Sermon: Generous in giving

Isaiah 30:8-21; 2 Corinthians 9

Matins Durham Cathedral. 26^th August 2007 (12^th after Trinity)

I warned you last week today's New Testament reading would point us to the theme of giving money, a subject about which the English are notoriously reticent. But there is no escaping it today because Paul is writing forcefully about it to the Corinthians.

Corinth was a port city with a large transient population and all the spice of life that is found in a port city, which may help to explain why they ran into problems in the church there over some issues of sexual morality. Paul was there founding the church from the winter of 50 to the spring of 52 and his letters probably date from 53-55. What we know as 2 Corinthians was probably three letters that have been conflated and the part we heard could be the earliest part, written about 54. To put that timescale in context, if they received the letter today the church would have been founded in 2003-2005: the Christians were that new and needed guidance about the radically new way of life into which they had been baptised, including the tradition of caring for others in need.

What was that tradition? The early church was formed out of a Jewish background, and the prophets throughout the history of the Hebrew people had insisted that how people cared for the poor, the widows and the orphans in their midst was more important than how they observed the ritual niceties of worship. We only have to hear Amos railing against the rich, or Elijah berating King Ahab for stealing Naboth's livelihood - his vineyard - to understand how central this was and is to faithful worship of God.

When the church was formed the Christians took steps to care for people in need. They devoted themselves to four things: the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers. In the next breath we are told that they were together and had all things in common, sold their possessions and goods and distributed the processed to all as any had need. So the apostles must have been teaching them to do this, and it is almost certainly a continuation of the way the disciples lived with Jesus since we know that they had a common purse, kept by Judas Iscariot, for their needs and for their gifts to the poor. When the church grew and spread throughout a wide area, the same basic principle of caring for one another's needs spread with it, being adapted to the new circumstances of a dispersed church. Paul had promised the church conference in Jerusalem in the late 40s that he and his travelling companions would remember the poor (Galatians 2:10). That is the background to this part of his letters to the Corinthians.

Paul was on his missionary journeys and also making a collection for the church in Jerusalem where there was a famine. Just before this part of his letter he had written of the needs there and we know from Acts that Christians in various places responded to this famine and sent their gifts via Paul and Barnabas. This letter paved the way for Paul's planned visit to Corinth to collect the Corinthians' contribution. He had already written to them about it in 1 Corinthians but appears to have anxieties about their participation so followed up with this letter. The Corinthians may have seen it as a rather unreasonable demand on their resources, and may have worried that Paul, who had to support himself, might be tempted to put his hand in the collection.

Paul certainly uses some early examples of arm-twisting techniques designed to elicit a generous response. So he a few verses earlier he quotes the example of the generosity of the Macedonians to shame the Corinthians into giving, and admits in the reading we heard that he is holding the Corinthians up as example to encourage the Macedonians, so the Corinthians have got to give in order to live up to their reputation: TV appeals like Children in Need are simply following his example. He is certainly not reticent when it comes to asking them to give money. But it is rooted in a theological understanding that is absolutely crucial.

The response of the Macedonians was motivated by God's grace: "We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia, for during a severe ordeal of affliction their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part." Paul uses the word "grace" ten times in this part of the letter, although sometimes it is concealed in translation. The key to it all is "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor so that by his poverty you might become rich." All human generosity is within the context of, and dependent on, the generosity of God in Christ; whatever we give in material terms is an expression of our response to God, before it is a response to human need. So when we see the pictures coming from the floods in the Indian sub continent or the horrors of the refugee camps in Darfur we should be stirred to give our money, but that flows, for Christians, from a prior and fundamental response to God's generous grace towards us. If Christ was impoverished for our sake, it is natural to Paul that we should be willing to be impoverished for others, it is almost as though he implies we shouldn't think twice about it because we are caught up in the dynamic of grace that gives and Paul ends his appeal by lapsing into praise, "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"

It is in that context of being caught up in a cycle of God's grace which not only effects our salvation but affects our bank accounts, that Paul tells the Corinthians that their giving is to be according to what they have, not what they don't have. It's the same principle that was operating when Jesus commended the widow for putting in two small coins which were worth more than the loose change of the wealthy because they represented all she had. Abundance and need should be in balance with one being available to deal with the other. Fifteen years earlier the first Christians sold some of their possessions and distributed the proceeds to the poor as they had need. Thus Barnabas sold a field and brought the money to the apostles, and Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and brought some of the money. Their gift was rejected not because they only brought part of the money, they didn't have to give it, but because they lied and pretended to be bringing all the proceeds of the sale.

So what did Paul expect the Corinthians to do? Corinth was a city based on commerce and scholars tell us that the church contained a cross section of society from the very rich to the very poor. They did not all have the same access to resources so Paul did not specify how much each should give, or even suggest tithing, giving one tenth of their income. Neither did he want a big appeal when he arrived. Instead he wanted them to give regularly and according to what they had at the time - little and often, rather than a lot at one go. So he had written to them earlier about how to give to the famine appeal:

"Now concerning the collection for the saints: you should follow the directions I gave to the churches of Galatia. On the first day of the week, each of you is to put aside and save whatever extra you earn, so that collections need not be taken when I come." (1 Corinthians 16:1-3)

For Paul, if their eagerness to give was there, the actual value of the gift was less significant. That is because of the theological context in which he sets it. Responding to God's generosity, they were simply to be faithful at the beginning of each week in putting aside their surplus from the previous week. They were paid daily but were to review weekly as part of their preparation for worship and the implication is that they may have worked extra time to ensure there was something extra. They were to do this cheerfully not reluctantly and again there's an underlying theological reason - God's giving is cheerful and loving and abundant. God is able to provide the Corinthians with every blessing in abundance so that they can share abundantly in every good work. Paul spelled it out in agricultural terms - if they sow sparingly they'll reap sparingly, if they sow bountifully they'll reap bountifully. But since it is God who supplies the seed to the sower, it is God who multiplies the seed they have available and thus increases their harvest. Because they are caught up in the cycle of God's abundant giving of all that we need, they can give financially to those in financial need. In fact, Paul specifically relates their response to people in need to their obedience to the confession of the gospel. And the upshot of all this is that the cycle of grace gains momentum - not only are the poor cared for but there is greater thanksgiving and glory to God, and the Christians involved in the giving and receiving pray for each other.

Where does that leave us? We are more aware than any previous generation of worldwide needs. Last year we were asked by the University of Durham's Sri Lanka link to sponsor the education of children whose lives were devastated by the tsunami, and there is still a need for sponsorship. Many of us also give regularly to other charities and the Cathedral's collections are tithed. If Paul were writing to us today I think he'd offer a mixture of commendation and encouragement, but also the challenge that when we watch the news and see human suffering we should respond quickly by looking at our bank statements to see what surplus we have at the moment and writing a cheque. And if there is no surplus we should work to create one next week - perhaps giving the money saved from not buying non-essential items. But, equally importantly, we should not do it under duress, but cheerfully and gratefully, recognising that we are increasing the overall harvest of righteousness in God's world, and giving tangible expression to our thanks to God for his indescribable gift to us. In fact, perhaps the only way we can begin to describe something Paul, who is never usually at a loss for words, calls "indescribable" is by letting it be the well-spring of generous living. We describe God's indescribable gift to us through our generosity to people in need.