Grateful

“Sharing is caring,” my youngest daughter will say as she wants a bite of my dessert. She loves to use that phrase. It is the first day of Thanksgiving Week: the week of too much food, family gatherings (whether we love them or survive them), flashy parades, the Egg Bowl,and the week of watching everyone lose their mind over a sale.

Before we launch ourselves into the madness, I thought for a moment we could pause together and consider what it means to be generous. It is Thanksgiving after all, a holiday in which our tables are laden with generosity.

Today we read a portion of Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth. The church is fairly well off and Paul is trying to get them to take up a collection for famine relief in Judea. Before this letter there was another church in Macedonia who had already given a large contribution. Paul isn’t trying to make a point about wealth or who cut the biggest check. Paul is making a point about generosity, for even in the midst of their own ordeal and shortcomings, the Macedonians gave.

For Paul, generosity is a matter of the heart. As he says in chapter 8:8, I am not commanding you to give. Rather in 9:7 he says “each of you must give what you have decided in your heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” In other words, if you are giving with a grudge or out of guilt or for show, you might as well not be giving at all.

The late Timothy Keller in reflecting on this text said “when you give just to feel better about yourself, to get noticed, or to get something in return, you aren’t giving…you’re investing.”

Sometimes, we want to know how much do we have to give to something. How much is 10% of whatever? How much can I give to feel like I’ve contributed something? How much is enough? But when we give with a “how much is enough” mindset, it often isn’t rooted in joy.

When we give with joy, everything changes. Paul is emphatically making this point here with alliteration. If you were to read the original Greek, you would hear it with six words beginning with the letter ‘p’ in this one passage. Paul says God loves a cheerful giver. The Greek word for cheer here means happy, but more specifically without grudging. So one who gives without keeping a record so they can remind you later. One who gives with a deep sense of excitement and joy. Think about when you give out of joy. There is a difference. There is an anticipation.

I knew a lady in Iuka who loved to give to others. She loved to buy happies for people in town and leave them anonymously. She would call them “God winks.” I knew another gentleman whose entire backyard was a garden. His joy was going around town and leaving bags of fresh produce on your doorstep. I know others who quietly made sure that someone’s education was paid for, that a hospital bill was covered, or that food was in the fridge. I know another who used to randomly leave envelopes of cash around for the staff with a note that would say “blessed to be a blessing.”

When we give with joy, the math of how much changes because it is no longer about us. Instead, we remember that everything we have is a gift. In 8:15 it says “the one who had much did not have too much and the one who had little did not have too little.” Paul is talking about Exodus 16, the provision of God’s manna from heaven. Each day the Israelites were to go out and collect manna, but if they tried to collect more than they needed or stored it up for themselves over night, in the morning they would find that it had spoiled.

Generosity isn’t about giving everything so that we have nothing. Generosity is a desire to make sure that everyone has enough, or as Paul says “a balance between your present abundance and their need.”

This is why it says that God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance. Paul is saying to the church in Corinth that God has provided you with abundance not for yourselves but so that you out of your enoughness, you may share. Then Paul says “he scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” The Message translates this as “He throws caution to the winds, giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.”

Paul here is quoting Psalm 112:9. Those who give generously it says their righteousness will endure forever.

What kind of righteousness are we talking about here and what does it have to do with generosity? Keller talks about how righteousness in the Old Testament isn’t individualistic, but is about right relationships with God and with others. The righteousness of the kingdom of God is the hope of all things one day being set right, of everyone having enough. So when we give sow generously, when we give generously, we are sharing in the vision of the generosity of the kingdom of God. Of everyone having enough, of not being hungry, of having a place a the table, of drinking clean water, of receiving an education, of having enough room to spare.

Generosity isn’t a one-and-done, but a lifetime of making yourself and your resources available to God. A generous heart is one that wants to share in the kingdom of God and joyfully gathers and gives its manna believing that bit by bit, piece by piece, together, there is enough.

This is the principle of Common Change, a not-for-profit organization based in the UK. They believe in placing human well-being at the center of economics and that when groups gather and pool their resources into a common fund, together needs are able to be met. Common Change groups began to form and then they started hosting what they call Generosity Dinners. At these generosity dinners, members of the community are invited to bring a dish to share, and money to donate to the group need. After the meal, stories are shared about various needs and the group then votes on which stories have the most need. These needs are then gifted funds that were raised at the dinner.

Through these dinners, Common Change seeks to “reimagine the relationship between ourselves, our resources and the relationships that we cultivate with those in our communities.”

I wonder what would happen if some of the tables we sit around start to become generosity tables, places of meeting where the balance of abundance and need begin to be bridged. Places where our joy overflows onto others. Places where the abundance of the kingdom of God begins to be glimpsed. Little by little by little.

Rev. Fred Craddock said, "We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1000 bill and laying it on the table--'Here's my life, Lord.  I'm giving it all.' But the reality for most of us is that God sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1000 for quarters.  We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there.  Listen to the neighbor's troubles instead of saying 'Get lost.'  Go to a committee meeting.  Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home.” Care for an elderly parent. Take someone food who is grieving. Invite those who don’t have a place to go to eat supper with you. Fred says “ Usually giving our life to Christ isn't glorious.  It's done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time.” One piece of manna at a time. One invitation at a time.One act of generosity at a time. Together, it all adds up to joy and the glory of God. May we find that together, there is enough.