Luke 12:32-40
August 15, 2010
Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Do you know who Millard Fuller was? He died last year, but before he died he made a tremendous impact on the world. He spent his life giving, which was a direct contrast to his early life, which he spent obtaining. As a child he grew up as a kid who loved money. From the earliest ages he had a gift for making money. His gift surfaced when he was six years old. Fuller wanted a pig, so his father bought him one. He built a little pen in the back yard and taught Millard how to set up a bookkeeping system to understand cost and profits. Millard scrupulously kept a record of everything it cost to feed and keep the pig, and after he had fattened the pig up a bit, he sold the pig for a profit. Millard was hooked. He loved making that profit. He moved on to raising and selling chickens, and he made a profit from them, too. As his profits increased, so did his appetite for larger projects. He bought and sold rabbits, and made a profit there. He and his father bought and sold cattle, and they made a profit in that business, too.
By high school, Millard was an entrepreneur. He was a member of Junior Achievement and had his own little company that manufactured mops and house number signs. By college, Millard was beginning to bring in larger and larger profits. His college roommate, Morris Dees (whose story is equally inspiring – he is the head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that fights racism), and he sold birthday cakes that parents could have delivered to their college children. They also sold advertising on desk blotters, holly wreaths through the mail, doormats, trash-can holders, and lamps made out of cypress. They invested their profits in real estate and owned half a city block and a small trailer park. As law students at the University of Alabama in the early 1960s, they were making $50,000 a year. By age 28, Fuller was a millionaire. Who wouldn’t be happy to be in his shoes? He was living the American dream. He had everything we say should make us happy: money, homes, cars, a wife and kids. So, why did he feel like his life was falling apart?
The problem is that Millard Fuller had become so focused on achieving and acquiring that his life had become horribly unbalanced. At a time when he should have been reveling in how great his life was, he turned around to find that his wife had left him. He was alone. She left because she had everything she could possibly want, except a husband, and that was all she really wanted in the first place. Facing the possibility that he would lose his family, Fuller realized he had to do something to get his life back in balance. After talking to a pastor in New York, and engaging in deep discussions with his life with his wife, they decided they should follow Jesus’ advice to the rich young man – to sell everything and give it to the poor so that they could follow God (Matthew 19: 16-30). They began to give their money away and got involved in a Christian ministry called Koinonia Partners.
From that point onward, his marriage and his life began to improve as they centered their lives more in God and God’s work. In 1973, they and their four children moved to Zaire, Africa to help build modest housing for low-income families. Their project became so successful that they decided they were being called by God to apply this idea worldwide. They moved back to Georgia in 1976 and created the housing ministry, Habitat for Humanity. This is an organization that builds affordable, safe, and reliable housing for low-income families. Since its inception, Habitat for Humanity has built homes for over 60,000 families in more than 1400 American cities and in 57 countries around the world. This is an organization that cuts across denominational, religious, and national boundaries. Among the volunteers are former presidents, senators, congressmen and congresswomen, executives, and people from every walk of life.
Today, Millard Fuller receives a salary of only $52,000. The focus of his life is on serving God by serving the poor. As he says, “I feel that I am close to God, and I think I am pleasing God. I know that my heart’s desire is to express love in a way that touches people. Providing a home for people who need a place to live is an incredible way to touch people” (adapted from Biography Magazine, July 1998).
The inspiring lesson of Fuller’s life isn’t necessarily that we should sell everything and start an organization that builds homes for poorer people. The lesson is that a life lived focused on getting and acquisition is a life wasted. But a life lived focused on giving and generosity is a life blessed.
I'm not sure why, but I think that when it comes to trying to live out our faith, many Christians don't necessarily make the connection between generosity and being ready for God. We think about qualities such as love, believing in Christ, and having faith, but not necessarily about the ongoing call to being generous. And we certainly don’t connect generosity as preparation for death, but our passage makes that connection. In our passage Jesus begins with a call to give, and then follows it up by teaching us that we have to be ready because our lives can end at any moment: “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”
If today was your last day, would you be set? Would you be ready? How would God judge you? Would God say to you that you did a great job of being generous in your life, giving of your time, money, and of compassion?
We get opportunities to give all the time, not only opportunities to give money, but also to give time, because both embody love and compassion. In fact, that’s what giving is all about. Many people believe that they love, but for love to be real it has to be evidenced in our actions, and being generous is the height of loving behavior. It’s this call to generosity that makes giving so central to the church. You know, one of the complaints I’ve heard from people in our culture over the years is that “all the church wants is our money. Every time you are turn around there’s a collection.” It’s not just other people complain about the church’s focus on giving. I used to say the same thing all the time when I was younger. I used to complain that the church was all about money and not about God. But that was when I was young and before I returned to the church in my twenties. I’ve learned a bit since then about the nature of churches. What I’ve discovered is that, yes, we are guilty of wanting people’s money. But there’s a reason. The reason is that our church and any church is a weigh station for giving. The whole nature of the church is to give. We receive as a way of channeling people’s generosity.
Think about every part of the Calvin Presbyterian Church. Everything we do is related to giving. Start with the staff. Take me out of the equation for a moment. Every staff member in this church is committed to giving. Bruce Smith, our music and youth director, doesn’t take his pay, sit home, and say, “Wow! This is great. I get to get paid for hanging out at home listening to cds.” He lives his life giving. If you come to the church or track him down almost any hour of the afternoon or evening, you’ll find him talking with youth, working with musicians and singers, or doing something to make others’ lives better. Look at Toni Schlemmer, our associate music director and drama director. She spends so much of her off time giving voice lessons, or directing plays both here and outside of Calvin Church. And she rarely gets paid to direct the plays outside of Calvin Church. Steve Polley, our pastor of pastoral care, spends his week giving his time to visit people. Connie Frierson, our program director is tired this morning because she’s just partied out. She had a party at her house on Thursday evening for fifty women of the church, just so they could have an opportunity to come together and get to know each other. Then, on Friday evening, she had sixty singles over to her house for a get-to-know-you as part of our singles ministry. I could go on because everyone on our staff lives a life of giving.
We collect money from members and others to give even more. We offer worship services every Sunday to help improve people’s lives and help them grow closer to God. We give a tremendous amount of money to giving organizations beyond our walls, such as the Pittsburgh Project, VOICe, the Samaritan Counseling Center, Habitat for Humanity, the mission projects of the Presbyterian Church (USA), supporting Janet Guyer—our missionary in Southern Africa—Carrie Baker’s trip to South Africa this summer, Project Hope, SERRV, the Ladle and the Hearth soup kitchen in Ambridge, and so much more. Our building is a place of giving, and our upkeep of it helps with that giving. We do Christian education on Sunday morning for so many children and adults, and we have over 45 adults volunteering their time and efforts for no pay in order to teach these children. We have committees set up to reach out and help, all staffed by volunteers. Being generous to Calvin Church means giving to a giving place. Despite what cynics think, churches don’t want money because they are moneygrubbers. They want money to give away and make a bigger and bigger difference in the world.
It’s not just in and to church that we’re called to give. We’re called to be giving in all of life, even when it’s a pain and it’s not planned. Sometimes we’re at our most generous when we want to do anything but give. Let me give you an example of a giving time when it made sense to do something else.
Six years ago, while on vacation in the Boston area with Diane and the kids, I had to make a choice to either give or to do what I wanted to do—and I wasn’t gravitating towards giving. It was a late Sunday afternoon, and Diane was taking our kids and my cousin’s kids swimming in our hotel’s swimming pool. I decided that it was a fine time for me to take my walk, but I was told to not be gone too long because we had dinner plans. So I mapped out my four-mile route, put on my hat and t-shirt, clipped headphones onto my ears, drove to the starting areas, parked my car in the local Starbuck’s, and set out on my walk.
I had only walked about three blocks when I saw a young, African-American woman walking toward me. It was obvious she wanted to talk with me. I kind of avoided her gaze because I was worried that she wanted to sell me something. She was persistent, though. Despite my downcast eyes, she walked up to me and asked, “Excuse me, can you tell me where Powell Street is?” I told her that I really didn’t know the area all that well and that she needed to give me some landmarks. “It’s near Shaw’s Supermarket on Nahatan Street.” I told her that I knew where that was, but that it was over two-and-a-half miles away. “Oh my,” she replied. “I’m supposed to be at work there at three o’clock, and it’s almost three now. When I got off the bus, the driver told me to just walk down Nahatan Street, and I kept walking but couldn’t find it.”
Now, you need to understand that giving this woman a ride to her job was not part of my plan, so I had to make a decision. Do I tell her that I’m sorry she won’t make it, or do I give her a ride? I really wanted to walk. I really wanted to do my own thing. I really wanted to stick with my plans. Finally, I broke down and said, “You know, you’ll never make it. Let me give you a ride.”
As we walked, both of us were nervous. She didn’t know me. For all she knew I could be dangerous, and I didn’t know if her request for me to help was only a con. As we walked I talked with her. “What’s your new job?” I asked. She said, “I’m a children’s caseworker at a home for troubled youth. I just started the job two days ago.” I asked her if child-care was her background. “Oh no. Actually, I’ve been trained to be a political and a community activist, but I really like to work with kids and thought this would be a good job. I work with kids in my church and really love it.”
“You go to church?” I asked. “Yes, I go to the Holiness Temple in Roxborough.” I said, “That’s interesting. You don’t know this, but I’m a pastor.” She looked at me in my hat and t-shirt and said, “Are you really?” “Yeah, believe it or not. I normally dress differently, but I’m on vacation.” She said, “This is amazing. When I saw you, I had just been praying to God to bring me someone to help me, and look what God did. God brought me a pastor.” I laughed. We continued to talk all the way to her job. As she got out I said, “Remember this the next time you have doubts about whether God answers your prayers.” She said, “I already know that God answers my prayers! Let’s both remember it.”
I didn't really want to give my time, but in the end giving her my time got me more prepared for God. What gets us ready for God's kingdom is generosity because generosity is an act of sacrificial love, and it connects us with God's way of life. The Bible emphasizes the idea of tithing for this very reason. The whole idea of tithing is that we become aware of how much God has given us, of how everything is a gift from God, so we give back 10% of all that God gives us back to God for God to give to others. Giving is the nature of God, and God wants it to become our nature. God gives everything to us for free, and the whole idea of Christ coming into the world was the idea that God came in Christ to teach us. And we didn’t have to do anything to deserve it. The idea of Christ dying on the cross is that he gave up his own life willingly so that in the end we could be given even more—the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Ultimately, Christianity teaches that the more we give, the more we are given. The more we share, the more we become prepared. Giving transforms our souls because the nature of God is generosity
Do you want to really experience God in your life? Do you want to really know God in your life? Begin with becoming as generous as you can, and you'll discover something wonderful.
Amen.
