Ninth Sunday after Trinity – evening
Sunday 18th August 2019
Trinity 9 – Proper 15 – evening
Isa. 28.9-22
2 Cor. 8. 1-9
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Nothing is likely to get the average congregation shifting uneasily in their pews than to bring up the subject of money! And probably nothing is likely to make clergy feel uncomfortable too – than to have to preach on the subject!
Which is a bit odd when you come to think of it!
Considering, that is, the centrality of the language of giving and receiving in the Christian vocabulary. Money seems to exist on the wrong side of the divide that we have invented between the sacred and the secular. Probably not one person here thinks of themselves as rich… we could always do with a bit more! (unless anyone has secretly won the Lottery this weekend?)
But of course to many people, living in the developing world, we would seem unimaginably wealthy. With our bulging wardrobes, our full fridges and cupboards, our lack of true hunger.
And there is no pressure for us to ‘cash out’ our Christian faith in terms that really cost. It is sometimes said that the wallet is the last item to be converted. And let’s face it, historically, the church has not been seen in a good light on this one. Too keen to gather wealth and power to itself – rather than redistribute it to those in need.
Which is one reason why the PCC and I work to determine a good ratio of how much we should seek to give away of our own funds as a church, in spite of the demands on our budget to heat and light the church – to contribute to the Diocese for the cost of my stipend – because, yes, I am afraid that to have a Vicar – albeit a half-time one, is still an expensive commodity. I leave it to others to determine whether you think you get a reasonable return for your investment in me!
St Paul found it just as hard to beg – even in the church at Corinth that he had founded, but circumstances dictated that he must, and his treatment of the subject stretches to three whole chapters. – And you probably have heard it said that Jesus talks far more about money than about personal and sexual morality!
So back to Paul. He begins by offering an example – in his case the church in Macedonia. They suffered both poverty and affliction, but rather than turning inwards to conserve their resources for themselves, they wasted no time in arranging to make payments for the relief of other Christians – notably those in Jerusalem – and they were very keen to be generous. As a poor church, they were contrasted with the community in Corinth, who needed Paul’s letters to convince them to part with their money. The disparity between the generosity of the poor and the tightness of the rich, is still replicated today from the evidence collected. It is usually the poorer churches, struggling in poor areas, who are the most willing to give generously. That is to say that proportionally, they give a much higher percentage of their income.
As Paul puts it when speaking of the Macedonians, theirs has been a ministry of “grace, blessing, priestly service, relief work, participation and fellowship.” The issue is not merely about the transfer of assets, it is that the gift of money has served to extol and exemplify the generosity of God. God who did not withhold even his own Son.
The Macedonians, says Paul, have transposed the giving of relief into an opportunity for self-giving and for an outpouring of joy and blessing.
Paul’s ministry took him to places of widely varying prosperity. Christianity was in some quarters derided as the religion of the poor and outcast – and women of course, but right from the beginning, there were wealthy individuals who provided for the needs of Jesus and his followers from their own pockets. Some of them were effectively business people – think of the fishermen brothers James and John who left their father in the boat with the hired men. Think of Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s Steward, who was among those women providing for the disciples. Think of Lydia, the dealer in purple dye or Nicodemus, prominent among the members of the Council and wealthy enough to have secured a new tomb for his own use. And Paul reminds his audience – and us – that our lives and needs have to be seen against the generosity and life of Jesus himself. “For you know…. that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” The life of the Son of God could be depicted in terms of the wealth he forsook in becoming human. And that life was cruelly terminated in the poverty of crucifixion – an execution reserved for the dregs of society.
If that is the costliness of God’s self-giving, how can it not determine and inspire our giving and the generosity by which we live?
I have heard it said that in some of the non-conformist churches, the offertory is given a far more prominent role that in the average Anglican congregation. They would never take the collection while singing a hymn for example, for it should be an activity that you do not do while trying to concentrate on something else! And notable preachers would call for “a silent collection” – meaning that they did not want to hear the sound of coins being dropped onto the plate or into the bag! Folding money only! Now of course, that sort of thing has to be done with sensitivity – for even within a relatively prosperous community there will be those for whom a coin or two would be a really sacrificial sum. But for many the sort of amount they would place on the plate would have remained at the same level for years – sometimes since their own childhoods, with seldom a thought for increasing it!
I never want to know how much is being given by individuals – and I know that we have some remarkably generous folk in Pattingham and Patshull , so all I will say in conclusion is to remind us all that the money we give to God should be what is right….. and not merely what is left.
Amen.