THE GIFT OF GIVING
Scriptures: Proverbs 11:24-29
Philippians 4:15-20
You may have a bit of a sense of déjà vu when you looked at the title of this sermon and reflected on what we talked about last week on Stewardship Sunday about the “big secret” that the best kept secret in the church is how wonderful it feels to give. I did indicate then that these two Sundays offer a kind of arc as we prepare for Thanksgiving this Thursday and then begin to focus two weeks from today on the beginning of Advent – that time in the church’s seasonal calendar when our center of attention is on the gift that God has given to us in the person of Jesus the Christ. And you may have noted that we’re picking up where we left off last week in terms of the New Testament scripture – following up with Paul in his letter to his beloved church at Philippi.
As I mentioned in this month’s Clarion article, Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday per se. But it is fascinating to see how it has been woven into our pattern of religious thoughts and feelings. Although I doubt that it was intentional when Lincoln appointed a day of thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November in 1863 and Roosevelt then set the date for Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November in 1939, that they saw this as leading into Advent and Christmas, nevertheless this is now the movement which this time of the year creates: from gratitude (Thanksgiving), to a realization that a great gift has been given to us (Advent), to our response by our symbolic giving of gifts at Christmas.
The single most important part of this movement is the idea of giving itself. In the end, the story of Christmas reminds us that, out of our Christian commitment, we are thankful not so much for what we have received – which is what we tend to focus on at Thanksgiving – as for what we can give. Once we have realized this then this whole movement from Thanksgiving through Advent to Christmas becomes unified – becomes a whole activity that is all of a piece. This kind of an understanding of gratitude for the gift of giving has a side benefit, too: instead of deploring, as we usually do, that store Christmas displays go up well before Thanksgiving (actually, these days practically right after Halloween) we can redeem this fact of contemporary life by seeing how these displays point to the gift of giving throughout our thoughtful Thanksgiving preparations.
What makes this gift so important, and why is it so often overlooked? One answer to the first part of this question is that now overworked and almost clichéd phrase, “It is better to give than receive.” But beyond this cliché is the realization that here is a unique gift in the world’s history – that being able to give fully and freely without concern about what we receive in return has been made possible only because Jesus Christ has revealed to us a gracious and loving God. What and how we give is already a response to the knowledge that the whole of our lives has been given to us.
That’s a huge thought to hold onto. At the same time, it’s often something we take for granted, and so we are not too often moved to be thankful for the fact that we are able to give. Yet, literally, that’s what “thanks” for “giving” means – not for what we are given so much as for our giving. Giving is a part of the Thanksgiving scene – as in the turkeys we are able to give out through the food pantry tomorrow – but are we really aware of a sense of gratitude at being able to give in this way? This is, after all, an ability that comes from God.
What is it that we give which causes us to be grateful for the giving? Pretty obviously, we give of our things, of our thoughts, and of our selves. Giving of our things – our “stuff”, as it were – is perhaps the easiest area in which to be grateful for the gift of giving. We know that a certain amount of happiness can be offered by our giving of our things, although without a real investment of self in the giving this can be only a limited happiness. We also are aware of the finite nature of things – that our entrance into this world and our exit from it are accomplished without all that we accrue along the way. There’s a Charles Addams’ cartoon of two men watching a funeral procession of a hearse followed by a long line of armored trucks; one man turns to the other and says, “Looks like old Jenkins decided to take it with him.” We smile at this thought because we know of its impossibility, and because this is so we can take pleasure in the giving of things.
Paul in his letter to the Philippians, as we heard last week, gives us a great perspective on this pleasure: “…for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.” In other words, Paul is saying that he is thankful for whatever situation he finds himself in – which in this case, as we know, included being in prison – and then to trust in the Lord’s providence.
The wisdom to be found in the book of Proverbs compliments this insight: “Some give freely, yet grow all the richer; others withhold what it due, and only suffer want.” In other words, the person who has discovered the gift of giving and is thankful for it grows richer with this discovery. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood here that this dynamic is like the so-called “prosperity gospel” in which if you give things away you will automatically get back so much more. We know that usually it just doesn’t work that way. What we receive may not be tangible or quantified. But there is a good psychological basis for the fact that our traditions use the adjective “cheerful” before the word “giver” and that just as often they place the adjective “cranky” before the word “miser”.
But we don’t want to think about giving simply in terms of things or stuff. We also give of our thoughts. I’ve noted this before, but it’s one of the weird paradoxes of our time that as forms of communication, especially the Internet, grow broader and quicker it has become more difficult to communicate between persons. A major theme in contemporary science-fiction is that of a civilization or group of people which are part of a group mind – think of the Borg in one of the later “Star Trek” TV series or movie. Any thought which comes to one comes to the whole group. In such a group subtlety and deception would be impossible, and the group would have to learn how to love one another in truth in order to survive. One reason, I think, that this theme is cropping up today is a frustration over the inadequacy of words and the energy that goes into disguising our thoughts, such as diplomatic maneuvering, innuendo and sarcasm, fear of being misunderstood, even the theological word-games that ministers often play.
We have been told that we are free to “speak the truth in love”, and this is no idle phrase. What this means is that we do have the freedom to give others our deepest and most concerned thoughts, because they are given out of the knowledge that God has spoken a word of love to us. This Word – the deepest and most concerned of all thoughts – was put into flesh and lived the human life that we all have to live. Our thoughts and our feelings may be rejected by others, but this does not have to bother us if our thoughts are indeed given out of the love that Christ brought for all of us to have. This gift of giving our thoughts is a gift out of the freedom we have been given by trusting in the Christ.
Thirdly, and closely related to the giving of our thoughts, is the giving of our selves. Recall the story I told last week about the very busy and over-committed father who gives his daughter an envelope with a card inside saying, “The bearer of this card gets one afternoon a week for the next 12 months to do whatever she wants to do with me.” It is not hard to imagine the pleasure the father had in giving that particular gift, nor the joy he found in fulfilling its pledge, even though it may have meant some difficult compromises within his busy schedule. The giving of our selves is not without some costs, if we are honest about it, but when it is full and genuine it becomes the greatest embodiment of the Proverb writer’s words: “Some give freely, yet grow all the richer.”
As in the giving of our thoughts, the giving of our selves is not something that is easily accomplished. We do not want to be revealed in the depths of our being to most people. We do not even want to be bothered with most people for fear of being exploited, or made fun of, or simply having our time consumed. Perhaps like many of you Ann and I have a policy of not taking any solicitation calls over the telephone, and I think that’s a good policy because telemarketers can be a real pain, but every once in awhile I wonder about the missed opportunity to engage another human being in what just possibly might become real dialogue. The giving of our selves can become a total commitment to another that lasts a lifetime, or as in the hypothetical response to a telemarketer it can be but a momentary experience that presents itself when we have a sense of sensitivity.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about, and forgive me for using a personal example. During my first year in seminary I worked for a few months at the switchboard of the First Presbyterian Church, which is at Fifth Avenue and 12th Street in New York City. Since this church was close to the Bowery, it often had down-and-outers dropping in asking for a hand-out. The policy of the church was to give them the address of a welfare agency where they could get food and then to get rid of them as quickly as possible – a policy which never did seem quite right to me. One evening a man came in asking for food. I told him I couldn’t help him directly and gave him the name of the agency. Then he started to talk. I let him go ahead, responding once in awhile, but mostly just listening. After about a half-hour he began to leave, and on his way out he said, “You know, I was hungry before I came in here, but now I’m not hungry anymore.” I was amazed when I heard this because I had felt so frustrated about not being able to give him anything, and yet as I reflected later I found myself thankful for the listening self who had been able to give something to a man who desperately needed this kind of food. This gift of the giving of our selves – whether in a small situation like this one or in the larger situations of our homes and jobs and friends – is a gift that does not come from our selves alone. We are able to give of ourselves because we know that Christ gave himself totally for us.
At the end of this warm letter Paul writes to his beloved Philippian church he speaks of a gift that has been sent to him by the church through Epaphroditus. This is probably not his direct letter of thanks for the gift, but rather he comes back to it again at the close of this tender and enthusiastic letter in order to show these Philippians not only his thankfulness at receiving the gift but also that they have cause to be thankful for the spirit in which the gift was sent. Paul, almost playfully, uses technical business terms in talking with them about it: “…when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving (literally, “debts” and “credits”), except you alone.” The Philippian church was the only one to recognize the joy that was theirs in giving to assist Paul in his missionary endeavors. Paul continues, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that accumulates to your account.” Or, in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible: “I seek the fruit which increases to your credit.” Dr. Ernest F. Scott has commented on this statement: “’Fruit’ was a word commonly applied to the increment produced by money, and Paul plays again with financial terms. ‘I do not want the capital but the interest; and it accrues to your account, not mine.’ The meaning is that from every generous gift the giver obtains more than the receiver. The giver grows in their capacity for human empathy; they break away from their little selves and enter into a larger life. Apart from anything they had done for Paul, the Philippians had done far more for themselves.”
The gift of giving, Paul is saying, extends full circle and finally reflects on the quality of the life of the giver. This, too, is why we can be grateful for the gift of giving.
Among our giving thanks this Thursday for what we have been given, let us find room for thankfulness about what we are able to give – to give of our things, of our thoughts, of our selves – because of a gracious God who has given us the strength and the ability to be givers.
Amen
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
November 18, 2007