Called To Give by Rev. Gabrielle Martone at Pearl River United Methodist Church on Sunday 29 March 2020
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2 Corinthians 9:6-12 NRSV
The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written, “He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor; his righteousness endures forever.” He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God.
It has been a weird couple of weeks. This is now week three that we're not able to gather together in person. It's additionally a weird week because I am not coming to you from the sanctuary. It is been a weird three weeks of watching our state go on lockdown. Watching the news and the reports coming in. Three weeks of making difficult decisions of looking out my window and not seeing anyone. Which I'm not going to lie, it's a good thing cause it means y'all are staying at home. It has been a three weeks of alternating between fear and anxiety and deep hope and possibility and dreaming about what might be.
I have to say that I've been really blessed by this experience in a lot of ways. I've been blessed by an opportunity to be able to try some new technology with you all. To be able to see your faces virtually has been a real gift. Being able to see the things that you post alongside of us on Facebook has been wonderful. There's a part of me that wondered whether or not we should continue really with the series that we've been doing on Paul. Some weeks it feels like the scripture was apt for what we were talking about and what we were experiencing.
And this is the first week that I re-read the scripture that I had chosen and wondered, "Do we still keep going with this? Do we continue to talk about giving in a time of social and physical distancing? Do I still interpret things the same way I did three months ago when I was putting this worship series together? What does it mean to have lent when we are so far apart? What does it mean for us to live and exist in a space where we have no answers? Where every day it seems as though conflicting information is coming to us from a variety of different places we do when we're scared? How do we gather together in worship, a place where many of us find strength and comfort and something that touches us beyond our own worlds when we are sitting at home on computer screens or on the phone, not sure of when we will get to see each other again and for some of us if we will get to see each other again?"
You know the governor Andrew Cuomo made a statement this week that our peak is still two weeks away. What does it look like for us to see the number of cases continuing to rise for another two weeks until we see the fall? Or at least a settling out. And if you listen to the news you are probably wrestling through what does it mean for us to be in a space where nobody seems to have any answers. Some experts are saying by the middle of May we'll be able to gather together again in groups over 50. Other people are saying we will not see an end to any of this until the summer time. And even more are saying it could take a year before we feel like it's normal again. I worry about all of the businesses. I worry about all of you who are on the front lines. I really worry about all of you who have children at home and are facing the reality of having your kids 24 seven from now until September. Sorry.
I'm worried. I'm worried for my dad who continues to work because he's deemed an essential employee, who's in and out of the city every day. I worry about Matt who continues to work at his plant at 3m for the sake of the economy. I worry about all of you who are working on the front lines. You who are first responders and police officers and healthcare workers. I give thanks for those of you who put your lives on the line every single day to fight off this disease. I give thanks for those of you who have answered the call that God has put on your lives and on your hearts to serve and to serve boldly and to serve well.
I give thanks for those of us who are staying home. For those of us who are listening and knowing that essential things only are important, who are taking this seriously. And I worry and give thanks for what might be. I worry and I give thanks for where we'll be in two weeks and four weeks and in two months and in four months. But most importantly I give thanks that God is God. I give thanks that God is the one who holds all things. And while no, I do not believe that God is the one who caused this virus to descend upon us. I give thanks that even in the midst of chaos and fear, God still holds us. God still loves us. God is with us in the midst.
I give thanks that even though we are far apart, we are all still together. So I wondered what do I say on the week in which we talk about being called to give. I wondered what it is and what message it is that I bring to be able to speak reality to where we are and hope for the present and the future and to say that giving is important in this time.
The beginning of this Corinthians verse starts out with this, the point is this, "The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind not reluctantly or under compulsion for God loves a cheerful giver." Now, so often we see this verse being used during stewardship campaigns and when we are asking folks to make pledges, but I think our staying at home is a gift. Something we are called to do. I think our remaining indoors, as stressful and as anxiety producing it is, and it can be and it will be, we are called to do it because we are cheerful givers. We can see this happen and feel as though we are under compulsion or we can look at it as how we give back to all of those around us. If you don't follow the guidelines as they are in place and you still gather together in large groups, if you still gathered together on the ball field, if you still are hosting Coronavirus parties in your home, you are sowing sparingly.
You are more concerned about your present than about your future. You are more concerned about your present than our future. Believe me, I am an extrovert. I love being around people. My soul sings most when I can gather together with my friends and with my family. I am missing my people these days. I am missing all of you and there are moments in which I say, "Perhaps we should just gather together the ones we love most and see how it goes." Then I remember that it's not about me, but if I sow sparingly, then I will reap sparingly. If I sow bountifully, then we will all reap bountifully.
Here's the thing about gardening than any of you who do any sort of growing will know. It takes a long time to do the work. It takes a long time to grow anything from a seed into a plant. When you grow tomato plants, which is pretty much the only thing I can grow without killing it. If you do it from seed, it starts out so small and it takes so much time and energy and effort to be able to produce something that you can eat and feast upon. There is time and energy and effort. It is not a quick fix. It is not an immediate filling of a need or a void. It takes time and I believe that's exactly what Paul is talking about here.
When you sow sparingly, your reward later will be minimal. If you think only about yourself in this time, you reap nothing. You reap destruction. You reap overcrowding. You reap this pandemic being at a place that we don't want it to be. If you think only of your own scarcity or how much time it will take for you to grow something, what you have is so much less than what it could be.
But if you sow bountifully, if you stay home, if you put your energy and your effort into what could be or what will be, the rewards of that are great, they are unimaginable. They are huge. They are the bounty that God provides for us, but we have to trust that our efforts will lead into something eventually that's beautiful. There are no quick fixes. There are no easy solutions. There is nothing that will put a bandaid and fix whatever situations that we are facing in our lives may be. You put in the energy and the effort now. Not for something easy, not for some miraculous quick fix, but something slow and steady that we give all we have to, that we do everything we can possibly do for and we see that our results are amazing.
I think about when I first started weightlifting. You can't start lifting 150 pounds all at once. It takes a very slow and gradual progression. You start at lightweights and you increase slowly working towards that ultimate goal. It is not an easy or a pretty journey. It is one that is often met with many setbacks, but you do the work. And next thing you know, you're dead lifting 125 150 pounds when you started only dead lifting a bar. There are many things in our lives that take time, that we have to wait to see the fullness of the progression for. There are so many things that we experience in our lives these days that bring us to a place where we are not immediately satisfied, where we do not see the results of the things that we give and the things that we do right away.
When we talk about tithing or giving it to the church, we don't see the fruition of our gifts and our trust in God immediately. It is something that takes time to mature time for us to be able to see the fullness of our gift. Often times the gifts that we give, we never see the culmination of them. There are things that you are building and creating now that you will not see the fruition of until generations later.
How we respond in this time and this place will be our legacy as we continue forward. We may not see the results of flattening the curve right away, but the best thing that could happen is that nothing happens at the end of our stay inside. Because it means that we will have prevented what could have been. There is no easy answer or quick fix for any of the important things in our lives. All we have is what we can give. So what are you giving in this time? What are you giving to yourself and to your loved ones and to your neighbors? What are you giving to those who are sick and shut in? What are you giving to our healthcare workers and our grocery store clerks and the folks who have been deemed essential? What are you giving? What are you sowing? What are you hoping to reap?
Beauty of the rest of Paul's passage goes like this, "And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance so that by always having enough of everything you may share abundantly in every good work, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to guide through us. For the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God." What you do matters. God is going to take care of us no matter where we are. So long as we are committed to living our lives the way that God calls us to, to love God and to love each other, God will make a way. God will provide what we need. God will give us growth. God will make sure we have what we need. It may not be what we want, but we will have what we need and our thanksgivings to God will be great.
So where are you? What are you wrestling with? What are you sitting in? What are you wrestling through these days? Are you sowing bountifully? Are you trusting that God is going to take care of you? Are you trusting that no matter what happens, that God's will will be done? Are you living a life that proves our trust and our commitment to God? Or are you hoarding things and time and people? Are you thinking of yourself and your present or are you thinking of our collective future?
My friends, this is not an easy time. It is not a fun time or a time I'd ever like to repeat, but it is a time for us to sit with our anxieties. God knows I have them all the time, but to also sit with the one who holds all things, the one who will make a way where there seems like there is no way, the one who will give us enough, the one who will provide for us, the one who will make it as it needs to be, the one whose will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May we trust the one who holds all things.
May you and I stay home, unless you have to go out. May you and I find this time to sow bountifully. May you pour into your loved ones and to each other with all you have. May you be a light in the darkness. May you sow into your children and into your communities bounty. May we trust God. May we be grateful for what we have. And may we always look to the future not with anxiety, not with what ifs, but knowing that God is there. God will lead us through. God will lead us through the chaos. God will lead us through the pain. God will lead us through the grief and the suffering. God will lead us out of chaos into new normal. God will show us the way today and every day. Amen.
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