Difference between revisions of "Sermon for September 28th, 2014"

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Romans 12:1-8

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Spiritual Gifts, Spiritual Ministries: Generosity

Before I begin today's sermon, I want to pause and recognize a small milestone in our relationship with one another: Today's sermon is the 100th sermon that I've had the honor and privilege to preach to you. 100 Sermons is not a whole lot in the life-span of a minister (my hope is to preach at least 1,000 sermons to you before I'm done!). It's even less in the lifespan of a church as long lived as ours (Assuming there has been one sermon each week since we started, that's at least 6,864).

Still, for a new pastor, 100 seems like a lot. I preached my first sermon here four years ago in 2010, as part of my internship while I was still in seminary. That sermon was on Amos chapter 7, and was titled "I am no prophet." My favorite sermon so far was in November of 2012, called "David's Sacrifice: Counting the Cost." The sermon that received the most positive feedback from you was in March of 2014, called "Job's Wife: Bless God and Die." I'm proud of many of those sermons, and I'm sure just as many were complete duds, although you have been gracious enough not to point those out to me! All told, I've preached 190,431 words, which is slightly higher than the word count in John Steinbeck's novel, Grapes of Wrath (and hopefully slightly more uplifting!).

I say all of this not to brag, but rather to say thank you. Thank you for listening; thank you for encouraging me; thank you for adding your own voices, music, and responses; most of all thank you for allowing me to proclaim God's word to you every week, for letting me tell and retell the story I love, to the people I love, in the city that I love. 100 down...900 more to go!

According to the bulletin, today's sermon is on generosity. That's because I really thought I was preaching on the spiritual gift of generosity mentioned in Romans 12:8. So you can imagine my surprise when I begin to study the scripture passage and suddenly realize that the word "generosity" doesn't appear anywhere in this passage!

Yes, I realize that the NRSV translation we've been using has the word generosity, as do the NIV and a few other modern translations. But none of the older translations (King James, Wycliffe, Geneva) use the word, and in this case, they seem to be the more accurate translations. The key word in question here is the Greek word ἁπλότητι (haplotati). Strong's dictionary of Biblical Greek defines the word as "simplicity, sincerity, or purity." Literally, "not folded" like a piece of unfolded cloth that has no wrinkles, no complexity. Hold onto that thought, we'll come back to it later.

But first, why is it that the newer translations get it wrong? Usually it's the other way around--newer translations have access to better resources and scholarship. But, in our era of mass-marketing the bible in Christian bookstores, they often make sacrifices in the name of "readability," or trying to make the text "flow" better. I think this is one of those places. The three gifts that immediately precede this one have that kind of flowing repetition, starting in verse 7: "ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in...well whatever word goes here should be somehow related to giving, so "generosity." It makes sense.

But not all the gifts in our lists follow that pattern. Notably, the first gift, "prophecy" (which is proclaiming the good news) is connected to faith. Next week's gift--leadership--is connected to diligence (although there are some translation issues there, too), and the final gift, compassion, is connected to cheerfulness. I think this week's gift--giving--is more like these last two: The gift is connected to a seemingly unrelated attribute, and part of the challenge is figuring out the connection between the two.

Unless you're joining us for the first time today, by now you've already caught on to the fact that all of the spiritual gifts are available for all of us; they are not special abilities or superpowers possessed by a few. Nor are they something God gives to us--instead they are something we give to God, and to God's people through the ministries of the church. In fact, the spiritual gifts ARE the sprititual ministries of the church. Giving, as a spiritual ministry, is not something you do to the church, but something that we, as the church do to and for each other. We give.

But I do have one story about giving "to" the church. There was a new pastor, who, after going through the church's giving records noticed that a certain wealthy businessman in his congregation had been a member for over 30 years, but had never once made a financial contribution to the church. So the pastor went to visit him, and after they were done with small talk, the pastor made exactly this point. To which the wealthy businessman responded:

"Did the church records also tell you that my mother is ill, with extremely expensive medical bills? Or that my brother is blind and unemployed? Or that my sister’s husband died, leaving her broke with four kids?"

By this point, the pastor felt lower than dirt. He began to stammer out an apology to the church member, but the man cut him off, saying, "So, if I don’t give any of them any money, what makes you think I would give any to the church?”

-Not just "giving" (didomai) but meta-giving (meta implies change, after the action things are different) -Not "generosity" but sincerity, simplicity -Quality over quantity

Quotes: “A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” — Jack London (1876-1916), American novelist

“Give what you have. To someone it may be better than you dare to think.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), American writer and poet