The Practice of Generosity

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Introduction

We are doing part 2 of a series we began last summer on the Sermon on the Mount called The Jesus Manifesto. A manifesto is a public declaration of belief, policy, and motives. A manifesto outlines what a person or group believes and the kinds of things they will practice. In this respect, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ manifesto. It provides the definitive guide for what he meant when he said, “Come, follow me.”

In part 2 of the series we are looking at the kinds of kingdom practices that will help form us to be mature and thriving disciples of Jesus. One of the things we’re trying to stress is that Spiritual practices are not a means to get you into heaven but to get heaven into you. To make us more like Christ in our thoughts, words, and actions.

This morning’s passage can be summed in one phrase: the problem of greed. Everything that Jesus talks about flows out of what came before in his exposure of the motivation of the hypocrites. And when it comes to money, they are no different. Believe it or not, but in the time of Jesus, if you wanted to live a cushy life, you entered religious service. You get the highest respect of the people, you get all the best seats in public settings, and you get a fat wad of cash to provide for a life of ease and plenty. Just like it is for pastors today!

Jesus is not critiquing the reasonable and responsible practice of saving for a rainy day. Scripture advocates setting money aside for lean times. It is responsible to plan for your retirement. What Jesus critiques is the unfettered accumulation of more and more. The question he asks is, “When is enough, enough?” and greed answers, “It’s never enough!”

Greed has some eternal consequences that Jesus wants his followers to avoid. The problem of greed is that it leaves your heavenly bank account empty. It leaves you with a tainted legacy. It leaves your loyalties divided. None of this spells out the thriving life Jesus desires for his disciples. Instead of greed, Jesus invites our participation in a gospel that frees us from the tyranny of greed so that we might discover the joy of generosity. He calls us, then, to practice the habit of giving away.

Greed then and now

Most of Jesus’ audience wasn’t wealthy. They had the daily concern of how they would feed, clothe, and shelter their family. In their day, any prolonged illness could spell financial ruin. Yet Jesus warns them to avoid the hypocrites tendency toward greed. Don’t you think that’s a weird topic to bring up with mostly poor people?

The truth is that greed has nothing to do with how much money you have. I’ve known people who were very well off by our standards, yet were some of the most generous people I’ve ever known. I’ve known people were didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and they were filled with all manner of greed and stinginess. And the opposite of they examples is true as well. The point is that greed is not a money issue; it’s a heart issue. It’s about how our human heart views and relates to money, and how we view and trust God’s provision.

Jesus, therefore, gives three related warnings about the problem of greed.

First, Greed produces misplaced affections. How to keep one’s treasures safe was a constant concern. Thieves could easily dig through the walls of homes to get inside. Burying it only exposed it to eventual rust or being eaten. So there was constant worry over how to keep what you accumulated safe. But Jesus says the even the bigger problem was what this greedy accumulation did to one’s affections. The heart was considered the seat of human will and emotion. Jesus warned that an over-focus on the accumulation of earthly treasure - the consuming desire for more - only caused a deficit in heavenly treasure. A life of greed could only lead to an afterlife of poverty. And in the end, how one relates to money simply reveals what they really love.

Second, Greed results in a tainted legacy. It can appear to us that Jesus does a violent 180 to a new subject, with his talk of healthy and unhealthy eyes. But that’s not the case. The eye was seen in that time as a lamp that revealed what was in a person’s heart. If the eye was healthy, it meant they had a good heart. If they eye was unhealthy, they had an evil heart. But there’s actually a second meaning. The healthy and unhealthy eye was also an idiom to describe whether a person was generous or stingy. The person with a healthy eye was someone who was generous with what they had. The one with an unhealthy eye withheld their surplus and blessing from others. The point is that if the focus of your eye is toward greedy accumulation, you increasingly walk in self-deceived darkness. The end result is a tainted legacy. Instead of being someone known for their generosity, you become just one more in the long line Ebenezer Scrooge.

Finally, Greed leads to divided loyalties. An unchecked posture toward money ends up creating another golden calf. It becomes a false idol. People may think they can focus their attention equally on God and money, but Jesus says one will ultimately overshadow the other. You cannot give your life in service to the unhealthy accumulation of money and simultaneously maintain your focus on serving God. In the end, you can only love one master, you can only have one God. Whichever one you choose, it will pay eternal dividends.

Fortunately, we never fall into the trap of greed nowadays, right? Things really haven’t changed that much in the last 2,000 years. We may be even a little worse about greed. We can more easily store our earthly treasures in banks and 401Ks where it can’t as easily be robbed or ruined. With the level to which we are marketed to, it is just as easy today to convince ourselves we don’t yet have enough to be generous with others. We still delude ourselves into thinking we are the master of our money and not the other way around.

Generosity then and now

What Jesus offered his listeners, and what he offers you today, is a way out of the rat-race of greedy accumulation, and out of the pressure and worry that comes from wondering whether or not you have enough. He offers freedom from a miserly spirit that ignores the suffering of those around you. And freedom from the siren call of wealth, tempting you to forsake God for the sake of money.

Jesus invites his disciples to discover the joy of generosity. Believers always need to hear the fresh proclamation of the good news that Jesus has brought in his life, death, and resurrection. That we don’t have to live under the tyranny of greed. That we can enjoy the joy and freedom of living life with an open hand - open to receive God’s blessings, open to give those blessings away.

So the question is, how do we do this? How do we send our treasure ahead of us so that our heavenly bank account is full? I’m reminded of the story of a rich young man who approached Jesus wanting to know what he was missing in order to receive eternal life. Jesus simply said to keep the commandments. The man was so blind to his own greed and slavery to money that he ignorantly said that he did. Jesus response? “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21, NRSV)

Here is how we get our treasure to heaven. It is living out a practice of being mindful to the needs of others. To say ‘no’ to our tendency toward selfish accumulation so that we might say ‘yes’ to the divine moments where we can be the conduit for God’s kingdom to break into someone’s life. This kind of generosity isn’t just about giving at church. Yes, you ought to give to your church to help support its mission. But this kind of generosity is also concerned with the other six days a week.

Like anything else in our spiritual lives, the practice of generosity is formed by habit. Habit-making doesn’t always feel good at first. Who ever enjoyed the first few days or weeks of trying to get back into shape. When it comes to the habit of generosity, our selfish flesh craves its own gratification. But by intentionally opening our hand toward others, we find that God has an open hand toward us.

I read the story of another young man who came to his father, who happened to be a pastor, and said, “Dad, if I had a million dollars, what kind of car would you want me to buy you?” The father replied, “I’d rather you buy land for the church.” The son smiled and said, “No, come on. What would it be? A Jaguar?” (because he knew his dad liked them). The dad said, “No, son, honestly, if you really think you need to buy me something, get me a new mini-van.” This time the son didn’t smile, because he knew his dad was serious. “Dad,” he said in frustration, “what car?” The father gave in and said, “OK, son, you can buy me a Bentley. Shaquille O’Neal had a nice one made for him. You can get me the same model.”

But the dad sense behind all these questions the deeper issue of greed, so he said to his son, “Do you know what Bible passage I’m preaching on this week?” The son said, “No, what?” The dad replied, “You cannot serve God and money.” Without missing a beat the son replied, “Yeah, but you can serve God with money!”

The boy got the point. We can’t serve God and money. But we can serve God with money. Jesus didn’t teach, “Buy your father a Bentley.” But he did teach, “Think about others first when you think about your money. Think about how you can give away what you get.” This won’t lead to immense riches in this life, but it does lead to joy, and it will make us rich toward God. The song Be Thou My Vision gets this right:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,

Thou mine inheritance, now and always:

Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,

High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

Practicing generosity deposits our treasure in heaven, and ensures that we enter into the joy of our true master. God becomes our becomes our highest treasure. In practicing generosity we declare the gospel to ourselves: money is not faithful, money is not God. Only God is faithful, and only God will be our God. Amen.

Communion

Communion celebrates the generosity of God in sending his Son so that he might reconcile the world through him. This meal signifies our friendship with God, and his love and acceptance of us. We have a foretaste of the eternal feast we will enjoy in the kingdom of God. At the table we are reminded that we can’t be more generous than God, we can’t out-give God. Rather, we have become the recipients of the treasure of God as we feast on the true bread from heaven by faith.

And so we are bold to pray...

The Lords Prayer

Words of Institution