On Giving

by John V. Upton, Executive Director

As we are all well aware, we are in the midst of an economic mess globally. Well known companies are folding one after the other. Entire nations are declaring bankruptcy. No one knows when this crisis will hit bottom and what impact it will have on average citizens, not only in the U.S. but in countries around the world. The price of daily commodities is escalating all over the world. In the parts of the world where hunger was already a concern, it is even more of a concern now due to the price of food.

While the world is facing its financial maelstrom, churches and religious bodies are facing theirs, including all the partners in the BGAV family. There are hard realities that must be faced faithfully.

I would like to offer a couple of things as a response to these stressful times. The first has to do with our witness in a time like this. It is time we in the church do our own confessing during this time. We have been as guilty as the rest of society – including banks, deregulators, Wall Street – when it comes to poor financial management. We have been as careless as the rest of society, borrowing what we could not afford, purchasing what we didn’t need. It is difficult to tell the difference between the churched and the unchurched on these matters.

There has to be more of an alignment between what we say we believe and the way we live it out for there to be an effective witness of the church. Jesus advised that we render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render to God the things that are God’s. All that to mean, the image on the coin belongs to Caesar, so we are to render that to him, but the image on you and me is the image of God. We are to render to God our values, our priorities, our view toward things in light of that image. Yet Caesar always wants to wrap his fingers around what ought to belong to God. We need to confess Caesar’s grip on us.

Secondly, during this crisis we need to speak very openly to our congregations about the importance of our offering, of our gifts to God. This is the time of year when church budgets have been voted and stewardship programs are being implemented, so it is a perfect moment to address the importance of giving. For most of our people, the issue of giving is just a practical necessity for the support of the work of the church. It keeps the building open for the many ministries of the church. It provides for a pastor and staff. It purchases literature, supports missionaries all over the world, keeps the ministries of the VBMB going, helps feed the hungry, and keeps the homeless warm.

It does all this on one level, but we need to remind ourselves there is a far deeper reason for giving. Our giving is a symbol – it is a symbol of us. The saddest thing that has happened to the Western mind is our tragic loss of the sense of symbol! Heaven help us – most of us actually believe that things are only things. The truth is: a thing is never a thing! It always stands for something else. This why things can be so dangerous and have such power. Our things are powerful things of deep meaning. So from the beginning, worshippers have always brought some kind of thing that was to express their worship to God. They brought their most essential thing – beginning with sheep, ox, grain, and grapes. In more primitive and misguided fervor, they brought their children, flesh and blood offerings to God. The gift became perverted.

Yes, we are capable of perverting the gift as well. We get the offered thing wrong whenever we give our offering to placate an angry God or to make a bargain or to attempt to buy a blessing. Yet beyond these perversions still lies an instinct that we as humans have and that is a need to offer a thing of expression in worship. It is an instinct that is deep and powerfully true. When we bring our gift, our money, it is talking and telling about us. It will tell of a great love in us or it will tell of a lame, small love in us. It will tell of joy and delight or of calculation and fear. It tells of an open life to God or of a life guarded and fisted.

Giving does something else too, and this is the third thing I would like to say: our symbols do something to us. A proper offering will lead your soul to take the shape of the offering. It’s too simple to say, “If I had a better faith, I’d bring a better gift.” It is more true to say, “When I bring the better gift, something in me will find the better faith.” You see, in our life our heart and our behavior are in a constant dance with each other. Sometimes the heart leads and sometimes behavior leads. It’s when my behavior leads that my heart falls in step and a miracle happens. I’m changed. So, the gift we set before God becomes strangely a gift to our own souls. That’s why Paul says real children of God give their gifts as hilarious/cheerful givers. They’ve witnessed a transforming freedom within themselves.

Let me tell you a story of a hilarious/cheerful giver. Her name was Sara, and she was three or four years old at the time. She brought a little money for the plate that Sunday morning, but the plate got past her before she was ready. But she would not be denied. She began chasing the plate down the pew as it was passed. All the grown-ups smiled as she passed, moved knees but didn’t know what she wanted, so they kept passing the plate ahead of her. It came out of the aisle, and the usher passed it down the row behind her. Sara was not to be denied. She swung out and ran into that pew in what became known as the “Great Plate Chase.” In the meantime, her father got up and stopped the other usher who held the plate when he got it. When Sara got there, she slam dunked her offering and went back to her pew, out of breath and triumphant.

Listen, if we knew half – if we knew half – of what our gifts mean, we’d be just that eager to give them! We would be just that relentless to give them, knowing they are a symbol of ourselves to God. We’d let them shape us into what and who we shall become. This is exactly the time to challenge our people to make an offering!