2 Corinthians 9:1-14 Growing in Generosity Sermon preached April 28, 2013 Opening I spend a lot of time collecting stories

and illustrations for sermons, and once in a while you find one that is so good its like it dropped out of heaven. This one comes from Bluffton, SC, a small town near Charleston. Its about a coffee shop named The Corner Perk. Towards the end of last year, a woman who wished to remain anonymous handed the owner a hundred-dollar bill and said she wanted to pay for everyones coffee until the money ran out. And the woman has returned every couple of months, plunking down more money to pay for peoples coffee and biscotti. People will come in and say, What do you mean? I dont understand. Are you trying to buy me a coffee today? said the shops owner Josh Cooke. And I say, No, somebody came in...and left money to pay for drinks until it runs out. It took a while, but word spread around Bluffton about what this woman was doing. Now if you have a jaundiced view of human nature, you would think that people would stampede into the Corner Perk to score some free coffee. But whats happened is that more and more customers have been leaving money to pay for other peoples drinks. What began as an anonymous act of creative generosity, has become contagious. And if youre in Charleston, you could take a side trip to Bluffton and stop by The Corner Perk. Maybe youll get a free cup of coffee, any maybe youll want to be generous and pay for someone elses drink. Generosity is wonderful. A random act of generosity can make a persons day. And the giver gets a big rush out of it too - there is nothing quite as delicious as giving a gift, that helps someone, that delights someone. And best of all, generosity can be contagious. Well, generosity is the subject of our New Testament reading. And my aim today is to help you want to grow in generosity, even in the midst of tough, anxious economic times. Context of letter This church is mostly known for its problems. We read from Pauls second letter to this church; in the first letter, he slaps them around pretty good for their sexual immorality, for getting drunk at the Lords Supper, for their spiritual snobbery towards their brothers and sisters who didnt have what they thought was the best-est spiritual gift of all, speaking in tongues.

But by the time Paul wrote the second letter, they had cleaned up their act, and in chapters 8 and 9, he turns to the subjects of generosity and sharing. In both chapters Paul is writing about an offering he is taking up for the church in Jerusalem, which was a poor church. Were not exactly sure why this offering was needed, but we can surmise that the Jews in Jerusalem who put their faith in Jesus suffered economically for their faith - they were likely excommunicated from the synagogue, had a hard time getting hired, had people stop doing business with them. So Paul went to work taking a collection from the wealthier churches in present day Greece and Turkey to help out the impoverished Christians in Jerusalem. And in Acts. chapter 24, we get an account of Paul taking this offering to the Jerusalem church. So Paul has two reasons for wanting to help the Corinthians - a practical reason, that their sisters and brothers in Jerusalem were suffering; and a spiritual reason - that they discover the joys and blessings of generosity. His motivational strategies - boasting Heres what he does first - he builds them up by telling he goes around boasting about their generosity - as they say in the South, bragging on them - he says he goes around bragging on them in order to encourage the other churches whom Paul is asking to contribute to the offering Imagine if you tried this with your children - boast about them to other parents and children and it gets back to them Its a great motivational tool - reinforcing and complimenting people for their strengths. Paul is genuinely complimenting the Corinthians for their past generosity - but hes also hoping that his boasting will motivate the Corinthian Christians to turn their piggy banks upside down and shake them a little harder - so they can put together an outlandishly generous offering to relieve the suffering of their fellow Christians in Jerusalem. Just being here a few months, I can tell that generosity was and is part of this churchs culture. Your last building campaign...this beautiful sanctuary...the endowment and trust monies people have left the church...the way you all respond positively and generously to a need. Youve got this in you. His motivational strategies - reaping what you sow Second motivational strategy - Paul says in vs. 6 & 7 - the one who sows sparingly will 2

also reap sparingly; the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Simple agricultural principle - the more seed you plant, the more youll harvest. But planting is also a risk - back in those days, you didnt buy your seed from Monsanto, it was stored from the last harvest, it was your reserve - you could eat it - but farmers took the risk of putting it in the ground and hoping the rain didnt wash the seed away or the crows didnt eat it up, or that theres no rain so the seed never germinates - you cant have a crop unless you sow the seed, but you take a risk in doing it. The point Paul is making is that being generous works the same way - you wont experience the blessings that come from generosity unless you take the risk of being generous - giving money and resources away. But when we do, we discover a fundamental truth about how God works - that God is generous to the generous. Like in Bluffton, generosity begets generosity. It is Gods nature to be generous I heard a Mother Teresa story when she was visiting a seminary in Bangalore, a nun once said to her, Mother Teresa, you are spoiling the poor people by giving them things free. They are losing their human dignity. When everyone was quiet, she said calmly, No one spoils as much as God himself. See the wonderful gifts he has given us freely. All of you here have no glasses, yet you all can see. If God were to take money for your sight, what would happen? Continually we are breathing and living on oxygen that we do not pay for. What would happen if God were to say, 'If you work four hours, you will get sunshine for two hours?' How many of us would survive then? Then I also told them, There are many congregations that spoil the rich; it is good to have one congregation in the name of the poor, to spoil the poor. There was profound silence; nobody said a word after that. We serve a God who gives us the best of the best. Think back to the story of Genesis God didnt create the universe and us and say, Good enough for government work! What did God say? It is good - and with us - very good. (Genesis 1:31). God gave us the best of His creative work. And then God gave us the supreme gift - his very self, in the form of his son Jesus Christ. God, is immensely generous. One form Gods generosity takes, is blessing Jesus - more blessed to give than to receive - its not bad to receive - like earn money, or 3

get a bequest in a will, or receive financial help during a tough time - but that it is a blessing to give - and the Greek word means fortunate, or to be in a good situation. Frederick Buechner says that back in Jesus time the word had kind of the sense that our word lucky has today - not randomness, but the surprise - wow, Ive been blessed, and this is great! Jesus says the givers - are the lucky ones! John Ortberg puts it like this, Its lucky to receive, blessed to receive, but you get more more freedom from self-obsessing, more freedom from worrying all the time, more meaning, more joy, more growth and more fulfillment. You get more plain old stable and enduring happiness when youre in giving mode. Its the best way to be. Its more blessed to give than to receive. Now...in this economy? we dont have much of a safety net in this country - and the economy changes so fast - they tell us that an adult will have to change careers six or more times in his or her lifetime because of what economists call creative destruction meaning, companies and whole industries failing and then the resources get re-allocated to create new companies and industries Like Hewlett-Packard - didnt adapt quickly enough to how making and selling computers is becoming a very low-margin business, to the shift away from printing pictures on your home printer - and they have laid off thousands of people - one of the greatest companies in the world - and thousands of people are going to have to figure out what to do with their lives now, get re-trained, move, find another job - some of you have experienced this, and its frightening and makes you want to hold on to every last nickle. So how does this make sense? Well, Paul says that God is able to provide you every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may be able to share abundantly... He says that God will multiply your seed for sowing and your harvest of righteousness. The bottom line here - if we are generous, God makes it possible to be generous - and promises not that well be rich - but that well have - enough. And why would we want more than enough? Harvest of righteousness And our giving builds long-term rewards, too. Youve maybe heard the saying that the most powerful force in the universe - is compound interest.

Did you know that if you invest $100 at 10% interest, compounded daily, that after 100 years you will have $1.4 million dollars; at the end of 200 years 19 billion dollars; and at the end of 500 years an amount greater than the combined gross national products of the entire world? But there's only one catch. You've got to live 100 or 200 or 500 years to cash in. And money is a big way we keep score in this culture, a way we measure if were a success. But God has a different score-keeping system - what Paul is calling a harvest of righteousness - that comes in part from how we use our wealth. Righteousness how God has put us in right relationship with him through Jesus Christ so we can be in right relationship with other people, too. We are made righteous, so we can do right by others, and as we do so our harvest of righteousness grows. And at the end of our lives, well have a harvest of righteousness if we are generous people. And this produces, a life filled with joy and satisfaction - blessing! I read a story about a man named Patrick Johnson. Johnson is a vice president at BancorpSouth Investment Services, so he is doing pretty well for himself, financially, but he has discovered that his greatest joy is not to be found in managing fixed-income portfolios. Instead, his joy comes from giving. As he was writing a check to help purchase a central air-conditioning unit for a local homeless shelter, he started praying and thinking about the immense joy that God was feeling as he gave to this worthy cause. He started thinking about the joy that would be felt by the homeless men as they slept in an air-conditioned room in the sweltering Mississippi heat. He then started thinking about the joy these men would feel when they gave their hearts to Jesus Christ and felt Gods love, maybe for the very first time. And what welled up in Patrick Johnson, as he prayed, was laughter. He was actually so overwhelmed with joy that he laughed. It was spontaneous laughter, born out of the joy that was being experienced by God, by the homeless men, and by Johnson himself, due to one small gift. Paul is thinking about a harvest of the benefits of doing good through generosity. Like, youre old and your health is failing and you look back over your life and think about what you did that made a difference in Gods kingdom, in the lives of other people. Final motivation - to be a blessing to others And that takes us back to why Paul is asking the Corinthians to step it up. Their sisters and brothers in Jerusalem were hurting. And their gifts would be a blessing - food, clothing, shelter - getting them through a tough time - helping them to endure and be a 5

church and help others know Christ. We are invited to give so we can make a difference in the lives of others in the youth... in the missions we support in building a church that helps others know Christ in teaching us how to be disciples, so we can be better parents and spouses, make a positive difference in our workplaces and communities so we can do things like serve on mission trips and community organizations that feed and clothe the poor... A harvest of righteousness. Because one day, youre going to be lying in a bed youre never going to get up out of. Youre going to be dying. And in those last hours, as Ive seen so many people do, youll look back over your life and wonder, Did I make a difference? Was I a blessing to those around me? Was the world better for me having passed through? If you were generous - with yourself, your time, your resources, there will be no doubt to the answer to those questions - because your generosity, will have left behind a harvest of righteousness. Closing Quaker theologian/philosopher Parker Palmer tell a story about when he was a passenger on a plane that pulled away from the gate, taxied to a remote corner of the field and stopped. You know the feeling: The plane stops and you look out the window and see that youre not on the runway and the engines wind down and your heart sinks. The pilot came on the intercom and said, I have some bad news and some really bad news. The bad news is theres a storm front in the West, Denver is socked in and shut down. Weve looked at the alternatives and there are none. So well be staying here for a few hours. Thats the bad news. The really bad news is that we have no food and its lunch time. Everybody groaned. Some passengers started to complain, some became angry. But then, Palmer said, one of the flight attendants did something amazing. She stood up and took the intercom mike and said, Were really sorry, folks. We didnt plan it this way and we really cant do much about it. And I know for some of you this is a big deal. Some of you are really hungry and were looking forward to a nice lunch. Some of you may have a medical condition and really need lunch. Some of you may not care one way or the other and some of you need to skip lunch. So Ill tell you what were going to do. I have a couple of breadbaskets up here and were going to pass them around and Im asking everybody to put something in the basket. Some of you brought a little 6

snack along something to tide you over just in case something like this happened, some peanut butter crackers, candy bars. And some of you have a few LifeSavers or chewing gum or Rolaids. And if you dont have anything edible, you have a picture of your children or spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend or a bookmark or a business card. Everybody put something in and then well reverse the process. Well pass the baskets around again and everybody can take out what he/she needs. Well, Palmer said, what happened next was amazing. The griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets and handbags, some got up and opened their suitcases stored in the overhead luggage racks and got out boxes of candy, a salami, a bottle of wine. People were laughing and talking. She had transformed a group of people who were focused on need and deprivation into a community of sharing and celebration. She had transformed scarcity into a kind of abundance. Thats the kind of thing God gives us the opportunity to do, with our generosity. Amen. Endnotes 1. Cord Jefferson, People are Awesome: The Coffee Shop Where Everyone Pays for Everyone Elses Drinks, in The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2012. .