Epiphany 8
23 February 2025
Vineville Baptist Church
Macon, Georgia
- Gregory Pope
WITH GLAD AND GENEROUS HEARTS:
THE COVENANT PRACTICE OF WHOLISTIC GENEROSITY
Series: Life Together in Covenant Community
Acts 2.42-47. Acts 4.32-37.
2 Corinthians 8:1-4, 7-11. 2 Corinthians 9:6-10
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (Acts 2.42-47)
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed
private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. (Acts 4.32-37)
We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia, for during a severe ordeal of affliction their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the favor of partnering in this ministry to the saints . . . Now as you excel in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you – so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. I do not say this as a command, but I am, by mentioning the eagerness of others, testing the genuineness of your love. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. And in this matter I am giving my opinion: it is beneficial for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something. (2 Corinthians 8:1-4, 7-10)
The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not regretfully or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 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. As it is written, “He scatters abroad; he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” 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. (2 Corinthians 9:6-10)
To be the faithful and vibrant church of Jesus Christ there are what I consider to be five indispensable practices a church must embody:
The first is Christlike Spiritual Formation: becoming disciples of Jesus, guiding people through a lifetime of formation in the way of Jesus.
The second is Intentional Worship: gathering as God’s people to pray together and offer our lives to God in the hopes of a gradual transformation into the people God created us to be.
Third is the practice of Radical Welcome: because we believe that all persons are created in the image of God and that Christ is found in every person we seek to provide a place of love and welcome to all people and we aim to welcome every stranger and guest as if they were Christ himself – because they are!
Fourth is the practice of Risk-Taking Service: continuing our worship beyond the walls of the sanctuary, being a church for the world in the name of Christ, risking ourselves for the most vulnerable in our community.
All of these are made possible by a fifth practice we consider today: Wholistic Generosity: with every church member sharing their spiritual gifts, serving in the church, serving in the community, as well as sharing their financial gifts for the work and ministry of the church.
God works through people and their resources to do God’s work in the world. It is as simple as that. It is as essential as that. More than ever, the world needs the church to be faithful and life-giving, doing God’s work to meet the real needs of the world.
Paul says the church is the body of Christ, a body in which every part does its part. We give
of who we are and what we have because we are grateful for our place in the body of Christ and we long to fulfill God’s mission in this world.
The church at Corinth was complaining about who was giving their share and who was not. Paul tries to help them out. He says to them: “I want you to understand how the church is supposed to work. People outside the church pay attention to things that don’t matter. But inside the church we are to give ourselves to something bigger than we are, something as big as the kingdom of God. We have different talents, different ministries, different gifts. But they all come from God, they all belong to God, and the Spirit works through all of them for God’s purposes. God uses what God has given in order to build up the church and bind up the wounds of the world. When members of the church don’t share their gifts, everyone suffers. When we do share God’s gifts, we become God’s church, the living breathing Body of Christ.”
Preaching about giving is a tender thing in any congregation with a wide range of incomes. For some people, money and the weekly budget brings worry and pain. I will not lay any heavy burdens on you. Jesus warned religious leaders away from such.
When I talk about generosity I am not talking only about being generous with our money. I use the words “wholistic generosity”. It’s about the generosity of self, being generous with our lives – not only what we have but who we are. Your most important gift to this church is you! Generosity can be the time you give or in the gifts and talents you bring.
If you have been blessed financially, this is an important way you can help the flourishing of the church. And part of the covenant we make with one another is to do what we can, what we feel led by God to do, in the financial part of our life together.
Raising money in church is like the barn raisings you may have seen where everyone in the community comes together, young and old, to build a neighbor’s barn. It’s a beautiful thing to watch. Some hauling water, others up on the roof. Some bringing lunch, some nailing or sawing. Everyone is involved.
In the Book of Acts, Luke described the way in which the early Christians understood their relationship with money: no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. That’s hard for us American Christians to hear, isn’t it.
In Paul’s work with the Corinthian church he was taking an offering for the poor in Jerusalem. He did this everywhere he went. As Paul writes to the church in Corinth about joining in the offering, he says to this church he knows well: “Some poorer churches than you in Macedonia have given to help the poor in Jerusalem. I hope you will too!” Then he closes with this appeal: You excel in so many gifts and graces of the Spirit – faith, speech, knowledge, eagerness to do good works – we want you to excel in the grace of giving too!
Paul explains to the Corinthian church why we practice generosity in what looks like an offertory hymn: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
This is no Prosperity Gospel preacher’s promotion. No. Paul is simply saying that God is the source and inspiration of all generosity. It all begins in the generosity of God.
To use an old church word, we’re talking about “stewardship.” One image of stewardship is “care-taking”, like a farmer’s care-taking of the land. Today we are talking about the care-taking of the church we have been given. It’s about all of us offering our strengths to the church, whatever our strengths are.
I see so many of you every week engaged in the generosity of your lives to help build this church and sustain its vital mission and witness in our community. If you haven’t been a part of that yet, I encourage you to join in. It’s how we thrive together as a congregation.
In terms of our financial stewardship, I would like to offer some biblical principles that I
believe can help us as the church thrive. Not commands, but principles. As Paul said as he took the offering in Corinth, “I do not say this as a command!”
The first principle is “Proportional Giving” – giving according to what you have. The biblical standard some of us grew up was the measure of the tithe, or 1/10th of our income. My guess is that many of Vineville’s first generation of members as well as many of you grew up with this standard of giving and sought to give a tithe to the church. This kind of giving has helped the church thrive even to this day.
I do not think a tithe should be a legalistic measure of our giving or a litmus test measure of our devotion to the church. But I like the principle of proportional giving, that is, giving some percentage of what you have received. If you presently do not give, you most likely could not immediately start with a tithe. You may want to start with 1% or 3 or 4%. Then, as you able, challenge yourself to grow one percent a year. You can measure your growth in generosity. It can even feel good to become a generous person.
A second biblical principle is the notion of “First fruits on the first day of the week.” First fruits began as an agrarian practice. People brought the first and best fruits of their garden or livestock to God, not the tail end. A worthy gift is what they wanted to offer. These gifts came first.
“On the first day of the week” was what the early Christian practiced in Sunday worship. They decided what they were giving to God first. They took up an offering every Sunday. Nowadays many people don’t even write checks! And many of us give monthly or quarterly, through our website or by bank draft.
What then can the Sunday morning Offering mean? And how can it mean more? I heard of a woman in a church that never gave when the offering plate passed on Sunday morning. But every Sunday she would say in a stage whisper to those near her: “I mailed mine in!”
What can we do to make the Offering more than just something we do every Sunday because we’ve always done it that way? What if we decided to put something in the offering plate every week? Our check for the church, or a 5-dollar bill, or some change? I know of one church that decided all loose offering would go to benevolence. Some worried that would take away from the budget offering, but it had the opposite effect. It made the offering more real.
Evelyn Underhill was a British mystic and scholar who wrote a classic on Worship. She wrote about every dimension of worship – symbols, words, liturgy, music – but concluded with these striking words: “Worship is summed up in sacrifice.” The Offering, she wrote, is the way we unite our small gifts and sacrifices to the eternal giving of God and Christ. It’s the way we share in the generosity of God. God poured God’s own life out for us in Christ. Now we become the “poured out church” for each other and for the world around us.
Throughout the history of Christian worship most often the Offering has come after the sermon, a practice that made the Offering the culmination of worship, an offering of our full selves to God. In many churches today as the offering comes back down the aisles, people stand and the Doxology is sung, ringing throughout the congregation – the response of the whole person and the whole congregation to God. Our offering can be made in a variety of ways.
There is one other principle that Paul laid out as he took the offering in Corinth. He uses an agrarian example: If one sows sparingly, one reaps sparingly. If one sows bountifully, one reaps bountifully. In other words: Don’t be stingy with the seeds; you’ll get a disappointing harvest.
However you give, keep in mind these words of Paul: Each of you must give as you have
made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Do you know the difference between the feeling of being drawn and being pushed? God wants you to give as you are being drawn to give, not pushed! The kingdom is not advanced by grouchy givers.
That word cheerful – it comes from the Greek word “hilaron” from which we get the word hilarious! God loves hilarious givers, like the way lovers give to the one they love, joyfully, extravagantly, wishing only they had more to give. Gospel giving is glad giving. God will use money from a grump, but God loves a cheerful giver. And your cheerful generous giving makes possible so much in and through this church.
Like any family, the church has its needs that cost money: a sacred home for worship, prayer,
Bible study, and fellowship, office expenses, new ministries, teaching materials, salaries for staff, basic utilities – all of which enable the church to fulfill its purpose.
The church is a community that supports and strengthens its members and reaches out in love to the world (especially the poor and most vulnerable). The church is a home of worship where people gather to praise and glorify God by offering their lives to God. The church is a ministry center – one that shapes and renews people’s lives as we love one another and love our neighbors as ourselves.
Your support enables the church to share the message of Christ and make God’s love a reality for everyone. Your support enables the church to care for people and minister to those in need in our community and throughout the world. Your support strengthens the church and can bring about significant change in families, in communities, and throughout the world, providing hunger relief and shelter for the homeless, promoting peace, justice, and concern for all of God’s creation.
The church needs you and me to be faithfully generous with our time, our money, our abilities, and our willingness to serve. Supporting the church is a way to put Christian values and your faith into action. As support for our church grows, so does it’s ability to serve. God uses your giving as essential to the success of the church’s ministries.
As Peter wrote in his first letter (1 Peter 4.10): Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. As God’s stewards, we are called to the wise use of God’s gifts: managing our personal finances wisely, using God’s gifts to serve others. By giving to the church, you put your resources back in God’s hands to be used as God’s prayerful people see fit.
It is essential for the health of any church that each of us give the gift of ourselves. We all have unique gifts and talents to offer. Through the church you can use your unique gifts and abilities to minister to people who are sick or homebound, help people deal with life changes, reach out to people of different backgrounds, work to repair social injustices, nourish others spiritually, enable our church to be a more caring community.
You can give through weekly offerings or for special ministry needs or with bequests in your will to the endowment enabling future ministry. Just remember, the question isn’t: How much should I give? The question is: Am I giving all I can?
Faithful generous giving symbolizes and helps express your commitment to Christ and His
Church. Faithful generous giving is also a sign of your gratitude to God for all the gifts you have received throughout your life. Faithful generous giving helps accomplish the church’s mission, allowing the church to plan for expenses, carry out ministries, and help those in need.
Faithful generous giving is a way of loving, helping, and growing. Through giving we show our love for God and humanity and we receive God’s love. Through giving we help those with spiritual and material needs. Faithful generous giving can help enrich our own lives. Through giving: We offer ourselves in service and devotion to God. We become stronger in faith, more aware of other’s needs. And we experience the joy of sharing with others in the name of Christ.
And every penny counts.
A friend of mine pastored a large church in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. They decided to build a magnificent new pipe organ to the glory of God. One that would be worthy of the gifts of someone like Ann Caldwell, whom we so gratefully get to hear each week. The goal was to raise between two and three million dollars to accomplish the dream. Near the end of the campaign,
my friend rose to announce the exciting totals to date: one million, nine hundred and sixty-one thousand, four hundred and twenty dollars and 17 cents! As he made his way to the pulpit, he said he debated whether to announce the full total or round it off. He decided to announce every penny! After the service, a young boy came up to him in the foyer and tugged on his sleeve and said, “That was my 17 cents!” He was so glad he didn’t round it off.
God does not round it off! Every person is important. Every gift counts. Every gift matters! Always.