Click to hear this sermon sermon071028

 It was a macho moment at a picnic. Some men were bragging about who was the strongest.

Great Giving - Exodus 36: 1-7; Luke 6: 37-38 - October 28, 2007 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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            It was a macho moment at a picnic. Some men were bragging about who was the strongest. Finally, one of them picked up an orange and said, "I'm going to squeeze the juice out of this orange. And I challenge anyone to squeeze one more drop out of it when I'm done." So he squeezed and squeezed, and the juice poured out on the ground. Then other strong men took turns trying to squeeze more out of the fruit, but no one could. Finally, a wiry older man said, "Let me try." Everyone kind of chuckled when they gave him the orange, and then looked in shock as the little man coaxed two or three more drops of juice out. "How did you do that!" they exclaimed. And he said, ''I'm the treasurer of my Methodist Church. I'm used to squeezing out the last drop every week."

            Ain't it the truth that often times in our church financial life, we feel like we are always squeezing? It's the end of October, and once again we are running way behind.

            So, given the fact that our finances are always tight, and often behind, what would you think if one day you got a phone call that went something like this: "Hi, I'm calling from the Finance Team of the church, and we have a problem. Our congregation is giving too much money. The offerings are so great, we don't know what to do with it all. We're calling around and asking some of our bigger givers not to give quite so much, if you don't mind, so we can catch up with spending all we have." I think on the last day before I retire, I’m going to make a phone call like that just for the fun of it. But until then you will not be getting that call from your church; we are too busy squeezing oranges.

            There was a time, however, when the offering had to be shut off. It was back in the days of Moses, and it was when the Hebrews were building the tabernacle. Moses gathered all the skilled people to work on the tabernacle, and collected freewill offerings from the others. Every day more came in, says Exodus 36, and eventually the artisans came to Moses and said, "You're giving us more money than we can use; we need to turn off the offerings." Exodus 36: 6-7 reads like this: "So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp: 'No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.' So the people were restrained from bringing; for what they had already brought was more than enough to do all the work." Wouldn't that be amazing? "Please, no more. We don't know how to spend it all!"

            That was great giving. And I ask, What was happening back then to call out such generosity? Let me point out four things I see in this story. First of all, they were great givers because they trusted in a great God. These were people who had seen amazing things. They had seen God raise up Moses to lead them; they had seen the Red Sea part so they could cross over to freedom; they had seen bread fall from heaven, and water spring from a rock; they had seen Moses come down from the mountaintop with the Law on stone tablets. They had discovered that a great God provides - we can't out-give God.

            The lesson could have gone the other way. They could have said to themselves, "Wow. That was a close one. We almost ran out of water. From now on, we'd better hoard it." Or, "We almost ran our of food. We'd better hide what we have." Instead, the  lesson they learned was, “Wow.  What an awesome God.  His grace is abundant, it’s overflowing.” And that discovery filled them with a desire to give back.

            As we kick off our stewardship drive today, this fact undergirds our giving - God has already out-given us. We live by His amazing grace. The world turns by grace; all around us are the gifts of God. Certainly that is true in this land of plenty and freedom. There isn't a person here who can't look over the sum total of his or her life and not see plenty to be thankful for. And even when it's not our best day, and we are facing steep challenges, and our world is rocked by events, we can still count blessings beyond anything we could give back. It's during those tough times that God is greatest of all. God is our shepherd and our provider. It is only right that we should want to give back.

            The second reason the Hebrews wanted to be great givers was because they were joined together in a great cause. They were building a tabernacle to worship God together. No one of them could have built it. But together they could. In Exodus 35, here is how their offering is described: “... they came, both men and women; all who were of a willing heart brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and pendants, all sorts of gold objects, everyone bringing an offering of gold to the Lord. And everyone who possessed blue or purple or crimson yam or fine linen or goats' hair or tanned rams' skins or fine leather, brought them. Everyone who could make an offering of silver or bronze ... anyone who possessed acacia wood ... brought it. All the skillful women spun with their hands ... the leaders brought onyx stones and gems ... spices and oil ..."  This list goes on and on. Everyone bringing what they had, including skills and time and labor. They were part of something great, and their offering overflowed.

            I believe that here in this church, we are part of something great. The past two Sundays, at some point in the 8: 45 service, those doors in back have opened, and our Senior High youth have come in to hear the sermon - 25 to 30 of them. I have never seen such a group - something great is happening. Wonderful Sunday School teachers, beautiful music, evangelistic outreach, care and healing ministries, missions to inner Syracuse and Sabine Pass and Africa, community presence - all vital parts of something great that is happening here at this church, and I've only touched the tip of the iceberg. No one person could ever accomplish something like this. But a family of people who have pledged to one another their prayers, presence, gifts, and service, believing in a great God, can witness amazing things as they bring their offerings forward.

            The third reason the children of Israel were great givers is that they were stirred by a great passion. We see it again and again in the story in Exodus 35 and 36. I count at least five times that the author uses a phrase like, "everyone whose heart was stirred." I think that is a great phrase to describe the heart of Christian giving. Someone who returned from Zaire told me that the thing that impressed them the most about worship there was the offering. He said the folks can't wait for it. They bring their offerings forward dancing and singing - it is the high point of their week. Many of them live in poverty; they have little to live on. But instead of that fact making them stingy and fearful, it makes them generous and appreciative. They relish everything they can give more than what they have to keep. They understand fully what was one of the central

teachings of Jesus, repeated again and again: that you only truly possess what you give away. Jesus called that treasure in heaven, kept secure for you. Treasure on earth will rot and decay. But what you give is secure. We read it this morning in Luke: “... give, 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 give back." Those folks in Zaire get it. Giving to the Lord is a great passion for them.

            There are many churches today that are sad places to be; they are struggling, and a big part of the struggle is financial. One way I think we could describe them is that instead of hearts stirred by a great passion, they have heads stifled by a great worry. When they think of church, they think of financial shortfalls rather than spiritual abundance. It's pretty hard - no, impossible - to get up much passion for financial shortfalls. But there is for a Savior who can stir our hearts. If I had one wish this stewardship season, it would be that the first step all of us would take after this service is not to go home and take out our calculators and study the numbers and decide how much we can spare for the church. Rather, my prayer would be that we would go home and take out our Bibles, and study the 23rd Psalm, and how our cup of grace runneth over; or Matthew 6, starting with verse 25, and how if we put God's kingdom first, our worries will be taken away; or the first eleven verse of Romans 5, and how when we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When those things truly take hold in your heart, we'll be stirred by the greatest passion we've ever known. And we won't have any trouble giving; we'll have trouble holding back.

            There is a fourth reason the Hebrew people were great givers: they were obeying a great command. This is a recurring theme in these chapters in Exodus as well - that the Hebrew people were giving "in accordance with all that the Lord (had) commanded." We're not supposed to preach heavy on that in today's church. In today's church we're supposed to focus on those other things - passion and thanksgiving and the joy of giving, and so on. People don't want to hear about obedience anymore. But it's not fair to the message of the Bible to ignore the fact that one of the main reasons we give is that God requires it. It's a matter of being obedient. We might fairly say that the reason God requires it is He knows we need to give in order to be happy. But that doesn't change the fact that giving is a matter of being obedient to what God expects of us.

            What's more, God has made the math easy. We receive abundantly from the hand of the Lord. 90% of what we receive is for us to use and to save for our own needs. 10% is for us to return to the Lord. This is the standard the Bible puts before us, and, as we heard earlier, it is the standard we will focus on during our stewardship drive.

            There is a story about a man who woke up after a major surgery, and the first place his eyes focused was on his pastor, who was sitting there in his hospital room. Highly drugged up, and responding to long years of habit, the first words the man said were, "Hi, Preacher. Put me down for the same as last year." There may be some people here who will make the same sleepy stewardship decision they've made year after year. But I pray it will be something more profound than that. I pray it will be about stepping up to be great givers -- trusting in a great God, joining friends in a great cause, stirred by a great passion for Christ who saves us, and obedient to a great command.