien, one of the interns, tells this story. She says, “I felt like I was watching a scene from a movie. It couldn’t have been timed any better. I was standing by the back entrance to the media room waiting for a black Durango to arrive with Rebecca St. James. Just as the vehicle pulled up to the door, I heard the opening bars of “Wait for Me” coming from the Karaoke tent across the parking lot. I said, ‘Rebecca, they’re playing your song right now,’ and pointed to the tent. She listened carefully, smiled and ran to the tent where she stood in the back watching two young girls sing her song. As the girls were coming up on the final chorus, Rebecca walked up to the girls and finished the song with them. One of the girls was so surprised that she stopped singing for a while, but apparently none of the other people recognized Rebecca who was wearing a black tank top and blue jeans with a bandana covering most of her hair. When the song was over she gave the girls a hug and started to walk away. The karaoke DJ, impressed with her voice, asked her if she wanted to help sing another song. She politely excused herself explaining that she had somewhere else to be. It was so amazing to see Rebecca, on a day when she was double-booked with interviews and media time, seizing the opportunity to bless two small girls who chose to sing her song.”
We weren’t even singing God’s song, when His Son, Jesus, became one of us—poor, like us—He walked unrecognized into our midst, and stretched out His arms, and cried out, not between two little girls, but between two thieves. There, Jesus emptied Himself and became obedient to death on the cross. He paid our punishment, not because He had to, but because He begged to love us. He was condemned and executed. He placed Himself under God’s vengeance, so that you and I could be lifted up out of the deepest spiritual poverty and despair.
Have you ever seen the show, M*A*S*H*? At Lifest, Reggie Dabbs told us about a M*A*S*H* unit. Because of the vast number of wounded, they had to color code the victims of war. Yellow was good. If you had a yellow card put on you, it meant that your injury was not serious. You were given an injection for the pain, and could wait for further treatment. Blue was good. If you had a blue card put on you, it meant that your injuries were serious, but if they operated on you right away, they could save you. Red was bad. If you had a red card, it meant that there was nothing they could do. They just put you to sleep with an injection of morphine, and that was it. It was tough business. The doctor looked at one such hopeless case and told the nurse to red-tag him. The soldier knew what was happening. He grabbed the nurse and told her to say good-bye to his wife and his children and his father and mother. Tears were flowing like sweat at a soccer game, and the nurse couldn’t bear to put a red tag on this young man. She placed a blue tag on him instead. Months later, a general came to inspect the camp. He had some serious questions as he looked over the charts. Why was this soldier given a blue tag instead of a red one? Who switched the tags? No one dared to say anything, until the brave nurse finally spoke up and said she did. Then the general ran over to her and hugged her and cried out, “thank you, thank you for what you did, that was my son, and today he is alive because of you.”
Jesus, He took our red tags, tags of sin and shame and disobedience and pride and selfishness and cruelty and uncaring, and guilt and death, and He carried them on His shoulders while He hung and died on a cross. Through His death and resurrection he placed blue tags on us, tags of life, of hope, of faith, of newness, of forgiveness, of joy. He paid for those blue tags. That red tag had to go somewhere. So he took it himself. He couldn’t bear to place it on you or on me. That would have been worse to Him than death. That is how much he loves us. He took the red tag so we could have the blue one. He became poor so that we could become rich! That is our secret. That is our power. That is our reason to give our lives in service to God and to make our lives an offering to Him and to reach out to others so that they can know that they are saved, not because they’re good enough, not because they are on the religious road, not because they know it all, but by grace through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. How awesome that would be if we could walk up to someone in heaven and they say to us, “I’m here today because you lived out loud and showed me Jesus, not just told me about, but showed me Jesus.”
Pay attention! The example of the Macedonian church is about money and offerings, but it’s about so much more than that. They gave themselves, it says. They gave themselves to God, it says. And instead of commanding the Corinthians to get going and do the same, Paul simply reminds them of the grace, the undeserved love, of a Savior who became poor for us. That’s where it starts. That’s what it’s all about. That’s from where the offerings flow.
Offerings were important then, just as they are now. The Corinthians had all this stuff going for them. They had the talk. They had the smarts. They had the desire. They had the love. But they had gotten sidetracked. Somehow it didn’t translate into action. Maybe it was the doctrinal crisis they had. Maybe it was the moral crisis they had. Maybe it was because of outside influence. Maybe they just had too much. Whatever the reason, the time to step up to the plate had come. It was time for action.
Giving is a two way street. It’s not like those who give offerings are more blessed than those who they are trying to help. Paul says: “At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need.” He also calls this whole thing the “grace of giving.” What does that mean? That means that when you give yourself, financially, emotionally, chronologically… to another person for the sake of Christ. If you are there for them, it is a gift, not just to them, but especially to you. When you give, you get so much more. It is a gift to give. Don’t believe me? Just try it.
It is also humbling. Why is it humbling? Because it is a reminder that, as Bob Lenz said at Lifest, “if you’re not a charity case you’re not a Christian.” We are all needy; we are all by nature spiritually broke. In fact, because of our natural inclination toward evil and our alienation from God, we are more than broke. We owe God a debt we could never repay. Yet that debt was paid in full when Jesus died for you and for me.
That leaves us free. Free to live, free to die, because that is just the beginning. Free to share, free to learn. Free to grow even after 75 years. Free to love as He loved us. Free to see, even without eyes, that God is there for us—forgiving us and making us whole, opening our hearts to serve him with our lives, giving us the gift of giving. Amen.
