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Like everyone else I enjoy getting gifts from friends and family. But I’ve realised over the past few years that I actually enjoy giving gifts even more. Partly that’s because I have so much, I often don’t need the things I’m given. We’re downsizing at the moment in preparation for moving house, so I need even less things. But it’s actually more than that. It's that I enjoy seeing the looks of pleasure on the other person's face when I get it right and give them something they really like.
Is that something you experience? Do you enjoy giving gifts as much as you enjoy receiving them? I wonder, does it depend on the occasion or the recipient? It’s always fun to give gifts to our grandchildren and see the look of delight on their faces. When someone receives some honour you might give them a gift as part of your joining in their joy. Or sometimes it’s the other way around. When our son, Paul, was finally awarded his PhD he gave the framed certificate to Di as a gift because he knew it’d brought her joy to know he’d finally got there.
In our two passages today we read of people who give with great joy, one group to the Temple in Jerusalem and to those who look after it and the other to fellow Christians who are in financial difficulty because of their faith, again, in Jerusalem.
In the passage from 2 Chronicles the situation is this. Solomon’s Temple that we heard about last week, where David launched his Mega Temple Building Appeal to allow it to be built, has now fallen into disrepair. The regular sacrifices have been forgotten, or overlooked, because of poor leadership from above, because of kings who ignored God and worshipped idols. In fact the whole nation has turned away from worship of the LORD, of Yahweh, to the worship of pagan gods, of Baal and Asherah. But now Hezekiah has become king and he's begun to reform the nation. He gets the Levites together and consecrates them as priests. They proceed to purify the temple and reconsecrate it to the LORD. they
Hezekiah sends messages to all of Judah and Israel, to Manasseh and Ephraim; that is to the far-flung outposts of the nation, inviting them to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
It’s interesting that the response to this invitation is overwhelming. People flock to Jerusalem. They're excited! It seems their worship of pagan Gods was really the result of the influence of the king, not their own inclination. They’ve just been waiting for a good king to come along and take them back to their origins.
This is often the way, isn’t it, even today? Leaders can wield great influence over their followers for either good or evil. That’s why it’s so important to choose the right person to lead your parish when a vacancy arises. (those who have ears...)
So Hezekiah calls them together to celebrate the Passover. This involves a seven day celebration of the festival of unleavened bread, which they carry out with great rejoicing. But did you notice? When the seven days are over they decide to celebrate for another seven days. That gives us an idea of the joy that was overflowing in the city that fortnight, doesn’t it?
Of course for that sort of festival with that many people, there was one drawback. It meant a huge amount of food was required. So where did it come from?
Well, the principle we saw last week with the gifts for the Temple applied here as well. Hezekiah, as king provides a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep and goats. The other leaders of the nations, simply described as the officials, provided another thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. So it was some party!
Then when it was finished they all went out into the countryside and began destroying the pagan sacred sites and the Asherah poles.
Then it was back to normal life – with one exception. Now that the Temple was restored, it needed to be provided for. The Levites who were busy looking after the worship in the Temple needed to eat. The animals for the sacrifices needed to be provided. So how was this to happen? There’s a parallel with our world here, isn’t there? If everyone's busy earning a living, who’s going to do the ministry of the Church? If there are few volunteers available then you need to free someone up to do it for you don’t you? Or in our case you need to free up several people by providing them with the wherewithal to live. So you need to raise money.
So, what do we read? “4He [Hezekiah] commanded the people who lived in Jerusalem to give the portion due to the priests and the Levites, so that they might devote themselves to the law of the LORD.” You can imagine the situation: it’s budget time in Jerusalem and the King institutes a big new tax of 10% of income. How would you expect the people to respond? If it were Australia there’d be a hue and cry about new taxes; about how hard life is already. You can imagine the headlines: “King goes back on his promise of no more tax increases.” Of course this wasn’t a new tax. It was actually an age old tax instituted by God in the first place. And so the people’s response was different to what we might expect: “5As soon as the word spread, the people of Israel gave in abundance the first fruits of grain, wine, oil, honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything. 6The people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of cattle and sheep, and the tithe of the dedicated things that had been consecrated to the LORD their God, and laid them in heaps.” They were so excited about what God was doing among them that they gladly gave the tithe that God had asked of them from the beginning. And it wasn’t just initial enthusiasm either.
You know how when some disaster strikes or some new appeal is given people quickly respond but then after a few days or a week or so, the enthusiasm wanes and they start to think about all the other uses they have for their money. This is one of the difficulties we face as a church with a large debt. The initial enthusiasm for paying off the debt will wane over time as this “new building” becomes just the building.
But do you see what happened in Jerusalem. The gifts kept coming in for 5 months. They started in the second month. By the third month they were accumulating gifts, trying to sort them into piles and it took until the seventh month before the gift giving finally came to an end. As a result the chief priest reports: 10“Since they began to bring the contributions into the house of the LORD, we have had enough to eat and have plenty to spare; for the LORD has blessed his people, so that we have this great supply left over.” I’m reminded of Jesus words about giving in Luke 6: “38give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” (Luke 6:38) As they began to bring their tithes to the temple God blessed them - so they could give even more!
The second example of joy-filled giving that we’re looking at today is that of the churches in Macedonia. When Paul was in Macedonia he met great opposition. He was thrown into gaol in Philippi, the Christians in Thessalonica were attacked because of his preaching of the gospel and when he got to Beroea he soon had to get out of town because the Jews came to stop him. In 1 Thessalonians he tells us how the Thessalonians suffered greatly from their opponents after their conversion , presumably both physically but also economically, by losing their jobs, or by having people stop buying their goods or using their services.
So when Paul sent out a request for help for the Christians in Jerusalem who were suffering in a similar way what would you expect the Macedonian Christians to say: “Charity begins at home. Can’t you ask some of the richer churches for help?” It would have been a reasonable response don’t you think? But look at what Paul tells us: “1We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; 2for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” I was talking to someone last week about how God doesn’t always give us what we want – a pleasant life full of happiness and prosperity. This person had a friend who’s angry at God because his life is so difficult at the moment. But did you see how Paul put it just there: “1We want you to know … about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia.” Hang on, “grace of God”? They’ve been suffering a severe ordeal of affliction and extreme poverty! How is that grace? It sounds more like punishment doesn’t it? So where does grace come in? Well I think what he’s saying is that the grace of God has been experienced (and expressed) as they’ve overlooked their own situation and focussed on the needs of others.
It’s like the general who visited a hospital during the Korean War. He came up to the first soldier who’d lost an eye and said “How’re you doing soldier?” The soldier replied “Oh, I’m OK. I’ve still got one eye to see out of; and I’m not as bad as the guy in the next bed.” He looked over at this guy and saw he’d lost an arm. So he went over to him and said “How’re you doing soldier?” The soldier replied: “It’s not too bad though my fingers keep tingling, then I remember they’re not there any more. But it could be worse. I could be like the guy in the next bed.” He looked over at the next bed and saw a soldier lying there with both his legs missing. He went over to him and said: “I’m sorry to see how bad your injuries are soldier. How are you feeling?” “It’s pretty bad” he replied, “but it could be worse.” “What do you mean?” asked the general. “Well, I could be like by best friend. He’s dead!”
There’s always someone who’s worse off than you are, isn’t there? But you know, this grace of God that they’ve experienced isn’t just that they’ve realised that the Christians in Jerusalem are worse off. It’s that they’ve been inspired to help them. He says “their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” You might have thought their extreme poverty would have been a hindrance, but he says it’s actually one of the factors in them showing a wealth of generosity.
Do you find that confronting?
I remember speaking to a couple, when I was treasurer in a previous church, about giving to support the church and they told me that they needed to pay off their mortgage before they could start giving much to Church. You see, it was actually their wealth that was stopping them from giving generously. This is a real challenge for us I think. Our world is so focussed on accumulating wealth and reducing debt, that we’ve actually become tight fisted when it comes to giving our money away. But here were Christians who were so filled with joy at what they’d experienced in Christ, so excited that they could imitate Christ by helping someone else, even when they had so little themselves, that the money overflowed. It’s not unlike those Israelites in Hezekiah’s time, or in David’s time, so filled with joy that they gave and gave until the gifts piled up.
I wonder if part of our problem is that we’ve forgotten how much God has done for us, how much Jesus gave up in order to bring us back to God. Have we lost the sense of joy in knowing we have an eternal future?
Notice too that when these people gave they got nothing out of it. I know that when I give a gift it’s often with mixed motives. Yes, I’m looking forward to the joy of giving, but there’s also deep in my dark centre the awareness that this gift is part of the social contract that we have, to give and receive from each other in various ways. I give a gift and you repay me in some way, even if it’s something as simple as liking me more. When I see that smile on my grandchild’s face, or get a big hug from them in thanks, I’m getting back just as much, if not more, than I gave. But the Philippians gift wasn’t like that. There was nothing they’d receive in return. They were giving out of agape love, that is, love that gives expecting nothing in return, the sort of love that God shows us.
Notice too, that the way they gave followed principle No 2 that John brought out last week: “We must be willing to offer our whole lives to the LORD today.” Look at v5: “they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us.” I think this is the key to experiencing the joy of giving. First give yourself to the Lord and understand that your giving is part of experiencing his life within you. Of course to say you’re giving yourself to the Lord is really a misnomer. You’re his in the first place aren’t you? But it does help us to understand that, if we reconsecrate our lives to the Lord from time to time, doesn’t it? And it also helps us to realise that when we give we’re simply redistributing God’s wealth, not your own. Why? Because all things come from God and of his own do we give; and because we’re in Christ what we do is done as part of his action in the world.
John mentioned last week that it would be good to hear what the leaders of the Parish give to God’s work. Well, I’m not going to tell you how much I give, but I will tell you that Di and I have always had a principle that we give at least 10% of our combined income to God’s work; mostly to our local church but also to support various missionary and other Christian causes; and since our kids have left home we’ve been able to increase that proportion. And this was something we worked out before thinking about the rest of our household budget. God’s share comes out first then we work out how much we have to live on. And I can tell you that we’ve never suffered as a result. We may have had to be careful not to waste our money at times; we didn’t have the sorts of holidays that our friends were having when we had children to look after, but we always had more than we needed. God has provided for us in all sorts of ways.
I did a quick anonymous poll of the vestry members and I can tell you that the 18 who responded give a total over the year of $102,000 to the General fund, $62,000 to the Building fund and are planning to give some $7000 to the gift day today. So they’re committed to God’s ministry in this place.
So let me encourage you to give yourselves to the Lord and to learn to be generous with his wealth that he’s put you in charge of looking after.
Let me finish by saying, if you’re someone who’s struggling financially I don’t want you to feel guilty that you can’t give what others can give. What Paul says is that we shld give according to our means. Elsewhere he says that you should give what God has put on your heart to give. I’ll never ask anyone to tell me how much they give. That’s entirely between you and God. And I’d hate to take away the joy of giving by making it something that comes out of guilt. No, let’s respond as we’re able to the grace of God with joy and gladness.
