Harry DanielF. Harry Daniel
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: October 29, 2006

"What Makes a Cheerful Giver?"

Listen       

What makes a cheerful giver? What is it about that kind of person that God especially approves, highly values, and loves? Don't misunderstand: God loves a cheerful giver, but God also receives from a grouch! But what is it? The Greek adjective behind "cheerful" gives us our word hilarious. Giving is not simply a matter of economics, but a matter of theological reflection. It is what goes on within the giver that carries significance. True Christian generosity is a matter of the heart. Is the text trying to say that giving ought to be an exhilarating experience? How can that be?

Scripture Readings
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Deuteronomy 15:7-11

2 Corinthians 9:6-15
The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,
    "He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;
    his righteousness endures forever."

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.

Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you.

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Deuteronomy 15:7-11
If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be.

Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, "The seventh year, the year of remission, is near," and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the LORD against you, and you would incur guilt.

Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, "Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land."         (NRSV)

It is not a matter of how much we have. It has nothing to do with rich or poor. The widow was commended for her mite, she gave out of her poverty; Cornelius, the centurion was commended for his extensive alms giving, he gave out or his wealth. The Jewish Talmud has a saying: "If a man sees that his livelihood is barely sufficient, he should give charity from it." Even a poor man who subsists on charity should give charity!

All too often there is not much cheer in the act. Giving fills the giver with about as much glee as a root canal. There is no merry making. But the text places as much stress on cheerfulness as generosity itself.

What does a cheerful giver know that makes him or her cheerful?

A cheerful giver knows what has been given to him or her. Paul asks the Corinthians, "What do you possess that was not given you?" (I Cor. 4:7) A more congenial form of the question for our secular age is this: "'What do we have that we have not earned?" Walk around Paul's profound, penetrating and provocative question and view it from many directions. Giving is passionately a matter of grace, God's grace at work in us and our response to it. The experiences of receiving and giving gifts are at the heart of the gospel.

Giving is not a matter of logic, but a matter of acknowledgment. Place your fingers at the vein in your temple and ponder the thin wall of flesh which separates us from darkness. Or, take a deep breath, and then ask, how can I do this?

Reflect on these gifts: Creation is a gift. Here is one glorious gift after another: the glory of spring, the wealth of summer, the loveliness of autumn, the beauty of winter. Our health is a gift. Talent is a gift. In Jesus' parable of the talents one was given five, one two, and another one talent. But they were all given talents. Whether you have a fertile imagination, or a good voice, or remarkable intelligence, all of them are gifts you have received. Social inheritance is a gift. Our language and our cultural treasures in the arts are gifts we have received. Our education is a gift. Whether our parents gave us a college education or we got it the old fashioned way by earning it, no one of us pays in full for our education. Our political and religious liberties we tend to take for granted are gifts. Power is a gift. "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth." (Dt. 8:18). Whether you inherited your wealth or acquired it otherwise, it is a gift. You are to be responsible in the use of it. Our power is given to us by God and we are asked to be good stewards of whatever power is entrusted to us. God's grace is a gift. From God's Word, written, spoken, sung, and enacted, we receive God's self-giving.

"What do we possess that was not given us?" God has given us a life to live, blessed us with abilities and material goods, and offered us a new life of forgiveness for the sinful persons you and I try not to be. "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich." (2 Cor. 8:9)

Life is not simply a task to be achieved. There is a givenness to be relied upon, guaranteed by none other than God. A cheerful giver knows that.

A cheerful giver knows that she cannot take it with her, she rather seeks to use it here. Who are happiest people you know? Are they not the people who use what they have? They are givers. And the unhappiest? They are keepers. Like ole Scrooge in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, they are unhappy themselves, and they make others unhappy as well. They are the people of the grasping, clenched fists.

"I know what is best, and I need to keep it." "It is mine. And when I give it, it goes to all the wrong places." What do you suppose God thinks of that? "How do you think I feel," says God, "they keep it. They think in and of themselves that possessions and resources are the goal. They have turned a means into an end. I love a hilarious giver who knows better."

This is hardest and toughest lesson to learn, and too few ever learn it or believe it. In the end we possess nothing except what we have used and shared and given away. People come to realize this when they make out their wills, but then it is too late, for they are making others happier after their death rather than in their lifetime. What do we own? Nothing.

No gratitude is felt for the benefit when the gift has lingered in the hands of the person who gives it, when the giver seems sorry to let it go, and has given it with the air of one who was robbing himself.

The cheerful giver knows how to use material things without being possessed by them. The cheerful giver does not identify who he is with what he has. Such a giver is free, refusing to identify what can be possessed with life. He or she uses what they have to enrich life. A cheerful giver knows that.

And a cheerful giver knows the secret to living: it is better to give than to receive. Winston Churchill said many compelling things, here is another one: "We make a living by what we get; but we make a life by what we give." By giving we enrich, sustain, and enlarge what has been given to us.

Satisfaction and life fulfillment do not come from greed and self-filling and self-sufficiency. The pupil of a poor, but brilliant rabbi received a fine coat from his teacher. Having received it, he gave it away. When it was reported to his teacher by those who were convinced that he would be distressed, the teacher said, "He understands, he used it in the spirit of the giver." Another rabbi named Jesus agrees: "He who seeks to save his life will lose it. He who loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will find it." The cheerful giver has a vision of how this world might be improved, how wrongs can be corrected, how human suffering might be alleviated, and how love and justice might prevail over hatred and fear. That is true of us, is it not? We give because someone has given to us: a life that we did not initiate, a love that we did not deserve from our families, our friends, and our God. Each gift is a small way of saying "no" to the greed and selfishness of this world. Each gift is a testimony to the fact that we as human beings can forget ourselves long enough to be grateful for love and life and extend them as gifts to others.

The question is not having enough resources to be independent of other people, but enough to help others, to be able to affirm community with others by contributing to the needs of the world and our neighbor. That is the secret to ole Scrooge's conversion. He was independent of other people, independent of love, independent of caring, what a sad figure he was! And it was Bob Cratchit's son Tiny Tim who turned him around and led him to ask the question in that life changing way. A cheerful giver knows that.

A cheerful giver knows a final thing: he or she desires to follow in the path of God the giver. A cheerful giver wants to be like Jesus who came to minister, not to be ministered to. The depth of commitment is revealed not by what we can get, but what we give and do. If our religion is based only on what we receive, then we set ourselves up for disappointment. For enough is never enough. If our faith is based more on loving and serving, then it never disappoints, because the opportunities are endless.

To be thankful is to make a commitment, a commitment to be like the giver of all, to be givers in a world which says be a taker.

As the cheerful giver gives, an astounding thing happens: God is praised. As a text in the book of Proverbs says, "he who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord." (19:17) Material things are important as signs of self-giving. If we base life on thanksgiving, not compulsive desire, our use of materials things will reveal how we think about God, neighbor, and world.

Let each give as each has decided, not grudgingly or by compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Why? Because the cheerful giver moves closer to God in understanding what God is all about. And a cheerful giver desires to be that by God's grace.

Let us pray and hope that we can respond in the words of one who received and gave, that unforgettable child named Tiny Tim, who though crippled in body, was alive in spirit: "God bless us all, everyone." God has and does and will. The cheerful giver knows that and seeks to be a blessing? Do you know that? Do we know that? Let’s count our blessings!