Oct. 24 Sermon: Giving Thanks to God
Giving Thanks to God–Stewardship Kick-Off
Holy Covenant UMC
October 24, 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
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God loves a cheerful giver!
I don’t know about you, but when I hear people use or quote this phrase, I want to roll my eyes: God loves a cheerful giver!
This passage brings to mind someone walking up to the altar with a gift, followed closely behind by two cheerleaders, waving their pom poms and jumping up and down with their short skirts swishing and swooshing down the center aisle.
Or I think about children required, reluctantly, to give a portion of their allowance to church. You’ve seen those Sunday school teachers who look out at the class, when they are reluctant to give their quarters away (thinking about the candy they could get at the convenience store across the street), and say to them: God loves a cheerful giver! So put a smile on your face and put the money in the offering plate. Trust me, those kids don’t feel cheerful about giving, they give out of fear….this phrase can strike us as fantasy, manipulation, or both. “God loves a cheerful giver!”
There are places, churches, where giving is a joy-filled part of the worship service. In the Methodist church in Ghana, for example, the time of offering can take a full hour, on its own. And church members actually describe this part of the service as great fun! They don’t wait for the plates to be passed, they actually dance and sing up the aisle to place their offering on the altar.
What a contrast to our service! Giving the offering isn’t often the pinnacle of worship….when people ask you what you love about church, you probably talk about the beautiful music, the powerful testimonies, the opportunities for prayer, learning from the sermons, getting to sing along and clap your hands….you’ve probably never told a friend about how much you love church because you get to put your offering into the plate and then sing the doxology.
One of the reasons we don’t highlight the offering is because money, in our culture, feels very private. It’s a personal decision, what we do with our money. We don’t think it’s up to the church to interfere with our budgets, not up to the pastor to address how we manage our finances. It can make us uncomfortable..…quite the opposite of spending an hour dancing and singing and bringing our money to the altar.
Why are we talking about this in church? Shouldn’t it be private? Well, by my very unscientific count, money, how we use it, spend it, give it, is referenced 800 times in the Bible. 800 times!
Money isn’t a private issue; our use of money is a foundational Christian ethic. It’s a measure of our spiritual health and we’re called to take it seriously. Even when our budgets don’t make us feel very cheerful.
The Methodist church in Ghana knows that money, and giving, are essential to our relationship with God—and what’s more joy-filled than our relationship with God? They give, not out of compulsion or guilt or strain, but as an overflowing response to God’s abundant and bountiful grace. They give, cheerfully, as a response to all the gifts that God gives us.
What if we thought about our resources as if they are gifts from God that we can use to glorify God? To help bring about God’s beautiful vision of peace, love, compassion, and justice to the world? What if we thought about money as an opportunity to grow closer to God, give thanks, and change the world?
Instead, in our culture, money is much too caught up in shame and guilt. We’re burdened by debt, by unrealistic expectations of what we need, our worth is too often determined by how much we make or own. Money makes us anxious and for good reason. Especially in this economy.
The question before us, this morning, in this stewardship season, is this: How can money become a spiritual issue for us and free us from anxiety? In other words, How can we reclaim our attitudes about money from the culture, and instead become a people who are grateful for our gifts and use them to praise God and change the world? Let’s take a look at 2 Corinthians for some help. In our text, Paul tells us that if we sow sparingly, we will reap sparingly, and if we sow bountifully, we will reap bountifully. What does it mean, in our context, to sow sparingly or bountifully? And what do we reap?
Sometimes we think of giving as a kind of “spare change” offering—and this kind of giving can, indeed, make us feel cheerful. After all, it’s easy to be a cheerful giver when we give a dollar here, buy a sandwich there, throw our spare change into a tip jar. And this kind of “spare change” giving is important. We should take a look at what we have that we don’t need and share the bounty, even if that bounty is a few bucks. It will probably put a smile on our faces. I have this huge glass jar of change, mostly pennies, that I’ve been collecting for years. I feel good when I empty it out and am able to provide a meal for someone; it’s easy to be cheerful when I hardly miss the amount. It’s easy to give our spare change.
Today we’re talking about the kind of giving that comes first, not last. It’s comfortable to give what we have left over. To sow sparingly…to make our budget, and then sow the seeds, give the gifts, that remain. But are we really reaping enormous amounts of gratitude? Changing many lives, by sowing spare change? It’s much more challenging to give to God first, and then use what we have leftover to take care of our expenses.
I’m going to challenge all of us this morning to spend this stewardship season really praying and discerning. Not only praying about how much we can give, but praying about how we manage the whole of our finances. Not to feel guilty, not to feel shame, but so that we can start having a cheerful attitude about money. So that our finances become just as much a part of our Christian faith as coming to worship, being on the prayer team, volunteering in the nursery, reading scripture in church, going to a small group, singing in the choir, serving food…
How we relate to money is a direct measure of how we relate to God. That’s why it comes up 800 times in the Bible.
And we need to ask ourselves: do we want to relate to God with spare change or with a great bounty? God gives to us generously, which is why we are called to give back generously. And we should give out of the joy of this truth, of God’s abundant grace, so that we can participate in God’s work of salvation in the world.
I tithe, to the church, and then give to some other organizations on top of that. I’ve been engaging in the discipline of tithing now for over four years, giving 10% of my annual income to the church, the biblical standard of giving. And I am here to tell you that it is really, really hard. I’d like to tell you that I give, every month, with a pure and cheerful heart….but if I’m really honest, I need to admit to you that sometimes I wish this is not how I budget my money. Sometimes, when I feel anxious about finances, I look at the thousands, and thousands, that I give to the church in a year and start fantasizing about that amount in my savings account, or what it would mean to pay off my car earlier, or my student loans more quickly…I’d be so much farther along if this amount wasn’t going to the church! I also think less practically and more selfishly about it too….I could much more easily and justifiably buy those brown boots I’ve been lusting after if I didn’t give three times what they cost away every month. It’s not easy to give, and I’m not always happy about it. It’s definitely not comfortable.
When I first started tithing, it was easy to get resentful. But like any spiritual discipline, I kept at it, knowing that it won’t always be easy or what I really want to do, but focusing on God anyway. And I’m here to tell you that giving, beyond what I thought I could, has strengthened my relationship with God in ways that I never could have imagined.
First, it’s taught me to recognize that what I think I “earn” isn’t about my own merit or worth, but is all a gift from God. If we believe our culture, and tell ourselves that we deserve everything that we make, we’re inherently saying that people who happen to be unemployed or who make minimum wage, don’t deserve money. When the truth is, as Christians, we know everything comes by the grace of God. And so I am called to share that grace and not be so self-centered.
It has also shifted my priorities around what I really need and what I think I need…I have plenty to live on and enough left over for an abundant life, even when giving 10%. And when I find myself wishing I could pay off my car faster, God snaps me into being grateful that I have a car and can make the payments on time. I move from a place of scarcity to abundance…focusing on what I do have instead of what I don’t.
The practice of tithing, over time, has helped me move from a place of individualism and entitlement, to a place of generosity and gratitude. And when we live out of generosity rather than anxiety, we are closer to God. Now, it’s a journey, and I’m not perfect and still raise questions. But the longer I’ve tithed, the closer I’ve grown to God and I know this will continue throughout my life. And growing closer to God, does make me cheerful, more so than those brown boots ever could.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to break out the pom poms, but I do think some of our doubt around the word “cheerful” comes when we confuse it with being easy and comfortable. Giving will rarely be easy and comfortable…and if it doesn’t make us a little uncomfortable, then we’re probably not giving enough. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t produce good cheer. You know this: many of you give generously, even when it’s not easy. You also live out your faith in ways that aren’t easy: speaking up for justice, serving at Dignity Diner when you’d rather stay home, discerning a new vocation where you can help people, sitting with someone as they find out medical test results…faith isn’t meant to be comfortable. And though it may not always make us plaster smiles on our faces, when we commit to be disciplined about our life with God—praying, listening, sharing, speaking out, loving, giving—we recognize how God transforms lives, others and our own. And we can’t help but participate in this work!
What percentage do you give? Not just to the church, but in total—what percentage of your annual income do you give away, and what percentage do you keep for your personal use? Don’t worry, I’m not going to call on you! It’s just a question that I hope you’ll ponder and take home with you. And now think about what 10% of your income is and what it would mean to give this much.
It’s up to each of us to discern what percentage of our income we can realistically and faithfully give, striving for 10%. At different seasons of our lives, this may be more or less than 10% But what we need to assess, and pray about, is setting this amount aside first. What if set aside our gifts first, then build the rest of the budget around what’s left. We give first to God, and then spend the remainder. Instead of spending first, and then giving God’s what leftover. Our spare change.
Our culture is really messed up around money and it leads to all kinds of anxiety. And it gets dangerous when our anxiety around money is our first thought, our first priority. My hope and prayer for all of us is that we can get outside of this trap and put thanksgiving to God as our first priority. When we give, we will make a difference and change lives. But we’ll find that the life that changes the most is our own, as we journey in this spiritual practice.
So in this stewardship season, I invite you to pray. Pray about thanking God first in all that we do. Pray about being willing to be uncomfortable and stepping up our giving. Pray that we are able to let money lose its hold on us and reclaim our center in the creator of all that was, is, and ever shall be. So that we are a people who give: Abundantly. Bountifully. Cheerfully! Not because I’m asking, not just because Holy Covenant could use the money. I hope that you give because you worship, joyfully, the God who gives us everything and calls us to share and give thanks FIRST, by giving generously and changing lives.
If that’s not something to jump up and down and cheer about, then I don’t know what is.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Tags: Kate
