Abundance and Generosity (2 Corinthians 8:7-15)

In this section of scripture, the apostle Paul is writing to the Christians in Corinth – the Corinthians – because he wants to tell them about the Christians in Macedonia.  The Macedonians have just been through what Paul calls a “severe ordeal of affliction.”

I’m not sure what that “severe ordeal of affliction” was, but it doesn’t sound good.  Probably, it involved harsh treatment from the non-Christians in Macedonia, as well as a great challenge of finances.  The Macedonian Christians were persecuted, and they were poor.

Yet, during this “severe ordeal of affliction,” the Macedonians’ “abundant joy” and their “extreme poverty” have come together in a “wealth of generosity.”

Abundance and generosity.  Paul repeats those two words several times.  Abundance and generosity.  He talks about the abundance and the generosity of the Macedonians, despite their poverty and their need.  And he talks about the abundance of the Corinthians, and how they can help the Macedonians as well as Christians in other cities.

Paul talks about Christ, who “for your sakes became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.”

Paul talks about the Israelites who discovered manna in the wilderness. When they gathered the manna, everyone had enough.  The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.  Everyone had just the right amount.

This is the ideal that is lifted up by scripture.  It’s the reason God commands his people to tithe.  It’s the reason for the year of jubilee, when slaves are set free and debts are forgiven.  The abundant resources God has provided are to be generously shared, so that everyone has enough.

Unfortunately, we have strayed wayyy off track.  There is a great chasm between where we are today, and the society envisioned by God.  Theologian Walter Brueggemann calls this the great contradiction, that we have more and more money and less and less generosity.  He says that “we have invested our lives in consumerism.  We have a love affair with ‘more.’  Consumerism is not simply a marketing strategy.  It has become a demonic spiritual force among us.”

We think we will have happiness only if we have more.  More candy.  More money.  More, more, more.  And so, as a society, we do whatever it takes to get more.

The Bible calls this greed; and greed, the Bible says, is idolatry [Colossians 3.5].

Greed is the cause of the bank failures and mortgage crisis which contributed significantly to our ongoing economic troubles.

Greed has led us to a society where one man has eight pieces of candy, while the other nine have just two pieces among them… and yet that one man pays no more in taxes than do those other nine.

And yet that one man – and probably most of the other nine as well – still seek more.

If this pursuit of more was making them happy, perhaps one could find a way to justify it.

But it’s not making them happy.  The love affair with more isn’t making any of us happy.

So why do we keep going after more?  One reason is that we think there might not be enough to go around; and if there isn’t enough to go around, we better start hoarding what they can for ourselves.

Walter Brueggemann calls this the myth of scarcity.  It is in direct contrast to the idea of abundance that is found in scripture.  When we think in terms of abundance, we become generous, but when we think in terms of scarcity, we become fearful.

The Bible begins with abundance in the Garden of Eden.  But scarcity gets introduced when Pharaoh sees a famine coming, and begins hoarding crops and resources.  By the time we get to the book of Exodus, Pharaoh is so fearful that he commits genocide against the Israelites, seeking to destroy them.  He believes there just aren’t enough resources to go around, and so the Israelites are a threat that must be removed.

Walter Brueggemann says Hitler did the same.  Hitler saw a world of scarcity, and as a result he was a fearful man.  He was a man full of fear.  He was afraid.  His fear gave way to his ruthlessness and the evil he committed.

Pharaoh tried to destroy the Israelites, but that plan failed, so he sent them away.  The Israelites ended up in the wilderness, where they discover something new:  They discover abundance.  They discover enough.

Actually, it was more of a re-discovery, since abundance was there at creation, but it was new for the Israelites.  Every night, this strange stuff appeared on the plants, something that the Israelites could gather and eat.  But they could only gather enough.  Everyone could gather up what they needed, but no one could gather up more than they needed.  Anyone who tried to gather up more discovered that more would quickly spoil and rot.

This was a whole new paradigm for the Israelites.  They were not used to a mindset of enough.  They were used to a mindset of not enough, a mindset of scarcity.  But the idea of enough – of just enough – was completely new. 

So they called it manna, a word which means, “What is it?”  Everyone had enough to be satisfied, enough to be happy, but no more.  There was enough for everyone’s need, but not everyone’s greed. 

What a concept!

The apostle Paul is speaking to those who are trying to hoard the manna, keeping more than they need, while others do not have enough.  Stop acting as if the world God created is a world of scarcity, he says.  God’s world is a world of abundance.  And a world of abundance calls for sharing.  It calls for generosity.  Stop grabbing more money than you need, because – like the manna – it will spoil and rot in your hands.

And guess what?  That is exactly what is happening.  Our nation’s money is spoiling in our hands.  It is poisoning our society.  Our desire for more has made us uncivil toward one another as we ruthlessly pursue more for ourselves.

No one pursues more better than we Americans.  We earn more, spend more, eat more, consume more, and pollute more than any other nation.

We also have, at the same time, one of the highest rates of diagnosed depression and anxiety.  This is not a coincidence.  More does not make us happy.

Living with a scarcity mindset, always trying to get more and more, is terrible for one’s mental health.  At a deep, basic level, we know that living like this isn’t right.  We know that we are called to live with generosity and kindness.  When we give, when we share, our mental health improves.

Let’s say I work ten hours for ten dollars an hour.  A lot of people would be very happy to work ten hours at ten dollars an hour.

At the end of those ten hours, how much would I have? 

$100.

That $100 equals ten hours of my life, the ten hours I gave in order to earn it.

Now I get to spend that $100.  What should I spend it on?  What is worth $100? 

An even better question to ask is, “What is worth ten hours of my life?”  Because that $100 equals the ten hours of my life that I gave in order to earn it.

So, whenever I spend money, I’m spending my life.  So now the question becomes, “What is worth my life?”

I personally don’t like to spend more than I have to on things like clothes, electronics, cars … because things like these, I feel, are usually not worth the life that I have given in order to be able to pay for them.

On the other hand, I do like to spend money on things that are important and meaningful.  I give money to the church, because the church is something I believe is worth a part of my life.  I know I don’t give as much as some, but I am able to give more than I used to, and I feel good about that.  Given that we are continuing to run a deficit, I’m considering increasing what I give to the church, and I encourage you to do the same.

Knowing that my life is being used in this way makes me happy and brings me satisfaction.  Spending my life this way gives my life meaning.

The medical doctors and the psychiatrists prescribe drugs for the chemical imbalance in the brain that contributes to things like depression and anxiety, and that’s good.  Drugs that are used carefully under the guidance of a doctor can work wonders.

But there is also a spiritual factor here, and I believe that the best way to lift yourself out of depression or anxiety is to do something for someone else; to break off your love affair with “more” and to recognize that the gifts of God are meant to be shared; to spend your life energy on things that are meaningful to you and beneficial to the world.

For the past four days, I’ve been going back and forth to Los Angeles, where an event called Miracle on 43^rd Street has been taking place.  I’ve been helping out with the youth program; nearly 80 youth and youth leaders from around the country came to work hard for four days, giving their time, their money, their lives, to help renovate a church and serve in an economically challenged urban community.

Every time I saw them, they were smiling.  They had paid money to be there, many even paying expensive airfare.  They had given up a week of summer vacation, a week of working summer jobs.  They had said goodbye to friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, and families.  They exchanged their comfortable beds for sleeping on a hard church basement floor.

And they were smiling.  They felt really good, having found a way to share their life’s energy with the world.

Seeing them reminded me of the world of abundance in which we live.  It reminded me of the joy that comes from giving, that it’s not just something we say, but that it is really, actually true:  joy does come from giving.  It reminded me that when we share generously, miracles really do happen.  It reminded me that God calls me to help create a world of abundance and generosity, and that doing so is what makes life worth living.