Fight - To Be A Giver

Sermon from September 26, 2010
(Pentecost 18 – Year C)
1 Timothy 6: 6-19
St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Waco, Texas

Last weekend was Homecoming weekend at Midway High School.
At Midway High School, it is a tradition on the Thursday night before the football game, to have a giant carnival.
Then everyone goes into the stadium for a pep rally of sorts, where the Midway band plays and the Homecoming court is introduced.
The evening is capped off with a big fireworks display.

I took our son, John, to the Homecoming festivities.
And on the way home in the car, I found myself humming the Midway High School fight song.
I asked John:
“Do you know the words to your school fight song?”
In response, he began to sing the words.

Then John asked me:
“Dad, do you remember the words to your high school’s fight song?
And out from the fog of my middle-aged memory, the words and tune to the Memorial High School fight song came pouring out of the recesses of my brain:

{sung}
Fight, Mustangs, fight with all your might.
For the red and white
Fight, onward, to vict’ry
And we’ll win this game tonight!

The Apostle Paul remembered the words his fight song, a fight song that he teaches to young Timothy, in his First Letter to Timothy.
The Apostle Paul is a mentor to Timothy as Paul teaches this fight song:

Fight the good fight with all your might.
Fight the good fight to take hold of real life, a life that is not defined by money or possessions.
Fight the good fight to give, to be generous, to give away your money.
Fight – to be a giver.

Now most human beings believe that giving is a good thing.
We give presents at birthday parties.
We wrap up gifts with bows and put them around the Christmas tree.
We might give to United Way through our offices or we put a dollar or two in the collection plate at church.
We might think that there is no resistance at all to giving.

Yet when we try to give away too much, when we go overboard, or when we are foolish with our giving,
Then, there is resistance.

And in order to combat this resistance to give abundantly,
In order to give with foolish extravagance,
In order to give like God gives,
We must fight – to be a giver.

As many of you know, the scriptures that we read in church are on a three-year cycle.
This means that the scriptures that we just read a few minutes ago are the same scriptures that we read three years ago, the same scriptures that deal mainly with money and wealth and giving.

Three years ago, I preached on these scriptures.
And I told this congregation back then that Susan and I were in the midst of contemplating how much money we were going to give back to God in the form of a financial pledge to St. Alban’s Episcopal Church.
In that sermon, I told you all about the struggle that Susan and I have with giving.

You see, even three years ago, Susan wanted to rip up the carpet in our home and put in hard wood floors.
Yet when we got the bid proposal on how much it would cost us to put in hardwood floors, the cost was just about the same amount of money that we give away to God through the work of St. Alban’s.

Through much discussion and struggle, we finally decided to go ahead and give the money away, rather than to get hardwood floors.
Susan and I decided to give sacrificially.
And every time that we wrote a check to St. Alban’s, we knew very clearly what it was that we were giving up, in order to be a giver.

After I delivered that sermon three years ago, where I described our struggle, I must say that I was quite surprised by the reaction from some people in this congregation.
Most of the feedback that I received from that sermon about sacrificial giving was from well-meaning people who scolded me for giving so much away.
I received emails from people telling me that I should just go ahead and buy those wood floors for Susan.
I received comments from people telling me that I already give enough to the church and that I should not deny Susan the pleasure of the floors that she has always wanted.

And I thought to myself:
Good grief, now I have to fight the members of my own congregation to be a giver?!

For in order to give abundantly,
In order to give with foolish extravagance,
In order to give like God gives,
We must fight – to be a giver.

Now Susan and I are certainly not perfect givers.
And within Jeff Fisher’s heart, I encounter the resistance to give, every day.
I have a kid in college and a house with a mortgage and four drivers on my auto insurance policy.
The temptation is great for me to hold on tightly to my money and my things.
Every day I feel the resistance to giving with open hands and with extravagant foolishness.

Yet it helps me to know that Jesus understands our resistance to giving.
It helps me to know that Jesus understands that we must fight to be a foolish giver.

During the last months of Jesus’ life, Jesus tells his good friend, Peter, what it will mean for Jesus to give away everything.
Jesus tells Peter that he must go to Jerusalem, where Jesus says that he will be killed.
But a well-meaning Peter resists this idea of this extravagant and foolish giving,
And Peter takes Jesus aside to scold him, saying:
“Jesus, are you crazy?
You don’t have to give away everything!

In response, Jesus uses some of the strongest language that he ever uses in the Gospels as he wheels around and screams at Peter:
“Get behind me, Satan!
For you are holding onto things, instead of fighting to be a giver.”

You see, Jesus is the ultimate giver, in that he gives away everything.
For Jesus knows that those who lose their life, who give it all away, will find the only life that really matters.
And Jesus knows that
In order to combat our resistance to give abundantly,
In order to give foolishly,
In order to give like Jesus gives,
We must fight – to be a giver.

So my friends, fight the good fight –
And when you discover that a co-worker or a friend is having a hard time making ends meet,
Write them a big, fat check.
Give away so much that your friends will scold you saying:
“Are you crazy?
You don’t have to give away everything!”

Fight the good fight –
And when the collection plate comes around this morning,
Empty out your purse or wallet.
Give away so much that your friends will scold you saying:
“Are you crazy?
You don’t have to give away everything!”

Because, almost two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote a letter to young Timothy, teaching Timothy the words to our fight song.
And this morning, the Apostle Paul teaches us that

In order to give foolishly,
In order to give like God gives,
In order to take hold of the only life that really matters:

Fight the good fight with all your might.
Fight - to be a giver.

AMEN.