Extravagant Generosity
2014
I've mentioned a couple of times that Betty and I tithe. When I say “tithe,” I mean it literally. We give 10% of our income to the church. This has not always been the case. When I began my ministry in 1980, my annual salary was $10,100. Betty was also working, so we were not living in poverty, but we didn't have much disposable income, either. So, we didn't pledge to the church, at all.
For years, we were like that. Our salaries slowly went up, but we still didn't give. Then we became parents and we definitely didn't give. And yet, every fall, I had to try to convince my congregation that they should try to increase their giving for next year, because nobody wants to scrounge around trying to pay bills and salaries.
Finally, after years of feeling a gnawing guilt of not pledging, or pledging and not following through 100%, I figured out how to make sure the church could get my tithe. I had them take it out of my paycheck before I ever got my grubby little hands on it. I've done that for years, and continue to do so here.
So, now I'm free to cajole you into giving your 10% to your church. Then, I had an epiphany. While I'm all about the percentages, and most stewardship campaigns at some level are about percentages, I suddenly realized that most of you don't think in terms of percentages when you think of pledging or giving to your church. So, that is a whole lot of time wasted trying to make it clear what your tithe would be if your income was so much.
That brings us to Extravagant Generosity. How extravagant is your generosity? And why is it important to be extravagantly generous? While you ponder that first question, I'll move ahead with the second question.
Why is it important? The Bible makes it clear that God expects it from us, so that makes it very important. Here's what God says through the OT prophet Malachi.
Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say,”How are we robbing you?” In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me – the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.
Pretty dramatic, isn't it? Have you ever considered that being less than generous in your giving to your church means you're robbing God? On the other hand, have you ever considered that experimenting with tithing would be a way to see if God is serious about his promise to bless us for our extravagant generosity? And, here you have both ideas side-by-side, right there in the Bible.
Well, that's fine. But, who does God think he is? Why should I be so generous to him and his church? What has he done for me that was so generous? John 3:16.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.
God becomes a human being, a poor human being with no home who is sent to Egypt as an immigrant to avoid getting killed by Herod's soldiers. Can you think about how tremendous that fall is? From being the Creator of everything, to being one of us. How extravagantly generous is that? And considering all the other gifts God gives us such as parents and grandparents and siblings and our health, our energy, our intellect, our curiosity about how the world works, our children, our jobs, all the things we need to accumulate and save wealth, it's hard to argue against the idea that God has a right to expect us to be extravagantly generous back to him. Does he have that right? Has God been too stingy with us?
In spite of the gift of his Son, and more gifts than any of us could count, God knew we'd have some problems letting go of the gifts he gave us. Here's what Jesus says: Matthew 6:19-21 Luke 12:15-21
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where the moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose with they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
So, Christ is not only the primary evidence of God's extravagant generosity, he is preaching that we should respond with our own extravagant generosity. How do you think the very first Christians did? II Corinthians 8:1-15.
So, the churches in the First Century were extravagantly generous. In our Methodist history, we find the same thing among John Wesley's first Methodists 1700 years later. They felt that generosity was an indispensable and necessary part of discipleship. Everyone was expected to be generous, and these people were not wealthy or even middle class. Methodism started among the working poor. Giving a tithe was no small feat for them. They believed that God had given them the grace to be generous, allowing them to give themselves for others, and express their love for God through their generosity.
Think about this for just a moment. Sometimes, when we pray to God, we tell him that we lift up our prayers and lift up our spirits to him. What if when we prayed, we told God that we lift up our savings accounts, our stock portfolios, the money we put aside for cruises or trips to Europe? Why are we more willing to lift up our spirits than we are our wealth? Where is our treasure?
So, to back up a little bit, we have the Bible and church history calling out to us to be generous, extravagantly generous. But, what's in it for us? This truth is as sure as gravity: Being generous enlarges our souls, realigns our priorities, connects people to the Body of Christ, and strengthens congregations to fulfill Christ's ministries.
Who here who has practiced extravagant generosity can say that these things are not true? Who has found a life of extravagant generosity to be disappointing? Who has put God to the test and found that God failed?
And, of course, this is not all about money. When anyone joins a United Methodist Church, they vow to support it with their prayers, their presence, their gifts and their service, and now their witness. Paying attention to those vows will help us to be extravagantly generous in offering ourselves to God's work through your church and beyond. Think back over the previous four Practices of Fruitful Congregations.
Radical Hospitality – If we want people outside the church to understand that we'd like to have them in the church, we have to put ourselves out there, being inviting and encouraging and welcoming, whether we know these people or not.
Radical Worship – When we come to worship, instead of demanding to be fed or entertained, we need to come prepared to find God in every aspect of the worship service. We put ourselves on the line, bringing who we are to meet God in worship.
Intentional Faith Development – If we want to have a deeper faith, we need to put effort into it. We need to be generous with the time and energy we are willing to put into our faith development in Sunday School classes, Bible Studies, Prayer Groups, and so on.
Risk-taking Mission and Service - “Risk-taking” says it all. We put ourselves out there as we go where God sends us, to places we'd not go otherwise, to work with people who are not like us. That requires a generous spirit, regardless of the mission or the service.
Each of those Practices led us to the next one, and finally, to Extravagant Generosity, which leads us back to the others, to expand how we see them, and what we're willing to do to be fruitful Christians and to make our church a fruitful congregation.
What we'll be doing in our discussion today as well as in our brainstorming at 3pm on Saturday, is to immerse ourselves in all the ideas that have emerged over the last 5 weekends, and determine what we're willing to do to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth, to be the place where people come to learn about prayer and about Christ, to find new and exciting ways to be the Body of Christ for Remington and for the world.