Sermon: "Serving and Giving from the Heart"

4th in the "Being a Jesus Follower" series.
Delivered January 24, 2010 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Sermon Text: Mark 12:38-44

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And I also wanted to show you a picture that's been circulating on the Internet. Some of you may have seen it already. This is from Haiti. I think you can see fairly clearly amidst the rubble that the crucifix of a church is still standing. And when I saw this, it just showed to me in a graphic manner what distinguishes the Christian faith from every other religion that our God is a suffering God who has entered into the pain and sorrow of this world and into humanity. Has not stood far off, but has entered into that pain and sorrow and through his complete self-giving has rebound us to God, has rebound us.

That's what religion means. "Religio" means "to be rebound." We have been rebound to God by the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is this Jesus, who on the night before his death washed the feet of his disciples. He took a towel and a basin of water, and he knelt down. The God of the universe knelt down at the feet of his disciples and washed the dirt off of their feet.

And then he commanded them to love and to serve each other just as he had loved and served them. In other words, to take the lowest place just like he did. He took the lowest place, the place of a servant, so that others' needs might be met and addressed. Certainly what's going on in Haiti through human hands and hearts and lives is an expression of the love of Christ to thousands. And there is a ministry for the larger Body of Christ through this.

Now as we consider the third characteristic of our four characteristics of being a disciple essential in 2010, we come today to the topic of serving. And I want to explain that symbol, then talk about this a little bit today. But there was a question that was going through my mind as I thought about this topic of serving, this third characteristic of discipleship here at Central. And that's this. This is the question that was running through my mind. "How do I talk about serving? What do I say about serving to a church full of servants?" You all are remarkably serving each other so well in so many, many cases.

And so the definition that we have in our marks of discipleship... And Pastor John will be wrapping up with sharing next week. But you'll be getting a brochure that distinguishes all this. But I wanted to show you what we are calling serving under the marks or habits of our sense of discipleship today. The subpoints are I serve the body of Christ at Central Presbyterian Church through the use of my spiritual gifts. Now but then the other bullet point is I give regularly and generously of my material resources.

So my dilemma was do I preach a sermon about spiritual gifts, or do I preach a sermon about stewardship or/and generosity? Because these two are so important to the whole aspect of serving. God has given each of us a spiritual gift. To everybody who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ has been endowed by the Holy Spirit with a gift, at least one, to build up the body of Christ for the common good. And we also note that the giving of our material resources is one of the most challenging aspects of being a disciple of Christ.

Maybe you've heard the joke about the guy who was baptized by immersion that just at the last minute, he was able to take out his wallet and keep it above the water when he went under. Did you hear that? And we see how important that monetary giving is to helping in Haiti right now. That's what the greatest need is. People are saying, "Send money. We need this money in order to help fund the different needs." And we know that every church is dependent upon the generosity of its members in order to function.

And so as I weighed which of these two do I focus on, I was led to a familiar story in Mark, a story that shows Jesus being impressed by someone's heart and behavior in the area of serving and giving. And it's a two-part reading because it also begins with Jesus being very unimpressed with those who had no clue as to this whole area of giving and serving. So I want to invite you to turn to Mark, chapter 12. And we're going to read from 38 to the end of the chapter. It can be found on page 927. But before we do, let us pray before we read the text and speak about it.

Lord, you've promised that in your light, we would see light, that you in your Word are the true light that enlightens every person. And so we ask that your Holy Spirit would enlighten us as we read and speak to each of our hearts as needed. We pray it in your name, Amen.

Mark 12:38, "As he taught, Jesus said, 'Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.'"

"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on.'"

In this two-part reading, Jesus denounces one type of person, and he praises another type of person. The first type of person is the teachers of the Law, the scribes. Without going into great detail, the Jerusalem scribes were not people who were well to do. They lived off the generosity of others, just very much like the Levites. Therefore, to extend hospitality to a Jerusalem scribe was considered a very pious act. If the Jerusalem scribes had had habits of discipleship, one of them would have been on... One of the bullet points would have been, "Help out a scribe. Invite a scribe to dinner." That would be one way of expressing your faithfulness to God.

And so because this was so, many took advantage of the sense of what religion meant in that context. The phrase "devouring widows' houses" refers to the scribes sponging off the hospitality of those with limited means. And so the bottom line is that Jesus' idea of serving God and others was very different from this, and he denounced leaders who made service to God about them.

The second type of person that Jesus spoke of was this poor widow. In contrast, he praises the poor widow because her spirit of giving and serving was determined by an internal spirit of offering that was about much more than the size of the actual offering. To Jesus, this woman was a living example of total commitment in her service to God. Her giving of her gifts was rooted in absolute surrender and total trust that God would take care of her. Jesus said, and I don't think he was exaggerating or using hyperbole.

He said, "She put in more than everyone. She put in more than all of them because she put in everything that she had." I think at some personal level because this is only days before... He is already... In Mark's Gospel, Jesus has already entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This is during holy week and I think only days before his own complete and utter sacrifice. This woman's act ministered to him deeply. It was a foreshadowing of him giving all that he had for us.

So when we think about this third characteristic of a disciple at Central, it's important to know that we ought to operate in our spiritual gifts. We truly should. We should take spiritual gifts inventories. We should go to a network class, which hopefully we'll have in the next month or two. We should understand how God has uniquely gifted us in order to serve in the arena of our gifts and for the common good. And it is also important to give our financial resources so that the work of the Church progresses. We can't do without it. But at the core of this discipleship mark is God's call to each of us to lose our lives for the sake of Jesus, to give and to serve as Jesus gave and served.

I can hear somebody saying, "Now wait a minute. Are you saying that we're supposed to give all, everything? Are we supposed to become like a monastic order?" Well, some people have that call to be a monk or a nun. I don't think it's saying that, but here is what I think it is saying. It definitely means that giving all wouldn't be giving too much. Jesus didn't say, "You poor widow. What are you doing? You have two coins. At least keep one!" He didn't say that.

A healthy giving, serving attitude begins with a sense that giving everything wouldn't be too much. If you have that attitude, it keeps you from getting proud about anything that you do give. If you gave fifty percent, you might get pretty proud. But if you know that giving everything wouldn't be too much, you're held in check, aren't you? Serving others through our time and our treasure grows out of our surrender to God in all of life, no matter how much or how little we have. It is an aspiration. It is a goal. I think everybody here... We're all striving toward that goal I trust. Nobody reaches it I don't believe.

But I'd like to suggest four things that this godly woman did not say. Again, this is conjecture, but based on what we see in the text, these might be four things that she did not say that led her to her behavior.

1. She didn't say, "I don't have to give because wealthier people are giving." I don't know about you, but I think when I hear about all kinds of millions and millions of dollars that are already flowing into Haiti, I think, "Well, I don't have to give. It's all going there. I mean, they're going to get more in the United States pledges this." And so we say, "I don't have to give." That's the philosophy of the unexpired parking meter. Parking on another guy's quarter. I love it! I love it when I find one of those things that's not blinking, and I have twenty minutes. I love that.

But it doesn't compute in the Church. It's the same thing with time. "People with more time are serving; I don't really need to serve." Same thing. Once an airline attendant asked a passenger if they would like dinner. And he said, "What are my choices?" She said, "Yes or no." It's like, "Would you like to serve? Yes or no." You're either serving or you're not. This woman didn't say, "I don't have to because wealthier people are giving."

2. She didn't say, "It won't make a difference." She didn't say, "What's one penny? What are these two little things?" This was a fraction of a cent that she gave. What's one penny compared to all these other gifts? But she gave it. And to Jesus, it made plenty of difference. Have you ever gone for your wallet in an offering time or whatever and found that you only had certain denominations of bills, and you weren't sure which one you should give? And there is this tussle with, "Should I give the $1? Should I give the $5? Should I give the $20? Should I give something else?"

Have you ever just emptied your wallet and said, "What the heck! Just give it all!" Do it sometime. It's good for your health. It's good for your spiritual health. But don't give even a dollar thinking it won't make a difference. Or don't not give anything thinking it won't make a difference. It does make a difference. It makes a difference to your faith. That's the same thing with time. "The church probably has enough help, so my little thing won't make a difference." Not true.

3. She didn't say, "My gift is so little by comparison." Now if Jesus could see the difference between large amounts and small amounts, which he could, and he was able to see it, everybody else could to. So this woman didn't allow any sense of embarrassment or comparison to keep her from giving what she had. What a contrast to the showiness of the religious leaders who would trumpet their way to the treasury and thump in the money with a great fanfare.

I was so blessed this past week in one of our prayer meetings. The staff meets from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. every day (mostly every day) in the week to pray. Just to stop our day and to pray. And during one of those prayer meetings, I learned as we were praying, and Phyllis again said that she had heard that the Rwandan church and many churches in poor areas of Africa are taking up offerings for Haiti. It just brought tears to my eyes. I just thought, "That's amazing" because they know out of their poverty what it's like.

So again, in terms of time, people who say, "I don't have any real gift to offer compared to everybody else." Again, that's not the kind of thinking that Jesus is interested in.

4. She didn't say that... Remember, she was a poor widow. She did not say, "God cheated me. God took away my husband. Why should I give?" She was poor. She had her losses. But like Ruth of the Old Testament, she trusted God in every circumstance in spite of her losses, and she saw the eternal God of love hovering over her in spite of life's twists and turns.

You know, again in terms of what ministry, what service, do I render with my time and with my experiences? Your greatest gift to the Church can often be, and may surely be, out of your own crucible of suffering. When you have been healed to a certain point, that which you can offer to each other in the body is what you've learned through that suffering.

So that's four things that she didn't say. One situation that's going on here at church today is we are honoring at the ten o'clock service Martha Dance. Martha has been around Central Church since she was little. She for 30 years has served in the nursery holding babies. Thirty years and just holding those babies, loving on them. And she now because of her health concerns has to hang up her spikes, as it were. And so at ten o'clock, we're going to have her stand, and we're going to applaud her and everything. But I just... Martha is just such an example of offering what she can so consistently, and Jesus sees it. He sees it.

So what I'm trying to drive home is this: that we're not just to give and serve like tipping a waiter. We're not just to think about our personality profile and our temperament, and we can't serve unless we figure out what we were exactly designed for. I am not putting that stuff down. I think we really need to think about that. But if we have this attitude of, "Well, unless I just find something exactly right, I can't serve" we're missing the point. We are missing the point.

John Ortberg speaks about four levels of giving. And he may be thinking more about money when he was saying this, but time can be also considered in these four levels of giving because in our culture, to ask for your time may be more difficult than asking for your money. And so these are the four levels of giving that John Ortberg talks about.

First is the "starter" level of giving. Somebody comes to the Lord. They come to Christ and start coming to church. And before long they think, "You know, I guess it costs something to run this place." And so they say, "I'll put in a $20. I'll put in a little bit. I'll chip in." It's a "chip in" or starter mentality.

And then secondly there is a "cause or crisis response mentality." Now there is no need for an illustration today on this with Haiti going on. Everybody knows, and we see it in our culture. It seems like everybody is responding monetarily to a cause that's so in our face. And so in response to human suffering, we give, and that's good. But it many times is sporadic.

A third level of giving he talks about is systematic giving. This is when the tithe is understood as a teaching of Scripture that we're to give ten percent of all that God has given us to bless the Lord, to build the Church, etc.

I was just talking to an old friend not too many weeks ago. And he said, "You know... " He said, "Finally I've really believed that God is calling me to tithe." And he says, "Man, it was a stretch. It's a stretch, but I'm getting so blessed because of it." But he realizes, "I'm not doing it to get blessed. I'm doing it just because God has called me to do it." And so that's "systematic giving." It's not to be a rule to follow.

We often say in our new member classes, if we're not tithing, you know, start at a certain percentage and just keep giving that consistently and then work up. But if you use it as a rule, if you make it a rule, it will be a weight around your neck. But this is the third level of giving that God calls us to give at least a tenth of our income.

And then the fourth level. This is the fourth level that Ortberg talks about. He calls it "spirit-directed generosity or adventure." That he quotes Acts 2 that no one in the church considered anything as their own. And this kind of giving is an opportunity to trust God at another level, to realize we really are finding our security and our confidence in God.

And so we become very liberal. We start to think things like this when we're on a spiritual adventure: "What if I were to cap my lifestyle at this point, and then if God blesses beyond that, to just give it away?" Ellen and I read a Parade magazine article. Maybe you saw it. I was so impressed with it. It was about a family that thought about selling their house and downsizing and giving the rest. And they took a year to figure out what they were going to give it to. And they ended up doing all of this.

And we have it in our files. And so we're looking at this, and we're thinking, "This has got us thinking. This has got us thinking. We're not sure what we're going to do, but it really has us thinking about the spirit of adventure giving." So those are the four things: starter, cause, systematic, adventure. Where are you in that whole list? What is it that God is calling you to take a step in?

Let me share with you a story here. An ancient Eastern country there was a tradition that the estate of the family was divided among the children in certain ways. One half went to the oldest child. One third went to the second child, and one ninth went to the youngest child. So there was a man who owned 17 camels. When he died, there was a great deal of bickering among his children because, you know, one half and one third and one ninth doesn't divide very well into 17. Finally in desperation, the three of them went to the local priest. And the wise, old priest quietly said, "I have one camel. Why don't you take it?" And he gave them his camel.

So now with 18 camels, the oldest child took one half or nine. The second child took one third or six, and the youngest took one ninth or two. To their amazement, the sum was 17. Then they took the eighteenth camel and gave it back to the priest. I think we should give like that local priest. We should give what we have so that the church family will be healthier and so that life will be seen in a new light.

Once a Methodist pastor had to move again, and he was concerned about his son having to endure that challenge. And he asked him how he felt. His son looked at him. With a certain level of energy he said, "Dad, I was born to move!" The challenge today is this: take on a task no matter how big or small. Consider the spirit of your giving, but do it because you realize how great God's gift is to each of us and to give of ourselves is what we were born again to do. Say, "Father, I was born again to serve."

Let's pray: Lord, we thank you for your Word and for your heart and for your self-giving love to us. Help us to understand what that means for each of us as we walk this earthly way. Help us to understand what it means to be in solidarity with the needs of others so that we can build up the Church of Jesus Christ and be a platform of service to the world. We ask it in your name, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org