Sunday, October 19, 2014 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Too Much Giving

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 96
Exodus 35:1–29; 36:2–7

What kind of thanks would we afford? God, make of us your living tithes; the first fruits, fit to work for you . . . . transformed and cleansed, restored, made new.

John Thornburg

This passage from Exodus rarely gets preached, at least according to Google. It is never included in the lectionary scripture readings. And when I glanced through several Bible studies on the book of Exodus, I noticed none of the ones I found even address these particular chapters 35–36. They all end in 34 with the renewing of the covenant. Maybe that is because it is a long scripture selection. Perhaps it has too many details and people get lost in the telling of the story. Of course, it could also be that many of us preachers have little desire to preach about the first-ever capital campaign in a faith community. Your guess is as good as mine. I am not sure why this chapter gets left out of both biblical and homiletical scholarship.

Agnes Norfleet, who is now the pastor of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, is the one who first introduced me to this text. When I was studying at Columbia Seminary, Agnes served as the pastor of the church I attended. And after hearing her preach this text eighteen years ago, I knew I would need to preach it one day when I was specifically focusing on the spiritual discipline of stewardship. So guess what? Today is the day, sisters and brothers. Let us listen for its wisdom.

We have dipped in and out of the stories of Exodus over these past few months, but here is a quick synopsis of the narrative. The Israelites, our spiritual ancestors, had moved to Egypt with the blessing of a pharaoh when their own land fell into famine. But over time, a new pharaoh arose in power over Egypt. And this new pharaoh demanded the Egyptians overtake the Israelites and oppress them, making them slaves, and controlling their lives. As time passed, the Egyptian taskmasters treated the Israelites more and more harshly. The weight of the slaves’ oppression began to break their backs and their spirits. In desperation, the Israelites cried out to God to help them. And scripture tells us God heard the sounds of their suffering and responded. God delivered God’s people, the Israelites, bringing them from slavery into freedom, from desperation into hope, from Egypt into the wilderness as they made their way to the promised land.

Instead of allowing the people to wander aimlessly in that unfamiliar wilderness, God guided them with a pillar of cloud by day and a fire by night. When the people began to grumble because they were tired and hungry, God sent down manna for them to eat and be satisfied. And when the people began to complain because they were thirsty, God instructed Moses to strike a rock and water flowed freely and quenched their thirst. And when the people needed order and instruction, God sent them the Ten Commandments as a reminder of what it means to live within the covenant.

When the people turned their backs and radically disobeyed their Creator, God called them back, forgave them, loved them still, and renewed their relationship. All throughout the book of Exodus, as we watch God and the Israelites traveling together, we begin to see that God’s generosity towards them becomes the blood flowing through our ancestors’ veins. God’s generosity towards them literally gives and preserves their lives. If it were not for God’s constant resilient love and help, well, we can only imagine what might have happened to them.

But we also know from all these stories that our ancestors, the Israelites, were far from perfect. We have many, many pictures of their humanness. They grumbled. They murmured. They complained. They disobeyed. They tried to tell God what God should do, when God should do it, and how God should do it. At the height of their fear, they even went as far as to create their own god with the golden calf. The Israelites messed up again and again, earning the well-deserved reputation of being a stiff-necked people.

But today, in this strangely detailed text, we are given another portrait of our ancestors in the faith. It seems that at this particular moment in their collective life, the Israelites are genuinely aware of all that God has done for them. Maybe after the golden calf incident they were amazed God was giving them yet another chance. Perhaps they realized that if they were God, they would have washed their hands of all of them and left them to fend for themselves. And yet we see in chapter 34, the chapter that immediately precedes this text, that they discovered time after time God did not wash God’s hands of them. Instead, the God who set them free renewed their covenant. Once again God promised to be their God and to make them God’s chosen people. Once again the God who had been so generous in liberation and in covenant-making overflowed with a profound generosity of forgiveness.

So in our text today we see the people of Israel actively responding to God’s overflowing generosity. Moses did not even have to give an annual stewardship sermon. He simply let them know what was needed in order to build the tabernacle, the place where they believed God’s real presence would dwell among them. Then Moses said, “Let whoever is of a generous heart bring the Lord’s offering.” As my former pastor Agnes preached to me, “Nothing was mandated, nothing required; no sermon about tithing; Moses didn’t lay on guilt or lift up slick stewardship slogans. Moses simply appealed to their deep awareness of the abundant and undeserved goodness of God and offered a simple invitation” (Agnes Norfleet, sermon preached at North Decatur Presbyterian Church, Decatur, Georgia, 10 November 1996).

Can you imagine it? All Moses said was “Let whoever is of a generous heart bring the Lord’s offering,” and the congregation went wild. The women and men went back to the tents, collected their gold, their bronze, and their silver, and brought it all to Moses. Those who had the gift of weaving wove rich tapestries of blue, purple, and crimson fabrics. Those who had the gift of woodworking began construction. The people came, and they came, and they came; morning, noon, and night; actively offering their treasures, their gifts, their talents, their very selves in response to God’s faithfulness to them.

As Walter Brueggemann writes in one of the only commentaries on this passage, “The picture presented is a community so convinced of its covenantal affirmations and so taken up in its conviction of the truth of its liberation narrative that it acts completely beyond the usual calculations of prudence and caution” (Walter Brueggemann, “Exodus,” New International Biblical Commentary, pp. 960–961). Putting it plainly, the Israelites did not give so generously in order to be recognized. They did not give so generously even because the current church programming was meeting their needs and nurturing their spiritual lives. They did not even give so generously because they saw the life and death difference the church’s mission made in their world.

According to this text, none of those motivations was behind their staggeringly generous stewardship. At least for that particular moment in that congregation’s life, their entire motivation emerged from the power of realizing that life itself is a gift from God. The air they breathed; the water they drank; the love they shared; the courage they received—all of it came from God. So the only fitting way to live in response was to live deeply grounded in the power of generous gratitude. And the people gave, and gave, and gave. Morning, noon, and night. Once they realized God’s generous posture towards them, they could not help but respond to this God who overflowed with generous grace. And do you know what happened as a result? Moses actually had to ask them to stop giving. Can you imagine it?

Bezalel, Oholiab, and all the artisans told Moses they had received way too much. They asked Moses to restrain the people from giving anymore. My goodness. May there be a day where I get to preach that kind of stewardship sermon here with you. “Please, please, good people of Fourth Presbyterian Church. You have given too much. You have already brought more than enough. Your giving is getting totally out of control.” That’s what happens in this story!

The Israelites were so caught up in responding to God’s generosity, they did not even bother to calculate a pledge or figure out their tithe or weigh their needs against the needs of the church. Rather, they reached down into their spiritual depths and remembered. They remembered God’s generous posture towards them. They remembered how God continued to give them second chances. They remembered how God constantly saved and preserved their lives. And they found themselves overwhelmed with gratitude, wanting to give back to the one who had given them so much. What a beautiful portrait of our ancestors.

Some of you know that here at Fourth Church we have finally begun to feel the transition pinch in our current year’s financial position. The rubber of not knowing what was next has finally hit the road. We see it played out in the way we are behind budget in payments on our pledges and in unpledged giving. Now, this is not a surprise. I am actually shocked it did not happen sooner, given the length of this transition and the wonderfully successful capital campaign that occurred at the same time.

But I must admit to you, due to this pinch, I am feeling some pressure over our 2015 Annual Appeal. I, along with your other leaders, do not want us to shrink back with apprehension right at the moment when we stand on this crucial threshold of moving forward together. We might not know exactly what our vision will be over the next two to three years, but we certainly know God is up to something. The energy is too high and the ideas are too free-flowing for that not to be the case. Right now we are just beginning to discern our next steps of deeper ministry and mission as we move into this next century here on Michigan Avenue. But this getting ready time takes commitment. It takes commitment of money, time, and energy, as well as a commitment of patience to allow the way forward to become clearer.

But since patience is not necessarily one of my virtues, I have done some research about why people give these days and looked at generational shifts. And I have made some interesting discoveries. Frankly, I’ve found that gratitude does not rank very high on the list of motivations for giving for any generation. According to the Alban Institute, as well as other respected literature, if you really want to have a “successful” appeal, you need to show people how their gifts will get them the kind of programming they want. Or you need to publicly recognize the big givers so as to encourage folks to follow in their footsteps. Or you need to emphasize that God will bless them if they bless the church, a kind of prosperity gospel—that is what you hear from televangelists where I come from. NPR had a story just this week that concludes millennials (people in their late teens to early thirties) will not respond to giving out of a sense of obligation or even when the word donation is used. Rather, they will give when they see their gifts will be invested in changing the world (“All Tech Considered,” NPR’s All Things Considered, 13 October 2014). These are all broad strokes, but the research states pretty clearly that people just don’t give simply because they are grateful for what God has given to them. But they’ll give if they know the plan, the vision, the difference their gifts will make.

I have pondered all of that information. And I get it. I live it. I want to know what difference my gifts make too. But you know what I have decided? I’ve decided I cannot get stuck in wondering if cultivating gratitude for God’s generosity is a successful financial strategy or not. Why? Because it is a faithful and biblical strategy. And even though I would love for us to blow the roof off this year’s Annual Appeal for 2015 and be able to fully fund all of the dreams of our committees and Chicago Lights, the truth is that when we are at our best, when we are honest about the reality that the giving of our money is as crucial a part of our spiritual life as the time we spend in prayer and Bible study, then we know that even in a time known as the Annual Appeal, we are not about fundraising to meet a hoped-for budget.

Rather, as people who are baptized or who are preparing for baptism, we are about responding generously out of gratitude to our generous God, like our ancestors in the faith. They gave generously because they had seen God’s goodness in their lives. They had felt God’s generosity. And they knew that God’s generosity was what flowed through their veins, giving and preserving their lives. And they were so overwhelmed by God’s goodness they could not restrain themselves from giving and giving and giving. They were generous because they knew God is generous.

And as Christians, we also know that the story of God’s overflowing generosity did not stop with the Exodus narrative. By becoming one of us, one with us in Jesus, God decided to empty God’s self completely. Could there be anything more generous than that? As we proclaimed two weeks ago on World Communion Sunday, Jesus took the bread and told his disciples, “Take, this is my body.” And he took the cup saying, “This is my blood of the covenant poured out for many.” Can you imagine it? God keeps on giving again and again, going so far as to give up the Son for us so we might know life.

And let’s be honest, we’ve been a stiff-necked people too. We’ve grumbled. We’ve murmured. We’ve complained. We’ve tried to dictate to God what God needed to do. We’ve let other things take God’s place for our devotion and love. And yet just as God did with the Israelites, God keeps calling us back, loving us still, forgiving us again, and renewing our relationship through the cradle, the cross, and the empty tomb. God’s generosity flows through our bodies like the blood flows through our veins. It literally gives and preserves our lives.

So whether it is a popular strategy or not, our challenge today is to remember. Let us leave worship today digging down into our spiritual depths and remembering God’s overwhelming generosity towards us. Let us all remember what belongs to God. Let us all remember that in Jesus Christ, God went “all in” in order to show creation the profound, generous depths of God’s love, precisely so that we could go “all out” and participate in the ways God is transforming this world.

And then, after we spend this intentional time remembering, let whoever is of a generous heart bring the Lord’s offering. Who knows? Maybe next Sunday, on Commitment Sunday, I might have to announce you need to be restrained. “No, no. You have given too much. Your generosity is overwhelming the church.”

Wouldn’t that be something.