“The Generous Church: Claim it for the Kingdom” 1 Timothy 6:10

Most people and in turn most churches, do not relish talking about money. We’ve been taught that talking about money is taboo and we would like to avoid it any way we can. Most people. Except perhaps a wonderful woman in my last parish. This particular woman and I were talking one day and we were brainstorming ways to celebrate what the congregation was doing. And ultimately she decided that each week she or someone else would get up before the offering and talk for a minute or less about what our offering supports. In other words, “do you know what your offering dollars actually go towards and how lives were being changed?” For 52 Sundays, week after week, we had these mission moments, very rarely repeating themselves. 52 Sundays of lives being changed in our community and beyond. Friends, that is what it looks like to claim something for the Kingdom of God. 

But for this particular woman, living as a generous church wasn’t just about money. There were programs of the local church that were deeply transformative that did not cost us anything. Sometimes generous came in the form of talents - right as I was leaving one of the ideas floating around was hosting a mentorship program to share skills and talents with local high school and college students. And other times generosity comes in the form of time - spending time weekly at a local nursing home leading a worship service based off of a taping of the morning worship service so they could feel connected and loved. Generosity spills forth from so many places when we claim it for the Kingdom. 

So why, if time and talents and money can be used for so much good do we find verse like 1 Timothy 6:10 in scripture? Why would Paul say that money is the root of all evil? First, that isn’t what Paul actually says, is it, when we read the scripture. Paul says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. When we love money for money’s sake, sometimes it can block us from actually being generous.

For example, sometimes we can become so weighed down by our possessions that we cannot express generosity. We have a lot of stuff as Americans. It’s packed into our homes and overflows into storage units. As a push back to having a lot of stuff we have had the tiny house movement pop up. Have you seen these? They are super small compact houses, sometimes so small that they can literally be moved from place to place. Now I am not saying that we need to be tiny house people in order to be generous. Nor am I saying when we have a lot of stuff that we can’t be generous at all. But when our stuff starts to define us, that’s when we need to be careful. When we start to confuse wants and needs, making our desires into necessities to the point where it ties our hands in being generous, our stuff may be blocking what we could be doing for the Kingdom. 

Another thing that may get in our way is when our financial lives get out of control. 46 percent of Americans give no money to charities of any kind. My guess is that most of those people feel passionate about certain non-profits and other organizations doing good work, but they just don’t have the financial resources to give at this time. They may want to be generous in the future, but for the time being there are mounting bills and credit card debt and other things that need to be paid off that feel like a chain around the neck. When we don’t have financial margin in our lives, it can be very difficult to feel free to be generous. 

Still another hinderance can be when we are so concerned about our own personal welfare that it is hard to think about other people. Church folks, we may be a bit to blame here. Somewhere along the line, it has been communicated that our life is divided into what we spend on ourselves and what time we have for ourselves and what we give to God. This creates a sense of a fractured life and guilt arises. But the truth is that all we have is from God and all that we give we offer unto God. That’s true about the food we feed our families as much as the money we put into the offering plate. When we start to see everything we have as being offered unto God, we want others to have those blessings as well, and we can become more generous people. 

Church, the best indicator of being generous for the sake of the Kingdom of God is this - what role does Christ play in your life? Is Christ so important to you that he is the true North in our lives, giving us direction and purpose. Or are we finding ourselves pulled every which way, finding it hard to be fully committed to Jesus?

When Christ is the one guiding our lives, it becomes easier to see what Christ is doing in our lives. One of the reasons I think the woman from the beginning of the sermon found it so easy each week to stand up and give testimony to how what the church gave was changing lives, was became she saw the fingerprints of Christ’s blessing all around her. For her that translated into good news. 

So Church, what is our good news? How are acts of generosity involving time, talent, and money proclaiming Jesus through us? Grace, the week I’m working on this sermon, I still am hearing stories from community members about kids and their families talking about VBS. Claim it for the Kingdom! Ohio, I sat with a shut in this week who has not been able to come to church for years, but was telling me about how the Church, you, the people of God, continue to bless her life. Claim it for the Kingdom! Every year at annual conference we get to hear stories of people who received scholarships to go to college, because that is part of our shares of ministry, Church. Claim it for the Kingdom! Ohio that baskets we have been donating towards have been going out into the community to welcome new neighbors. Claim it for the Kingdom! Ohio and Grace, prayer shawls have been going out to people near and far to let them know that they are not alone no matter what they are facing. Claim it for the Kingdom! 

The truth is there are so many ways that we are working together for the Kingdom of God. We are a generous people, if only we take time to stop and think about both what we are doing and how it is impacting lives in the name of Jesus. Yes, vital ministry does require time and/or money. But let us give and give boldly, my friends, because we are making a difference. Let us not let ourselves get distracted or wonder away from the faith. Rather let us continue on in the love of God.  All for the sake of the Gospel. Amen.