Weekly Sermon
|
For archived past sermons, click here....
THE MYSTERY OF IRRATIONAL EXTRAVAGANCE
2 Corinthians 8:1-9
November 19, 2006
Dedication SundayIntroduction to the scripture:
The following portion of Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth is part of a major fund-raising campaign on behalf of the mother church in Jerusalem. A great famine had hit the region, and Christians there were starving to death. So Paul sent word to all the other churches under his care – asking that a special collection be taken to help feed their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. His church-wide appeal is not unlike Bishop Keaton’s letter to the church in Michigan after Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast last year.
Read 2 Corinthians 8:1-9
Prayer
Eternal God, pour out your Spirit upon us, that we might be sensitive to your presence, attentive to your Word, and faithful always to your way. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray. Amen.
Sermon
A one-dollar bill met up with his buddy, the twenty-dollar bill and said, “Hey, where have you been? I haven’t seen you around much lately.” The twenty spot answered, “Oh, I’m having a great time! I’ve been hanging out at the casinos, played a few rounds of golf, been to a couple Tiger’s games, I’ve seen a bunch of movies – you know, that kind of stuff. How about you?”
The one dollar bill sighed and said, “Oh, you know – the same old thing. . . church, church, church.”
It’s funny – and not so funny. You see, our giving habits indicate our love for God. . . our gratitude to God. And if our giving habits are not growing, what does that say about our relationship with God? So how much should we give? How do we make a decision about what to give back to God, to support God’s work through the church?
I know one couple who is prayerfully wrestling with those questions. They called to say, “Reverend Arnesen, we’ve got a problem and we need your help.” The wife explained, “Several weeks ago, I started praying for God to show me an amount that God wants our family to give next year. I was feeling so grateful for all the ways that God has blessed us – and I wanted our pledge to reflect our commitment to do God’s will. I wasn’t aware of it, but my husband was doing the same thing – both of us were asking God to show us what He wanted us to pledge to support the church next year.”
The husband continued, “Well, a couple nights ago, I told her I had been praying and I believed God had revealed an amount to me. That’s when she told me that she had been praying about the same thing and – and she was sure God had revealed an amount to her. We each wrote down our figure, passed it over to the other, and it was the exact same amount!”
I said, “Wow! What a miracle! So…what’s the problem?” The young woman said (with some panic in her voice), “There’s NO WAY we can give THAT much! It’s crazy – downright impossible!”
Now the husband piped in and said, “Here’s the problem: we’re pretty sure that if we both prayed and God has told us a specific amount, then it must be God’s will for us to give that amount. But given our present circumstances, we know it will be impossible for us to give that much! Now Pastor, last week you taught us that God is ready to give us whatever we need to fulfill God’s purposes. So we just need to ask you this: do you REALLY believe it, or were you just talking a good line?”
This couple is trying to be faithful to God; their motivations are pure, and they have earnestly sought God’s will. But they are having a crisis of faith: God gave them a number that they didn’t understand and knew they couldn’t provide. Where will the money come from? Can they really trust God to give them what they need if they step out – step WAY OUT on a limb – and give beyond their means? Clearly, God is calling them to be irrationally extravagant.
What happens when our passion for God exceeds the practicalities of life? What happens when our faith motives exceed our financial means? We’ve got the earnestness, we’ve got the excitement, we’ve got the incentive, but common sense tells us we don’t have the bucks. So, where do we draw the line between faith and wisdom? When it comes to irrational extravagance – “Christian, do you really believe it, or are you just talking a good line?”
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul offers up a beautiful example of irrational extravagance: “We want you to know about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia…for their extreme poverty has overflowed in a wealth of generosity…for they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means. . . they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us. . . ”
Now, in order to more fully understand the mystery of irrational extravagance, I want to put Paul’s letter into context. Corinth was a large, metropolitan city that had once been sacked by the Romans, then rebuilt and repopulated with immigrant entrepreneurs, military veterans and freed slaves. Located along key trading routes, this city was prosperous, highly competitive and peopled by what we would consider, the “nouveau riche.”
In contrast was Macedonia, a state on the southwestern tip of Greece, which was still under Roman occupation, and populated mostly by slaves. Their assets had been seized – the gold and silver mines, the copper and smelting industry all plundered by Rome, leaving the people with no resources to make a living. They were desperately poor.
Paul is reminding the Corinthians that when the Macedonians responded so generously to the relief effort, they weren’t giving away surplus funds – they were giving out of rock-bottom poverty! Literally, he says, “They have turned their debts into riches.” This means that for the Macedonians, faith meant giving everything to God – including their debts. In their deep poverty, they overflowed in the wealth of their generosity. The Corinthians were economically advantaged; the Macedonians were irrationally extravagant.
Friends, while some of us have much and some of us have little – ALL of us live in the wealthiest nation on earth – which makes us much like the Christians in Corinth. God has blessed us with an abundance of riches and resources – financial and otherwise – and God expects us to share with others in need.
So, how should we go about deciding how much we will share, how much we will invest in God’s work through the church? This morning, I want to suggest that there are two ways to decide: there’s giving by reason and there’s giving by revelation.
If we give by reason, we will look at our current bank balance, project our earning potential and anticipate our living expenses – then decide what we can afford to give away. We’ll give to God what’s left over after all the bills are paid, after our habits and entertainments are supported, after our desires are fulfilled. But friends, that kind of giving doesn’t require any faith! In fact, even an atheist can give by reason. You don’t have to trust God at all for that kind of giving.
The other way to give is to give by revelation. That’s what the Macedonians did. They must have prayed, “God, how can I share in your ministry to the world? How much do you want me to give? I’m going to give as you tell me, and trust you to supply the resources.” That’s giving by revelation. And as we learned last week, when we step out in faith and obedience, offering God what we have, God has promised to provide in abundance, all that we need to accomplish His work in the world.
Rev. Charles Anderson tells the story of a young girl who wanted to participate in her church’s support of the Heifer Project. So she baked cookies and sold them outside the local Kroger store. Her mother promised to match her sales dollar for dollar. After several hours, the little girl had two cookies left, and had made $13.12. Then a stranger came up, bought the last two cookies and gave her a $100 bill. She made $226.24 on her cookies.
But that’s not the end of the story. Two days later, another mother called the church to say, “My two daughters heard your story about the little girl and the cookies. So today they took their best books to school, set up a book fair in the teachers’ lounge, and sold their things for Heifer project.” They earned fifty dollars, which their parents matched, dollar for dollar.
Anderson writes, “If I had told my people that reaching our Heifer Project goal would require two little girls to give $100.00 and another to give $226.24, you would have said, “Charles, that’s irrational – and you would be right.”
Dear people, God has a surprising, spiritual, supernatural bounty that He wants to send out to the world through you and me. God is able to provide all that is needed not only for our needs, but so that we have enough to share, as well. And when we trust God to provide for us, we free ourselves to give by revelation, not by reason. We are free to become irrationally extravagant.
Jesus affirms such extravagance: you remember Mark’s story. He was at a meal one night, when a woman came in with an alabaster jar of rare perfume. She broke the flask and poured that priceless potion on his head. The disciples were offended by such irrational extravagance. They said, “Why this waste? This could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor!” And they’re right, they were being reasonable. But Jesus said, “You will always have the poor, but she has done a beautiful thing – a good service for me.”
What did Jesus mean? Simply this: serving others is always appropriate and there will always be needs around us. But, like the Christians of Macedonia, the woman gave herself first to the Lord. Symbolically, she poured out her life for Jesus, in an extravagant act of worship and love. And Jesus called it a beautiful thing.
In truth, Jesus is reminding us that rationality and economic efficiency aren’t the most important things in life – LOVE is. Love is. Think about it: is there anyone more irrationally extravagant than people who are in love? They go out of their way to serve the one they love; they make personal sacrifices to be with their love; they give gifts they can’t afford to please and delight their love – and it’s a beautiful thing. Nothing brings more hope and joy to our impoverished world, than love.
When our giving is an expression of love, we are putting a higher priority on matters of the heart, matters of faith. And Jesus says that when our giving is motivated by love, it is “a beautiful thing.”
This morning, you are invited to respond to God’s love by making your commitment to support God’s ministry through Metropolitan Church in 2007. In a few moments, I’m going to ask you to bring your response card and place them on the kneeling rail, before the altar of God. Symbolically, you’ll be laying down your love for Christ.
So, how will you make your decision? By reason or revelation? Will you choose economic advantage or irrational extravagance? Maybe you need to give yourself first to the Lord, and then to His ministry through the church. Maybe you need to honestly pray for God’s guidance as you consider your pledge. Ask, “God, how do you want me to support your work next year?”
If you’ve already looked at next year’s budget and decided what you can afford, perhaps you need to rethink your reasoned gift in favor of a faith gift. Do something extravagant for God, and trust that God will supply the means for your giving. Friends, as we consider our commitment to God, let us pray, “God, what would you have me give, if I knew I could not fail?”
Or, even better,
“God, what would you have me give, if I knew YOU would not fail?”
**** For the concept of “Irrational Extravagance,” I am indebted to David Sutherland & Kirk Nowery’s book, “The 33 Laws of Stewardship.” I am also grateful to Rev. Charles Anderson for his treatment of this stewardship principal. ****
Rev. Tonya Arnesen
| Site Map | Contact Us |
8000 Woodward Ave.
Detroit, MI 48202-2528
voice: 313.875.7407 / fax: 313.875.9067
Copyright 2001-2008 Metropolitan United Methodist Church
Problems with the site? Please e-mail the site
administrator.