What Would It Please You To Give? 2 Cor 3:19-31
Last Saturday Mansfield Town played Gateshead in the Vauxhall Conference League – but this is not a sermon about football – it’s about loving to give.
Mansfield Town were once a proud league club and I remember them beating West Ham 3-0 in the FA Cup once. They’ve declined a bit since then and are one of these football clubs you keep reading about who are strapped for cash.
Last Saturday the club decided to suspend all admission prices to the game and instead everyone would be invited to give what it would please them to give for the privilege of watching them play.
“You’re crazy, aren’t you” cried the Radio 5 live interviewer as he spoke to the club chairman “ What happens if everyone gives 1p..you’ll be sunk without trace.
“it might happen like that “ said the Chairman “ but I think we offer something to our community and this gives people the chance to express whether we’re valued or not.
God reaches into our lives through his Son Jesus Christ. If we didn’t believe that, or at least hope for that, we wouldn’t be here this morning. And it pleased God to reach into our lives and give everything he had.
He did not, nor ever did, sit frowning on a cloud, somewhere in the great beyond, but it pleased him to give up such majesty and come to earth as one of us, yet bearing in his humanity, the fullness of being God.
And in the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus we see what that giving amounts to. As disciples, we are asked the same searching question as was put to the people of Mansfield this week – what would it please you to give?
And I don’t think this is just about pounds, shillings and pence, but the whole range of stewardship – time, money and talents.
There’s one thing we know about loving on this Valentine’s Day – you can’t force love and you can’t compel it – it can’t be squeezed into a straitjacket, it has to be freely given – that’s why the bible tells us that God loves a cheerful giver. We have to want to.
Talking this week to one of the groups of Curates starting out in ministry that is my privilege to befriend, I asked them to consider the daydreams they had when first feeling the call to ministry and I tried to get them to feel that they had the right to think that some of that dreaming might come true – for God is asking them – what would it please you to give – he is not forcing people against their will.
As members of the church, I ask you the same question. I wonder if you might have some dreams about what this place should be like. I wonder if you have dreams about what you might look like as a disciple – but that those dreams are cut short – “I could never do that…..or be that..that’s just plain silly”
IF there are ways that you might serve God that would please you – take them seriously – don’t bat them away back into a dream world – because if they’d please you, it seems like they’d please God too. “Follow me” says Jesus to you, and I think he adds that little personal whisper “and if you do. how would you like to make the dream of following me come true.?”
There’s a nugget tucked away in our Epistle reading today “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom…and we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness”. The Spirit of our giving reflects the Christ like nature in us.
Now we have a responsibility here at St Matthew’s. – we have to promote that freely given love. We have to promote it and actually live it through all the things we do, some listed on news sheets and in magazines, others getting done quietly in the shadows.
Now that’s when something happens. The moment we start thinking realistically, or putting our dreaming into practice a meter begins to tick. Like the one you find in taxis. And so it is that to maintain the life of our church as we are now requires finance. For us a budget of £130k for the next year. That’s not made up of light and sound projects – but the bread and butter of keeping the show on the road as we are.
Now most of you know this – but it’s worth repeating. We don’t get a Government grant. There are no funds held by the central church to help us. The church of England is not rich..I tell a lie, of course it could be rich, if it sold all the cathedrals and churches and vicarages it owns. By and large it is down to us!
Things that you hear about other institutions are true of the church too. There are no bonuses, nor could I make a claim for a Ridgeway Road duck pond without Ray smelling a rat, but there is a cutback in posts starting to happen, a precarious pension scheme, the need more and more for those of us who are stipendiary to take on extra responsibilities – and an increasing reliance on the priestly support given by people like Rosemary.
These are hard times for everyone – but I do ask you to consider prayerfully – what would you like to give? What would please you? and can you take any steps now towards that desire by giving a little more and, and by heeding that desire to serve that whispers away at you and you push away.
The best way to give is through a standing order or a direct debit or you can have a pack of envelopes and put your agreed amount in weekly. A form is available today which invites you to tick an option, if this is new to you, or to renew your pledge if you feel you can. There’s also a space on the form for you to put down any other way it might please you to give, but where you’ve no had the nerve or the self belief to do it until now.
Mansfield Town lost 0-2 at home to Gateshead and by all accounts it was a rubbish game, but now hear this, the kick off was held up because there were too many people wanting to get inside the ground. Usually they get around 2k, but last Saturday over 7k crowded in, with people paying between 3p and £50 to watch the game.
Now that’s just football .But there’s something about saying , come, belong and give what pleases you that feels like the kingdom of God way of doing things – it seems there is no finer principle upon which we might find out how we might love to give.
Andrew 14.2.10