This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
Vital Signs of a Healthy Spiritual Life
The Spirit of Generosity
DATE: April 9, 2000
TEXT: Mark 12:41-44; 2 Cor. 9:6-8

(Scrooge Clip #1)
Over the last several weeks we have been looking together at some of the vital signs of healthy spirituality. As you no doubt know, spirituality is a hot topic in our country today. And for good reason. We're rediscovering that a vital spiritual life has a positive impact on every other area of our lives. Vibrant spirituality gives us meaning, purpose, and the energy we need to make the most out of what life has to offer. So it's important to focus on those things that lead to spiritual health.
We began the series a couple of weeks ago by talking about worship, and how through worship God comes to us to refresh us and re-energize us. Last week, we focused on the commitment to learning. We saw that as we grow in our faith we find new vitality for living.
Today, as we continue our series, we're going to look at how the spirit of generosity can put life back into our lives.
Now I want to assure you up front that this is not another sermon about money. Certainly, generosity and the giving of money are related to each other. But generosity is an attitude that determines the quality of our lives. The giving of money is simply one expression of a generous spirit. And as we're going to see, those who develop a generous spirit experience a vibrant, healthy spiritual life and as a result are happy, secure, and deeply contented with life.
So today we're going to look at how it is that generosity can transform our lives and how it is that we can become generous people. But before we talk about it, let's pray together.
Bountiful Lord, You have granted us riches, more than we rightly deserve or fully appreciate. Let not your blessings prevent our fully trusting in your grace, or using your good gifts for the benefit of others in their need. AMEN
In our Bible reading for today we have a story that shares with us the life-transforming power of generosity. It's a story from the life of Jesus. We find him sitting with his disciples in the temple of Jerusalem in a courtyard area where the women came to give their gifts. In this courtyard area stand 13 trumpet shaped metal containers each marked with one of the 13 letters from the Hebrew alphabet. Jesus watches as the women come, one by one, to drop their money into the containers. Nearby stands a group of people who murmur praises when the rich put in their large gifts.
While watching the procession of wealthy people Jesus notices a woman who, apparently from the way she was dressed, looked extremely poor. Jesus watched as she walked up to one of the containers and dropped in two coins. In today's money probably not worth more than a penny. None of the bystanders noticed her. They didn't cheer her gift. But Jesus did. Out of all the people who came that day to give gifts, Jesus singled her out even though hers was the smallest gift. Because, unlike the others who gave out of the excess, this woman had given out of her need. She, out of all of them, had demonstrated the life-giving spirit of generosity. She, out of all of them, knew the true joy of life. And Jesus pointed her out so that we wouldn't miss it. He wanted us to know that generosity has little to do with the amount of time or money we give. Rather it has everything to do with the attitude of our heart.
There's a legend about a desert wanderer who one day discovered a spring of cool, crystal-clear water. The water was so delicious that he decided to bring some to the king as a gift. So he filled up his leather canteen and made the long journey through the desert to the king's palace.
Unfortunately, by the time he reached the king the water had grown stale. But the king accepted the gift, drank the water with an expression of gratitude and sent the wanderer off feeling happy that he had pleased the king.
After the wanderer left, others in the king's court sample the water and immediately spit it out. It tasted terrible. They asked the king why he had pretended to enjoy it and he said, "It was not the water I tasted, but the spirit in which it was given."
That's Jesus' point. Generosity is a matter of the heart, not of an amount of money or time given.
Our second Bible reading puts it this way. God loves cheerful givers. In other words, God gets a kick out of generous people because God himself is so generous. Like the king who delighted in the spirit of the gift, not in the water itself, so God takes great joy not in the amount given but in the spirit of a generous person. God gets excited about generosity because he knows it's so life transforming. For example, he knows that generosity energized us with life.
We started the message by looking at Ebenezer Scrooge, one of the meanest, most miserable men ever found in literature. Scrooge lacked a generous spirit and as a result he despised life and hated people. And people despised him. But then, one night, something happened to him.
(Scrooge Clip #2)
It was when Scrooge discovered the spirit of generosity that he discovered that he liked life.
A woman, worn out from a long day of shopping, decided to stop at a local restaurant for some coffee. She noticed some enticing bags of cookies and picked up one to snack on with her coffee. The place was crowded and she ended up sitting across from a man reading a newspaper. She sipped her coffee and reached over for a cookie and noticed the man sitting across from her reach into the same bag and take one for himself. She couldn't believe it. She glared at him but he just smiled and kept on reading his paper.
Moments later she reached for another cookie and the man across the table did the same thing. Now she was steamed. There was only one cookie left and she watched as the man reached over to it, broke it in half, and shared it with her and she indignantly stuffed it into her mouth. The man finished the cookie and coffee, smiled at the woman once more, and left. As the woman prepared to leave she reached into her purse and discovered to her surprise the bag of cookies. She suddenly realized that she had been angry at that man for eating her cookies when all along he had been graciously sharing his cookies with her.
People who lack a generous spirit hoard for themselves and end up bitter and angry. But generous people are people energized with life.
God gets excited about generosity because it energizes us with life. But he also gets a kick out of generosity because he knows that generosity sets us free. And God wants us to be free people.
One of the tricks used to captures monkeys for a zoo is to put a shining metallic object in a long-necked jar tied to a tree. As the monkeys swing through the air their eyes catch the reflections of the sun on the metallic object. They reach into the jar and grab the metallic object. They reach into the jar and grab the object, but their clenched fist is now too big to get out of the bottle. To gain freedom, all the monkey has to do is let go of the object. Instead, the monkey clings to that object and in the process is captured.
Generosity sets us free because it helps us recognize that God will take care of us. Rather than holding tightly to things that eventually trap us, rather than being owned by what we own, generous people see that God owns it all. They happily enjoy what he gives to them and freely gives some of it away when called upon. For they know that God will take care of them.
Generous people are those freed from being possessed by their possessions. Scrooge discovered that freedom. When he let go of his possessions he started enjoying life. The woman who gave everything she had at the temple discovered the same thing. She knew the freedom of being cared for by a God who loves her. The spirit of generosity sets us free.
The problem is that generosity runs counter to our nature. We want to hoard things. We want to be in charge of what we have. We want to save as much as we can so that we can feel secure. And yet, secure people are those who let go not those who cling tightly to what they have.
So if we want to be generous people we need a heart change. And that heart change comes when we encounter our generous, giving creator. The Bible tells us that giving is essential to the character of God. He loves us so much that he gave us his very best, Jesus Christ. And when our hearts are captivated by that generous love, when our lives are changed through living in a relationship with Jesus, we discover the joy of generosity ourselves--a joy that energizes us with life and sets us free.
So I encourage you today, if you're feeling a bit like Scrooge, if you're feeling lonely, bitter, or alienated, to welcome Jesus to come and overwhelm you with his generosity. And as you experience the extravagant, giving love of Jesus you'll find your heart changed. You'll experience the joy and freedom of generosity, a gift that will transform your life.
AMEN