“Together in Giving”
1 Peter 4:7-11, from The Message
Luke 9:12-17, from The Message
There is an ancient story told in many cultures that goes something like this:
Time before time, when the world was young, two brothers shared a field and a mill. Each night they divided evenly the grain they had ground together during the day. Now as it happened, one of the brothers lived alone; the other had a wife and a large family.
One day, the single brother thought to himself: "It isn’t really fair that we divide the grain evenly. I have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed."
So each night the single brother secretly took some of his grain to his married brother’s granary to see that he was never without.
But the married brother said to himself one day, "It isn’t really fair that we divide the grain evenly, because I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. What will he do when he is old?”
So every night the married brother secretly took some of his grain to his single brother’s granary.
As a result, both brothers found their supply of grain mysteriously replenished each morning.
Then one night the brothers met each other halfway between their two houses. They suddenly realized what had been happening, and embraced each other in love. The story is that God witnessed their meeting and proclaimed, "This is a holy place—a place of love—and here it is that my temple shall be built."
And so it was. The holy place, where God is made known, is the place where human beings discover each other in love.
Friends, as we begin this year’s stewardship campaign, the time of year when we ask you to pledge a portion of what you have to the ministries of our church, I want to suggest that this, too, is a holy place. It is holy not because it is a church, not because there is a large cross on the wall, not because we worship God and celebrate the sacraments here—though all those things are true.
What makes this place—not the building, but the community of people we call First Church Amherst—holy, life-changing, life-giving, and utterly remarkable is that God is here (and everywhere) and that all kinds of people come here and find love.
We come here and discover that God loves us without condition and beyond measure—just as we are. We come here and discover the love of community, which means that people who may not even really know us that well love us and support us just because we’re here, just because—despite all our differences—we have chosen to follow Jesus and love one another together. We come here and we discover how to love our neighbors—actions that grow in impact far beyond our numbers because we live them out together. We come here and we begin learning what it means to love our enemies, something we might be too scared to do if we couldn’t do it together.
And yet we don’t come here only for ourselves. We don’t give of what we’ve been given only for our own sakes or just to keep an institution going. We give to this particular church because we believe that we are called—together—to be the church, for the sake of the world. The world God loves. The world we love. The world that is broken in too many places and too many ways to count.
And our giving—like our loving, like our organizing, like our living—is always better and more impactful when we do it together.
I had a delightful conversation last week with a college student who understands this perhaps much better than folks of my generation. While our lives and our ways of thinking have been formed by the air of American individualism we’ve been breathing our whole lives, she is young enough, open enough, astute enough, and so clearly connected to her own longings, that she understands the importance of community. She already understands how important it is to walk this journey of life together.
And that’s what church is: a container for love and the creation of loving community. A safe space for us to learn how to follow Jesus in living with and for others. A holy place where, by the love and grace of God, individuals are healed and opened to the blessings of togetherness and common purpose, where we encourage and support one another in becoming the individuals God created us to be while also understanding that God made every person and all creation for relationship.
Now I can imagine that you might be thinking that all this community and togetherness sounds great, but when it comes to giving to the church, you can only give from what you have; you must make the decision about how much to give from your own circumstances.
This is true, of course, and it’s yet another example of how our culture has separated us from one another. When five thousand people were following Jesus around to seek healing and listen to his teachings, some of them had brought a lunch—but others hadn’t. Some of them had all they needed, while others were hungry.
But Jesus did not let his disciples send them away. Jesus did not buy into the common thinking that it’s each person or each family for themselves. He considered the whole huge crowd. And when the first call for contributions produced next to nothing, he was not deterred. He blessed and shared the small offering and when it was shared, everyone had more than enough.
And that’s how it is in our church. Some of us have more financial resources than others. But when we all give a proportion of what we have, when we give together—no one knowing how much anyone else has given or if they’ve given at all—we discover that there is enough and more than enough to go around.
When we are together in giving—not only of our money but also of our time and talents—we are all participating in creating something much bigger than ourselves and our families. When we give together, we create a beloved community that becomes what Jesus intended the church to be: a light in the darkness, an alternative way of being in the world, a refuge for the lost and left out, a model for others to see, a microcosm of the realm of God.
As most of us are all too aware of these days, we live in an us-and-them world, a culture in which individuals, whole categories of people, and entire nations are pitted against each other. The only people and systems that ever benefit from that world are the powerful, the rich, and the ones with the most weapons. The us-versus-them world encourages people to get as much power, security, or wealth as they can, use it for their own ends, and make sure no one else takes it away. It is a consumption-based, defensive orientation toward life.
But Jesus calls us to let our individual lives be transformed by following the way of love and living together in community. Then, he says, we will live together into the realm of God, where everyone has a seat at the table, where all people are beloved, where justice is more birthright than struggle, and peace is everyone’s shared dessert. Where so-called unity is not about the weak submitting to the will of the strong, but the foundation of the place where the privileged, like Christ, sacrifice their power for the healing and wholeness of all.
Love each other as if your life depended on it, our scripture says, although I would say the “as if” is unnecessary. Our church, our families, and the fullness of our lives does depend on love—the love, grace, and extravagant generosity of God, and the love, grace, and generosity of our families and our community of faith.
Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully, the First Letter of Peter continues. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it; if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything.
Beloveds, I see God’s bright presence in you. I see God’s bright presence in our church. So let us continue to grow together in God. Let us continue to grow together in love. Let us continue to grow together in giving.
