“How to Be the Church: Being Generous”
October 1, 2023
Dear brothers and sisters, grace and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.
I’d like to begin by thanking all of you for your wonderful generosity in making our booth at the Pretzel Festival a success this last weekend. Thanks to all of your giving, we had plenty of water to give out to everyone, especially to give them as much as they wanted. We also had just enough in monetary donations to buy the right amount of ice from the Boy Scouts for the weekend. We gave away free Bibles and Portals of Prayer, and let the kids of all ages make free bead bracelets and necklaces. We let people know about our Fall Dinner and DAMAC concert coming up in November. Also, we raffled off two quilts, and we sold even more cookbooks than we did last year. Also, we invited people to submit prayers, and, once I’m able to receive some guidance as to the best way to make those requests known which are meant to be made known, we will invite you to share in lifting up those prayers to God, and be generous in your giving your time for praying for those who need God’s special help. Most of all, for those of you who helped staff the booth at various times over the weekend, we thank you for your giving generously of your time to help us reach out to the festivalgoers with God’s love in this special way. And, we look forward to doing it again next year, and we invite any of you who have any additional ideas for what we can do or give out for the booth to let us know, since, by the grace of God, everything we did worked out well.
The success of our Pretzel Festival Booth, as well as our Ice Cream Social this last summer, and everything already coming together quite well for our Fall Dinner and DAMAC concert next month, shows that we are moving up for sure. After having weathered the storms we have for the past few years, with the pandemic and resulting struggles, by the grace of God we are now in a greater position to rebound and grow than ever before. We are slowly learning to adapt to the changing realities of our community and our day and age, and have been able, over time, to regain the health and hope we once had. Nothing has been automatic, and nothing has come quickly or easily. It has been a process which has been entirely directed by God Himself.
So, where we are is actually a time of upcoming renewal. Renewal is God both bringing us back to the great position of potential we were at before, with renewed hope and optimism; and Him putting us in a new direction with a new attitude, new approach, new way of thinking, and new way of being. More importantly, this renewal God is giving us is spiritual. It is God re-centering and refocusing us on Him by having put us in a position where we trust and rely on Him to provide for us and guide us, which He has faithfully and greatly done, and will continue to do so. It is also us having a renewed trust in God, and focusing once again on what is important for our spiritual life together: prayer for God’s direction, studying His Word to gain insight into where He is having us go, and listening to His voice to be able to figure out how to speak to our world today.
For the next month, in order to be able to take advantage of the trajectory in which we’re headed, and prepare for the future of growth God has in store for us, we’re going to be having a special series based on the Bible readings called “How to be the Church.” Despite the way it sounds, these are not necessarily meant to be magic formulas for automatic success. Instead, they are how we can reflect who God is in order to be who He is to other people, and be both effective and relevant in our future.
One thing to keep in mind as we journey through these next few weeks is that everything we will learn is meant not to be limited only to us being together as our church family, but how we live our individual lives as members of God’s family out in our homes, communities, schools, jobs, wherever we may be apart from this church family and building. We don’t just go to church on Sunday – we are the church the rest of the week.
Today, we learn about what it means to be generous. Now, when we think of being generous, we usually think only of giving away money or other material goods, and usually with some sort of condition attached: in other words, the more generous we are, the more we will get in return. But that is not what God means by generosity. As we hear God say through the Prophet Isaiah this morning, “My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God created the world out of His generosity: He had things He wanted to give and share, so He created all things, especially us humans, to share them with. He was so overflowing with love and goodness that He wanted to give it to everyone, and so He continues to do so. Even though we may not realize it, or even take it for granted, God still shows us His goodness in many ways. He is even generous to those who may not appreciate what He does, but He still gives because that is His nature. God’s generosity, which we are to reflect and practice, is unconditional, and expects nothing in return. Instead, the results of our generosity are entirely up to God, what He chooses to do as a result of what we do. For example, even though we may not get droves of people coming to our church as a result of us passing out water at the Pretzel Festival, but, for all we know, we still probably were able to touch people’s lives, and have God bring about a major change in them. Generosity is not only a virtue, but an attitude, and a lifestyle. It is not just from trying to be good, but the result of a transformation of character brought about by the Holy Spirit. In other words, it becomes automatic, without our realizing what we are doing, but our instinct becomes to give. Generosity is also not selective, but, as we see in the parable Jesus tells, is given to everyone equally, without any regard for who may deserve it more than others. After all, this is what Jesus Himself did in His greatest act: He died on the cross not for only a few, but for all people, even unbelievers, or those who believe themselves to be holy and righteous by their own acts and lifestyle. He then rose again to give the promise of eternal life to everyone equally, achieved not by following rules or meeting standards, but only through what He did, given as a free gift. Generosity is also not meant to be done with any specific goal in mind: this may seem surprising, since much of the time we give for a specific cause expecting certain things to be done. Instead, it gives for its own sake, to be the mechanism through which God works. We always have to be thinking outwards: even though what we do may not benefit us, and involve quite a bit of sacrifice on our part, we still have to be thinking as God does, and think about how our giving will benefit someone else entirely. It is also thinking about what we really need versus what we want, in order to be able to have the resources to be able to provide for others, and be able to live only on what we need. Generosity is indeed always concerned about giving the best to another person, and is to become not just what we do but who we are.
Today we also celebrate one of the greatest expressions of God’s generosity and equal demonstration of His generosity towards everyone: Communion. Today, the first Sunday in October, is traditionally celebrated as World Communion Sunday. Although World Communion Sunday isn’t really celebrated in our own tradition, many of the other church families in Farmersville and in our area are going to be celebrating it. Communion is also a demonstration of the unity and togetherness we share as Christians. Even though we are receiving Communion in separate buildings today, we still are demonstrating our unity and belief in God’s giving. In Communion, we each receive the same amount of bread and wine or juice as the same amount of body and blood of Christ; remember the same sacrifice made by Jesus by the breaking of His body and shedding of His blood; and are given the same Holy Spirit to strengthen our faith and trust in Jesus. We show that we believe in the same God, accept Jesus Christ as the one same Savior, and are empowered to live godly lives of generosity by the same Holy Spirit. It also shows our desire to be generous in our support and encouragement of each other. Whenever we go to each other’s special events and meals, as with St. John’s Ice Cream Social and Slifers’ Car Show last month, and the UCC’s Chicken Noodle Supper coming up in a couple of weeks, we are not only helping out other churches financially, but we are also showing that we support our brothers and sisters as fellow Christians and we share in one common mission: being generous to our community in the opportunities God gives us to be.
The best way we can express our own generosity is best summed up in the words of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church: “Do all the good you can, by the all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.” In this way, we all will be able to be the church, and be the giving God to everyone.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
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