Sunday, April 13, 2008

Fourth Sunday of Easter

1 Chronicles 29:14-18

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

Luke 19:1-10

 

GRACE-FILLED GIVING

 

In the novel I Heard the Owl Call My Name,[1] newly ordained Anglican priest Mark Brian is sent by his bishop to serve in Kingcome, a small Indian village along the coast of British Columbia.  A doctor has informed the bishop that Mark has no more than three years to live.  Mark has not been informed yet.  The bishop decides to send Mark to Kingcome, because it is a place where he will learn a great deal in the short time he has.  It is also where the bishop would want to have gone if he had been in Mark’s place.  He chooses to wait to tell Mark what his condition is.

 

The life of Kingcome revolves to a great extent around the life of the salmon.  They refer to the salmon as the “swimmer”.  Once salmon are full-grown the final stage in their life cycle is to return to the stream from which they came so that they can spawn and then die.

 

Early in his ministry in Kingcome Mark asks a young man named Jim and a young woman named Keetah to take him to see the end of the swimmer.  They hike upstream, and in one pool they see a female swimmer putting up one last valiant struggle for life.  She has laid her eggs and guarded them for several days.  The task of journeying upstream, laying her eggs, and guarding them has nearly exhausted her.  When the end comes, the gentle stream turns her, water forces open her gills, and she is drawn slowly downstream, tail first, the way she went to sea as a fingerling.  Tears form in Keetah’s eyes.  “It is always the same,” she says, “The end of the swimmer is sad.” 

 

Mark responds, “But, Keetah, it isn’t.  The whole life of the swimmer is one of courage and adventure.  All of it builds to the climax and the end.  When the swimmer dies, [she] has spent [herself] completely for the end for which [she] she was made, and this is not sadness.  It is triumph.”[2]

 

Stewardship campaigns in the church tend to focus on giving financially to support the work of the church.  Certainly this is an important aspect of stewardship.  However, stewardship in the fullest sense is about spending our whole lives completely for the end for which we were made.  That end is given us by God.  Our greatest triumph and greatest joy in life is to fulfill our God-given end.  Therefore, in the church we need to be about the business of supporting people in discovering their end and in giving themselves completely for it.  That is not a month long stewardship campaign.  That is an ongoing year round whole life stewardship emphasis.

 

In 2 Corinthians 8-9 Paul grounds our giving in the surpassing grace of God.  He marvels at the overflowing generosity of God, who provides us with every blessing in abundance.  The supreme example of God’s abundant grace is the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, who “though he was rich, yet for [our] sakes became poor, so that by his poverty [we] might become rich.”  In suffering and dying for us on the cross, Jesus reveals that giving is at the core of God’s being.  We have been created in the image of God; and therefore giving is at the core of our being.  Giving is the end for which we have been made.  We are most ourselves when we give completely of ourselves.

 

The context of 2 Corinthians 8-9 is that Paul in the process of gathering an offering for the mother church in Jerusalem, which is struggling.  Paul shares with the Corinthians the inspiring story of the overflowing generosity of the churches of Macedonia.  He does not go into detail concerning the economic situation of the Macedonians, but he alludes to their extreme poverty and to a severe ordeal of affliction.  He had no expectation that they would contribute to this offering.  The churches of Macedonia were suffering greater affliction than the church in Jerusalem.  Nonetheless, the Macedonian churches begged “earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints.”  They gave “voluntarily according to their means, and even beyond their means.”  They viewed giving to the church in Jerusalem as part and parcel of the end for which they were made.

 

Unlike the Macedonians, the Corinthians are well off economically.  They are in a position to be very generous in their giving.  Previously they had expressed a desire to contribute to this offering.  Now the time has come for them to fulfill this desire.  Paul encourages them to excel in this offering as they have excelled in everything else.  Like the Macedonians, excelling in their giving is an integral part of the end for which they were made.

 

Paul makes clear that God does not want them to give reluctantly or under compulsion.  God loves a cheerful giver—that is, God wants them to experience the joy of giving, the joy of being who they were made to be.  Filled with thanksgiving for the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ, cognizant of the abundant blessings of God, inspired by the overflowing generosity of the Macedonians, the Corinthians have every reason to give generously to their brothers and sisters in the church in Jerusalem.  Such grace-filled giving is not an obligation, but a privilege and a blessing.  Grace-filled giving is a matter of being who we were made to be.

 

In my letter in the Ministry and Mission Fund Campaign brochure, I write: “our situation at St. Andrew seems more like that of the church in Corinth than like that of the churches in Macedonia.  We may not be a wealthy church, but we are not living in extreme poverty.  We have been blessed with the grace of God, and we have been called to ministry and mission in this place of grace.  Worship, Christian education, caring ministry, fellowship, mission support—these are the core areas of our ministry and mission.  Grace-filled giving is essential in funding these core areas.”

 

Giving financially to support the ministry and mission of St. Andrew is not all of who we are.  However, it is part and parcel of the end for which we were made.

 

One could look in the brochure at the pie chart for the Ministry and Mission Funding Plan and conclude that we are spending most of our funds on ourselves.  Mission support to the Oregon Synod and mission projects beyond our walls constitute approximately 16% of our funding.  84% seems like a lot of overhead.

 

One can look at this same pie chart and give a different interpretation.  We believe that areas of ministry such as worship, Christian education, caring ministry, and fellowship shape our relationships to God, other human beings, and the whole creation.  We believe that these fundamental relationships do not simply impact what we put in the offering plate or what happens here at St. Andrew; they impact every aspect of our life and how we spend all our financial resources.

 

A reasonable estimate of the total income of the people of St. Andrew is $20 million.  We hope our annual giving for the Ministry and Mission Fund will be approximately $600,000.  That $600,000 represents about 3% of the total income of the people of St. Andrew.  That is a relatively small investment to impact how $20 million is spent.  In addition our ministry and mission is impacting how the people of St. Andrew spend their time on a daily basis.  Furthermore, many of our members work in companies and institutions where they are responsible for substantial funds.  Surely their relationship to God affects how they conduct themselves on the job and how they administer those funds.  Our $600,000 investment looks more and more like a bargain all the time.  What could be more important than investing in our relationship to God?  What could be more important than investing in that which shapes our relationships to our fellow human beings and to the whole creation in such a fundamental way?  What could be more important than investing in that which reveals to us the end for which we were made?  As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9:6, “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”

 

At the end of I Heard the Owl Call My Name, Mark Brian is killed as he returns to Kingcome from a rescue mission at sea.  A massive landslide at the entrance into the river destroys his boat.  Once his body is found, the people of Kingcome gather at the river to honor him and escort his body to its resting place.  He has spent a relatively short time among them.  But it is obvious God has touched their lives deeply through him.  For them he has been like the swimmer.  They are grateful to God to have shared the climax of his adventuresome life.  They are grateful that Mark had spent himself completely among them for the end for which he was made.[3]

 

During this Ministry and Mission Fund Campaign each one of us is invited to consider in a thoughtful, intentional way what God is calling us to give to support the ministry and mission of St. Andrew Lutheran Church.  It is a privilege and a blessing to share in such grace-filled giving.  We are to give as each of us has made up our minds, not reluctantly or under compulsion, but according to our means, with joy and thanksgiving.  Such giving is part and parcel of who we are as the people of God.  At the same time, use this campaign to reflect on your stewardship of your whole life.  None of us know precisely how long we will live.  However long we live, the important thing is to spend ourselves completely for the end for which God has made us.  Spending ourselves for that end is the heart of grace-filled giving.

 

In Jesus’ name, AMEN.