2 Corinthians 9
In keeping with the spirit of the season let me begin by saying that we have a veritable cornucopia of topics to choose from this morning. Liturgically this is Christ the King Sunday, the last day in the Church's liturgical year. It is November, and that is often a time to bring our stewardship campaign to a close with some kind of festive hurrah sermon. And, naturally, it is the week of Thanksgiving.
How to decide? Well, Christ the King is liturgically interesting and important but can be a snoozer in the pews so it’s risky. As to Stewardship I can report that we have received 220 pledges totally $653,836.92. (as to the 92 cents, you are welcome). There is still time to get your pledge in and avoid a call from the Stewardship committee, although they are all quite pleasant to talk with.
So that leaves us with Thanksgiving. As I was moving into my office, and stuffing four file drawers full of my father's sermons (Do not worry, I do occasionally have an original thought), I was reminded of a particularly insightful Thanksgiving observation he made some many years ago, and I want to bring it forward to today, if I may, with embellishments.
Our text today also serves the dual purposes of Thanksgiving and Stewardship. It is here, in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, that we find the familiar assurance that “God loves a cheerful giver”. It is here that the apostle urges his friends to be generous towards the needs of others. But that is far from the whole story. There are two sides to every coin and to most texts. Between the lines, and upon them even, is that other side of stewardship: gratitude. It begins as a faint glow upon life’s horizon and then grows into a vast flood of thanksgiving.
Gratitude is such an important matter. It should be an ongoing habit and not just an annual tryptophan overdose. But this year as you prepare again to return thanks for the many blessings of your lives, I would ask that you consider as well the other side of Thanksgiving. And this is the provocative thought I received from my father many years back. The other side of Thanksgiving is this: All of the reasons that other people are thankful for you.
Now this might be a new thought for some. We have been trained by our upbringing and by many Christian expressions to think humility a great Christian virtue. We recall the parable Jesus told which concludes with the servant saying that he did only what he ought to have done. For far too many people, faith is really no more than a guilt trip. The freedom of the Gospel becomes the burden of the Gospel. The Christian life becomes a long list of obligations, where everyone else’s problems are more important than our own. But the Gospel is not this: the Gospel is less compulsion and more freedom. Our lives should reflect the wholeness and joy that is God’s plan for his human creation.
It is high time to say a word for a healthy self-respect that comes hand in hand with God’s grace. And thanksgiving is a way to do that. After you make that list of blessings, make that list of those who are blessed as a result of you. That is what Paul is talking about. He is urging the Corinthians to be generous to the earliest and most likely poorest of the churches… the church in Jerusalem. Paul reminds the Corinthians that gratitude will arise in the hearts of those who will receive this aid out of the Corinthian’s abundance, a gratitude that finds its fullest expression through gratitude towards God.
For God does his work through people. People like you and me. We are so used to hearing “acts of God” from insurance companies and lawyers who do not want to be held responsible for things. We can be led to believe that God acts only in strange and capricious ways which are, for the most part, unfortunate. But the witness of scripture shows us that God’s gracious work is incarnate through the life and deeds and caring of those whom God calls. Paul also tells the Corinthians this: We are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
For a reason which will become clearer in a moment, allow me to quote my father on this idea of God answering prayers through people: When a despairing woman prays that her children not starve. And food is available because someone was moved to give an extra gift to famine relief, who can say that God has not answered that woman’s prayer. When a parent prays for a child who is heading for trouble, and a church or a youth worker touches that child’s live an opens a door to faith, who is to say that God has not answered that prayer?
Now this is hard to prove to a skeptic. There was a celebrated case once in Florida where a man sued his church because the pastor had promised that if he made a financial contribution to the church the Lord would bless him several times in return. And this did not happen, at least to the man's satisfaction. So the man sued the church for breach of promise. Don't try to prove this to a skeptic. But there remain powerful examples.
Our anthem this morning may not have sounded the traditional “thanksgiving” note, but it is a powerfully appropriate reminder of our theme. The composer, Kurt Bestor, once lived in the former Yugoslavia and, as that country descended into a hateful and bloody civil war, Bestor wrote the anthem as a lamentation. It is for the children that Bestor mourns most. This is why the anthem is called "Prayer of the Children". Can you hear the prayer of the children on bended knee, in the shadow of an unknown room? Empty eyes with no more tears to cry, turning heavenward, toward the light, crying, “Jesus, help me to see the morning light of one more day.” Can you hear the prayer of the children?
There was one organization that did. In 1997, while I was the pastor of the West End Presbyterian Church in Albany, New York, our session heard from a young woman whose family had relocated to Albany from war-torn Bosnia. For two years she, her husband, and their two small children lived in a refugee camp no more than two houses wide. Food, clothing, the basic necessities of life were scarce. Their country was at war. For two years they lived under these oppressive conditions until they received the opportunity to come to the United States. Their sponsorship was arranged through the refugee resettlement program, a Christian organization that sponsors refugee families and helps them secure housing, furniture, food, clothing, a new beginning. Her reaction, as was also the reaction of the other refugees aided by this organization, was one of disbelief. Why would strangers put themselves out so that she and her family might have their needs met. She was told it was done for love. This is hard for her to understand for, in her country, there is no love. Only hate.
For the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. These are the blessings of giving. Needs are met and much thanksgiving is generated toward God. And those who have helped with refugee resettlement, or mission work overseas, or who have helped in a food kitchen or a homeless shelter, or who brought food to this church for the food bank drive or who delivered the food last Wednesday—this is the reward: A flood of thanksgiving. The satisfaction in knowing that God is glorified through the obedience to the Gospel of Christ.
Earlier I quoted from my father's sermon where he used, as an hypothetical example, a young teenager who may be on the wrong path in life but is brought back to faith by the word or caring of a church worker. This week the hypothetical became the actual in the form of a letter that fell from heaven onto my desk this week. The letter was written by a man in Pennsylvania, addressed to me here at the church. He wrote to me to tell me that he had recently quoted from one of my father's early sermons as part of a stewardship presentation at his church. The man had tried to locate my father, to thank him, and discovered that he had died this past summer. He wrote to me in part to offer his condolences. But he also offered this:
Your father was the single greatest influence on setting me on my life's path of faith. He was our pastor at Woods Memorial when I was 14-19 years old. His message, his faith, his encouragement, and his friendship changed my life from one of being a self-centered teen to being an inspired and faith-filled Christian. The gentleman enclosed the specific sermon from which he had quoted, a sermon my father preached in 1961, the subject of which was that which makes for true happiness. The letter continued:
I have kept this sermon in my bedside Bible for 49 years now. I tried unsuccessfully to locate your father a number of times to let him know how much he had helped me. In spite of not being able to do this, it gives me joy that I was able to locate you and pass my words of appreciation to you.
This man was never able to say thank you to my father. My father never heard of his gratitude. But the essential point is this: We have in our midst precious children—from cherubs to senior high students. And they are our charge, our responsibility for generating in them a deeper faith, a real belief in themselves and their intrinsic value, and for generating their thanksgivings to God. For the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.
We are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. It is through the Church that Christ's work continues today. That is why Paul can assure the Corinthian Church that they will always be rich enough to be generous. We cannot demand abundance of material means as the prerequisite for a generous spirit. For generosity takes many forms--the material and the spiritual--and we never work out of our own limitations, but out of the abundance of grace and the unlimited resources that God places at the disposal of his Church.
As you celebrate Thanksgiving this week, by all means, express your gratitude. Express your gratitude for the privilege of living in this country with all of its resources and possibilities and freedoms. Express your gratitude for those members of the armed forces who will not be home at Thanksgiving out of their commitment to peace and freedom. Express your gratitude for your family and friends and a roof over your head and a plate before you on the table. But also take a moment to remember all of those who, by your generosity, will give their thanks to God. As you pray to your Heavenly Father, pause and listen... listen for the prayers of all, especially the children. And by God's grace and by his power in our lives we will be prepared to do far more by our faithfulness than we realize, to let our hearts and minds and feelings and thinking center upon and savor these words from Paul: For the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! And what can we possibly say to this, but Amen, and Amen.
Let us pray:
Gracious God we give you our thanksgiving for the infinite blessings from which we benefit. We pray only that we may be such a benefit to others, to all in need, the young and the old, so that in this season and always, the obedience to your gospel will generate a vast flood of thanksgiving to heaven's ears. Amen.
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