Generosity Creates Community

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God has been changing our minds about generosity.  For the last month at Eastside, God’s Word has been shifting us from, “I should give because I have a budgetary obligation as a church member” to “I love to give because I know what God says about giving.”  Has God done that to you yet?  Before, some of us thought, “God sometimes blesses us.”  But then God said, “Every good and perfect gift comes from above.”  Every good gift!  Forgiveness, friends, salvation, sandwiches, health, heaven.  It’s all from a generous God.  Before, some of us feared, “I can’t give because what if ______ happens?”  But then God promised, “Be content with what you have.  I will never leave you.  I will never forsake you.  So don’t be afraid.”  Like a trust fall, we can give and believe God will keep his promise to catch us.  Before, some of us reasoned, “If I give, I’ll have less to enjoy.”  But then God turned our logic upside down and said, “No!  Givers get more.  Generous people prosper.”  Like farmers, we will get when we give—spiritually, relationally, emotionally, perhaps even financially.  Lesson by lesson, God has replaced our reasons for not giving with his reasons to give.  Passage by passage, our “Why should I give more?” has shifted to “Why wouldn’t I give more?”  And today, as we wrap up this series, God wants us to think about the connection between generosity and community.

Are you living in community?  Not “in a community”, but “in community”?  This question might help—Who will come to your funeral?  Besides the ones who have to come, who would show up?  How many of your neighbors would pay their respects?  How many of your classmates would come?  Who from work would show?  The funeral question might be a touch depressing, but it reminds us of an important truth—proximity doesn’t create community.  Just because she sits in the desk closest to you doesn’t mean she’s close to you.  Just because we work at the Community Bank together doesn’t mean we are a community together.  WiFi might constantly connect us, but that doesn’t mean we’re connected.  You can live in a packed apartment building, wait in a traffic jam, and sit in a jam-packed church and still feel alone.  Few people might ever know the real you, the one who snorts when she laughs or can finish a tub of moose tracks during a single episode of Law & Order.  Even in our communication-saturated lives, community can become an endangered species.  So where do you find it?  How do you create it?

God’s Word has an answer.  Today a 1^st century missionary named Paul is writing about a collection to help the poor in Jerusalem.  Listen and see if you can figure out his key to creating community.  2 Corinthians 9—“This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.  Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for your obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else.  And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you.   Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”

Did you catch the connection?  The Christians at Corinth and the Christians at Jerusalem lived 827 miles apart.  They had never met each other.  Yet, the believers in Jerusalem would thank God for the Corinthians and praise God for the Corinthians and pray to God for the Corinthians and their very hearts would go out to the Corinthians  They would talk about the Corinthians at dinner.  Their children would fold their little hands and ask God to bless the Corinthians.  How would that happen?  How do distant strangers without email, without Skype, without cell phones, without airplanes, without cars create that kind of community?  Read again.  Verse 12—“This service you perform…is overflowing in many expressions of thanks.”  Verse 13—“Men will praise God…for your generosity in sharing with them.”  Verse 14—“Their hearts will go out to because of the surpassing grace God has given you,” that’s the grace of giving.  The Corinthians were loved, prayed for, and praised because they…gave.  Their generosity created community. 

Maybe that shouldn’t surprise us as Christians.  Because doesn’t this community exist because of generosity?  Why do we gather together to worship God?  Because God is generous!  “God so loved the world, he gave his only Son,” Jesus.  Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins.  That’s God’s greatest gift.  And those who believe in that gift gather.  Jesus said to sinful people, “Come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.”  When we’re worn out trying to be good enough for God, Jesus invites us to find true rest in how good he was for us.  And those who accept the invitation assemble.  We get up on Sunday, we share a pew, we join a small group Bible study because God is a giver!  Every time we gather, God reminds us—his generosity creates our community. 

Have you ever made Rice Krispies before?  You don’t need to work for Nasa, do you?  Dump a box of cereal into a bowl, melt some marshmallows, and –wham!—sugar highs for the whole family!  Can you imagine trying to make Rice Krispies without the marshmallow?  Take a thousand little krispies and smash them all together.  Stick them in the same bowl, stir them around, shake them up.  But it won’t work, will it?  You need something else to make them stick.

Generosity is God’s marshmallow.  It’s his ingredient to stick us together.  Just think of your dad. Are you or were you close to your father?  Many of you know simply having a father doesn’t stick you together.  I would bet those of you who said, “No” had dads who weren’t generous.  They didn’t give you much of themselves.  They didn’t take you out for breakfast on special dates.  They didn’t show up for the little things that meant a lot to you.  They took from you by taking off.  They weren’t willing to give up their time for you.  And I would bet my Bible those of you who said, “Yes, I am close to him” have generous dads.  They said, “I love you” and then they showed that love by giving their time, their money, themselves.  Even in a family, generosity creates community.

Haven’t we seen that truth before?  Can you think of examples in the Bible where giving people created a close community?  What about the Christians from our first reading?  “They ate together with glad and sincere hearts” and “enjoyed the favor of all the people.”  How did it happen?  How do people who were strangers in Acts 1 become “best friends forever” in Acts 2?  The answer’s right there:  “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together.”  They gave money and time and guess what happened?  Community! 

The stories are so clear…and so convicting.  I love my friends.  I love cracking jokes and reminiscing about college.  But despite all those laughs, this fact hit me like a fastball, “No one asks me to stand up in their wedding.”  Why is that?  Because I rarely give.  I don’t give my time to go see them.  My long-distance friendships are distant because I won’t go the distance to strengthen them.  It’s the symptom of a deeper disease—I have a selfish heart, one that has little to give to others.  A heart that does not always beat in unison with God’s.  I need to repent (and many of you with me) not of what I’ve done to my friends, but what I’ve failed to do for them.  I’ve failed to create a community because I’ve failed to give.  In love, the Bible urges us, “Repent and be baptized…for the forgiveness of your sins.  And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  Thank God for that gift!  Through our baptisms, the Holy Spirit washed away our selfishness and restored our community with God.  He gave us faith to believe selfish people don’t have to be excluded, but are included into God’s family through trust in Christ.  That same Spirit changes our minds about giving and changes the way we live.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, we can become community creators.  People who not only pray, but also are prayed for.  People who don’t just thank God, but also are thanked for being like God in their giving.  People like Bill and Kathi Sergenian.  I’ll never forget sitting at Bill and Kathi’s at a party they threw for Tyler and Jenny, two friends who were leaving for Milwaukee.  “Tyler,” I asked, “what are you going to miss most about Madison?”  He didn’t even need to think about his answer.  “Coming to Bill and Kathi’s.”  One couple, two people, have created a community for about 20 young people at our church.  Their giving, hospitality, and planning has brought us together and left such an impression that when one of us leaves, we don’t even need to think about what we’ll miss most. 

How can you create that?  Could you budget $100 a month for random acts of generosity?  Could you get past the “we should get together sometime” and actually organize the night out, the weekend away, the reunion?  Could you support the mission 800 miles away with your offerings?  How can you reflect the heart of our giving God and create community like he has created with you?

There once was a captain who explored the uncharted islands of the Pacific.  Each time he and his crew drop anchor and go ashore, they see the same sad sights:  Poverty.  Conflict.  Need.  But one island is different.  The children and their fields are healthy.  The captain asks the chief of the island, “What is different here?”  He replies quickly, “Father Benjamin.  He taught us…to build schools, dig wells, start clinics.”  The captain asks, “Can you take me to see him?”  The chief nods and guides him to the island’s medical clinic.  The beds are clean.  The nurses smile.  The patients are in pain, but well cared for.  Looking around, the captain repeats his request, “Can I see Father Benjamin?”  The chief looks at the tribesmen at his side, confused, then motions to the captain.  “We must go to the other side of the island.”  On the way, the chief scans the shoreline, watching the islanders harvest fish in complex canals and ponds.  The chief stops, smiling at the system Father Benjamin created.  The captain interrupts, “I’m sorry, but I don’t see him.  Please take me to where he lives.”  The chief cocks his head as he considers the request.  “Okay, then, up the mountain.”  The captain tries to keep up as the natives twist and turn up the steep path.  What little breath he has left is taken away as they reach the top.  A small chapel perches on the peak of the hill.  A wooden cross is planted behind the hand-crafted altar.  A worn Bible sits nearby.  The chief whispers, “He taught us about God.”  The captain whispers back, “Is this where he lives?”  The tribesmen nod and smile.  “May I talk to him?”  Their faces suddenly change.  “No, that would be impossible.”  “Why?”  “Because he died.”  The confused captain stares at the confused men.  “I asked to see him and you showed me a clinic, a farm, and this church.  You said nothing of his death.”  “You didn’t ask about his death,” the chief explains.  “You asked to see where he lives.”

One day we will die.  We will join the community in heaven.  God willing, we will leave behind a community here on earth, a group of people who will gather at our funeral because they were stuck to us.  Stuck because we gave like God has given.

 “Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.”  That’s how the Apostle Paul ends the longest section on financial giving in the Bible.  Not an obligation.  Not a burden.  A “gift”.  He realized what God promised to generous people:  joy, peace, contentment, refreshment, prosperity, community.  I hope you think about giving the same way.  Amen!