Text:  2 Corinthians 8:1-14                                                                               6^th Sunday after Pentecost

The Grace of Giving

            In the name of him who loved us and gave himself for us, dear friends in Christ:  I wonder how many of you when you saw the picture on the bulletin jacket and then looked at title theme of this morning’s message thought to yourself, “Uh-oh, here it comes:  today we’re going to get the old ‘stewardship shakedown’.  Pastor’s going to lay down the law about offerings, and tithing, and contributing to the church and such.”  Now, maybe you didn’t think that … but if you did, you’ll be happy to hear that I’m not going to disappoint you.

But to be fair, if you’ve been around to hear what I have to say for the last several years, then you know that it’s not a topic I tackle very often. In fact, I take it on so rarely that it has concerned some people.  It has happened several times – usually at a council meeting when we’re looking at potentially disturbing numbers in the church’s financial report – that someone will say to me in the form of a very heavy hint, “You know, Pastor, we used to have an annual stewardship Sunday.  It was a pretty big deal.  I wonder why we don’t do that anymore?”

            The short answer to that question is that I’m very much aware that too many others have gone way overboard on the topic, and they’ve given the church and the pastoral ministry a bad name in the process. We’ve all looked on in disgust and embarrassment at the shenanigans of some of the really high profile ministries that somehow manage to turn every message into a plea for money – and how many of them have mismanaged their resources and misused vast sums entrusted to them to in indulge in ridiculous excesses and then gone on to collapse in ruin, leaving the faithful discouraged, feeling betrayed, and deep in debt.  It sickens me that the cause of Christ has been so tarnished, and how the deceiving machinations of a corrupt few have laid all clergy open to the charge that, “All those pastors, all they want is your money.  That’s all they ever talk about.”  You’ve heard it.  I know I have – and as a result, so as not to add fuel to the fire, I tend to tread lightly around the subject.

            And it’s not just the dishonest or irresponsible ministries that I think have gone overboard on this subject.  Case in point:  every year the district or synod suggests (or decrees) certain topics to be studied by the pastors at our regular monthly circuit meetings.  Very often, they’ll send down materials and study guides for us to use.  Two years ago the big topic was stewardship.  They gave us all these fancy (and as I recall expensive) notebooks full of very slick outlines and Bible studies and research papers all geared at how you, the pastor, could make stewardship a top priority in your church.  I can remember that one of the exercises was on how to develop a stewardship theme from any text in the Bible.  They had us taking the prescribed readings for any Sunday chosen at random and writing the outlines for a stewardship sermon based on it.  And how I wish I were making this up.  But can you imagine?  I mean, say it’s Easter Sunday, and you come to church expecting to hear about … oh, I don’t know … maybe something about the Resurrection of the Lord, d’ya’think?  But no! Instead the message is about the devotion of the women who went to the tomb bringing spices to embalm the body of Jesus.  Ah, but aren’t they fine examples of giving?  They probably had to dig deep into their purses to come up with the cash. And who knows?  When it turned out they didn’t need the spices after all, they very likely sold them at a profit and gave the money to the poor.  Oh, there’s a lot we can learn from these women. Give me a break.

            Now, I have no doubt that the people who came up with that silly exercise had good intentions.  The basic notion was that stewardship themes should be incorporated throughout the year rather than confined to one special Sunday set aside for that purpose (presumably because people, knowing it was coming, might stay home that day).  But don’t you think that’s a bit disingenuous?  Like maybe it’s wrong for a pastor to approach a biblical text with his mind already made up about what he’s going to talk about rather than just letting the text itself speak?  That is, after all, the preacher’s task:  to illumine and apply what God’s Word says – not to force it say something that just happens to be a burning issue in his mind at the moment.

            But that having been said, there’s no denying that this morning’s Epistle lesson, taken from St. Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, takes head on the subject of Christian giving.  So to be true to God’s Word it would be wrong for me not to talk about it.  More than that, St. Paul makes it clear that possessing the “grace of giving”, as he calls it, is part of what it means to be a complete Christian.  Along with faith, that is what we believe in our hearts about what God has done for us in Christ; speech, the godly things that are supposed to come out of our mouths; knowledge, our deepening understanding of God’s Word; earnestness, the joy and zeal in Christ that we receive from the Spirit of God that motivates us; and the love that should be evident in all our doings; the grace of giving is an integral component of Christian maturity – one of the many areas in which we should always be striving to excel.  So to grow in Christian life and virtue it’s entirely fitting that we discuss the topic of sharing the wealth and gifts God has entrusted to us.

            But first, a little background on the text:  Paul had come to Corinth during his second mission trip.  There he preached the Gospel and established a Christian congregation – just like he had in many other cities throughout Greece and Macedonia.  But whereas most places he stayed only a few weeks or months, at Corinth he stayed for about a year and a half, preaching, teaching, and getting them well grounded in the Word of God.  Now, you would think that the extra effort he invested with them would have resulted in fewer questions and problems coming up; but despite their solid start they were always something of a difficult congregation. They had lots of problems.  A few years later, during his third mission journey, Paul spent a number of years in the city of Ephesus.  And it happened that while he was there that the church at Corinth would send letters to him inquiring about certain points of doctrine and practice they were still confused about.  And as it turns out, Corinth’s many problems have proven to be a great blessing for the Christian church throughout the ages, because Paul’s answers to their questions and the other instructions he gave them are recorded for us in his letters to them that tell us how to deal with the same questions that keep popping up even today.

In any case, it happened in those days that there was a severe famine in Judea.  The Christians at Jerusalem, already members of a hated and persecuted minority, were especially hard hit and were suffering terribly.  And the new churches springing up throughout Asia and Greece as a result of Paul’s (and others’) evangelistic missions felt a special kinship to these folks – in part because of their shared faith in Jesus, of course; but also because they thought of the Christian community in Jerusalem as “the mother church” where the Gospel of Christ got started.  So, to relieve their “spiritual elders” in the Lord, most of the younger congregations determined to collect funds to send them.  The church at Corinth got on the bandwagon with this project too, and began to take up a collection that would be part of the relief campaign. They started well enough, but their efforts got bogged down and came to a halt because of all the other problems the church was experiencing.

Throughout this letter to the church that we call Second Corinthians, Paul has been addressing these other problems – and now, in the section that we heard this morning, he comes to the subject of the stalled relief effort.  It was high time to get it moving again because very soon Paul with a number of representatives from the Greek and Asian congregations would be returning to Jerusalem taking these very much needed gift offerings with them.  It’s important to see that Paul doesn’t take them to task, or complain of the all-too-easy way their attention was directed away from the mission at hand.  Instead, he presents to them the example of the Macedonian churches.  They are models of the grace of Christian giving.  And Paul holds them up not to shame the Corinthians for falling short in this task by comparison, nor does he wish to spur them into action by appealing to a sense of competition (“We’re better because we can out give you”), but rather it is his intent to encourage them with an example of the proper spirit and attitude that the members of a Christian congregation should have with respect to giving for a common cause.

And what stands out above all is their determination and motivation for giving. Paul says, “they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service.” We get the impression that Paul did not urge them to give or even pass the hat asking for a “freewill” offering. No, it’s rather that having learned of the distress of their fellow Christians, the Macedonian congregations took up a collection on their own accord and literally pressed it upon Paul:  “Take this.  We beg you.”  It even seems that Paul was loath to accept it.  He speaks of their “severe” situation and their “extreme poverty”. As far as he was concerned, they didn’t have it to give in the first place.  He didn’t want to accept it because he thought they needed every penny just to keep their own heads above water.

But that wasn’t the way the Macedonians looked at it – and the reason was that they weren’t looking at themselves and their own needs, they were looking at the needs and suffering of others.  That, of course, is what Christian love is all about: not thinking of self, but rather sacrificing self for the benefit of you – whoever “you” happens to be.  And so they didn’t go home to take inventory of their wealth and possessions saying to themselves, “Okay, what do I need for myself and what can I spare?”  Rather, they asked, “How much can I give and still manage to get by, somehow, relying on God’s grace and help?”  They gave first – themselves and their first fruits – and contented themselves with the leftovers.

And that, my friends, is the standard for the Christian grace of giving. It’s not a question of percentages or amounts – it’s a question of an attitude of the heart.  So often I’ll hear stewardship exhortations that speak of a person’s duty to hold up their part – as if the Lord is saying, “I’ve given you so much, and now you are to pay me my cut.  You have an obligation.  You owe me.”  It makes Christian giving sound like paying taxes – and I know how much we all enjoy that. But that is just legalism.  The whole approach robs the grace of giving of its grace.  If it’s by compunction, it has nothing to do with the kindness or Christ-like heart of the giver.  And referring to the offering at hand Paul specifically says to the Corinthians, “I am not commanding you … I’m giving you an opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of your love.”  And recall that Paul had no expectation of the Macedonians.  They gave because they considered it a privilege to help.  “Oh look what God has given me so that I can share!”  That’s the same response Paul hopes for in the Corinthians (and in us) – not because the money is so important (though it will certainly help), but because of what it says about one’s Christian life and faith.

On the other end of popular stewardship appeals, are those based on the “give in order to get” principle.  The idea is that God loves a cheerful giver, and that he’s promised to bless those who will step out in faith and give generously.  “You can’t out give God”, we hear.  We’re further told that by giving more than you can really afford, you’re planting your “seed money” in faith so that it will come back to you thirty, fifty, or one hundred fold.  Now, there is some biblical truth to those ideas.  God does love cheerful givers, and Solomon wrote that he never saw their children begging for bread – God does indeed bless those who give freely; but again, it’s a question of the attitude of their hearts.  They give because they want to give and trust God to take care of their needs.  That’s the right spirit of giving.  It’s not that we are to give with a mind toward receiving a high return on our investment.  We aren’t to give in order to get.

We are to give because God gave.  He gave us his only begotten Son.  And the Son gave himself completely.  Paul writes, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor”.  He set aside his heavenly glory, power, and honor to take on humility, weakness, shame and disgrace.  He gave his life to save us from death.  And he did it willingly – for the joy set before him:  the joy of giving us glory, power, honor, riches, and eternal life. And because he has given us also his Spirit, we too give.  But even here we want to be careful:  our giving is not something reciprocal – it’s not tit for tat – “you gave, O Lord, and so to show my appreciation, I’ll give too”.  No.  It’s true that we are thankful for his gift, but we cannot repay him, nor should we try. It’s only human pride that wants to pay for a gift.  Rather, because we have his Spirit to motivate us, we have been given the grace of giving:  the internal desire and joy that finds its highest pleasure in seeking the good of others. We give like Christ gave because through his gift of grace and faith, we are being made Christ-like.

And that’s why Paul issues a corrective here:  Don’t overdo it.  He writes, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed.” In your zeal to sacrifice for the benefit of others, don’t make yourselves the next charity case.  It would create a logistical nightmare for the church.  The time may come when you need help, and if it does the rest of the church will be there for you, just like you are helping the church at Jerusalem now; but don’t create a case of hardship for yourselves artificially.  Paul envisions a measure of equality – the collective Body of Christ taking care of itself – taking aid where it’s needed, but also understanding that charity begins at home.  You have your own needs too:  deal with them so that others won’t have to.

And to bring this up to date, these needs are not just members of the church who are in distress (though that would be a good place to start), but it also includes all the other needs of the church, everything from supporting missions to paying the power and water bills.  A big problem we have in our synod now is with “designated giving”. Often times there’s plenty of money available to get everything done, but much of it is locked up because givers find some projects more attractive than others.  They earmark their funds for special accounts because, “I’d rather give to buy Bibles for missions than to buy cleaning supplies and toilet paper, even though we need those too.”  More often than not, that’s just the old pride thing creeping back into the picture. I want to be able to say that my money went for a noble cause.  The grace of giving has no such pride.

Well, there’s a lot more we could talk about.  This morning I’ve not come close to exhausting the subjects of stewardship and Christian giving; but we’ve seen what God says about it in this text, so we’re off to a good start anyway.  And from what we’ve learned, it’s obvious that the grace of giving is a virtue in which we all have plenty of room to grow.  We pray that God would bring this gift to completion in us.  And who knows?  Maybe I’ll bring it up again one day as the Word of God directs (just don’t count on it happening on Easter Sunday).  Recognizing that it is his work in us, then, let us strive to excel in this grace of giving.  In the name of the Lord Jesus who gave everything for us.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!