Date: October 20, 2024

Scripture: Acts 20:32-35

Sermon Title: “Blessed to Give”

Preacher: Rev. Dr. Bob Jon

There is a story about a pastor, one Sunday morning, got up in the pulpit and apologized for the Band-Aid on his face. He said, “I was thinking about my sermon while shaving and cut my face.” After the worship, he found a note in collection plate. “Next time think about your face and cut the sermon.”^[1] Well, I have to tell you that I have not had anyone who told me to cut the sermon yet for the past two years. Talk about the generosity. I mean sincerely that I am grateful to God for you. Some of you have given me feedback on note, sent me a card to thank me, and emailed me for the past two years. Thank you. 

These past two Sundays, I have been sharing about John Wesley’s theology of stewardship, his idea and practice of money. As you know by now, the first rule of Wesley’s stewardship is to “Earn All You Can.” Wesley called money an “excellent gift from God”. Instead of shying away from money as evil itself, we can approach our possession as a gift to increase, improve, and multiply. The second rule is “Save All You Can.” In our consumerist culture, we often buy what is often unnecessary, or even beyond our capability to pay back. While Wesley affirmed that we earn and use our possession to support our families and to satisfy our needs, he had a bigger purpose of our possession which comes to the topic today. “Give All You Can.” 

Many of you know how Saul who was a Pharisee, who was a distinguished scholar in his religion, who was championed as the persecutor of the followers of Christ, encountered the risen Christ, and changed in his life. His name changed from Saul and Paul. He traveled many cities and towns, proclaimed Jesus, and started the churches. Later, he is about to return to Jerusalem where he knows he will be arrested and put into a trial. Before that happens, Paul asks the elders from the church in Ephesus to come and meet with him so he can say the words of farewell and encourage them to be united by the love of God. Even in facing trials and persecutions, his heart was full of gratitude and joy. And he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (v.35). As an example of his words, he talks about how he did not receive any income from the churches he started, but he sustained himself by making and selling tents. 

Some years ago, I joined a team of clergy and laity from our conference that went to Nicaragua for a mission trip. At that time, our hosting pastor showed me a cart full of cleaning items. When I asked him what the deal was with all these cleaning items, he said that was his job. He worked as a janitor pushing his cart all over the town, to clean some office or buildings. His income was $400 per month which he used to support his family of three children and get the church ministry going. When I hear that, I thought about some students I met at Boston University who wanted to ask the questions about their medical insurance, pension, and salary before entering ministry. As a father to two children and husband, I can better understand our need to consider our different contexts, living expense in the U.S. But when Jesus called Peter, James, and John, calling them to be fisher of people, they did not sit down to negotiate how much compensation they would get. 

Here is a thing about Jesus. When Jesus calls us to come and follow him, he often disrupts our perfectly peaceful life, stirs the water in our hearts when we can just live our lives minding our own business, and gives us a bigger purpose in our lives than we can ever think. Many of us can agree with the sentiment, “It is more blessed to give than receive.” We can think about the good feelings when we give Christmas gifts to our children and our friends and how they appreciate our love and care for them. But stewardship is a radically different notion than what we learn from our world. We give because God is the primary giver of all good things. And in essence, there is nothing we truly possess as our own.  

It is more blessed to give than receive because God is the giver of all good things. In the beginning, God created everything with God’s words. God did not have to do it. But God did so out of love. God desired relationship. So, God brought everything into existence in God’s generosity, blessed them, and ordered them to multiply. When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they journeyed through the wilderness for forty years. And God fed them with manna, quail, and water. And the most generous act of God’s giving was to give God’s the only Son Christ to redeem us and give us a new life in God. 

Secondly, it is more blessed to give than receive because since God is the giver of all good things, we do not own anything permanently. James Harnish gives an illustration in his book Earn, Save, and Give that when a family plays the Monopoly game, the game ends with the winner who has the most property and money and the loser being the one who has the least. Whoever wins the game, in the end, when it is over, everything is put back into the game box—dice, tokens, money, and houses and hotels. No one can truly claim what we have as everlasting, our money, our relationships, and even our lives. 

This is why Jesus gave the parable about the rich fool. When he had a great harvest, he thought he had to pull down his barns and build larger ones, planning to store all his grain and goods. He told his soul, “You have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.” And God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). 

And lastly, it is more blessed to give than receive because God graciously invites us to be part of God’s saving work in this world through our cheerful giving, giving of our possession and giving of ourselves. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:8, “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.” In other words, God blesses us so we can bless God and bless others through who God has created us to be and what God has given us today. 

A couple of months ago, I noticed that my wallet was unusually heavy. When I looked inside it, I found some quarters there, approximately amounting to two or three dollars. I thought that one of my boys was playing with me and took out the coins. The next day, my wallet was heavy again with the quarters, so I asked my children, “Who did this?” Joshua raised his hand and said, “I did, Dad, because I love you so much. When you go out to work, I wanted to make sure you have enough money.” I was so touched in my heart, “Awww.” Then, Daniel rushed to his room, and I could hear him shake his piggy bank and yell, “Hey! They are my coins!” 

A couple of Sundays ago, we talked about the dishonest manager who went out to make friends so that when he loses his job, he would be welcomed into their houses. Even my little boy using the money of his brother to show affection and love for his father. And Jesus tells us to be generous and wise in how we spend what we have for the kingdom of God, while John Wesley encouraged the early Methodists to care for themselves, their families, and give the rest to the poor and hungry, therefore, exhorting them to give all you can. 

In the Gratitude Path, Kent Millard shares a story about Pastor Rinkart. He was the pastor of a Lutheran congregation in the walled city of Eilenburg, Germany, during the Thirty Years’ War in the 17^thcentury. Eilenburg was a city of refuge for political and military fugitives, which meant it became severely overcrowded and experienced deadly pestilence, poverty, and famine. Armies came and overran it three times. Although Pastor Rinkart did not have enough for his own family, he opened his home to provide food and shelter to countless people in need. In 1637, the people of Eilenburg experienced a severe plague and as the only surviving pastor in the city, Pastor Rinkart conducted as many as fifty funerals a day for those who died during the plague. Even Pastor Rinkart’s wife died of the plague and he conducted her funeral.  

Millard comments that while a person who experienced so much pain, suffering, and death might be upset with God, Pastor Rinkart never lost his trust in God, his heart of gratitude and thanksgiving. In wanting to give his children a song to sing in gratitude at the dinner table, he wrote a powerful hymn,

Tired and worn, Rinkart died in 1649, one year after the end of the war. But it is said that there is no other song that is sung in Lutheran churches more often than what Pastor Rinkart has left behind.  

“It’s a blessing to give rather than just merely receive. And I believe it’s happening right here in the middle of Aldersgate United Methodist Church. Our Mission Outreach Team is selling apple crisps because we’ve been asked to provide ten more Thanksgiving baskets for the high school. We could just say, no, we are already doing 50 baskets. But we never say no to our children and the families who are in need. We want to share the blessing with them, because we know God is a giver who calls us to be generous with our neighbors in need.

We also host a blood drive. Sometimes, I go there to give my blood. It comes with a pastor’s job description at Aldersgate here. But I get scared, to be honest with you, when I see the needle going to my arm. And sometimes if Dottie is there, she offers help, “You can hold my hand,” says she. Usually, I see Janet Marson, close to 90 years old. Every time we do the blood drive at the church, she comes, lies on the bed, gives her blood to save someone.”

“I think that that’s in the DNA of Aldersgate. That is how we started back in 1963, with much prayer, love, and sacrifice. There’s also how we carry the legacy forward, as we believe in God who is a generous giver, who calls us also to give, trusting God who will fill our house of God here with many good things, to share the good news of God’s grace and peace and healing in our community and the world.

Amen.

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^[1] Anonymous, “Pastoral Life Magazine”