“Reason to Be Generous

A Sermon Based Upon 1 Tim. 6: 6-12; 17-21
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.  
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Pentecost 24+, November 22th, 2015
 

Years ago legendary Texas Longhorns football coach Darrell Royal recruited an outstanding player to be on his team.  He was six feet five inches tall, weighed 250 pounds, and could run the 100-yard dash in 9.6 seconds. 

His only handicap was that he wasn’t a very good student.  When mid-term grades were posted, he reported to the coach as he was required to do.  Coach Royal asked his new player,  “Son, how did you do?”  He replied, “Coach, I made an F in English, I made an F in Chemistry, I made an F in Psychology, I made an F in sociology, and I made an F in History.  What do you think about that coach?”
Coach Royal responded, “Son, it looks like you have been spending too much time in one subject.”  (From Paul Powell, Taking the Stew out of Stewardship, Annuity Board Press, 1996, p. 99).

 Today is the third message on the issue of money.  You may be thinking that I’ve been spending too much time on one subject.  Well, if this subject makes you a bit uncomfortable, be glad to know that this is my final message on this subject, at least for now.  So, let’s get to it.

In this final biblical text on money matters,  we turn to the letter of Timothy,

where we find similar words to Paul’s earlier discussion about contentment.

But these words go further, considering how ‘godliness’ and ‘generosity’ can

help us keep money and materialism from destroying the soul and spirituality

of our lives.

WE CAN TAKE NOTHING OUT
The author of First Timothy gets our undivided attention by asking us right up front, to face our own mortality.  He says, “We brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it” (1 Tim. 6:7 NRS).  

Recently, my wife was schedule to have a colonoscopy, as part of her regular physical.  When the doctor was about to administer the anesthesia, he explained that he would be giving her propofol.   My wife quipped; “Isn’t that the same stuff that killed Michael Jackson?”  The doctor responded,  “Yes, but I won’t be giving you that much!”

The sudden death of Michael Jackson in 2009 gained global attention, as people around the world took notice and watch every detail of the news story.  But there is no greater picture of the truth that ‘we can take nothing out’ of this world.   Who will forget those televised images of the “king of pop” being transported to the Los Angeles coroner’s office wrapped in a plain white sheet?   Michael Jackson had amassed wealth and popularity beyond all ordinary comprehension, but he was being loaded and transported to a morgue like all of us one day will.  This is how all of us came into this world and will leave this world.

Back in the summer of 1989, Teresa and I visited New York City for the first time, and attended worship at the famous Riverside Church, which was originally a Baptist Church that was built and paid for by John D. Rockefeller, one of the richest men in American history.  When Rockefeller’s grandson died in 1979, ten years earlier, that church hosted the funeral for the former vice-president who served under Gerald Ford.  During the funeral service, the pastor, William Sloane Coffin, Jr., (isn’t that a great sobering name for a pastor—Coffin?), shared honestly and told the congregation that Rockefeller’s death, the death of this incredibly wealthy man, reminded him that ‘this is God’s world.  At best, (implying that no matter how rich and powerful we might become), we are only guests.  Even the Rockefellers are guests in this world.”

(As quoted in James A. Harnish, Simple Rules for Money, 2009, p. 62).

As pastor John Ortberg has vividly related our human situation to the almost outdated board game,  “When the game is over, it all goes back in the box.”   “Naked is how I came from my mother’s womb;”  Job said,  “And naked I will return there;  the Lord gave, and the LORD takes away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).  Job was using his ‘mother’s womb’ as a personal way of describing ‘mother earth.  It was from dust he was created, and it is to ‘dust’ he will one day return (Job 10:9). 

Such language about mortality gets much more serious than most of us desire be on any given Sunday.  But the point is not to take the joy, hope, and dreams of life away from us, but to help us learn to value of every day as a ‘gift’ from God that money cannot buy.   It is all too easy to let our desire for wealth, money or riches, take over in our lives so that the desire for more and more can begin to take our lives away from us.  This sobering word quoted in Timothy is given not just to put ‘the fear of God into us’, nor to ‘scare  hell out of us’, which are not bad things either, but it is to be a reminder that the clocks of all our lives are continually ticking away, mostly without any awareness of when they will stop. 

If you walk into the main square in Prague, you will see a medieval clock that was built just for this purpose, with a skeleton manning the bell, constantly reminding the inhabitants of that city that one day the bell will toll for them.   We too need to learn to make each second we have count for something more than earthly treasures, so that every dollar we earn, every dollar we save, and every dollar we spend, contributes not just for our own physical existence, but also is being invested for spiritual treasures which point to our hopes and our love for those who come after us, as well as, our own ‘priceless’ hope of eternal life.  One thing for sure, if you were to learn in the next moment that your life was coming to an end in the next few months, you would look at money and your life in a whole different light.

MONEY AT THE ROOT OF EVIL

But before we get to the ‘good’ that money can do, Timothy asks us to consider once more the evil money can cause. “Those who want to be rich, fall into temptation and are trapped by senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction”  (6:9).  These words seem to explain what comes next in that most memorable quote about ‘the love of money’ being’ the root of all evil’.   People who fall in love with money, or the things money buys for them, can fall into the kinds of temptation that can trap them and bring ruin and destruction.  How many times some news show reports how a once wealthy Hollywood Star is now living on Food Stamps for worst.  But there is much more here than a mere warning about ‘fleeting’  wealth, riches or fame.

 While there is some debate among linguistic scholars about whether this famous text should say that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’ (KJV) or that ‘the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil’ NRSV), we all know that there is as much evil in the world about power or pleasure, as there is about actually having lots of money. But since money is most often the way to gain power or pleasure, we can certainly understand why the ancients expressed or translated it this way.  

 The ‘love of money’ or the desire for money can become evil all on its own.   For example, even though money wasn’t mentioned in the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the wilderness, money could have been the answer to every weakness Jesus ever faced in his life---his need for food, his need to have his message accepted by the populous, and his need to have the kind of power that would influence the world around him.  Since money could have been an answer, it could have been the ‘root of ALL evil’ exactly because it was not THE ANSWER which would touch the hearts of people in the world for the greater good.

 Just as most have been witnesses to the ‘good’ that money can do in the world, we’ve also been witnesses to the ‘evil’ that money can do when people are ‘in love’ with what it can do for them.  But this kind of ‘love of money’ is a corrupting, destructive, harmful kind of love that almost brought our whole world into financial ruin back in 2008.

 If that is still too big a picture to wrap our minds around, perhaps we can best be reminded of what ‘the love of money’ did to Bernie Madoff, and the hundreds of investors who ‘trusted’ him to invest their money wisely, but instead he baited them in an investment fund that had no real value, because he was making himself rich and spending all their money.  When the crime was finally uncovered,  Madoff not only ended up in prison, but he destroyed his relationship with his wife,  one of his two sons committed suicide, the other is sick with cancer from worry, not to mention many thousands of investors who had nothing to show for their years of hard work and diligent investing.  “Ruin and destruction” are probably not strong enough to express how those people felt, or what Madoff’s family, or even he is now going through.

But can’t the ‘love of money’ get even closer home to each of us?   Isn’t there an even a greater ‘harm’ from not just what money can do to us?  Isn’t it just as bad to think about what ‘the love of money’ or just having money can keep from us, because it has robbed us from life’s greatest treasures?  I’ve heard about people visiting in poverty stricken areas of India, and seeing something among those very poor families we don’t have, even with the fulfillment of our own  ‘American Dreams’.  If you remember, as soon as the Beatles struck in rich, they went to India too, to try to find relief what ‘wealth’ was stealing from them.   What does Timothy being by money as a way to be ‘trapped by senseless and harmful desires’?  

If one would use psychology to study what made Berine Madoff go after the money,one would try to go beyond his inordinate love of money and ask what was missing in his life that would have caused him to do what he did that was so ‘senseless’, so stupid, and so ‘harmful’?  But in a recent interview with Bernie Madoff in his Butner prison cell, Madoff insisted that his Ponzi scheme was not senseless nor was he trying to hurt people so he could get rich because he was already rich.   He insisted in that interview that he really wasn’t trying to hurt anybody. But such a ‘wild and crazy’ answer only affirms that the greatest evil from the love of money is not the evil of what a love of money will do to people, but it is what money can robs from us that can be our ruin; the loss of common sense, the loss of morals and character, and worst of all a genuine capacity to love.   Is there any greater destruction than this?

(http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/bernie-madoff-interview- 104838_Page4.html).  

BE RICH IN GOOD WORKS

But this whole discussion about money, if it truly follows Scripture, must end on a good note. The final word about money in this text is positive and is especially aimed at those who have the money they need, if not more.  As Paul tells Timothy, Tell those with money:  “Don’t be highminded (KJV), egotistical (CEB), arrogant (NIV), or haughty about the money you have, the writer advises.  Nor should you put too much ‘stock’ in the uncertainty’ of wealth.  Only God is the true source of ‘enjoyment’.

This word ‘enjoyment’ is a fascinating the original.  It sounds like the American breed of horse, appolusis.  The term does not simply mean ‘enjoyment’ for the sake of pleasure, but it means to gain what is needed to satisfy what each person needs to give them joy, fulfillment, and purpose in life.   The ‘riches’ that bring this kind of ‘joy’ are not left to our imagination, but are explained as ‘doing good’, being ‘rich in good works’, being ‘generous’ and of course, being ‘ready to share.’   This ‘enjoyment’  is satisfying because it ‘stores up a treasure (heavenly or spiritual) as ‘a good foundation for the future’.  These kinds of riches enable you to ‘take hold of the life that really is life”  (6: 17-19) so you use your money and you don’t let money use you.

Right at the center of this wonderful way to use money is the word ‘generous’.  It carries the idea of being liberal with what you have and being eager to share it.   It points right back to the material blessings you already have which you now can share.

Generosity like is is wonderfully illustrated in a story by Robert Schnase, a Methodist bishop in Missouri, who tells how ‘generosity’ can begin in one person and then spread to brings hope, joy and satisfaction both individually and as a community.    Schnase tells a true story of how the members of a small congregation faced the challenge of paying for an unexpected air conditioning repair bill of $465.   The church had already exceeded its maintenance budget and account balances were low across the board.  For more than forty-five minutes the finance committee discussed options.  Should they borrow the money, postpone a payment, or make an appeal for money during worship on Sunday.  Or should they reallocate other budgeted funds from other ministries?  They even considered other money fundraising options, such as a rummage sale, bake sale, or a fund-raising dinner.   The thought even occurred to ask one of the wealthy members of the church to offer a special donation.  Frustrations grew.  They had few real solutions.

Finally, one the members of the finance committee, a teacher, just shook her head at the impasse they had come to.  Smiling, she suggested they simply stop talking and thinking so much and paused for silent prayer to see if God would provide another way.  The others went along. After a few moments of silence, she looked around the room at her friends and fellow church members, and she said, “We all realize that any one of us could write a check for the full $465 and it would not make any major difference in our lifestyle, comfort, or financial security.” 

 With that she pulled her checkbook out of her purse and wrote a check for $465 to the church.  The she said,  “Anyone who wants to join me can add their check, too.  We’ll earmark the surplus for children’s ministry.”  Three other followed her lead, and two wrote checks for $200 and $100 respectively.  The result of her inspiring and generous leadership?  The air conditioner repair bill was paid, and the children’s ministry had an unexpected $1695 to launch a new initiative to teach the faith to the next generation!

(Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations,  by Robert Schnase, Abingdon Press, 2007, pp. 11-112).

 

Generosity means that there is no end to the ‘good works’ the church can accomplish for the purposes of Christ when the sharp awareness of the assets, resources, and talents God has entrusted to exceeds the fear of scarcity and the obsessive focus on needs, problems, and shortages  (Schnase).  When we realize our lives are in God’s hands, from beginning to end, we don’t worry half as much as we are ready and eager to put ourselves into the hands of this God.  God wants us to bless us and for us to use our money to bring true joy, rather than let our money use us to bring fear and frustration.  As the John Wesley said, we should earn all we can, save all we can, and then give all we can to the glory of the kingdom of God, and then, as Paul told Timothy, we will find that we have stored up good treasure for the future and have taken hold of life that is really life  (6:19).  Amen