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GRINNING WHILE GIVING #1
TED’S HAPPIEST MOMENT
If you’ve ever felt a twinge of regret, or “give-me-that-back!”
when putting an offering in the plate some week at church, you couldn’t
help but be amazed this past September when a certain generous fellow
named Ted gave a billion dollars — yes, that’s B - I - L - L - I - O -
N, to charity. Mr. Ted Turner, even before his Atlanta Braves won the
World Series, announced at a Thursday evening black-tie United Nations
banquet in New York City that he was going to give a billion dollars,
a one with nine zeroes after it, a billion dollars to that organization.
The following week in Newsweek, a cartoonist showed a picture of the new
UN building. Instead of United Nations, now, of course, it was the Uni-TED
Nations. A huge T-E-D was draped across about 50 floors of that New York
skyscraper.
Our series title this week is this: GRINNING WHILE GIVING. Do we enjoy
giving? Is it fun to give money to charity? Do we enjoy that moment when
the offering plate comes by at church, and we put green money in there
. . . green money which could have gone instead for hot fudge sundaes,
a new video, more rounds of golf, a longer vacation, a bigger car?
Many Christians who give systematically to their church, or even participate
in what we call tithing — giving ten percent or more of income — perhaps
don’t really focus on how much they’re sharing until about 11:45 p.m.
on the evening of April 15. Then, when they add up their charities and
put it down on Schedule A before squealing their tires over to the post
office to meet the tax deadline, they gasp in amazement: “Honey, we gave
that much?” And maybe for the first time, they kind of wince. That’s twelve
thousand dollars. That’s almost enough for a new pickup. Or for sure,
it’s dinner out two nights a week, every week of the year. And they gave
that much to the Lord? The Ruler of the universe who already owns the
cattle on a thousand hills?
Friend, have you ever felt that way? That little moment of . . . oh, man.
This is a lot of money. Why’d I do it?
There’s a verse in the Bible that we all know is there. We can white out
the words, but Second Corinthians 9:7 is still going to say it:
“God loves a cheerful giver.”
There was a priceless cartoon a few years ago in Leadership
magazine, which provides outstanding resource material — and also some
good comic relief for Christian pastors. A church had that verse posted
up on one of the pillars out in the congregation right where you could
see it. “God loves a cheerful giver.” And right below it is sitting a
man with the most sour, dour, crabby, cranky look on his face. I mean,
he’s got a face that would turn the wine back into water. And then the
deacon comes to his row with the plate to receive the morning offering.
All at once, this man has a light bulb go on inside of him. With a big
cheesy grin, and smiles all over himself, he drops in his quarter or his
fifty cents . . . and then immediately reverts back to the perpetual snarl.
But for those two seconds of giving, he was going to be cheerful if it
killed him, because the Bible said so.
But let’s ask ourselves today. ARE we cheerful? Is it fun to give to the
Lord? Is the receiving of the offering a happy moment for us?
It was kind of interesting to read the Ted Turner story as reported by
Newsweek magazine. Did this Georgia billionaire, who with his one mad,
generous moment dipped from being worth $3.2 billion down to $2.2 billion,
enjoy the giving? Was it fun to give a billion dollars? Well, he looked
kind of excited on the cover photo. And inside, here’s word-for-word what
he told the reporters:
“There is no greater joy than giving to worthy causes.”
Later, he also commented: “You know, it’s not easy to give up your hard-earned
money. But once you do, you feel really wonderful. I just hope this giving
thing is contagious.”
I suppose the average peas-and-mashed-potato person
like you and me would find it hard to swallow over that expression, “hard-earned
money.” Especially when you read that Turner’s spare billion came from
just his stock portfolio’s increase over the past nine months, as his
Time Warner deal got rosier by the day. He’s simply giving back what the
rising Dow Jones tide did to all his shares. And we might be thinking
to ourselves, “If I could have $2.2 billion left over after putting money
in the plate, I could feel some joy too.”
But even down on our two-dollar level, can we who live on Main Street
discover the happiness that comes from giving away money to the work of
the Lord?
This is not a week where we’re going to denigrate the validity of a gift
like Ted Turner’s. A billion dollars is still a billion dollars, and all
of us might find it hard to give it away no matter how much we had left
over. And who knows how many other billions might be given as other E.R.P.’s
— extremely rich people — as columnist Jonathan Alter now dubs them —
follow suit. “I’m putting the rich on notice,” Turner said forcefully
as he made his own ten-figure pledge, hoping they’ll go and do likewise.
But here’s an important lesson. Ted Turner found joy in giving because
he pledged that flood of one billion dollars — ten successive cash gushers
of a hundred million each for the next decade — to fund specific things
he cared about. This billion dollars doesn’t just go into the general
pot at the U.N., which right now is short by well over a billion just
from what the United States hasn’t paid in its obligations. No, these
very real billion dollars are going to go directly toward pet concerns
of his: programs that feed children, a huge effort to remove land mines,
refugee assistance campaigns. For many years he’s passionately believed
in these concepts, these needy missions. And so giving for him is a source
of joy because he can participate in something he cares deeply about.
And you know, maybe that’s a key for Christians. Do we care about the
Christian message? Is the Body of Christ a heartfelt charity to us? Are
you passionate about the story of Calvary getting to people who haven’t
yet heard about it?
There’s a beautiful little anecdote in the Old Testament, Second Chronicles
chapter 24, where young King Joash had a dream to restore the temple of
God. Wicked Queen Athaliah and her reprobate sons had trashed the place
— that expression’s not in the King James Version, but that’s basically
what had happened. And now this new king, who first took the throne when
he was seven, inspired the entire nation that this was a project worth
funding. So he sent out a mass mailing with a toll-free number on it,
set up coin kiosks at every 7-11, and ran a telethon fund-raising drive
on PBS. Actually, in those simpler days they just set up a wooden chest
outside the gate of the broken-down temple. And notice what happened.
Here’s verse 10:
“All the officials and all the people brought their
contributions GLADLY, dropping them into the chest until it was full.”
Notice, they gave gladly. They enjoyed giving. It was
a joy to participate, because these people knew they were investing in
a new, refurbished temple. The glory of God’s house was going to be restored;
they believed in that. I’m sure many who remembered the “good old days”
where the magnificence of the temple had filled the entire nation were
instrumental in verbalizing the dream to those who were younger. “This
is worth giving to,” they told them.
Maybe you’re struggling on a given Sabbath or Sunday. Things are tight
financially, and if you give that tithe, that ten percent of your income,
you’re not going to have $2.2 billion left over like Ted Turner’s still
got. Or things at your church seem to be languishing; you’re not sure
you’ll SEE your money in better sermons or softer pews or improved carpeting
or a more dynamic outreach to the neighborhood. But let me encourage you
to look deeper; ask God to show you the underlying vitality that could
make giving a joy-filled experience again.
Maybe spending a week in one of the children’s divisions would remind
you of how precious the Christian message is to a young child, what a
wonderful thing it is for a kid to know Jesus early in life. Go with some
singers to a convalescent hospital and just see how the song, “The Old
Rugged Cross,” moves a sick person to tears. Friend, your gift helps perpetuate
the success of the Christian message. And even if carpeting remains bare
and so do the prayer meeting sermons, Calvary is still Calvary, isn’t
it? Is Calvary worth the number you read on that Schedule A tax form?
Is what Christ did for you, are His sacrifice and His blessings for you,
sufficient to give you some joy over the privilege of giving to Him?
We noticed a beautiful line coming from Christian pastor James Hill, who
serves God at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut.
“Don’t give until it hurts,” he advises. “Give until it feels good.” And
friend, the more we can immerse ourselves in truly understanding the worth
of that project — both in our lives and in this needy old world all around
us — the sooner it’s going to start feeling good.
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