Stone Soup: Generosity in Community Part 3 - This Soup Needs Some Gifts

2 Corinthians 9: 8 – 12

John 2: 1 – 11

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

That question always stops me in my tracks…

Because I am often not aware of being “afraid.” I walk around pretty comfortably in the world.

And so…if the question stops me in my tracks, if it makes me wonder, then I must really be afraid of some things.

In the story of Stone Soup, when a stranger knocks on the door asking for food, person after person turns him away.  We know that eventually, everyone shows up to share something for the pot of stone soup, so we know everyone had some food in their house that they could share, right?

I wonder what they were afraid of?

Afraid of not having enough for the next week.

Afraid of letting a stranger into their homes, their lives.

Afraid of being taken advantage of…

I wonder what they would do if they weren’t afraid?

I wonder, without fear, if the story might have taken other turns?  What if, at the very first house the stranger visited, he was invited in, given a hot meal, offered a shower and a warm bed and conversation?  What if around the table that night there was a conversation with the stranger about others he knew who were in transition of some sort? Others he knew who might wander through the town in days to come…

What if he was introduced to another neighbor who was looking for a dedicated worker for some projects?

And what if that stranger happened to have great skills in gardening? Or carpentry? Or meteorology? Or accounting?  Or personal finance?

And offered to help the community develop a garden to provide fresh produce and teach about the earth and how things grow? Or to build a community center with a playground for young families? Or to build a weather station that served the local first responders? Or offered to look at the town budget to find savings SO THAT different programs might be offered in the schools. Or offered to teach personal finance so that people could reduce their debt, have more secure financial lives.

I know it is fantasy. 

But what if? 

What would happen if we weren’t afraid?

Today it seems important to share a little bit of myself that is part of my identity as a pastor.

When I left college, I launched myself headlong into learning everything I could about fundraising.  While in college, I had worked for the Indiana University Alumni Association — hosting all the cool pre-game events, organizing the tournament tours during March Madness (this was back in the days of Bobby Knight and the Hoosiers as a basketball powerhouse), setting up a network of statewide leaders for legislative action on appropriations for the university.  I loved the glitz and glamour of that work in higher education and I wanted to be a part of that.

But my next job in my unfolding fundraising career was for a the co-cathedral of the archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  The building was undergoing a $9 million renovation and they were in the midst of a $15 million campaign.  I did research on prospects and about once every two weeks, I got to sit in meetings with the Rector – Fr. Michael O’Connell, who had a vision for how this church might not just be an iconic building, but might also be a hub of care and support for single moms who were trying to get on the right track attending the community college a few blocks away and about how the building might become a center for the arts so that everyone could have access to beautiful music and dance and drama no matter their financial situation.

Fr. O’Connell knew that generous people would want to change the future for others…making life richer, safer, peaceful, better. His chosen scripture for this vision was the Jeremiah 29 text that has been our meditation for the past two Sundays.  Seek the well-being of the city in which you find yourself…for in its well-being, you will find your own. 

Then I moved back to Indiana and took a job with a local chapter of The Arc, specifically Stone Belt Arc.  Stone Belt operated 12 group homes and a workshop, offered job coaching and community job support for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.  My mentor there was Elbert Johns, a former United Methodist Elder who had fallen in love with the beauty and passion of people with disabilities. He left the church and instead ran one of the largest service providing non-profits in Indiana.  Mine was the first fundraising job they’d ever created. With cuts in federal support, Elbert and his team knew that generous people would share their work and share financial gifts. Stone Belt’s mission is seared on my heart even 20 years later:

We believe in the uniqueness, worth and right to self-determination of every individual.  Therefore, it is our mission, in partnership with the community, to prepare, empower and support those with developmental disabilities and their families to participate fully in the life of the community.

My fundraising career, which I understand now as ministry, began because I was attracted to the glitz and the glamour, the people I would rub elbows with.  It led me to a profound understanding of the value of all lives, and a great joy and pride in helping others to find out how amazing it is to help people, how amazing it is to dream big dreams and make big things happen.  It makes people feel good to know they are making a difference.  And people making a difference do just that – they change the world for others. 

So that is all just preface to our conversation today.  It seems important that you know I’ve done this fundraising work over 25 years…and that in that time, I’ve grown to understand some things very deeply. 

Specifically, I’ve grown to understand that visions drive amazing changes for the better. Visions can cast out fear…they create a path or a picture, where before there was something unknown – a formless void. Visions are a road map. 

I’ve learned that people are eager to support meaningful, life-changing, daring visions.  When people with vision ask, people respond with generosity.  The end result of this relationship between vision and financial generosity is a better world. 

And truthfully, people who give time and money are happier, more satisfied, healthier (trust me - research supports this claim).

So let’s talk about stone soup, and the call on our lives to be disciples, and the commitments we make along the way.

In the month of January, through the story of stone soup, we are exploring the commitments we make to membership in the United Methodist church.  But I want to talk less today about being a member – because sometimes that feels more like a club of some sort – a place where some are in and some are not  -  and instead talk more about being a disciple of Jesus. 

Discipleship is a commitment we make.  That commitment can be a point in time, but really, it is a commitment that we revisit every single day. 

Today, will I follow Jesus?  What about the next day? What about in this moment?  What about in this particular choice, life decision? Is my commitment made plain to others around me by the choice I am making at each turn.

The word disciple can be translated to mean “student,” or one who follows a particular teacher, or one who receives a way of thinking and shares it intentionally with others, representing the original teacher.

And so we are called to be followers of a way, a way that Jesus lived and taught.  And by following that way, we become more like Jesus, closer to God, we bring the Kingdom of God just a little closer to the earth.  In living in that way, we show others how that way might be for them.

And today, as one of the vows we make to this discipleship journey, we’re talking about our gifts – and by the word “gifts,” our vows specifically mean our financial generosity. 

It can be uncomfortable to talk about money in church. 

I’ve heard several of you talk about your discomfort.  I’ve heard that we’ve not talked about money in this sanctuary for some time.

Let’s change that.  We need to not be afraid of conversations about money. When we have healthy attitudes and conversations, money is a resource – like our building, like the skill sets we each have, like the nudges we get from the Holy Spirit.  Money is a resource that helps us take a vision and make it happen in the world.

Often, when someone begins a conversation about money, we respond from a place of defensiveness and scarcity. Sometimes we begin by assuming someone is trying to get something from us, and when they do, we will have less of our money. 

Often, when someone begins a conversation about money, we react a little bit like the folks in the town react to the stranger knocking on their door looking for food…I don’t have anything to give you.  I barely have enough for myself.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

What would we do if we weren’t afraid?

Our gospel lesson today is Jesus’ first miracle.  At a wedding in Cana, his mother looks him in the eye and basically says, it’s time.  You’ve got the power to make something happen here.  And Jesus turns water into wine for the wedding guests. Not just any wine, either.  The servant who is monitoring the service notes that this is the best wine.  God is a God of abundance and doesn’t mess with any sub-par vintage.

I wonder if Jesus had doubts  about what his mom was asking him to do?  I guess he could have refused.  Mom, I just can’t.  But he didn’t. And I suspect Mary wouldn’t let him, either.

And in Paul’s second letter to the church at Corinth, he remind them:

And 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.  As it is written,

“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;

    his righteousness endures forever.”

He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.

Here’s what I believe…. Actually, here is what I know deep in my soul:

We are living in times that feel scary to a lot of people.  But God is still moving and working, mercy and justice and love matter more and more, and the world depends on us – on our generous spirits, on our faith in a God of abundance.

I also know that gratitude begets a spirit of “enough.” And somehow a spirit enough helps us to be generous.  And when we are generous, we actually feel better, more optimistic, we feel more capable. 

My doctoral work is focused on the ways that generous people understand their generosity.  I am currently reading The Paradox of Generosity: Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose by Hilary Davidson and Christian Smith, sociologists from Notre Dame.  Here’s what has my attention as I consider how we are called to share our gifts on this discipleship journey:

…there is more than one way to be impoverished.  Some people live in poverty because they do not have the income to buy adequate food, shelter, clothes, and medicine.  But some people who have a lot of money can live in a different kind of poverty.  Theirs is a poverty of anxiety, of imagined scarcity, of vulnerability, of dissatisfaction.  Such people suffer an impoverishment, amid real abundance, of believing that they do not have enough, that what they have may be lost, that the unknowns of the future are threatening.  Such people find it hard to relax, to celebrate, to truly enjoy, to be thankful, to share.  How can one enjoy when one is fundamentally worried? (Davidson & Smith, 74)

My prayer is that we can encourage one another

…to not be afraid

…to shape a compelling vision of how this small congregation can change the world right around us

…to invite others into our sense of abundance

…to give our gifts freely because our God isn’t about cheap wine.

What will you do when you are not afraid?

What will we do when we are not afraid?

Amen.