Generosity - a sermon based on Acts 4: 32-37, preached on June 18, 2023

“Generosity” is the title and subject of today’s sermon. This summer, as we have for the past two summers, we’re preaching through a sermon series. This year, the topic of the series is “spiritual gifts.” If you look to the windows in our Sanctuary, you’ll see that we’ve already celebrated the gifts of encouragement and discernment. Now, we focus on generosity, and specifically, I’m hoping to draw your attention to people who embody this gift. It’s good to focus on the gift of generosity because we spend too much time focusing on the curse of selfishness. Do you know what I mean by that? When we focus on the gifts that we’ve received, we pay more attention to where the good thing is. A healthy habit to get into is to spend more time focused on generous people. When we do, we spend less time focusing on greedy people. When we go out into the world looking for generosity, it changes the way we act, think, and feel. Something the Rev. Joe Brice always says is, “Focus on what you want more of.” If we focus on generosity and take time to celebrate generous people, there’s less space in our minds for the cheapskates, and when there’s less space in our minds for the cheapskates, we’re free in a way we haven’t been before, so this morning I’m calling on you to think about generosity. Who in your life embodies this gift? Here at this church, it’s easy to focus on generous people because generous people are all around this place. However, milk costs $3.39 cents a gallon at our Kroger. If you buy organic, it can go up to $6.49. Eggs range from $1.99 a dozen to $6.99 for the fancy kind, where the chickens get the spa treatment. That’s a lot of money, so every restaurant we go to has a sign that says, “Due to rising food costs, our prices have gone up 15%.” If you look towards the rising prices at our grocery stores, it’s easy to feel like everyone wants a piece of what you have in your wallet. It’s not a good feeling, being price gouged and pickpocketed everywhere you go. After a while, we start to wonder: “Will there be enough?” Will I have enough? Seeing prices rise, I start to imagine that the world is full of people who are like Ananias and Sapphira. Do you know their story? Have you heard it before? This passage from the book of Acts that I read this morning for our second Scripture lesson is one that’s always scared me. This whole group of believers, “were of one heart and soul,” to the degree that “no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” That was the norm in the early church, which makes sense when you think about what they knew and understood. They were focused on the abundant love of God. Generosity is an outgrowth of such love. That’s where our second Scripture lesson begins. We started with abundant love and abundant generosity. Yet, as we read on into Acts chapter 5, our second Scripture lesson moved to focus on the only two people who tried to game the system, Ananias and Sapphira. “A man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” The apostle Peter didn’t like that. He couldn’t understand why Ananias would hold back a piece of the profit from the community of believers, so Peter asked him, “How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!” When Ananias heard that, he fell and died. How’s that for a stewardship sermon? No doubt, the most memorable part of this story is what happened to the two people who did not embody the generosity that was expected of them, so if you remember anything from Acts chapter 5 verses 1-6, it’s likely that Ananias and Sapphira died, but wait a minute. Is it not far more remarkable that these two were the only couple who didn’t give everything that they had? Is it not more important to remember that among the first believers in that early Christian community, the exception was the one couple who held back a portion of what they had, and the norm was a generosity so radical that all who owned anything sold it so that what the community possessed would be held in common? We spend too much time paying attention to those places where generosity isn’t. We watch the news and hear about climbing prices, then go out into the world expecting people to act like Ananias and Sapphira, holding something back, thinking first of themselves and second of the common good, when in the early church, generosity was the norm and not the exception. Most believers embodied generosity. Most Christians gave everything that they had. So normal was generosity that Peter couldn’t believe that Ananias and Sapphira would do anything other than give. So normal was generosity that named in Scripture is the exception to the rule, for to list the names of all those who embodied generosity would take up too much space in our Bibles. So it is here. Do you have any idea of the generosity that pervades First Presbyterian Church? Many of you know Antonio Evans, who is our security guard most Sundays. During the week, security is often provided by a man named Tyrell. A member of our church staff asked Tyrell how he was doing last week. He said, “I’m great. The only thing that could make today even better is if I had a Reese’s peanut butter cup.” Well, 15 minutes later, Tyrell had a king-sized pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups. Likewise, you may have heard by now that next month I’ll be a guest bartender at Two Birds Taphouse, just down the street. Read about it in your bulletin. For one night only, this pastor will be behind the bar, serving beer, which is just outside of my job description, but for that one-night, beer sales will benefit our Food Outreach Ministry. Instead of making a profit, Jeff and Rachel Byrd, who own the bar, will donate the money they make from the beer I serve to feed families in our community. And I have a million more examples. Did you know that a group of men and women gave a week of their vacation time to travel to Mexico to build a family a house to live in the week before last? Did you know that Bennett Sherwood has a pack of special Bible highlighters, and he gave me one? Did you know that a group at our church is working towards providing free and anonymous counseling for our county’s first responders? Or that on the 4th of July, some of our members will be grilling out for the employees of the Cobb County Jail who must work rather than celebrate Independence Day with their families and friends? Everywhere I look around this place is generosity. It is not the exception but the norm. Can you see it? Do you expect to see it? “Focus on what you want more of,” says the Rev. Joe Brice. If we focus on generosity and take time to celebrate generous people, there’s less space in our minds for the cheapskates, and we go out into the world looking at it differently. We act differently, more alive, and aware of the power of God. So it was with the prophet Elijah. In our first Scripture lesson from the book of 1st Kings, we heard about a widow who had nothing left. She scraped the bottom of her barrel to get just enough grain for one last meal. She was gathering sticks to cook one last measly loaf to stave off her son’s hunger a little while longer, that they might die in peace. What did the Prophet Elijah do? He asked her to share a piece with him. “Bring me a little water in a vessel, so that I may drink,” he said, and “bring me a morsel of bread in your hand, so that I may eat.” Why would he ask this of her? Why would he petition a dying widow for food when she barely has any? This is the life of faith embodied my friends. When you realize that all people are not selfish as we’ve been told, but generous, it changes the way we behave. When we remember how abundant generosity is, God surrounds us with generous people. Don’t judge them by how much they have or don’t have. Don’t judge them by how they dress or the cars that they drive. Forget what you have been told, for generosity is not the exception but the norm. Did you hear that? Maybe you’re not so sure about it. Maybe you got ripped off just yesterday. That happens. I’ve been cleaning out ivy from our front yard. Doing so, I have unearthed all kinds of stuff. All kinds of stuff was buried under that ivy. Pulling up that ivy, I found an Incredible Hulk action figure, a bunch of rocks, and my neighbor’s wallet. Someone broke into his car, grabbed the cash that was in the wallet, then tossed what he didn’t want into my ivy, where I found it four years later. Such a memory will stick with you. Someone steals from you, and it makes you feel like everyone out there is a thief, which is not the truth nor is always guarding your pocket the way you were meant to live. Remember who has been generous to you. Consider who has the gift of generosity. Know that all around us are generous people who have never been asked. We are surround by those who hardly believe that they have anything worth giving. We forget that and stand guard among our neighbors. We’ve been told to bar our doors and not to bother asking, yet consider this widow who fed Elijah in our first Scripture lesson and know that it was not by receiving that this woman came to faith, but by giving her bread away. That’s so often how it is. I mentioned before this group who went to Mexico. This year, they were mostly adults. Just two older high school students went along. Years ago, when the trip across the border could be made safely by bus, our church sent hundreds of high school students to stack cinder blocks, mix cement, and apply stucco to walls, building houses the size of our living rooms for families who had next to nothing. The man we were building a house for gave me this cross. I’ll never forget it. I’ll treasure it always because it reminds me, not of what we gave him, but of how this gift of his changed me. Who has been generous to you? Write their names down on your card. Now hold it up, as an affirmation of faith. Sunday after Sunday, we stand and say what we believe using the words of the Apostles’ Creed, but this summer we affirm our faith by claiming how God has been at work in our lives through people. Today, we claim it. Our generous God has been at work in our lives through generous people. Look how many generous people have been named in this place. Go out into the world believing that generosity is the norm and not the exception. Halleluiah. Amen.