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"Give Willingly"
A Sermon preached by Dr. Laird J. Stuart
27 September 2009
Deuteronomy 8:11-18; II Corinthians 9:6-15
Which word best describes you: "Given" or "Getting"? Are you primarily a person who knows you have been given a lot in this life? Are you primarily a person who knows you have to be out there getting what you want in this life? "Given" or "Getting"? On Homecoming Sunday we had name tags for you to wear. What if some Sunday we had name tags but you had to choose one of these two words: "Given" or "Getting"? Which one would you take off the rack, place around your neck, and wear, "Given" or "Getting"?
Obviously both a sense of what we have been given and a sense of what we have to be getting are a natural part of our lives. Both happen. This morning I had an unusually chatty cab driver. I got in the cab and said "Good morning. How are you?" and then said something like it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. Those were the last words I got in. He started off responding to my comment that it looked like a beautiful day by saying, "It's a beautiful day if you do not have to work." I thought I could say something about that but right away he said, "As my grandmother said, 'If you don't work you don't eat.'" Well, there it is. We have to earn a living. We have to be out there getting the means to provide for ourselves and often for others. We have to get enough to provide shelter, to provide food, to provide clothing and other essentials. We often have to provide for the education of children. Getting is a natural and respectable part of our lives. There are lots of reasons to pick that name tag "Getting" and hang it around ourselves.
It is also true we are all given a great deal. There is an old saying that if you see a turtle on a stump, you know he did not get there by himself. Every one of us has been given a lot. Whether we recognize it or not, we all have reasons to experience gratitude. Our life itself is a gift. The talents we have are a gift. These remarkable bodies are a gift. The air you just breathed is a gift. In a wonderful used book store in Santa Rosa I found a book full of pictures from space and also filled with comments by astronauts from this country and cosmonauts from Russia and they were both praising the majesty of this creation in which we live. We live in the heavens. It is all a gift. There are lots of reasons to pick that name tag "Given" and hang it upon ourselves.
But at some deep part of yourself, do you primarily understand your life to be a life that is "given" or "getting".
Last Sunday morning I almost stumbled upon one of those moments that inspired and confirmed by sense of gratitude, my identity as someone who is "Given".
It was near the end of the CREDO conference I was leading. CREDO is a ministry of our denomination to the ministers of our denomination. Parish ministry can be very difficult, for a variety of reasons. One primary reason is that half of the congregations in our denomination have less than one hundred members. Many of our ministers are receiving less than a living wage. But there are other challenges. In this CREDO conference, our faculty was working with twenty-one Presbyterian ministers at a conference site near Buffalo, New York. During a CREDO conference, we ask the ministers to ask themselves four questions: "Who am I?", "Who is God calling me to be?", "How am I responding to God's call?", and "How am I changing?" We also ask them to examine how they are doing in four areas of their life: their spiritual life, their sense of vocation and calling, their physical health, and their finances. They have to fill out a variety of forms reviewing their finances. They have to have a physical, report the results of the physical on a Mayo Clinic website and bring the resulting print-out on their health to the conference. While we are together they meet in what we call plenary sessions, all of us together, in small groups, in workshops and in private consultations. We worship a lot, every day, sometimes twice a day.
The first days of the eight day conference are very busy and then we begin to give the participants more and more time to reflect on what they are learning. In the end they are asked to write out a CREDO plan for their life and their ministry. Last Sunday morning was one of those times when they were free to reflect and write about their sense of where God is calling them.
After breakfast, I walked down to the shore of the lake on the conference grounds. One of our participants was there, sitting in a row boat on the shore of the lake. There was row boat nearby and I sat in it, happy to be in a boat and near water. It was a beautiful morning. The sky was clear. The sun was bright and still rising into the sky. There was no wind. The lake was still; its surface was flat and smooth. The opposite shore was reflected on the still surface of the lake. In the trees on the other shore there were splashes of autumn colors: red, yellow and orange. Those colors were reflected faithfully on the still surface of the lake. Mist was coming from behind a small island near the other shore, and moving out across the lake before dissipating in the air. It kept coming and dissipating. It was all remarkably quiet.
Except for the geese. Canadian geese were around. Two of them came in for a loud and splashing landing as I came to the shore. After awhile the geese even seemed to get it and they all went over to one part of the lake and were quiet. There was one goose, however, on the shore near us. It kept calling, honking, to the others. It kept calling and calling. The other man said it must be the preacher in the group. When the other geese did not come over, this goose decided to go join them. It waddled into the water and swam past us. Distances are hard to determine on water but it was probably about five yards out from us. As it swam past us, each time it called out, its breath would condense in the air by its bill and slide past it head and neck.
It was a gift. It was all a gift. The lake was a gift. The sun was a gift. The stillness was a gift. The mist was a gift. The autumn colors were a gift. The geese were gifts. That incredible sight of a goose's breath condensing briefly in the air was a gift.
Then the participant told me a story. At a point in his life and ministry when he was full of doubt, he was in his yard in Tucson, Arizona. He was struggling and had been struggling with his faith for some time. Finally, he said, he said out loud, "God if you are out there give me a sign."A single goose flew by. He said you rarely see geese in Tucson, Arizona. Part of what he had been struggling with was the whole notion of the trinity, which is essential in our faith, but mysterious to be sure. So he said out loud, "Is this trinity real?" Three geese flew by. Then he said, he called out, out loud, "Is there more to you?" and a whole flock flew by.
I realize such a story strains our credibility. Yet the bible keeps telling us God loves us, because God loves us, God provides for us day by day, and God also sends us signals, sometimes strange signals, to draw us into not only the general blessings God gives to everyone, but the special tailor-made blessings God can give to an open and receptive spirit.
Our faith, the eyes for life our faith gives to us calls us to wear the word "Given". While we are getting, we are also called to see what God and God's creation is giving to us every day.
In the passage from Deuteronomy, in a sermon by Moses, there is an affirmation that we are "Given" but there is also a warning about how easy it is to forget what we are given.
The whole book of Deuteronomy is set up as a sermon by Moses. It has been called the longest sermon in the bible and maybe the longest sermon ever. There are sermons that seem long, but we will not go there just now. This sermon by Moses is set at a critical moment in the history of God's People. They are about to end their Exodus, cross Jordan, and enter their Promised Land.
In this passage Moses tells them not to forget what God has given them. He tells them that when they are finally settled in their land and when they have homes, when they flocks and herds, and when they have silver and gold, especially if they have fine homes, if they have large flocks and herds, and if they have lots of gold and silver they should not say to themselves that have gotten all this on their own. They should not say it was all because of what they were able to get. They should instead remember what they were given. They should remember they were given their freedom from Egyptian bondage by God. They should remember how God led them through the Red Sea, how God fed them and watered them, and how God led them all the way to their Promised Land. Furthermore, said Moses, they should remember that it was God who gave them the talents and strength to earn their living, to build their homes, their flocks and herds, and their wealth in gold and silver. Instead of giving themselves credit for their getting, they should remember what they were given by God.
As the rest of the Old Testament tells us they did not heed the warning from Moses. Eventually the People of God forgot their gratitude to God. There were two specific signs they had forgotten their God. One sign was their worship. They never stopped worshipping God but their worship increasingly accommodated to their culture and included popular beliefs. The other sign was in their politics and economics. They ceased being a people who practiced the kindness and justice of God in their social order.
The danger is always there that we will follow their example. It is easy to forget what we have been given in times of affluence and growing wealth. It is easy to say we have gotten whatever it is we have. It is easy to give ourselves all the credit. It is also easy to forget what we are given during hard times. Maybe especially in hard times it is tempting to become obsessed with getting. It is hard to be out of work. It is hard to watch your credit card debt climb and climb. It is hard to fear that because of your age or some other factor you will not get a new job or at least will not get a job with the income you used to receive. It is hard to watch your dreams for your life get shattered. It is hard to live with someone who keeps insisting that you provide a life style you cannot provide. It is easy to become pre-occupied with getting.
Yet it is also true that if our life spirals down into nothing more than getting, if our anxiety ambushes any sense of gratitude in us we are truly lost. If we can only consider our getting, our soul and spirit tend to shrivel and any trace of gratitude is all too easily replaced with bitterness. Our faith can wither and we can end up withdrawing from our faith and hope in God. It is precisely when we are most anxious about our getting that we need inspiration and renewal that comes from knowing even in our needs we are "Given". Even in our needs, God is providing.
Paul, writing to the Christians in Corinth not only affirms what Moses declared, that we are given, Paul then takes it one step farther. Paul says we are given to be giving.
In writing to the Christians in Corinth, Paul was writing to people in a prosperous city. He was no doubt writing to some people who were prosperous. Yet it is also clear that the early church was open to people of all conditions. These words were meant for people who were prospering and for those who were not. Paul was a realist about the people he knew.
So Paul writes to all of them, about an offering he is taking up, to remember that no matter what their circumstances, they are "Given". God gives. God provides. Verse 8: "And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work." Notice he does not write about having a lot, having abundance. Just having "enough." Verse 10: "He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness." Verse 11: "You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us."
Look at your life, says Paul, and notice how much you have been given by God. Whether you have a lot or a little, notice what you have been given by God.
It is because we are given so much that Paul wrote in verse seven, "Each of you must give". Notice he says "must give", not "might give", "could give" or maybe think about it". Paul writes "Each of you must give." Then he goes on to say, "as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." So then, Paul writes, take from what you are given and give. In God's name and for God's work, give. Choose you giving and do so cheerfully.
One of the things that can block this message in our own lives is our belief that we need more than we need. It is harder to see what we can give to others if we think we need more than we do.
One of the exercises we did during the CREDO conference was called "Mindful Eating". One of our faculty members if a physician who specializes in family practice medicine. Our meals were served buffet style. She had us go through the buffet line for lunch one day and take whatever we wanted. We all knew something was up but we took what we wanted. When we were all seated she asked us to take one third of every portion on our plate and put it on another plate. We did. Then we ate what was left. In the end we all agreed, somewhat reluctantly, we had had enough. The table where the food we had taken off our plates had been placed was full of food.
We do not need as much as we think. Sometimes it is hard times that teach us this very lesson. Sometimes in hard time people learn a whole new dimension of being generous.
Maybe we should put three name tags out in the narthex: "Getting", "Given" and "Giving".
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