Sermon: Generous to Others and God

Luke 12:13-21
Generous to Others and God
James Sledge                                                                                      July 31, 2022

The parable of the rich fool, 1585
print by Ambrosius Francken
Royal Library of Belgium

I’ve likely mentioned this in some past sermon, but many years ago, I saw a bumper sticker on a car that read, “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” I’m assuming that whoever created this bumper sticker meant it in a humorous way, but I also assume that the people who would buy such a bumper sticker were the sort who liked their grown-up toys.

The list of grown-up toys is practically endless. Sporting equipment would seem to qualify as toys of sorts. There are people who spends lots of money on tennis rackets, golf clubs, bicycles, running gear (my favorite), snow skis, and so on. There are actual toys such as video games, skateboards, and remote-control drones. And then there are the really expensive toys such as sports cars, boats, motorcycles, ATVs, and the like.

I’ve owned my share of toys over the years. I used to fly fish and water ski a lot. I have a closet full of running shoes. And I’ve had six different motorcycles over the years. These toys have brought enjoyment, thrills, fun, adventure, a sense of accomplishment, and more to my life, but are they the major component of what makes for a full and meaningful life?

To say, “The one who dies with the most toys wins,” even in jest, implies that what gives life fullness and meaning is accumulating things. To a degree, that is the message our consumer culture sends out. Acquiring more will make you happy, content, secure. To which Jesus replies, “… one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

So what does life consist of? If it isn’t an abundance of possessions that is central to life, what is? Another way to ask the question is what does is it mean to be truly alive and fully human?

In our scripture reading, Jesus points out two things that get in the way of creating a good life, of being fully human. The first is all manner of greed and the second is not being rich toward God. However, negatives are not always the best guides so how about we turn Jesus’ statements into positives. Be generous and be rich toward God. But what exactly do these mean?

I googled the word generous and the first definition that popped up was, “showing a readiness to give more of something, such as money or time, than is strictly necessary or expected.” Truly generous people are a joy to be around, in large part because their actions don’t seem calculated. They don’t engage in a cost/benefit analysis before giving.

A lot of fundraising techniques do use a cost/benefit analysis. The regular fund drives on public television come to mind. Very often you hear, “If you enjoy the quality programs you get from PBS, then make a donation today.” Such techniques must work, or they wouldn’t be used in fundraising, but they don’t ask people to be generous. They ask people to pay for what they’re getting. Don’t be a mooch, is the message.

Cost/benefit analyses keep the focus on the self. Am I getting something I enjoy? Okay, I guess I’ll pay for it. But generosity doesn’t work that way. Generosity goes out from itself. It sees a need and wants to help. It sees the other and wants to bring them joy or happiness. It has something and wants to share it.

No doubt many of you have heard me quote my favorite theology professor who said that the entire Christian enterprise is about “true communion with God in true community with others.” Both communion and community require a going out from oneself, and generous people, even those who are not religious, tend to be very good at the community part. True community seldom exists without generous people, people who give of themselves for the sake of others. Every church has generous people who love to take meals to people, who love to visit people and give them rides to the doctor, who make sure there is enough money for the youth to go on a mission trip, who ensure that the work of the church gets done. Generous people are typically the glue that holds community together.

Generosity is not necessarily the product of having a lot, of being well off. In fact, some studies have shown that people of limited means tend to be more generous. Generosity is more of an attitude. It’s about being less turned in on oneself and more oriented toward others. And that does not require vast resources. We have Welcome Table guests who bring food items to put in our Little Free Pantry. They do not have a lot but they are generous with what they have. And if you trust Jesus, they also are more fully and truly human that some others are.

Along with being generous, Jesus also talks about being rich toward God. This is connected to the other half of true communion with God in true community with others. It is about a generosity directed toward God. But how exactly is one to be generous to God? It’s not like God needs anything. What exactly are we to do in order to be rich toward God?

It is true that God technically doesn’t need anything. It’s not like God could run low on cash and need us to bail her out. But God does seem to need, or at least want very much, to have relationship with us. And for Christians, the way that works is through Jesus, God in the flesh.

Jesus calls us to be disciples, those who follow in the way he shows us and continue his work in the world. To be rich toward God is to be generous in giving ourselves to this work of discipleship. That means everything from generously sharing our financial resources with organizations doing this work to generously sharing our time working in the ministries of the church or other groups doing God’s work in the world. 

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Earlier this year, Will Packard, an elder on the Session as well as our treasurer, made a suggestion to the Session. Will pointed out that we had run a surplus of a little over $30,000 in 2021, thanks to your continued faithful giving during a pandemic, and to our not being fully staffed. Typically such surpluses are put into a holding fund to use in the years when the budget runs a deficit, and over the years this fund has accumulated close to $150,000.

In a time when church budgets are under a lot of strain, and with an old building that regularly needs expensive repairs, it makes sense to have a rainy-day fund. But Will suggested that we that we take half of the surplus and do something different with it. We would ask each ministry team to take a portion of the surplus and engage in ministries that they would not have been able to do with their existing budget. The Session unanimously supported this idea.

You’ve heard about the Back to School Bash which is one activity that is being funded out of what we are calling the Abundance Fund. And I think the use of this fund is a great example of life that is generous to both God and neighbor. We could have kept the money for ourselves, and there are real needs that money could have helped fund. But Will’s spirit of generosity asked us to use the abundance we had received to be generous with what we have and rich toward God.

We live in a culture that constantly tells us we should used the abundance we have to acquire more and more things for ourselves, to buy lots of toys, better cars, bigger houses. But Jesus invites us to discover a fuller and more abundant life by making generous use of whatever abundance we have in caring for others and doing the work of God in the world.

I think that our own generosity toward others and God may well be one of the most significant facets of Christian spirituality as well as one of the most accurate measures of our spiritual health. And Jesus promises that we will be more truly alive, more fully human, when our lives are oriented away from self and more toward true communion with God in true community with others.