The Fine Art of Giving 11/28/43

Scripture: Luke 6: 37-45

The good Dean Charles R. Brown, nationally known preacher and dean emeritus of Yale Divinity School, speaks of giving as a fine art. “The right mood for giving is one of high and glad privilege.” The Lord blesses the cheerful giver.

An Old Testament account of an act of worship of that time relates that: “When the burnt offerings began, the song of the Lord began also with trumpets.” Their sacrifices were neither fearful nor superstitious acts. They were acts of worship to the God they served. They represented a joyful self denial. To bring the first fruits and grains harvested, or the best lamb raised, was a joyful tribute to God, who alone gives the reward for faithful toil with His resources. The Israelite gifts came with music in the hearts, and on the lips, of the worshippers.

There are excellent reasons for a Christian to give generously to his church, through his church, and of course through some community channels as well. The thoughtful Christian realizes that his life, and all its accomplishments, represent a partnership with the Almighty. If a man spends his life in growing food stuffs or flowers or forests, he knows that the harvest hoped for depends in part upon his own intelligent selection of seed, careful cultivation and experienced harvesting. He also knows that there is nothing he can do about sunshine or rain, very little about temperature, absolutely nothing about creating the life germ; nothing he can do about whether storms come or not. Man is only God’s arm, but he is that arm. For the accomplishment of many tasks of creation, we are God’s hands. For Christ’s works of mercy he has no hands but ours. Our service, our time, our gifts of substance are a joyful recognition of this great partnership with our Creator. Giving is a part of worship.

There are other reasons for giving now. The world is torn politically, industrially, socially, spiritually, by the ravages of war. The cost of repair must be made by all of us who have not made the supreme sacrifice. The high cost of living leaves nothing untouched. The expense of carrying forward the work of a church, of undergirding the charitable and missionary enterprises already organized into nation wide and world wide usefulness advances with the other costs of living. And new needs call inescapably for attention. We have to give more abundantly than we gave before the war to achieve the ends in view.

How shall we give? (1) Of course, we must give intelligently. Our church officers believe, for instance, that every member of the church and congregation should know the approximate amounts needed to carry on the work effectively. That is why a proposed budget is placed in your hands and discussed carefully.

(2) But giving is more than intelligence. It is generosity added to intelligence. It is an emotional, as well as an intellectual, experience. That is where the joy comes into it. The support of our church is so much more than just “paying bills!” It is an expression of our stewardship or administration of the resources placed in our hands by the processes of the Almighty. It should be fun to give. It is fun if one does it with a generous heart and some good sense.

(3) I am one of those who think it is well to be systematic and proportionate about one’s giving. Dean Brown says that “The man of method has the wind and the tide with him.” A man’s method is his control over passing moods and impulses. It is his compass by which he keeps direction. And it is significantly important. I suppose that one of the most methodical business concerns in the world is the Standard Oil Company. And it is a “going concern.” The Mormon Church, established partly on doctrines that seem folly to me, is nevertheless a going concern that sends forth missionaries to all the world, builds beautiful temples, and cares for its own needy with admirable thoroughness - all because its members are faithful and systematic in their giving - and they give generously.

Let there be some definite proportion which mind and conscience can approve. And then let that proportion be distributed in glad generosity.

A young woman who taught school was sitting at her desk after school hours one afternoon checking figures in a little red book. “Three dollars to the church here; three dollars to the church at home; two dollars to War Victims. - and I still have two dollars left over; so I can help that poor kid with the worn out shoes, if I can just figure out a way to do it without his suspecting.”

A student is cashing his check for work done on a summer job. He wants ten dollars in ones and two dollars in quarters. He doesn’t say why, but the reason for his preference is that he wants the exact amount to use in filling his church envelopes, and he gets that settled when he cashes his check!

Most ministers are not classed as wealthy. I have known two or three of them who had some family income aside from their salaries. One of them had married a woman who had a great deal of money at her disposal. He spoke of her once, when we were talking over this matter of giving, in this fashion. He said, “Marjorie didn’t really enjoy giving for many years. O, she helped every worthy cause that made an appeal to her, and contributed regularly to the church. But it was a duty.

“Now, she is getting some fun out of her giving. She has decided on a certain definite proportion of her income that she will give. She sets that proportion aside in a separate bank account each year. She knows exactly how much she has to give to her church and to other worthy causes. She can give it proportionately, and she enjoys doing it immensely.”

The Christian world ought to have the moral courage to test the readiness of Him, who has all the resources of earth and sky under His direction, to meet systematic giving with blessings beyond our anticipation. A kind of challenge is flung down by the Lord near the end of the Old Testament: “Bring all your tithes into the storehouse that there may be meat in my house! Prove me now, saith the Lord of Hosts, and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour you out such a blessing that there shall not be room to receive it.”

How the treasuries of our churches can be filled with the sinews of war for a more effective campaign against sin and degradation and want, if all professing Christians will dedicate some worthy proportion of their substance and give it in glad generosity! How the missionary activities at home and abroad would have their arms lengthened and strengthened for mightier service, by really adequate support. How the temple of God might shine in ever greater beauty and usefulness! Our Christianity could move into action with the power of a Niagara!

During the past week, you have received a letter from our every member canvass committee setting forth the things that were agreed upon at our business meeting the previous week. In one canvass, we are asked to consider three things. (1) First, our regular church budget for 1944. It is somewhat larger than last year’s budget and should be underwritten joyfully in order that we may do our work well here and do our share of the benevolence work of our churches abroad. (2) Second, a recommendation is made that we give consideration to the establishment of another fund for the rebuilding, eventually, of the manse. The suggestion here is that we consider purchasing some of our war bonds in the name of our church, to be set aside in this new fund. Whenever this is done, it should be a Series F bond that is purchased. (3) Third, we are given the opportunity to help a war emergency movement in our churches through the Congregational Committee for War Victims and Services. The leading Protestant denominations are all faced with plans for this extra, sacrificial giving to meet war emergencies.

When a community of a few hundred people suddenly mushrooms up to a community of many thousands because of a military establishment or location of an industrial plant, you and I know that there is no church to take care of those extra people. Any Christian workers who minister in those communities must be sent there by the extra gifts of our churches. When a minister leaves his church and enters military service as a chaplain, he needs more to work with than the government provides. Every one of the 360 and more Congregational ministers who have become chaplains is provided by the Committee on War Victims and Services with a communion set, literature of many sorts, help in getting films, lesson materials and other items for use in worship and group meetings of our men in service.

The only agency that can get in to help prisoners of war in every country, to organize themselves for study and the keeping up of their morale as human beings, is the International Y.M.C.A. committee. Our Committee on War Victims and Services is directed to help with the support of that work.

In certain cases, some of our own missionaries are in the best position to administer what relief is possible to stricken people around them. Their own expenses have gone up terrifically but they hold on to their fields of work. Our Committee puts what funds it can spare to work, without additional overhead, through the hands of these experienced missionaries.

Some food, clothing, and medical supplies go directly in the name of the Christian Church, to acute sufferers in China, Russia and Greece. Our Committee channels some of our gifts to these needs.

There are 18 or 19 such organized channels that are helped by the money we send to the Committee for War Victims and Services. Some of them receive help also from Red Cross and War Chest Funds. There is some supplementing, but for the most part there is no overlapping. The U.S.O., for instance, takes care of certain physical and recreational needs of our soldiers. It is supported from War Chest funds but not by our Committee on War Victims and Services. The Committee concerns itself with a spiritual ministry in that field.

Some of us are aware that Harry Martin, brother of the chairman of our board of deacons, and a missionary of the Congregational Churches for years in China, is expected home shortly on the Gripsholm. Certain other workers from enemy occupied areas also travel on that ship. Many others came on the same ship a year ago. Even with special rates, it costs us more than three times the cost of normal peace time travel to get them home! There must be emergency funds to meet these expenses.

This then represents an extra, to which you are invited to give if you are willing to sacrifice, as Christian Church members, for a specific Christian purpose.

You received two pledge cards in your letter. The yellow card is for your subscription to the regular budget of the church, and is your first consideration. The green card is for your subscription to the work of our Committee on War Victims and Services. And the U.S. government will supply you with applications for any series F bonds you wish to purchase in the name of our church.

The systematic giver becomes, consciously, a partner with God, not only in administration of materials, but in spiritual realities. He multiplies his usefulness in Christian service. With Christ the Savior he becomes a “saver” of men. He becomes a joyful giver, knowing what his generosity is made of, and what it accomplishes. He buys spiritual shares in a Christian civilization that pays its dividends in a cleaner community, a better world, a nobler vision, a better way.

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Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, November 28, 1943