Scripture ~ Philippians 4:1-9
Sermon ~ Giving Unites Us
Giving can divide us. One of the most divisive issues in the American political scene is the concern over campaign financing. The public has become more cynical with each encroaching political year. We no longer laugh at the Will Rogers aphorism, “We have the best government money can buy.” Exaggerated humor has become reality. A poorly financed candidate for high office has little chance of winning in an environment of television soundbytes and packaged candidates. Issues are obfuscated and intelligent debate is eliminated in such a mindless political atmosphere. The superwealthy enter the political arena and many high profile politicians become the possession of special interest peddlers. Giving, with all those purse strings attached, divides us.
The church has always struggled to maintain integrity regarding its sources of income. Giving should always unite the household of faith. Giving which unites is always the natural response of a grateful people who have received abundantly from the grace of God.
No one was more cautious about the reception of gifts than the apostle Paul. When he wrote to the congregation in Corinth, he addressed a splintered and fragmented people. The Corinthian church was divided by rival leaders. Some followed the authority of the silvertongued orator Apollos. Others insisted upon receiving instructions from the letters from Cephas, the apostle of Jesus residing in Jerusalem. Paul knew that he would lose all credibility in such an environment if he were perceived to be a charlatan. So, he pursued the trade of tent making and supported his own ministry while in Corinth. He refused to be employed by a patron. He boasted that he was not like one of the pagan priests who worked in the Corinthian temple of Apollo or Octavia, sharing in the sacrifices brought to the altar. Paul brazenly asserted, “. . . in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.”1/ In short, Paul avoided any IOU’s. He was beholden to no faction in the Corinthian church. He was free to proclaim the truth of Christ and to denounce popular theological views that he knew to be contrary to the message of Jesus.
Bribes were common in the era of Paul. So, the apostle brilliantly achieved a relationship of integrity with each of his burgeoning congregations. He was always above board in monetary dealings with the church, especially when he appealed for famine relief on behalf of the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. He knew that there were four levels of financial support that were available to him as an itinerate preacher. He accepted the first: acts of simple hospitality. Apparently a man named Gaius was Paul’s host in Rome when he came there under house arrest.2/ This man probably supplied Paul with bed and board. Paul likewise accepted the second form of financial support: the offering of a travel fund for an itinerate missionary. Paul concluded his initial epistle to Corinth suggesting that he may spend the winter there “so that you may send me on my way, wherever I go.”3/ Apparently Paul provided his own salary while he lived an extended period in a village or city. He pursued the common vocation of making tents for merchants. But, upon departure, he solicited the church’s contributions toward his travels into new evangelical territory.
Paul readily accepted a third form of contribution: money to finance the establishment of a church in another region. This plan required the congregation to send money to Paul to use until the new church could become selfsufficient. Paul thanked the people of Philippi for sending, one of their members, Epaphroditus, with just such a gift. But Paul always refused to engage in the fourth form of missionary relationship: patronage. In the patronage system, a congregation supplied the full salary of the missionary. Paul refused this sort of arrangement because he did not want to remain beholden to any patron. He wanted the relationship to express parity. He especially viewed his financial contract with the Philippians to be reciprocal. After all, he had preached to them free of charge. He deeply appreciated the money they had recently sent to him by way of Epaphroditus; but Paul regarded these funds to be compensation for his significant labors when he lived in the city. He wrote that their gift was “a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God.”4/
The letter of Philippians actually concludes with Paul acknowledging his reception of a generous gift from this congregation. In a real sense, therefore, this New Testament letter is actually a legal receipt -- a document of proof that verifies a financial transaction. The letter is written in lofty theological language, as one would expect of Paul. But it is a classic example of a financial receipt. The purpose of the money, in the view of the apostle Paul, was not merely to pay the bills for his sailing elsewhere. The central reason for the giving was to foster unity in the life of the congregation. The Philippian Christians, according to the argument of Paul, needed to give. The money was an outward and visible sign of an inward grace. It solidified the people. It also represented their oneness with Paul.
The apostle went so far as to say that he could get along very well without the money. He was not dependent upon their generosity. “Not that I am referring to being in need,” he began. “For I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being wellfed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.”5/
Paul does not gush with the sentimentality of a college alumnae fundraiser. This was not a perfunctory “thank you” note. He did not grovel in praise of the people’s generosity. He reminds his benefactors that his real support is from God, saying, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”6/ Paraphrased he was saying, “I don’t require your money; but thanks anyway.” Almost nonchalantly he concludes, “In any case, it was kind of you to share my distress.”7/
This week we are launching our fall financial campaign with the distribution of the stewardship devotional booklets. Our theme is “Giving Unites Us.” On this day I,therefore, commend the spirit of Paul as we begin our efforts. Paul considered it important to send this letter of receipt to the Philippian people and to thank them for their generosity. But the apostle did so for one central reason: to bring solidarity to the congregation. The act of giving to his mission united them in praise and thanksgiving.
Show me a church where people are experiencing joyous and positive relationships and you have shown me a generous church. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone,”8/ Paul told his Philippian friends.
I was assigned to a stagnated church, riveted by many years of division. Much energy had been wasted with internal dissention over petty issues. Just down the road, however, there was a thriving United Methodist congregation. Same neighborhood. Same demographics. Different results. Why?
One of the members from the thriving congregation gave me this insight. He confessed that the two churches had shared a similar past. Both had been in decline. This was, after all, a shrinking rural community. Young adults continued to move to the city for work and compensation. But a few years ago several members decided to participate in a conferencesponsored building team in an impoverished region of the Caribbean. The various factions within the congregation worked together to support this mission. The first team returned with exciting stories about making a difference in the lives of Methodist peasants. This rural North Carolina congregation decided to send artisans and builders every year. The excitement spread throughout the community. Enthusiasm became contagious. Membership grew. No one could remember what had divided the church in previous years of stagnation. They were so mobilized by the joy of serving Christ that they had no time for dissention.
Parker Palmer is a consultant whose theories of education have influenced a generation of teachers. In his book entitled, The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity and Caring, Palmer suggests that there are two primary attitudes that define the way we live: the assumption of scarcity or the assumption of abundance. Parker Palmer primarily illustrates with the story of Jesus feeding the multitude. He observes that the disciples began with the assumption of scarcity. After all, Galileans were poor. The twelve apostles hardly had enough food for their own lunch. They could not afford ordering box lunches for a multitude of hungry peasants. But Jesus assumed abundance. He instructed the disciples to demonstrate generosity. They were told to divide and share what they had received from a little boy. As they began distributing the bits of bread and fish, others shared from their meager resources. In a short time, there was more food than needed to satisfy all the hungers!
Do we live in a world of scarcity or abundance? Parker Palmer proposes that “a primary task for every healer is to help people understand that love is not distributed on the curve but is abundant in the very nature of things.”9/
Many people relate to their family with an assumption of scarcity. They assume that, if they overtly demonstrate their love to one child, they will deplete their reservoir of affection. So they rarely articulate or demonstrate affection, as if love can be stored away and saved for times of emergency.
Love is that one commodity which, when given away, increases in proportion to the gift. The more we share our love, the more we have left over, like the baskets of bread collected after Jesus fed the multitude. The apostle Paul proceeded with the assumption of abundance when he wrote, “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”10/
This is precisely the attitude that I commend to Providence Church as we face the future together. We now have completed well over nine million dollars worth of construction. We have an indebtedness of nearly seven million. Now we can relate to this reality from the attitude of scarcity and fear. This will inevitably lead to divisiveness and rancor in the household of Providence.
But I am confident that we shall respond to this financial challenge from the perspective of abundance. God has blessed us with the infinite resources of his love. Our lives have taken on meaning because we are plugged into that which is eternal, through the ministry of this church. Life is something more for us than the thirty days between a paycheck. Our existence is more than the mere hyphen that will some day punctuate dates on our tombstone. Our lives are in pilgrimage with God. We are making that meaningful pilgrimage together in community with those whom we love. Giving to God’s kingdom unites us with one another because we are united with the eternal Christ!
A little girl who was just old enough to attend worship with an ear of understanding was mystified by the altar’s cross. She whispered to her father, “Daddy, what’s that plus sign doing up there?” Yes, God has erected in history a paradoxical plus sign in the form of a cross. This cross points us toward the fact that this is a world abundantly supplied with God’s love.
During the 1930’s, at a time of apparent scarcity, a panel of speakers assembled in Chicago’s impoverished southside black ghetto. One of the speakers was the atheist Clarence Darrow. He berated his audience and summed up their woes by cynically citing that they kept on singing those ridiculous spirituals. “No one can sing like you do!” he shouted. “What do you have to sing about?” he protested. Immediately a lady in the congregation retorted, “We got Jesus to sing about!” And with her response there came a crescendo of Amens. For once the great trial lawyer Clarence Darrow was speechless.11/
Why does the act of giving unite us? Merely because, through giving, we discover together that life is supplied with the infinite abundance of God’s love.
It was the voice of youth that spoke such a profound truth through the pen of William Shakespeare as he gave utterance to fair Juliet:
“My bounty is boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.”12/
Footnotes:
1. I Corinthians 9:18 NRSV
2. Romans 16:23 The Greek reference here is xenos mou my host or one who extends hospitality.
3. I Corinthians 16: 6 NRSV
4. Philippians 4: 18 b NRSV
5. Philippians 4: 1112 NRSV
6. Philippians 4:13 NRSV
7. Philippians 4:14 NRSV
8. Philippians 4:4 NRSV
9. Parker Palmer, The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity and Caring (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1990), p. 126.
10. Philippians 4:6 NRSV
11. Maxie D. Dunnam, The Communicator’s Commentary: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, with Lloyd J. Ogilvie, General Editor (Waco, Texas: Word Books, Publisher, 1982), pp. 320321.
12. William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, from Complete Works New York: P. F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1925), p. 1075.