Spiritual Disciplines: Giving

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Ephesians 2:1-10  and John 3:14-21:

Father Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was a 19th century poet and Jesuit priest, once received a letter from his friend and fellow poet, Robert Bridges, who would not only go on to become the poet Laurette of the United Kingdom but was also an agnostic.  Bridges asked Hopkins what he, as an agnostic, should do to believe in God. To be able to make the leap of faith necessary for a life of faith. Bridges was probably expecting some deep theological argument, after all they had met while studying at Oxford, not as good as Harvard, but impressive nonetheless. Or perhaps he expected Hopkins would tell him to read the Bible, or at least portions of scripture, or maybe even that he might allow Hopkins to tell him his own conversion experience. But instead, Hopkins replied to this letter with one of his own that contained only two words: Give alms.

Now alms isn’t a word we hear much anymore, except maybe in movie adaptations of Charles Dickens’ works and hearing someone saying “alms for the poor,” but that’s what it was. Alms were money or food given to the poor or needy. A giving of charity. And so what I think Hopkins was saying to Bridges is that if you want to encounter God, you have to do something that takes you outside of yourself. You have to be willing to give something of yourself in order to be able to help another person. And once you begin to do that, once you start to give, or learn to give, then you will understand the nature of faith and indeed will learn the very nature of God, and then belief becomes much easier.

And so today we conclude the Lenten portion of our series on the spiritual disciplines by looking at the discipline of giving. Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about fasting and confession and daily scripture reading and worship, and also made reference to other things that also are seen as disciplines, like service and prayer. Now again, since the spiritual disciplines tend to be things we find in scripture, that seek to mold, correct or perfect us in the faith, that deepen our faith and bring us into closer relationship with God, and so giving definitely falls into that category, although you won’t find it on a lot of lists of the disciplines, although I don’t know why. Because I think that Hopkins is exactly right. When we learn to give, then we will learn to find God. And I know that some people will say, oh this is just the church trying to get my money, and it’s all about us giving to the church. And so let’s name the elephant in the room when it comes to preachers, me included, talking about money, and that is that you pay my salary through your tithes and offerings. And you do. But, as I said in the worship preview video that goes out on Friday, our need to give is much greater than the church’s need to receive. Let me say that again because it is so important: Our need to give is more important than the church’s need to receive.

Now there is no question that the church has expenses, including me, that are covered by what we receive, although at the very least I hope that you see what you give as an investment into the kingdom of God not because you give to the church but that we give through the church to the work that God is doing in the world in which we are participating. I try to make some of that clear on most Sunday’s in our stewardship moment in talking about how we make a difference in people’s lives and how our financial resources make that possible. That we are being good stewards of the resources you are entrusting the church with, just as we are called to be good stewards of the resources with which God has entrusted us with.  Because, if there is anything that scripture wants us to know is that it all belongs to God. God owns not just all the hills, or the mesas as it were, but the cattle on the thousand hills belong to God too. But what that Psalm, which Psalm 50 by the way, also tells us is that God is not impressed with our sacrifices, or with our offerings, unless it is also accompanied by our thanksgiving to God, or a rending of our hearts as Joel says. We hear a refrain in the prophets, which relates to last week’s message about worship, that if our worship is not accompanied by a giving of ourselves to God, then it’s meaningless, and the same is true with giving. We can go through the motions of giving. That you can give without being changed, if we see it as an obligation, a requirement, or another box to be checked, but that is not what true giving is about.

There are people who think that you have to give in order to get into heaven. But it’s not true. You don’t have to give anything. As we heard in the passage from Ephesians today, Paul says “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” And so giving is not really a salvation issue, because we are saved by faith not by how much we give, because if salvation was dependent upon what we did, then we could boast about it. But, Paul then continues, “We are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” We are created in the image of God, all of us. We are created for good works, Paul says, and we can see that even more importantly in the passage from the third chapter of John.

John 3:16 has to be one of the most famous passages, one that most Christians, and even many non-Christians can recite off the top of their heads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” Now I personally think that next verse is just as important, and in some cases more importantly and should always go with 3:16, and that is that God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” But what is God’s saving action? God gave. God so loved the world that God gave us Jesus. God is a giver. And so if we truly believe that we are made in the image of God, then what do we also have to do? We have to give, and we give freely and generously, we give spontaneously and sacrificially, just as God gives. And so again, our need to give is greater than the church’s need to receive.

And so that means we don’t have to give, we get to give. And there is a huge difference between giving as an obligation, as a duty, as a requirement and being able to give freely because we choose it, because it comes naturally to us because it’s part of who we are because it’s a part of knowing whose we are. But, what God also knows is the temptations and desires we have that pull us in different directions, and how giving can fundamentally change those. There is a reason why Jesus says you cannot serve both God and mammon, because we will love one and hate the other. Or as we say today, show me someone’s bank statement, although it used to be show me their checkbook, but that’s become a little dated, and I will show you there God. Where we put our money, where we spend our money, what we choose to support with our money, will show where our heart resides, which is what Jesus also tells us. And so when a rich young man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life? And what does Jesus say, “Go sell everything you own and give the money to the poor.” And what happens? We are told that the man goes away sad because he has many possessions.

Now this is not a universal mandate that Jesus is giving, although the early church did, as we read about in the book of Acts, share everything in common. This is the recommendation that Jesus gives to this man because he understands the man’s heart. He knows that he is attached to his stuff. It’s probably where he gets his sense of identity and purpose and importance and even his belonging. Without his stuff who would he be? And so he can’t separate himself from it, which is a key indicator of what he worships and who to whom he belongs. We see often in scripture people who are said to be possessed, and Jesus brings healing and wholeness to them, and what we see in this story, what we see all too often in our own story, is that our possessions can possess us. Because rather than understanding ourselves as beloved children of God, rather than understanding ourselves as being dependent upon God, rather than understanding ourselves as stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us. Instead we see ourselves as responsible for what we have, we see ourselves as owners of everything, we see ourselves as dependent upon our things for belonging and identity, and so we separate ourselves from God and from each other.

That is why giving is a spiritual discipline, because it retrains our hearts and minds. It helps us to understand that when we are baptized, we don’t get to keep our wallets out of the water, we have to surrender our entire life, and if there are areas we say are off limits to faith, then we know where we have to work harder. Every area of our life should be affected and impacted by our walk of faith, including our finances. If we hold them as being separate, then something is out of balance, because we are not then loving God with all that we are and all that we have, and more than likely we are also not loving our neighbor as ourselves. And, more importantly, we are denying whom God has called us to be, and we are denying the divine image that resides in us.

Now, this is not to say that giving is easy, because, like the rich your man, it can be really hard. But, as Hopkins said, taking the first step in our giving is to take the first step in changing our relationship with God. Or as someone else said, “God is not indifferent to our daily financial choices, but is interested in transforming our lives.” That’s why money and stuff are talked about so much in scripture because God understands the problems it can cause for us and redirect us away from the life we are called to lead, which includes being givers so that our possessions don’t possess us. According to Dr. Wesley Wilmer, possessions are mentioned 2,172 in scripture, which is 3 times more than the word love, seven times more than prayer and eight times more than belief. This is some serious stuff we are talking about when it comes to our stuff and the difficulty it can become when it comes to our faith.

And so giving is about faithfulness. Again not so we can earn bonus points, but because when we learn to give, and especially when we learn to give sacrificially, it will fundamentally reorder our lives, and I’m not just telling you, I’m also trying to walk the walk. When Linda had to take a medical leave of absence because of Covid, it would have been really easy to say, well we lost all her income and therefore we can’t afford to give anymore, but we didn’t. We are still tithing my income, that is giving ten percent, and so while our overall giving is down, the percentage we give remains the same. And we give first, before we pay other bills we give first. And we do that, not just because we made a commitment a long time ago in our relationship to be tithers, but we do it because it helps us to remember that it is not our money, it’s God’s money. And the good news, we still have the other 90% to use for other things. And I can also say that it took us awhile to get there, but we set a goal and then we started stepping up each year to reach it. And I would recommend the same to you, remembering that our expectation for membership is that you will give a percentage of your income with the tithe being the goal. And no, it doesn’t all have to go to the church, because perhaps you have other passions or other groups that are doing God’s work in the world alongside the church.

We are made in the image of God, and God is a giver, and God gave sacrificially, and we are called to do the same. But, let us remember that while giving is not a salvation issue, it is a faith issue. We give because we are called to turn our whole life over to God, and that has to include our money and our possessions, we pledge our whole life to God, and therefore everything follows in that pledge of loyalty because we cannot have two masters. Dr. Wilmer says that “stewardship is God’s way of raising people, not man’s way of raising money,” because where we give, how we give and what we give, in time and talent and resources indicates where our heart is and whether we are investing in the ways of the world or the ways of the kingdom. God is a giver, and we follow his Son, the greatest gift the world has ever received, who gave of himself and calls us to do the same. May our giving shape, mold and perfect us in the ways of God’s kingdom and lead that very kingdom to be felt here and now. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.