2 Corinthians 8
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
3:40 PM
The ministry to the Saints refers to a collection Paul was taking to support the Christians in Jerusalem.  This very earliest Christian community had become impoverished.  Paul, understanding their situation, sought to coordinate support for this church.  Paul also used this mission to create understanding between congregations—in the process of explaining this mission to the churches in Philipi and Thessalonica, Paul also deepened the connection and understanding between these congregations.  These two congregations were the major congregations in Macedonia.  The province south of Macedonia was Achaia and it's capital was Corinth.  So as these churches were deepening their understanding of the situation of Christians in Jerusalem and deepening their understanding of one another in the process.    Admittedly Paul was also trying to stir up some competition between those congregations.  But, hey, I've been guilty of doing the same thing.  Seems like I recall a pretty sound thrashing I received when I tried a canned food throw down with Wendell Nedderman.  But the broader point to be made here is that Paul was forming connections and then deepening those connections as he sought to respond to the missional impulse before them.   
Paul then points them to the theological principles at work here.  God is at work enabling people to respond to their missional impulse.  The New American Standard Bible translates verse 8 this way, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.” This is a key conviction that often gets lost in the process of giving of ourselves.  We forget that it is God who is at work at us. God is the motivating source of every good deed.  God is the provider of the resources we use to serve others.  God provides us with the intelligence so that we can use those resources wisely.  When we make these affirmations some people assume that we're talking about miraculous provision.  And sometimes that happens but usually this process is quite mundane.  Anytime anyone responds to the missional impulse and does good works in the world, they are responding with what God has provided.   
A triangle of understanding forms in the midst of this text.  It is the triangle of context, church, and call.  The context is the place where God has given us to serve.  In this situation, Paul sought to expand the context of Phillipi, Thessalonica and Corinth to include the Church in Jerusalem.  Our context certainly includes the needs here in Arlington but it also includes the needs in our region, in the United States, and in the world.  One of the challenges we face in the 21st Century is that the needs of the world have become our context.  They impinge on us.  The people in Corinth didn't have the internet or television or even newspapers to reveal the conditions of the people in Jerusalem.  They relied on input from Paul and a relatively small pool of other people to convey what was going on.  We can be bombarded by the needs of others and have to use understanding to discern what needs we can actually address and what needs we cannot adequately address.   
As an example, let me describe the past two weeks from my perspective—last Monday I participated in the Arlington MLK Four Day Celebration board meeting.  There the conversation was dominated by changes taking place with AISD, Tarrant County College, UTA and the City that would make the 2012 MLK Celebration more challenging.  On Tuesday, I heard a presentation on the problem of Human Trafficking and felt my heart break as I listened to the conditions people are forced into.  On Wednesday, I participated in a conference call concerning Christian Unity, War, and Peace and struggled hard to articulate my understanding of a just war to people who were varying degrees of pacifists.  On Thursday, I went to a meeting talking about prisoner reentry and the ministries that can be in place to help people move from incarceration to participation in society.  Then over the weekend, we experienced the terrible Tornado that ravished Joplin, Missouri—then a couple of days later it was severe weather in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas.  Reminding me that this has already been a devastating spring for Alabama and communities along the Mississippi River.  For a Christian it's enough send the missional impulse into overdrive. 
No one person can adequately respond to all of these needs.  It takes understanding of oneself to know how to best respond to our context.  That's the process of discernment—making a faith based decision about which—among the varied needs we can encounter—which ones will occupy our attention and our service.    
Which is why an understanding of the second part of the triangle is so important—the church.  When we say church, we aren't just talking about this local church.  If we were a little more precise with our language we might not call ourselves a church but we might call ourselves a congregation of the church.  We belong to the church which is made up of all believers throughout the world.  This understanding of the whole church was just beginning to emerge within Christians during the life of Paul.  Perhaps the best way to picture the church is as a network of people sharing the shining light impulse.  Paul was raising understanding of the needs within a part of the church but Paul was also raising understanding of the resources within the church.  And that's part of what helps diffuse the anxiety we experience when we are flooded with these contextual needs calling on our missional impulse.  I know that no matter how badly I would like to jump in my car and run to Joplin, I would use a lot of resources and not do a lot of good.  If all I'm left with is my understanding of the context, then there will always be more needs than I can respond to.  But, with a deepening understanding of the church, I know that Week of Compassion is already responding to needs in Joplin and Oklahoma City.  Because we have friends who serve Disciples congregations in Memphis we know that one of our churches, Mississippi Blvd. Christian Church was preparing to serve as a relief housing site as the river crested and flooded areas of Memphis.   
The Apostle Paul stands out in Christian history as one of the greatest missionaries and one of the first theological minds.  Paul was not one of Jesus' original twelve.  In fact, when the early Christian movement began, Saul of Tarsus was a stiff opponent.  He opposed Christianity through violent persecution.  However, God called Paul out of his sinful persecution by confronting him on the road to Damascus.  After his conversion, Paul became the Christian missionary to the non-Jewish world—an Apostle to the Gentiles.  He made several journeys during which he would establish churches. He established a church in Thessalonica—the most important city in the region of Macedonia and he established a church in Corinth the capital of Achaia. Yet, he remained tethered to and concerned for the church in Jerusalem—the people who had first provided the witness for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.   
Paul preached a message that remains central to Christian faith—we respond to God in faith through freedom.  Paul did not believe that anything goes or that any belief would do.  To speak of freedom as an anything goes approach to life is to misunderstand freedom.  Paul had a message he wanted people to believe.  But the message itself took certain techniques of persuasion off the table.   
Paul's message was clear—God acted definitively in Christ.  God sent Christ into the world to confront humanity with its sin and simultaneous extend God's forgiveness.  Christ brought a new way for humanity to relate to God but one that was at the same time derived from the foundations of the world.  But because the message of Christ is a message of love, the tool of coercion is off the table.  Most kingdoms work because if people do not obey the laws they will be punished.  Cultures habitually use religion to reinforce that message.  They tell people that  God or the gods will punish those who step out of line. You'll not just go to jail, you'll go to hell.  We must be true to history and admit that many western cultures—including our own—have used Christianity in just such a way.  Indeed many parents are guilty of trying to get their kids to behave by evoking the fear of God.  Yet, that technique of scaring people with God's punishment in order to produce good behavior—not matter how effective it is-- is not the message of one of the most important early Christian messengers.  Paul taught that the fear of punishment is not the heart of Christian faith. God in Christ has confronted and defeated the practice of punishment and replaced it with the law of love.   
So Paul had these churches who had formed around that message and he kept in touch with them through letters.  Many of those letters have been retained, copied, canonized and translated they are in your hands in the forms of several books in the New Testament.  Paul also remained tethered to the churches in Palestine and in particular to the first Christian Church—the First Christian Church: the one in Jerusalem.  Keep in mind, when Paul spoke of churches and saints in a particular region, he did not mean a building.  Church buildings weren't in existence yet.  He meant people joined together in common faith in Christ.  The Church in Jerusalem was experiencing difficulties.  There were many who were poor in Jerusalem.  And though Paul throughout his life had butted heads with the leaders in Jerusalem—or maybe because he had disagreed with them—Paul was passionate about collecting funds for the church in Jerusalem.  The gentile Christians had benefited from the spiritual blessings of the Jewish Christians; it would only be right for them to reciprocate with financial sharing.   
Well, if you've ever done non-profit fundraising, you know the problem Paul faces.  In order to raise the funds he feels compelled to raise, he has to persuade people to give.  His own theology and message will not let him coerce the churches to give.  His own faith will not allow him to threaten.  In 2 Corinthians 8-9 we see Paul trying every technique imaginable.  He tries to spur the Corinthians on to give by talking about how good one of his “other” churches—the Church in Macedonia—had been.  It's like trying to rally Texans by talking about the greatness of Oklahoma.  He tells them that he believes in them—he believes in them so much that he's already made commitments on their behalf—you don't want to embarrass me, he says, and you don't want to embarrass yourself.  He sort of stirs their competitive spirit by saying this collection will show everyone just how much you love Christ and why I boast about you. 
Ultimately, Paul—who seems to be thinking out loud—concludes with spiritual reasons rather than practical ones.  “Each one should give as they have made up their minds to give.  Not out of compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver.”  Responses to financial giving are like every other kind of giving—worship, prayer, study, service—they are all the same: they are designed to emerge from the inside of our faith.  Coerced worship is not genuine worship; coerced prayer is senseless babble; coerced study is the TAKS test; and coerce service is slavery.  Coercion has no place in faith.  God has created us out of love, redeemed us in love, and desires from us our love.  True love depends on a free response.  And so Paul encourages the Corinthians to respond freely.   
And when they do that, Paul says, they experience the joy of participating in the work of God in the world.   
First Christian Church what brings us to this place is our shared faith in Jesus Christ.  People often compliment us because we're not pushy and we try not to use guilt to coerce people into giving, joining, or behaving.  I say try because catch anyone on the wrong day and they will be pushy or coercive.  But for the most part we seek draw people into faith rather than push into obligations.  Because of our commitments in that area, it may not be obvious to everyone that we really do feel the urgency of the needs around us.  Yet, we have strong commitments that show up in our giving.  Earlier this week I had the privilege of speaking to PrimeTimers.  They asked me to address the question—what do you do when you go to Indianapolis?  Because I serve on the board of the Council on Christian Unity and on the General Board of the Christian Church, I have to travel to Indianapolis a few times a year.  Generally people ask questions like that right after I get back and in those moments, I'm not really in the mood to talk about it.  I need processing time.  I need recovery time.  So, I was very thankful to have the chance to think through what matters to me when I participate with the General Church ministry of the Christian  Church (Disciples of Christ).  Carla ran the numbers and when we combine the amount of money we have given to Week of Compassion, Reconciliation Ministry, Special Day Offerings to our contributions from the budget to Disciples Mission Fund, First Christian Church, Arlington has given over $346,000 to the ministry of the General Church in the past decade.  And one of the joys of going to Indianapolis is being able to be in the room with those who do the work of Christ fueled by the resources we give.  I can attest that the people who serve as Disciples Missionaries, Disciples Ecumenical Representatives, Disciples Coordinators of Services, and Disciples fund managers and fund raisers do so with the best Spirits.  They are intelligent but guided by the Spirit; they are joyful but determined to help us be the best church we can be.  I can attest that those $346,000 is money well given. 
First Christian Church has demonstrated a commitment to Church Camps.  We know that when kids and even adults spend a week out in the woods, with other Christians, devoting time to rebuilding their lives, growing in faith, creating meaningful Christian friendships and some of the most sincere worship anyone ever gets to experience, it has a profound impact on their lives and the lives of the church.  I don't know the exact percentages but my hunch is over half of the people who serve in full-time Christian ministry will say they most fully grasped their call through their experience of camp.  I remember hearing a few years ago, a high school student talk about how awkward and out of place he feels in his own high school and how much pretending he felt he needed to do just to get by at school.  But he said that when he came to camp he was able to truly be himself and know that he would be accepted.  I say this with no once of exaggeration I believe camp has saved kids faiths, it has saved their sanity, and it has saved their lives.  And this church understood that long before I did.  Which is why for as long as anyone can remember we have said—we will pay one half of every kid's registration to go to Church Camp at Disciples Crossing.  The other side of that is that we will make sure any kid who wants to go to camp can go to camp. 
The list can go on.  Over a quarter of a century ago leaders in this congregation saw the value of a local broadcast of this worship service and made the significant sacrifice to obtain the equipment and expertise to broadcast.  Over a decade ago, the leadership recognized the need to broaden our worship expression and so we created the Celebration service as a way of singing with several voices and several approaches to God's grace.  Through the generous free giving of members, we moved from a little store front church to a building on Abrams and then from that small location to this place on Collins.  Generous givers added educational space and a gym and places for people to fellowship.  And this year, we generous givers placed new air conditioning in the sanctuary and new roofing on most of the building.  That doesn't sound all that exciting but when you know that the puddles we had been experiencing have been solved, it is good news indeed.   
Tonight I hope you will come to hear about the Stephen Ministry.  The Stephen Ministry is a ministry that will helps us do what we already do even better than we already do it.  It is a way of providing care for one another.  It is an amazing ministry that has been proven in church after church to be a useful and blessed approach to caring for one another.  The barrier for First Christian Church in years past has been its cost.  It cost money to enter the program and to train the leaders.  But this year, because of the generous gifts of members who gave in memory of saints gone by, we will be able to initiate First Christian Church's Stephen Ministry.   
Stewardship campaigns are first and foremost opportunities to say thank you.  Thank you for your generous giving.  I am personally grateful but I also believe God rejoices in the gifts you have given—God loves cheerful giving.  So, we can celebrate the cheerful giving of First Christian Church.  Second, it is an opportunity to recognize the needs before us.  When Christian people respond to real human needs with Spirit led provisions, its called ministry.  And ministry is an opportunity not an obligation.  It is an opportunity because God will ultimately provide for every need—with or without us.  God is going to restore creation and redeem humanity.  God allows us to be the means that God does God's work if we choose to cooperate.   That's the opportunity.  This week hopefully you'll receive an estimate of giving card.  If not, you can ask for one in the church office.  Unlike the covenant cards that we hope everyone will present next week which are between you and God, the estimate of giving card is recorded by the church office and you will receive periodic reminders of how much you've given toward that estimate.  As a church we will not try to coerce people to fill out an estimate of giving—though we may remind you a couple of times.  We will not threaten or intimidate.  But we believe in this ministry enough to participate freely and generously.  Thanks be to God.   