TURNING MAKING A LIVING INTO CREATING A LIFE

Dr. Richard J. Henderson August 30, 2009

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Psalm 107:1-9
James 1: 17-27

Introduction

When would you say you were at your very best? When did you feel better about yourself than you ever have? When were you the best person you could be?

I'm going to guess it was a time when you did something noble, something generous, or self-giving: maybe when you were able to forgive someone when that was a very difficult thing to do. Or perhaps you helped someone in serious need. Maybe nobody even knew you did it, but you knew.

I think we are at our best when we are most generous. Our greatest days are not when we are getting something, but when we are able to give something.

I

I think that's true because often in our most generous moments we feel most in touch with God. To be generous is to be in harmony with God. Don't we sense that when we are giving?

What we do with what we have is related to our relationship with God, of course, and our ability to be generous grows out of the generosity of God towards us. When we know and appreciate what God has done for us, when we really sense at the deepest levels how much God loves us and sacrifices for us, a natural response to that is to offer the same generous care to other people.

The great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick, once observed that the people who feel they are getting far less than they deserve in life, rarely live great lives. The people who feel they have gotten just about what they deserve - that they've broken even - do not live great lives. But the people who sense that they have received far more than they deserve are the people who live great lives.

I am grateful that in Sunday school as children every week we said, "Every good gift is from above, coming down from the Father." We said it just before they passed the woven baskets and we put in our small, white, Sunday school envelopes. We were just children then, but that has stayed with me. Gee, it's been more than 30 years!

I find it interesting that this routine, which I never gave a second thought to as a child, is now important to my understanding of generosity and God. I was fortunate that I was imprinted as a child with something that I can only fully understand as an adult.

That same appreciation is expressed in our worship each week. We sing "Praise God from whom all blessings flow..." as the offering is brought forward. Maybe we don't think about the words every week, but we are reminding ourselves again and again that God is the source of our blessings, and the reason for our giving.

II

The offering is such an important part of our worship. Some people crassly think of it as gathering money to keep the building and the organization going. There is some of that, of course. But I think of where this money comes from - some of you have been sent across the country on business, sat through interminably long meetings, and have had to be away from your families, or you have spent your days in a cubicle doing paperwork or in a hot plant doing strenuous work, or you tried your best to be patient with children who are over-excited or not the least interested. The point is you have worked hard to earn the money you have. And yet each week you take a portion of what you've been paid and you put it in the offering. You give your hard earned money for the causes of God: to provide help for the hungry, homeless, and unemployed; to teach children about the God who loves them; to offer ministry to youth groups or seniors; and to provide a place to worship together. The offering is part of turning "making a living" into "creating a life."

Think about this offering (and it is an offering, not "a collection" - we aren't collecting anything, we are offering from what we have). In this offering we give thanks for the gifts we have received and at the very same time we give our gifts for others. That says a lot, every week, about who we are.

Over the past few months our children have been raising money through their Sunday school offering to buy a pig for Heifer Project. Each week we measured how close they were getting to having the total amount needed. This is an important project because it is helping our kids learn and helping them experience a rewarding life. They are learning early the joy and rewards of helping other people. Paul writes that the Lord "loves a cheerful giver." You can see the joy on their faces.

III

The giving of Christians is counter-cultural. It goes against the grain of a society based on getting as much as you can for yourself. So much of success is measured by how much a person can get. We worry about keeping up with the neighbors, or getting ahead of the neighbors. Remember that car advertisement where one neighbor tries to shut the garage door quickly before the man next door sees that his car isn't as nice?

If you watch television commercials for one evening you hear, "get more, have more, buy more, even if don't have the money for it." So we have a society deeply in debt.

In the midst of this culture Christian people give money away every Sunday. It is a worship routine. And it flies in the face of a culture that tells us "the more you have, the more you are." We don't buy it. Jesus' words are closer to "to give is to live."

Some people think salvation is all about what we think about doctrine and the feeling we have in our hearts about Jesus. James, who wrote the words of our scripture today, isn't one of those people. For James salvation is what you say and what you do. Our beliefs are important, and our relationship with God is important, of course, but the proof of what we say is in how we act.

Remember after 9-11 how people poured out to help the victims and their families? People waited in long lines to donate blood until the Red Cross finally said, we have more than we need and we don't have the staff to handle all these donations. People brought food and clothing; they donated money like we hadn't seen in years.

Every news channel covered this great outpouring of generosity. It was on television and in all the papers every night for weeks. Everyone covered it.

In response to this enormous tragedy, people wanted to give. When their world was shattered, they responded with great generosity. I wonder if it is because when the other things, which we had invested with so much meaning, fell apart, we realized that a true sense of meaning comes from giving, from generosity.

I thought during that time of great generosity, "This is like a typical week at church." Every week, year after year, we bring our money to church for other people. We operate a food bank year round, we help people who are in serious need ;our children raise money to buy a pig for people they will never meet in one of the far corners of the world; we house an AA group for people trying hard to put their lives back together with God's help; we take mission trips to third world countries and within our own country to offer our help; we go to the downtown soup kitchen; we help build houses with Habitat for Humanity, and the list goes on.

No one ever stops by with a news camera to tell about any of it. You never see the giving of any congregation on the nightly news. But what happened after 9-11 happens every week in church's across the country. Literally billions of dollars are given to help people in need. We don't need the press coverage because we are giving back and, in the process, receiving what the apostle Paul called, "Life that is life indeed."

Conclusion

Deep within us we all know the importance of giving. Have you ever watched a child come out of Sunday school class with a crude, hand-made project in her arms? You know what I mean, a paper plate with gobs of glue holding cut up chunks of construction paper, and surrounded by crayon lines in different colors. The child holds her project and she knows it's a masterpiece. She comes running out of Sunday school beaming with a smile from ear to ear. She runs to her mother, holding it up for her to see and says, "Look Mommy, what I made for you!"

Even little children, who receive so much, know how rewarding it is to give. Even little children want to give, and it makes them smile!

Amen

© Richard J. Henderson 2009