Giving good gifts generously
Eric Olfert
First Mennonite Church
November 8, 2009
Giving Good Gifts Generously
1 Timothy 6:17-19 and Matthew 7:7-12
Good morning! It’s good to be here with you this morning. Since I’m from Saskatchewan, many of you may not know me. I’m Jon Olfert from Valaqua’s dad. I am Verna Brown from Didsbury’s husband. I work for Mennonite Church Canada as the Missional Formation and Partnerships facilitator in Saskatchewan. As you will learn as I go on, most of my overseas experience was in Africa with MCC. But what I learned applies to MC Canada as well.
I probably won’t get any argument from you if I say "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7). We’ve been told this since we were kids. It was, in fact, one of the sayings my parents used to try to resolve our conflicts over toys or cookies or anything else we really didn’t want to share. I don’t remember it making me any more cheerful about the imperative to share. Giving up something that was special to me wasn’t a cheerful event at all.
In time giving things away became a bit easier, and I learned that there was some real satisfaction in being generous, but the satisfaction of giving always competed within me, and still does, with the satisfaction of having.
As I matured a bit further yet, I learned about having books and tools. I became convinced that you can never have too many of either of those items. Even today, a new Canadian Tire flyer or a Princess Auto catalogue can create real temptations… Look, I don’t have one of those yet, and look at the price! On the day when I actually need it I’ll be kicking myself if I don’t buy it today… As one of those who are rich in the present age, which Paul writes to Timothy about, I can easily indulge myself in tools until my shop is as no more room for my car.
As we get older, we realise more and more clearly that there is much in life that is more important than material wealth or things. "A life that really is life" as Paul puts it in the scripture we read, is about much more than having the most money or the best toys.
As I think about it, my African brothers and sisters have taught me much about that ‘life that is really life’. Pastor David Telta was a Chadian pastor who resisted the Chadian government's pressure to incorporate traditional initiation practices into Christian worship in the early ‘70’s, and eventually was forced to flee for his life to neighbouring Nigeria, where he was given charge of an important church in a poor part of Maiduguri, the closest Nigerian city to the Chadian border. Civil war eventually forced the closure of the whole MCC program in Chad, and Verna and I ended up living in Maiduguri and teaching in a Technical school; like Pastor David, trying to stay close to Chad.
Pastor David, by now a large, stately, slow-speaking, fairly elderly man, became a mentor to us. We would frequently take our program issues, our problems with local employees (we tried to hire Chadian refugees where we could) and cultural questions to Pastor David for his wise advice, and over time we developed a relationship of trust and honesty with him.
A steady flow of Christians from southern Chad, fleeing war and war-related economic stress kept arriving at Pastor David's compound, and he always seemed to find room and food for them, even if it took his last Naira (Nigerian dollar) or his last bag of corn. His Nigerian congregation tried hard to support him in this ministry, but they also often reached their limits and frequently would come to us and tactfully suggest that it would be really nice if someone could get a bag of corn and some greens to Pastor Telta. We responded out of MCC emergency funds, trying not to 'create dependencies' and all that stuff.
One day while we were delivering some food, and noticing that, as usual, there were about 20 Chadian newcomers temporarily lodged at Pastor David's, I expressed amazed appreciation for Pastor David's bottomless hospitality. For the fact that no matter what his own and family needs were, he was always ready to give the last of what he had to newcomers, even though he might not have any real idea who they were.
That was when he told me, with an air of sadness, that "you white people are so afraid of being poor. We Africans have learned that being poor in material things is nothing to fear. We have been poor before and we will be poor again. We know it is just part of life" He didn't elaborate much, saying a few words about generosity and sharing being a much better form of insurance than greed and hoarding. "If you help others in their need they will help you in yours". The implication was that being poor in relationships was much more to be feared than being materially poor. I went away, like the rich young ruler of Matthew 19, with much to think about.
This took place in the early '80's. In the early '90's, as MCC's Africa Secretary, I was traveling in Nigeria when word arrived that Pastor Telta had passed away. We were able to change my schedule so I could be at the funeral. After a long (8 hour) hot drive to Maiduguri, we arrived at Pastor David's large but unpretentious church in a poor part of Maiduguri an hour before the funeral service was to start. The church was full and overflowing already. If we hadn't been 'dignitaries', we would never have gotten inside. Loudspeakers were set up outside, and the whole neighbourhood for blocks around, including many Muslims who would never have ventured into the church building, willingly became part of the service. It was clear that the community of those who considered themselves part of Pastor David's 'sharing family' numbered well into the thousands. (pause)
But I also learned from my experience of being a ‘professional giver’ with MCC, that giving is not always easy or simple. I think Jesus is alluding to this problem in Matthew 7 verses 9 and 10, where he asks: "9Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? 10Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?"
Again, it was an African elder in Burkina Faso who taught me a most useful lesson. I don’t even remember his name, but what he said is engraved in my brain.
In our cultural understanding, he told me, there are two kinds of money. There is warm money, and there is cold money.
Warm money is money that is a gift from my father, or that I borrowed from my aunt, or that my community entrusted me with, or that I earned by working for my neighbour. It is money that ‘belongs’. It carries with it understandings and obligations. Everyone understands how it is to be used and how and in what forms it can be repaid. It creates linkages that hold the community together. It contributes to the health and vitality of the community.
Cold money, on the other hand, is like ‘found money’. It has no history, no sense of belonging; it carries no obligations or responsibilities. Money from the government or from an outside organisation like MCC is by definition ‘cold money’ in this understanding. Whoever grabs the quickest, fights the best, or tells the best story (the most convincing lie) will get it. The mode of responding to it is one of competition and greed. Whatever promises you need to make to get it are meaningless, part of the game, because it is ‘just’ cold money. Unfortunately the competition and greed it generates are highly destructive of community. Cold money can easily tear a community apart.
Your problem, the elder went on, is to discover how to make your organization’s money ‘warm’. How to effectively make it ‘belong’ in the community. How to give it the linkages and relationships that will allow it to be constructive rather than destructive. How to turn it from stones and snakes into bread and fish, if you will…
A good sermon should have three points, right? This one will have three stories, all from Africa, and I hope that will be good too.
While travelling in East Africa repeatedly, I got to know Kabiru Kinyanjui, a very friendly and outgoing University prof at the University of Nairobi in Kenya. At one point we got talking, about the pace of life, and he made the following comments:
My life, he said, is increasingly westernised. It feels like I’m on a train, that sees its value in going ever faster, farther, higher and with more bells and whistles. Modern (western styled) life is linear and forward progress focussed, he said. The success of your life is measured in how much progress you have been able to make, how far, how fast and how high you have been able to get.
Traditional African life, he said, is seen much more as being part of a cloud of relationships, some immediate and strong, others more distant and ‘thin’. The measure of a successful life lies in the number, strength and scope of your relationships. The more people with whom you share meaningful, interdependent relationships, and the further your relationships extend, both geographically and across cultural and other societal divisions, the more successful a person you are.
Instead of a self-centered, goal-oriented ‘train’, speeding off to some never-attainable far-away target, traditional African understandings would think in terms of a cloud of relationships, with the quality and number of personal connections you have being the measure of your worth. Sounds Biblical to me.
By now you will have noticed that all three stories are pretty closely connected by the theme of relationships. In the first story, Pastor David’s story, we learned that generosity is life-giving. That the relationships it nourishes are a much better way of preparing for the future than selfish hoarding.
In the second story about warm and cold money, we learned that good gifts, warm gifts, are gifts that nurture and strengthen relationships.
And in the third story we are led to compare life on the fast track to life defined by the strength of interpersonal relationships.
In conclusion, I would remind you of my title. Give Good Gifts Generously. Being Generous, as Pastor David taught me, is life-giving. It creates relationships that comfort, support and uphold us, even when our own times of trouble come.
But the gifts need to be good gifts, gifts that build up relationships, that do not tear them down. Just ‘throwing money at a problem’ can easily do more harm than good. Get personally involved, make relationships part of your giving.
And finally, A life of generous relationships helps us to create for ourselves "A life that really is life". A life that not only is pleasing to God, but that is personally satisfying and fulfilling.
My work in Saskatchewan, and a priority for MC Canada, is to help you as individuals and as congregations to find and nurture relationships that are life-giving in both directions. Talk to us!
I encourage and bless you in your search for such a life that really is life.