1 July 2012

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
1 July 2012


It is NOW officially summer – at least by Nativity standards – the choir is off from leading worship, we’re in our Summer Sunday mode – and we are past the annual meeting which was last Sunday, a very busy last Sunday in June.
I was pleased to see so many people at our annual meeting –because the work we, the church, do at our annual meetings sets the pace and tone for a whole year of ministry together.
Namely – we propose, discuss, pass our congregations’ budgets for the coming year.
Many congregations have a problem – a big problem – getting people to turn out for their annual meetings – because budgets are seen as uninteresting, even dull, figures on pages. And the larger topic of stewardship (which is always behind our church budgets) gets even fewer people enthused and infused with the Spirit.
It’s talk about money, after all, and according to some, people don’t come to worship to hear and talk about money. In the first parish I served, I was specifically instructed to never talk about money in a sermon.
But avoiding the topic of financial stewardship in worship is, well, just plain wrong. Worship is not just a one hour a week “special time” to be set aside for holy apartness … it’s the starter for our entire week of walking in faith and service with Jesus. We engage with the Scriptures together in worship, and the Scriptures are chock-full of texts on sharing and giving, God’s generosity to us which is to be reflected in our generosity toward our neighbor.
This morning, we have a great gift to us, in our reading from 2nd Corinthians, an excellent stewardship text. Paul’s word to the fledgling church in Corinth about how they should give to others out of the abundance God had given to them, is one of the central texts on Biblical Stewardship.
And so my word based on Paul’s word this morning will be an instructive one as well; perhaps review for some who have grown up instructed about giving from our parents and families; on the other hand, probably a new word to others who are new to the church and are just starting to learn about stewardship.
For my guide, I’ll be using a chapter from this book … “Ask, Thank, Tell” by Charles Lane, a former bishop’s assistant out my old way, in the NW Minnesota Synod of the ELCA, and now a professor at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. His outline, combined with Paul’s good words, will give us this morning a “Portrait of a Biblical giver.”

1) A Biblical giver is intentional.
Paul’s word to the Corinthians is all about encouraging intentionality in giving … he wants
them to excel in this “generous undertaking” which to Paul is fully reflective of Christ’s first-love for us.
Intentional giving means making up your mind, developing a plan for giving, and then ‘walking the walk’ as you turn that plan into action.
We have a tool to aid us in our intentionality in giving, which is right before us. Last week, Nativity congregation passed a budget for the coming fiscal year, which runs July 1 (starting today) through June 30. We committed to a budget of $174,618.00 – there are copies there on the round table for your reference.
We committed to this budget. Meaning that, we committed to giving to our synod and Luther’s Table, the Compass Veterans’ Center and other benevolences. We committed to paying our staff. We committed to keeping the utility bills paid. We committed to funding our youth and Christian Education programs. We made a commitment.
I simply don’t understand why people get so turned off by budgets and giving. In a world that is crying loudly for moral anchoring … what is our church budget but our moral statement … grounded in God’s model of covenant promise; honoring, reflecting, passing on Christ’s generosity … our church budget is a moral document.
We have made a commitment. We must hold to that commitment with our sacred honor for this coming year.
We can’t get much more intentional than that, can we?
Another way to be intentional is to give FIRST. Scripture talks about ‘first-fruits’ giving because in Bible times most all people were farmers, and what ‘first fruits’ giving meant was exactly that … you gave of the first fruits of your farm, or garden, or field. That showed the priority and intentionality of giving … what was given first was the most important.
For us, ‘first fruits’ giving can come many ways. My giving comes right out of what you pay me each half month … it’s just given, right away. That helps me be intentional. Others make sure that their gift is the first check they write each month … or week … or they’ve enrolled in Simply Giving and use the automatic deduction to make their intention a priority.
Whatever way you look at it … God has given … richly … to us, FIRST. We are called to reflect that gift … FIRST … INTENTIONALLY … as well.

2) A Biblical giver is regular in their giving.
Now, ‘regular giver’ for us has a very different meaning than it did for the Corinthian readers and
hearers of Paul’s letter. In those days, workers were paid at the end of the day for their labor … “a day’s work for a day’s wage.”
Today, pay periods are different. Some of us get paid twice a month. Others, once a month. Some, once a week. Still others have quarterly or even semi-annual pay periods.
And so ‘regular giving’ has to reflect the state of the giver. But giving regularly – at whatever interval that regularity is – is certainly the best way to develop the habit, the skill, of being a Biblical giver. It takes people time to develop good habits … some of us longer than others. Being intentional and regular in our giving will help us grow in our Biblical Stewardship.
Did you know that Nativity has many ways to help us be regular in our giving?
There are, of course, offering envelopes available every week for cash or check. There is “Simply Giving” which is an automatic withdrawal from your bank account which YOU can control via your own computer if you wish. There is on-line giving. There’s even the QR code which you’ve seen in your bulletin which allows you to give immediately from the comfort of your Iphone or Android-based smartphone.
Experts say about 21 times makes a repeated task into a habit. That’s about half a year. We have just begin a new budget year. If you are new to giving, consider starting your Biblical giving today … by Christmas, if you are a regular worshiper (ahem) you’ll have made giving a habit.

3) A Biblical giver is generous.
Our text from 2nd Corinthians this morning is absolutely loaded with the language of generosity. But note from where – or rather, from whom, it flows.

We want you to excel in this generous undertaking.
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Paul is clear – the Real Generous One is Jesus Christ … he who was and is fully God, but who became fully human and emptied himself totally for our sakes – even through dying on the Cross so that we might have life.
This is the generosity into which we are called, we who follow Jesus. It is a theology, a Word of the Cross … an opposite word, to be sure, of the world we live in, where God is said to be with those who spend their wealth on themselves … rather than, as Scripture so clearly states, with the poor and powerless, those on the outside of human society and human acceptance.
And yet this world-opposite word is the True Word of God. When we are generous givers, we aren’t emptied … in so many ways, we’re filled and completed.
But because this is such an opposite word, people have a hard time … the hardest time … believing it. Even in our own Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, people have a hard time believing it.
In our denomination the average giving per household to the church is barely 2% of household income.
That would mean that, if your household brings in $60,000 in income during the year, at 2% your church giving would be about a hundred dollars a month. Which sounds like a lot, to be sure … until you realize that if you go out to a nice dinner once a month with a friend, spouse or partner, you’ve probably spent more than that in a couple hours’ time.
Scripture’s Word is clear … 10% is the baseline starting mark for Biblical giving. Yes, this is the tithe. And I must admit I’m not there yet. Getting close, but not there yet … and yet, that’s the starting line. How far behind the starting line are we in our Biblical giving?
Someone at our Executive Team meeting on Thursday night said it best: “Our giving is spiritually based, and how you give is a direct reflection of how you are, spiritually, with God, and with others.”
Our God is a Generous God. We are called to reflect that same generosity, into the world God loves, and saves.

4) A Biblical giver gives proportionally, based on what they have.
Again, our text from 2nd Corinthians is our best guide.

Do something … according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one does not have.

Nowhere does Scripture state “your weekly gift should be fifty dollars.” It’s all about proportion. Here is 2nd Corinthians, Paul is simply being a Biblical giver in line with the story in Luke chapter 21, a story Jesus lived, when Jesus saw the rich people putting money in the giving box at the Temple, and then … he saw a poor widow put in a penny … all that she had. Jesus pointed out to his disciples that the rich were giving out of their abundance … a first century way of saying they were “tipping God” … hey God, nice job there for blessing me so much … here’s twenty bucks for your trouble … kthxbye.
But the widow … she gave out of her poverty … all that she had … and Jesus cited her as a Biblical giver.
The point is well made … to those who have been given much, much is expected … to those who have less, less is expected. A tenth of $10,000 a year is less than a tenth of $100,000, and rightly so.
As Paul points out here, it’s all about fairness. Those who have more, are called by God to give more.
My favorite story on this point is also from the first parish I served. Dick Shay was a Biblical giver. And here’s how he lived it.
Dick divided for himself the total of the church budget by the number of members of the parish. Then he made his giving according to this plan … “Pastor,” he said in his wonderful Western PA accent, “Pastor, I pay my and Betty’s (Betty was Dick’s wife) … I pay my and Betty’s fair share. And then I see that Florence and Chrissy can’t pay that, so I pick up their shares too. Because I can.”
That’s 2nd Corinthians in action, through a generous, generous man who taught me a lot about Biblical giving.

5) Finally, a Biblical giver is cheerful.
I hope that this message today has been a pleasant one for you, and hasn’t made you crabby. (I haven’t seen anyone get up and walk out, so that’s a good sign.)
Giving isn’t supposed to make us crabby. And I think that’s a good and right thing to say in church.
Because we have, most all of us, seen or maybe even personally experienced churches where money – its discussion, budget meetings, stewardship emphases, pledge drives, and so on … where the discussion of money has literally driven the life out of the parish. Temple Talks from dour-faced church treasurers bemoaning that “we’re short of the budget again” and then, haranguing the congregation to “turn off the lights if you’re not using them” and “stop making so many photocopies on the church copier.” Pastors and Congregation Councils frantically looking for “the next big thing” that will “turn our giving around.” I think attitudes like that turn stewardship into a self-fulfilling prophecy … going into a stewardship drive or giving focus with a passive-aggressive attitude, trying to induce giving by guilt or coercion … why, it’s no wonder so many congregations are in trouble financially.
I think you’ve heard me use my former synod, SW Minnesota … I think you’ve heard me use the conclusion of their mission and vision statement before … I think it’s a great example of where cheerful Biblical giving starts:

By God's grace, together we have what we need.

God has richly blessed us, each and every one of us, in ways surprising and unique to each one of us.
We’re called into community together, with each other … here, we, Nativity, together, we live together and worship together and serve together and learn from each other what our gifts are as we use them to God’s glory.
And in this community … called and gathered together by God, and then sent forth into God’s world … we do indeed find that we have what we need.
So, cheerfully, we can be Intentional, First, Regular, Generous, and proportional in our giving.

By God’s grace, together we have what we need.
Not just to ‘meet our budget commitment for fiscal year 2012-13,’ thought that’s noble and right and certainly appropriate.
But more.
By God’s grace, together we have what we need to meet the challenges of this life together … hurting when another hurts, rejoicing when another rejoices, praying, grieving, helping, encouraging, loving as Christ as loved us first …

For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

We are rich in Jesus, each and every one of us.
Thanks be to God.
We are called to joyfully share that richness, in his name, as we are able, through our time, our talents, AND our treasure.
Thanks be to God for that as well.
Amen.