In
discussing this issue with him I talked about the passage we have heard this
morning from 2 Corinthians 9 in which it says that “God loves the one who gives
gladly” or God loves a cheerful giver. I said that, instead of fixing an amount
for how much we ought to give and then giving out of a sense of duty, the New
Testament encourages us to be generous with all that we have and are, as the
only possible response to a God who genuinely gives all he has for us.
The
starting point for thinking about our giving as Christians, then, is what God
has already done for us. In 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about God supplying all
that we need and elsewhere in the New Testament we read of Jesus giving up all
he had, even his own life, in order that we might receive all that God has to
give us. We often ask ‘what do you give the person who has everything?’ but the
question we really need to ask is ‘what do you give to the person who has given
everything?’ The answer is that you give generously yourself as an act of
thanksgiving for all that that person has done for you.
However,
that does not answer the specific question of precisely what we are to give.
One of the attractions of tithing is that it sets a specific measure against
which we can then assess our own giving. Are we giving enough or too little? If
the measure is 10% of our income then we can easily work out the answer, but if
the measure is generosity then we are not so sure. We have to decide for
ourselves what to give rather than being told by someone else.
If
the measure is 10%, then we know when we have given enough and can stop giving
because we have fulfilled our duty but, if the measure is the generosity of
God, then we are actually forever in his debt and can never give enough – there
is then always more that we can give.
That
is the point of our Gospel reading – the story of the Rich Young Man. His
question to Jesus was essentially about measurement. How could he know when he
had done everything necessary to receive eternal life? Jesus took him through
the traditional measures – the keeping of the Commandments – but then made it
clear that simply keeping these was not enough. “If you want to be perfect,”
Jesus said, “go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor.”
By
saying this, Jesus was making an impossible demand; one that the young man
could not meet. Why ask something of the young man that he could not meet so
that he went away sad? Why not rather ask him to do something that he could
manage – giving 10 or 15 or 20%?
Jesus
was making the point that there are no measures which are enough when it comes
to the generosity of God. There is nothing we can give that is enough to earn
God’s love and generosity towards us. Instead, it is freely given and once we
receive it there is also no limit to the giving that we can do in response to
that love. God’s extravagant generosity – giving all he has, even his own life
– calls for similar generosity in us.
By
making his impossible demand of this young man, Jesus was saying there are no
limits, there is no enough, there is no measure; there is only the generosity
of giving. So, for each one of us, there is always the challenge to change; to
give more, to become more generous.
Each
year when we talk about Church finances in our PCC we say that during
Stewardship Month we must make clear the difficult financial situation of the
church. We must make it clear that if we continue with a shortfall year on year
that in a very few years we will run out of money. That is the reality of our
financial situation which we haven’t yet resolved. It won’t take many more
years before we reach that situation. So, we do need more giving, more Gift
Aid, more fundraising, more halls income, more grants and so on. All that is
true, but it is not the reason the New Testament gives for our giving.
What
the New Testament says is that God is extravagantly generous towards us; he
gives us life and he gives us the life of Jesus. There is no limit to what we
can give back to him for all that he has given to us and therefore we can and
should always be challenged to give more to him in response. How we do that is
for us to decide in relation to our money, time and talents in the context of
care for our environment and our community. There is no measure to say that we
have given enough, instead there is this impossible demand of constant
generosity to be a constant challenge to us.
It
can sound demanding and pressured and yet we know that real generosity is
actually a joyful, liberating experience. It is when we hold on to possessions
and go grasping after more that we are exhibiting a mean spirit and therefore
experience anxiety and worry. To give is not only liberating, it also enables
us to receive from God in all sorts of other ways which bless and enhance our
experience of life. This is not a quid pro quo, as some churches seem to
suggest. Financial wealth and success does not follow as a result of genuinely
giving generously in response to God’s love, but we do in all sorts of other
ways knowing love, friendship, trust and peace in ways that are never felt by
those who are grasping and lacking in generosity. May all our giving be in these ways and for these
reasons!
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Rickie Lee Jones - Falling Up.
