Forward with Faith: Born to be Generous (Part 1 of a 4 Part Series)

John 1: 1- 5

John 4: 1 – 15

In this season of the year, it has been a tradition at Faith to run the annual “stewardship campaign.”  It is a tradition that has a rhythm. People are asked to consider the work of the church, to consider the gifts God has provided in their lives, and to share from those gifts so that the church’s work can continue. The season aligns with the church’s budget year so that we can build a budget.

On the surface, that is the way most of us would describe a church’s stewardship campaign.  Functionally, the work of the stewardship is housed in the finance committee…because, you know…MONEY.

I had an ethics professor in seminary that reminded us every chance she got that the Bible actually has far more to say about money than it does about sex.  And yet, we tend to behave as if the bible has a lot to say about SEX and very little to say about money, right?

And then, to complicate matters, I think the bible has even more to say about abundance and faith and how God keeps showing up as it relates to material things.  So I want to start there today. Because money is just one of the tools we have to exercise our faith in who God is in our lives.

Something I’ve come to understand – and this was very much how John Wesley approached building an accountable faith and asking of others the question how is it with your soul – is that what we believe shapes what we do which then shapes how we feel and move in the world.  What we believe and how we behave shapes our soul.

SO… I’m going to encourage us to think in this season less about money, and more about our relationship with God – and how that relationship shapes our behavior with money, our attitude about money, our language about money and the church.

I am going to ask us this season to think about stewardship – which has to do with how we understand what God has entrusted to us - as discipleship.  To think about how we walk in the world as people seeking to walk in the Way of Christ. To think about how we order our lives around Christ and not order our church – the expression of Christ’s body in the world - around the other things like scarcity, like convenience, like acceptance.

Both of our readings from the Gospel of John today allude to the abundance from which everything comes.  And from which each of US comes – God’s abundance. An abundance that is our source.  An abundance that is available to us. An abundance that spills over onto us from God and spills over from us when we let it.  

God’s abundance is at the heart of how we are called to be and to be different in the world.

Each of us was created from a Spirit of abundance.  The same God whose imagination swept over the darkness, the same God whose unlimited creativity backs the beautiful mathematics of quarks and atoms and cells and energy and biology, the same God who promised again and again to be with God’s people and kept that promise even when God’s people could not – You and I are created in the image of that SAME GOD. 

Take that in.  You are created in the image of an unlimited God.  Take a moment to be amazed. (not proud – amazed)  And your not created just to get by…you are created to thrive and to actually spill over with goodness to share.

Do you know that? Do you believe that?  Do you understand this is why I call you beloved?  Because you are…beloved of God. 

John’s Gospel also places Christ – Jesus before Jesus was a flesh and bones body – with God at the moment of creation.  In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the Word was God.  All things came into being through him…and without him, not one thing came into being.  What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of ALL people. Christ was present in the abundance of creation.

That same Jesus, now in a body, sits at a well in our next reading.  Not just any well…he’s sitting at Jacob’s well – a well that had faithfully provided vital and life-giving water for GENERATIONS.  For generations that had morphed and changed, that had been loyal and that had turned away.  The water in that well just kept springing forth.

And here is Jesus, talking to a woman who is not a Jew in the noonday sun in a public place, and telling her the water HE has to offer is so much more than this water from Jacob’s well.

Those who drink what Jesus has to offer will never be thirsty again.  AND that life source, that living water will become a spring of water GUSHING up in them…spilling over.  The greek here is hallomenou – a word found later in acts to describe those healed LEAPING with joy and fulfillment.

You and I have been created from and brought into a relationship that overflows – not just a bit – it gushes and leaps and springs forth.

And we are called to overflow ourselves because we receive.  We are called to overflow because we have a source of living water that never ends.

In the tradition of Faith church, at this time of year we talk about giving.  We talk about the process.  We talk about a budget, how much it costs to keep the lights on. And all of that is real. 

But this year, let’s talk about what God is doing in our lives, and why it matters.  Let’s think about how God is calling us to use our resources like money and time and spiritual gifts.

Let’s talk about generosity as a part of the way we have been created and part of the way we walk as followers of Jesus.  Let’s talk about what might be spring forth, gushing from us and overflowing beyond our walls here at Faith.

Back in August, we spent a few weeks thinking about what it meant to be full of faith – full of the assurance of things hoped for and the confidence of things unseen.

And as part of that season, we also cast some vision about where we might be as Faith church in 5 years. We explored what it might look like to move Forward with Faith.

Have you looked at those headlines?  So many of them talk about reaching out and doing good.  So many of them reference sharing from what we have been given.

Here are just a few:

Local church recognized for many partnerships with Rockville organizations and schools

Faith’s firm foundation supports big dreams

Faith UMC celebrates its third annual weeklong community service to MoCo needy

Faith UMC feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, providing respite and praying for the world

Faith UMC starts new outreach program

Faith is a HUB for leadership…

You know that isn’t so far away?

This year, the finance committee crunched some numbers and realized that with just a 5% increase in giving this year, we could DOUBLE our missions budget.

Listen to that again.  With just a 5% increase in giving, we can DOUBLE our missions budget. We could gush a bit…

I’ve sat with so many of you who have fond memories of this church being deeply involved in so many things.  And that still happens.  AND I hear a deep desire in this community to be able to do more – and that isn’t just about money, it’s about time. It’s about our unique gifts.  It’s about deciding this is who we are and this is what we will do.  It’s about choosing a behavior in the Way of Jesus Christ.

It’s about embracing the abundance in which we were created and letting the reality of that GIFT, that GIFT of God’s goodness in our life, spill over …spill over as the living water we have received and now can pass on to others.

As someone wrote, its about our original mission here at Faith. 

It’s about returning to who we are and who we have been created to be.

We were BORN to be generous.

The Oxford dictionary defines generous as an adjective, describing one who shows a willingness to give more of something than is strictly necessary or expected.

We were BORN to be generous.

We have been CREATED to be generous.

We are called to GUSH and overflow.

Over these next weeks we’re going to explore how gratitude, prayer and faith shape our walk.  And my prayer is that we find new ways to connect to the gift of living water that washes over us.

We are moving Forward with Faith.

Let’s keep putting one foot in front of the other together to remember and resemble our source.

Amen.