Trinity Episcopal Church
Hattiesburg, Mississippi
Advent 2
December 10, 2006
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Malachi 3:1-4
Canticle 16 (Luke 1:68-79)
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA
I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:3-11)
Give; Don’t Give Nothing
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop
It was probably about six in the morning when I found myself being shaken into consciousness. “Daddy, Daddy, it’s Christmas!”
“Muph wuz Mus?”
“Daddy, it’s time!” And those cold little hands began to prod me to get up. It was time to see what Santa had brought.
The night before had been spent assuring my young daughter that Santa would come, and would be able to find the tree, even though it was not in the same room as the fireplace. You see, she was so worried about that, that I used electrician’s tape to make arrows on the carpet pointing from the fireplace, out of the family room, down the hall and into the living room where the tree stood in the corner.
Having pre-filled the coffee pot on Christmas Eve, I stumbled into the kitchen to start the coffee while my daughter ran back and forth from the living room urging me to hurry, because Santa had indeed found the tree.
Reinforced with a little caffeine, I sat down in the chair with a flourish reminiscent of a conductor stepping to his place in front of the orchestra.
“Okay, let’s see what Santa …” “Oh wait!” I shouted. “Where’s my paper and pencil?” You see, its been my task each Christmas morning to keep track of who got what from whom so that while watching A Christmas Story for the third or fourth time, we could write our thank you notes after supper.
Paul’s letter to the people of Philippi is his gift of thanks back to the people for the many gifts that had been sent to him through Epaphroditus to make his confinement in jail more comfortable.[1] The Philippians had been good to Paul and he was very grateful. “I thank my God every time I remember you,” he wrote for their support of his ministry and their friendship and for their passion of the gospel. He prays for the people of Philippi hoping that “[their] love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help [them] to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ [they] may be pure and blameless.”
When Paul uses the word, “love” he uses the same word that Jesus used when talking about loving both one’s friends and enemies. That word is “agape.” Paul prays that that love experience stems right from their love of God, and that it will overflow and yield goodness toward others. But he also prays for something else. And that is that their love will be directed by “knowledge and full insight.” In other words, Paul is talking about a kind of generous, but discerning love. A love that is not indiscriminant, but a love that is wise.
Advent, the time of preparation, is also a time when many of us are thrashing about putting together gift lists or shopping for those gifts. And as we put those gift lists together we might consider a few things that might help us to give and in the process, experience an overflowing love.
First, giving something is better than giving nothing. Jesus commended us to love God and love our neighbor. These are the two great commandments. They are not optional. And apparently they are widely followed by many Americans. Did you know that as of the end of 2005, we had given $1.78 billion for tsunami relief and $3.12 billion in aid to the victims of Katrina and Rita? But those numbers are small compared to total charitable giving. Figures for 2005 and 2006 are not yet available, but in 2004 Americans gave $285.5 billion to U.S. charities – and more than three quarters of that total came from individual Americans like you and me. And that is in addition to the $71 billion we gave to the developing world.
But here’s the surprise. Of the $285.5 billion given to charity, less than 10% of it was given to organizations that directly help the poor. And yet the poor are the very people Jesus cared about the most. That should give us all pause.
But, Paul suggests that we should give wisely and that in performing generous acts were should make every effort to determine what is best. That is not always easy, and some of us are afraid to give because we don’t want to be taken advantage of. When organized charities ask us for money we can usually find ways to verify their claims. Charitywatch.org and charitynavigator.org are two web resources to check out groups asking for money. But when individuals come to us on the street asking for help feeding their children or needing gas money to get home, for example, there is a greater possibility of being deceived.
But, giving and being taken advantage of is better than giving nothing. We can protect ourselves to some extent by giving wisely. How do we do this? Rabbi Asher Meir, a contributor to “The Jewish Ethicist,” points out that the Talmud says that we should be grateful for cheaters.[2] Otherwise anytime a needy person requested charity and a person failed to give he would be immediately punished … In this saying, the dishonesty of the cheaters is a kind of counterbalance to the stinginess of the givers.”
There is a tendency to be judgmental when we respond to individual requests for charitable help. Most often we have not lived their particular life, and generally what we might observe in the moment or believe to be true is not the whole story. If the person is dishonest, then shame on them, but blessings on you for your willingness to love your neighbor. The same kind of charity and generosity of spirit can be extended to our social lives as well where our judgmental tendencies might get in the way of the determining the truth or the dispensing of charitable justice.
On an old Andy Griffith show, Sheriff Andy was made chairman of the needy children charity drive. Money was collected from school children and others in Mayberry and Mount Pilot. Word got back to Andy that Opie gave only one penny, even though his piggie bank was full of money. Andy was very perturbed, and tried to explain to Opie about why he should give, and give generously to the needy children. Opie listened attentively and explained that he would give more except that he was saving his money. Andy’s vexation at Opie’s behavior grew, and his sense of righteous grew right along with it. He had judged his son, and found him to be unworthy. Finally he told Opie that if he wanted to skip out on this charity and spend his money on something else, that would be okay (guilt, anyone?). Opie finally told his father that there was a little girl in Opie’s class who needed a coat, and he was saving his money so that he would have enough to buy it before winter. Andy said, “Opie you never told me why you were saving the money.” “Pah,” Opie said, “You never asked.”
Finally, we might want to remember during this giving season that it is better to give when we don’t have anything to give, than to give nothing at all. This gets at the basis of our motivation for giving: We give because we are grateful. We are grateful to friends who care for us and love us, and so we buy or make presents for them even if we have to sacrifice food or heat to do so. We give because we’re grateful to them. It is not because of duty or obedience, but because we want to. It is an act of pure, unselfish, discriminating love. That’s what Paul experienced coming his way from the people of Philippi, and that is why he responded to them with profound and joyous words of gratitude.
I have been here for a while now, and I am feeling more settled and familiar with Trinity Parish and with Hattiesburg. I have much to be thankful for: your friendship, your generous hospitality, and your acceptance. I am also thankful for the generosity you have expressed to your fellow Trinitarians through your pledges. We have much work to do to raise up the lowly in this area of the Kingdom, but we are getting there.
The city of Philippi is an ancient one, predating Jesus by some 400 years. Its walls and fortifications were made by dry-stone construction[3]. That is they were constructed without cement or mortar – held together solely by their own weight. The stones tilt slightly downward, like roof tiles, so that water can drain out of the wall. Pebbles and rock chips tightly packed in the center of the walls give the structure critical strength. A well-built dry-stone wall can stand intact, without needing repair, for 200 years or more – several times the life span of a cemented wall. Dry-stone walls shift and bend in order to conform to the natural movements of the land – the frost heaves, the sinkholes, the settlings in the rainy season. A dry wall that is distorted and yet still fairly sturdy has reached what is called “old age.” Cement walls, on the other hand, do not reach old age. Cement walls do not move. They crack, and then they fall.
In expressing his thankfulness to the Philippian Christians, Paul expresses his confidence that God – who began a good work among them – “will bring it to completion” Like the walls of Philippi, Trinity Parish is built one living stone upon another. As we give and receive and give thanks, we “settle in” and our strength grows. And it is from this strength that our love of God and of one another and our ability to give and to give thanks all grow.
May God continue to bless us with God’s abundant grace and love as we move through this Advent season to the yearly renewal that comes in the celebration of the incarnation.
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See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
69 He has raised up a mighty savior for us
in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets
from of old,
71 that we would be saved from our enemies and from
the hand of all who hate us.
72 Thus he has shown the mercy promised to
our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us
74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our
enemies, might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most
High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
78 By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
[1] The reflections about Philippians were adapted from Timothy F. Merrill. “Donation Nation.” Homiletics18(6): 42-46, 2006.
[2] The Jewish Ethicist can be found at http://www.aish.com/societywork/work/.
[3] Timothy F. Merrill. “ Dry Stone Church.” 10 December 2000. Accessed 7 Decemner 2006 at http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2513
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Copyright © 2006, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
7 December 2006
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