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WITH JOYFUL HEARTS
Joshua 3:1-17; 2 Corinthians 9:1-8
A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on
November 10, 2013
As one of my favorite events approaches, the Alternative Gift Market, which as you heard, is taking place next Sunday after worship, I found myself thinking about one such Alternative Gift Market about 15 years ago. Our daughter, Elizabeth, about 8 or 9 at the time, together with two or three friends, formed the “Animal Lovers Association,” or “ALA” as they preferred to call it. With their mothers’ help, and the help of the Mission Committee, they sold gingerbread cookie ornaments at that year’s Alternative Gift Market, with all of the proceeds going to Ryerss’ Horse Farm, a local farm that takes care of aged and abused horses. What I remember – and what still gives me a lump in the throat when I think about it – is the earnestness of those girls – and the unbridled joy they had, not only on that Sunday, but also when they visited the farm and presented their check for something like $137.
We adults know all about being earnest when it comes to money – but joyful? Money is a serious matter for most of us, a reminder often of what we don’t have or the responsibilities we would just as soon put off thinking about. I sat in on an officers’ retreat at an Episcopal church in Philadelphia led by a colleague and the conversation came around to stewardship and the congregation’s shrinking finances. The officers had recruited a couple of people to speak in worship, but when one of the officers wondered who would hear the speakers because, in her words, “people stay away from worship when we talk about money,” everyone nodded their heads in agreement. Who does want to talk about money – especially here where we gather in part to feel better about our lives?
Paul does. In his letter to the Corinthians he is speaking about an offering he is taking up for the poor in war-torn Jerusalem, and he tells them: “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (v. 7) Money...cheerfulness – what is Paul talking about?
In fact, the word Paul uses is actually a stronger word. The Greek word is “hilaron,” which is related to our word, “hilarious.” As one commentator notes, cheerfulness seems so low key and ordinary. It is like the small grin we might have after hearing a joke. “Hilarious,” on the other hand leads to a “great big belly laugh that swell and expands until the whole body is shaking. ‘Hilarious’ is not a chuckle, but a guffaw; it’s rolling in the aisles with merriment.”[1] What is Paul talking about? How can we, like Paul, combine cheerfulness or hilarity and money in the same sentence?
First, according to Paul, it is a matter of how we view life and the world. Have we adopted our culture’s view of scarcity, or the Bible’s view of abundance? As Walter Brueggemann once observed, “we must confess that the central problem of our lives is that we are torn apart by the conflict between our attraction to the good news of God’s abundance and the power of our belief in scarcity – a belief that makes us greedy, mean and unneighborly.” In contrast, “Jesus demonstrated that the world is filled with abundance and freighted with generosity.”[2] The question is will we see the abundance – that as Paul writes, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance”? Or will we just see scarcity – what we don’t have that others seem to have?
Carlos Wilton gives us this image to consider: “’Abundance is not measured by what flows in, but what flows over. The smaller we make the vessel of our need...the sooner we get the overflow we need for delight.’” The problem is, he writes, that we often get caught on the treadmill of consumption which is never satisfied with what we have. “As soon as our ‘cup runneth over,’ what do so many of us do? Why, we go out and buy a bigger cup! That means we are always living in an illusion of scarcity, always bemoaning the gap between what’s in our cup and the rim – when in reality, we, of all the people on this planet, are the most blessed financially.”[3]
Those of us who use the Mission Yearbook of our denomination in our devotions read this week about the Presbyterian church in Iraq. Formerly there were seven congregations; now there are five. In the turmoil and violence since we launched the war there in 2003, one elder was kidnapped from his home and martyred. Bombs were planted outside a church’s gate but were thankfully discovered. A church that once had 750 families now has 250 because so many families have left Iraq. Only one of the five remaining Presbyterian churches has an ordained pastor.
What have they done in response? Hunkered down and held on tightly? No – they are reaching out in Christ’s name by running medical clinics, ministering to women in prison, and by opening orphanages, preschools and eldercare facilities! Believe it or not, they are not focusing on the scarcity of what they do not have; they are focusing on the abundance of God’s blessings and grace – so abundant that they view their cups as running over so that they have something that can be shared with others.
How about us? Are we ready to live recognizing that God is able to provide us with every blessing in abundance so that we have something to share? Then we too may be ready to be a hilarious giver.
Second, we can speak about money and cheerfulness in the same sentence if we focus on God and neighbor rather than ourselves.
Our giving, not just of our money, but also of our time and talents, is meant to be an expression of our love – our love for God and our love for our neighbor as Jesus broadly defined “neighbor.” We give to God out of gratitude for our many blessings and what God has given to us. And we give to our neighbor recognizing, as Paul stated earlier to the Corinthians, that it is nothing less than a “privilege” to be able to share with others.
Someone has said that there are three kinds of giving. Grudge giving says “I have to” and comes from constraint. “Duty giving” says “I ought to,” and gives from a sense of obligation. Thanks-giving says “I want to,” and gives from a full heart.[4]
Thanks-giving from a full heart is cheerful giving. It is the way those members of the Animal Lovers Association gave when they made those ornaments and took the money raised to the horse farm. And it is the way that so many of you gave when you bought those homemade ornaments with a $10 or $20 and told the girls that “they could keep the change.”
Thanks-giving from a full heart is the way that an old man gave as described in an old Jewish story. He spent all of his spare time planting fig trees. “You’re a fool, old man,” the villagers would kid him. “Why are you planting fig trees? You’ll die long before you will ever bite into one of this figs?”
“You are quite right,” the old man replied. “Yet I have spent many happy hours sitting under fig trees and eating their fruit. Those trees were planted by others. Why shouldn’t I make sure that others will know the same enjoyment that I had?”[5]
Sounds like cheerful giving to me.
Third, becoming a cheerful giver does not mean that we have to wait to feel joy in our hearts before we give. Sometimes, the process flows in the opposite direction. We act first – then the good feelings come. When we give freely, no matter what we are feeling at the time, we can discover a gift and joy that we might not otherwise experience.
Did you notice what happened when the Israelites crossed the Jordan River in the passage we read from Joshua? As those of you know who have been watching the “Promised Land” video series in the Forum Class, the Jordan River was no gentle river easy to cross at the time of Joshua. The drop from the mountains north of Jerusalem down to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, makes for one of the steepest drops in a river anywhere in the world. So crossing the Jordan River was not easy; indeed, it was perilous.
That is why the promise of God in Joshua 3 that the waters would be stopped for a time to allow safe passage was so significant and worthy of celebration. But as is true often in life, you have to watch for the fine print here in Joshua 3. The river torrent would halt for a time – but only once the priests stepped into the river first.
Sometimes with faith, with love, and with giving – we have to get our feet wet first. That is, we have to step out in faith before we are assured of the results. We have to sow before we can reap, Paul instructs the Corinthians and us. Sometimes we are so filled with a sense of blessing and joy that the giving is natural and easy. And sometimes, we have to sow first by giving first. When we give freely and generously, and without holding on tightly to maintain control, then, and sometimes only then, we experience the blessings of grace and joy that God wants to give us.
Karl Menninger, the psychiatrist who helped to found the famous Menninger Clinic in Kansas City, and a Presbyterian too, once said “Money-giving is a good criterion of a person’s mental health. Generous people are rarely mentally ill people.” Another way of putting that is, “The door to happiness swings outward.”
Friends, in a few moments, we will offer our financial gifts as we do every Sunday. We will present our pledge cards stating our hopes for what we can give in the coming year as we only do once a year. We will come forward to do so, if we are able, as a symbol that we are offering not just our money but our very selves – our time, talents, and lives to God “who has provided every blessing to us in abundance.”
May we come forward, not begrudgingly or solely out of a sense of duty. May we all instead come forward like those young girls long ago carrying their donation to the horse farm: with a smile on their lips, a lightness to their step, and a joy in their hearts because we can marvel now, as they did then, about how God is good, and that even people such as ourselves have something we can offer to God and to others.
[1] Carlos Wilton, “Hilarious Giving,” in Speaking of Stewardship, William G. Carter, ed. (Louisville: Geneva Press, 1998), 70. I am indebted to Wilton’s treatment of this text in his sermon.
[2] Walter Brueggemann, Christian Century,
[3] Carlos Wilton, Speaking of Stewardship, 72 (quotation in quotation is from David Steindl-Rast).
[4] R.N. Todenmayer, Thanks Be to God.
[5] Wilton, 72.