Tag Archives: giving

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Principles of fasting

Click here to listen to the 16-minute audio message on principles of fasting, or read the written summary below.

During Lent, it is customary for us to fast. It is not a rule or a requirement – you should decide for yourself whether you will fast. And you should also decide for yourself what you will fast from. In this message, I offer seven basic principles of fasting.

1. Fasting is an important spiritual discipline, backed up by plenty of Biblical precedent. Jesus himself fasts in the Gospels, and of course his ministry started with a 40-day fast in the wilderness. But although Jesus does fast and does provide guidance on fasting, he does not instruct or command us to fast.

2. Fasting is between you and God. It has nothing to do with anyone else. Jesus says in Matthew 6 that we should fast in secret, hidden in a closet, even putting on makeup so that it does not look as if we are fasting. It is a private matter between you and God.

3. How you fast and what you fast from is between you and God. There are no clear rules in the Bible about how fasting should be done. There are diverse examples of fasting in the Bible, but no specific singular pattern that is set down. There is thus flexibility in how fasting takes place – prayerfully figure out for yourself what will be helpful.

4. There are no dire consequences to breaking your fast. I am not encouraging you to break your fast, nor to be flippant about fasting. But I am saying that if you break your fast, it is just like any other sin you might commit. Sometimes we make fasting into such a big thing, that if we slip and break our fast, it seems like the end of the world. It is not the end of the world. It is simply sin.

5. Breaking your fast is an opportunity for learning. Again, I’m not encouraging you to break your fast or to be negligent in your fasting. But it is probably true that most of us break our fast from time to time. Breaking one’s fast is, arguably, a ‘small’ sin – it’s not in the same league as adultery or murder. It thus gives us a valuable opportunity to practice repentance (saying ‘sorry’ to God) and asking for forgiveness – and then for receiving God’s forgiveness. And then getting back to your fasting. For me, the moments of breaking my fast, repenting and accepting God’s forgiveness are among the most spiritually enriching moments of fasting.

6. Fasting is primarily about the heart, not the action. When we fast from chocolate, for example, we are not giving up something sinful – chocolate is not a sin. Most things we fast from are not sin. The reason for this is that the point of fasting is less about giving up sin (since we should be doing that already all the time!) but about giving up something. It is the impact of giving up something that is at the heart of fasting. It is what happens in our heart, in our faith, in our relationships with God that makes fasting meaningful. Joel 2:12-14 stresses this with the words, “Rend your hearts and not your garments”:

“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.

7. Fasting should be paired with charity. We are called to give generously while we fast. In practice, we could calculate the cash value of the things we are giving up and then give that cash to God’s work in the church or a charity or directly to people in need. This is stated particularly clearly in Isaiah 58:3-7:

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’ “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

I wish you God’s richest blessings during your Lenten fast this year.

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Stewardship 4: A generously-giving church

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 23-minute message. Or watch the video recording on Facebook (the message starts at about 27 minutes).

If you want to skip the sermon and just watch the unscripted enacted “parable of giving back to God” with 13-year-old Zachary, watch the video below. Zachary blew us all away with his 50/50 deal!

This is the fourth in our series on stewardship, in which we are concentrating on what it means to be a church – the church of Christ. In the first week, we reflected on what it means to be a God-focused (or Christ-centred) church. In week two, we reflected on being a people-driven church. Last week, we considered the role of the clergy in a people-driven, God-focused church: a clergy-supported church. And today, we consider what it means to be a generous church, or a generously giving church.

Can we accept the following core principle? Everything that exists was made by God, comes from God and belongs to God. Everything: the cosmos, the earth, the plants and animals, water and air, life itself, and we ourselves. You and me. Even the things we have made as humans originate with God – we made them from materials that come from God’s creation, using the intellect and the capacity for learning that God gave us, made by people, whom God created. Everything comes from God and belongs to God.

Including our money.

We may feel that we’ve earned our money, worked hard for it, deserve it and that it belongs to us. These are not untrue. But again, our capacity work, to learn to do our work and do it well, and the things we work with, and the self that is you who is doing the work – all of these were created by God, come from God and belong to God. Therefore, our money also is God’s. All of it.

It is a common misperception among Christians that our money belong to us, since we worked for it, earned it. This is neither true nor correct. We have to challenge this misperception many of us hold. This is vital to our being able to properly think about the money that we earn.

If we think of all the money we have as coming from God, then the small percentage of this money that we give to the work of God in and through the church, is really a blessing, because the large percentage of the money that we get to keep for our own use is a gift from God. A grace.

God invites us each to give proportionate to what we have. Traditionally, this would be ten percent of what you earn (gross or net – you decide). You could choose to give more than 10% or less than 10%, as you feel led. But having 10% in mind is a good point of departure to reflect critically on your attitude to and practice of giving.

The bottom line is that we – and you – have to give to God’s work.

It really is not optional. Everything you have is from God, and God expects you to give at least some small portion of that back to him. But God really doesn’t want you to do it grudgingly or sulkily, like a chore or unpleasant task. No! God loves a cheerful giver. God loves us to give out of gratitude for all we have already received from God, out of thankfulness, out of joy and out of the privilege to participate in God’s work in the world.

At our church, St Stephen’s Lyttelton, we’ll be doing our dedicated giving pledge next Sunday (3 October). During the coming week, give serious thought to how much of the money God has entrusted to you you will give back into God’s kingdom.

Featured image from https://news-ca.churchofjesuschrist.org/media/orig/tithing.jpg
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Give generously

Click here to listen to the audio recording of this 8-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below. Or read the short text summary after that.

Our Eucharist readings for today align around the theme of generous giving. Read the texts:

Extracts from Psalm 112

1 Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands.

3 Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.

4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.

5 Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.

9 They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor.

Extracts from Matthew 6

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2-4 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Extracts from 2 Corinthians 9

6-8 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 

10-11 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

Key lessons about giving generously

  1. God consistently and insistently calls us to generosity. This giving is to be sacrificial, in other words, we give until it hurts a bit; we give so that we feel the loss a little.
  2. Givers will be rewarded according to their generosity. There is a kind of economy of giving, with a return on our investment, possibly in this life, and certainly in the next.
  3. Giving should be done freely. We should not give grudgingly, reluctantly or out of obligation. We should also not give in order to obtain a reward or recognition – indeed, we should give privately, secretly. Our generous giving is rather motivated by our response to God’s generous giving to us.
Featured image from https://museumnotes.blogspot.com/2017/11/gratitude-and-generosity.html
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Eternal perspective

Click here to listen to the audio of this 11-minute message. Or watch the YouTube video below. Or read the text summary after that.

The ‘reversal of fortunes‘ is one of the central themes in Luke’s Gospel of Christ. The reversal involves a switching around of power and privilege in society. We think of Mary’s, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble” and, “he has filled the hungry with goo things but has sent the rich away empty” from Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55. And of Jesus’ manifesto in Luke 4:16-21 (though the reversal is less clear), where he says, “he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” And Jesus’ famous, “There are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last” in Luke 13:30. Indeed, there are numerous examples in Luke’s Gospel.

But this reversal of fortunes is demonstrated most unequivocally and powerfully in Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection in Luke 22-24. When all seems lost – when the worst imaginable outcome occurs – we still remember Jesus’ words that he would rise on the third day. And indeed he does! What was intended as an annihilation of the Son of God and indeed of God’s entire plan for the salvation of humankind, turns into the absolute accomplishment of that plan!

Thanks be to God for the reversal of fortunes!

Our reading for today is Luke 6:20-21:

Looking at his disciples, he said:

Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.

We see again the reversal of fortunes in this passage (mirrored in the woes that Jesus proclaims in Luke 6:24-25 a couple of verses later):

  • Poor > yours is the Kingdom of God
  • Hunger > satisfied
  • Weep > laugh

But what is additionally striking in this passage is the emphasis on time. Particularly in the second and third blessings, Jesus contrasts ‘now’ with the future “you will”. This suggests that what is true now, will not be true for always. While in the first sentence, the phrases are both in the present tense – “are” and “is” – which suggests that the future improvement to our lot can be tasted now already.

It seems that there is folding in of time in Jesus’ understanding of human life. Past, present and future are not as differentiated for God as they are for us humans. For God – being outside of time and space – past, present and future all co-exist. But for us – being bound within time and space – Jesus’ message here is that the reversal of fortune – from struggle to contentment – is something sure and guaranteed that we can look forward to, and even enjoy in moments right now.

All of this points us towards adopting an eternal perspective in which we are encouraged to look at the world and our life circumstance, not just as it is right now, but as it is within the context of out eternal existence. This life, with its challenges and troubles, is not all there is. Indeed, this physical life is but a blink in the life we can continue to enjoy in the presence of God for eternity.

And much can change between now and then. The reversal of fortunes principle continues to emphasise that God will set right what is wrong in the world. And that whatever suffering or oppression or poverty we experience at this time, will not last forever. It will switch. God will set all things right.

As we continue through our stewardship programme, and particularly this week as reflect on how we steward our things and especially our money, let us hold this eternal perspective and the reversal of fortunes in mind. What we do now, has an impact on the future. Our giving of our hearts to Christ now will bring a return on investment, sooner or later. Giving generously now may be uncomfortable, but will repeat rewards that are greatly to be desired.

Featured image from https://latterdaysaintinsights.byu.edu/en/divine-discontent-an-invitation-to-improve/
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Shrewd Christian

Our reading for today (Luke 16:1-9) has to be one of the oddest of Jesus’ parables. Here it is in full:

1 “There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. 2 So he called him in and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.’

3 “The manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I’m not strong enough to dig, and I’m ashamed to beg— 4 I know what I’ll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.’

5 “So he called in each one of his master’s debtors. He asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 “‘Three thousand liters of olive oil,’ he replied. “The manager told him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifteen hundred.’

7 “Then he asked the second, ‘And how much do you owe?’ “‘Thirty tons of wheat,’ he replied. “He told him, ‘Take your bill and make it twenty-four.’

8 “The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. 9 I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

Instead of preaching a sermon on this topic, I engaged a few of the parishioners in enacting the scene. This service took place at Irene Homes for intellectually disabled women, a ministry setting that brings me great joy. The ladies participated wholeheartedly in the acting out the story, as you can see in the video taken by someone in the congregation.


The moral of the story is that we should use what we have in life (what Jesus refers to as ‘worldly wealth’) to build positive relationships with people and to invest in the development of the world. While the people we invest in might not open their homes to us, as the dishonest manager in Jesus’ story hoped. But God will open his eternal home to us. And that’s a worthwhile investment!

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Poverty

Click here to listen to this 24-minute message.

Poverty is one of the great challenges facing South Africa today, with unemployment rates above 25% for the population as a whole and around 55% for young adults, and with poverty still running along racial and gender lines (StatsSA). It is a challenge for the country and for the church. It is a challenge we try to deal with in our mission to the world, and it is a challenge we try to deal with among ourselves. Many of us are ourselves struggling with poverty.

What is it that God expects of us regarding poverty?
And how do we do something about poverty, when we ourselves are poor? 

Luke 12 presents to us Jesus’ perspective on poverty, which is essentially that we should not worry. “Don’t be afraid, little flock”, he says. “Do not worry”. “Do not be afraid”. He regales us with analogies of ravens, sparrows, flowers and hairs on our head. Analogies that speak of God’s provision, God’s providence, God’s care. “You are worth far more than many sparrows”.

How does Jesus expect us to ‘not worry’ about things that are so worrisome? Are we simply to sing the “Don’t worry, be happy” song? or Hakuna Matata?

Jesus reveals in Luke 12 that not worrying about poverty (or any other life challenge) is not about switching off to poverty or denying reality. Rather, it about seeing a more powerful reality that lies beyond the present; a world that lies beyond this present world. He invites us to recognise that there is a world to come that is more important than this one and more enduring. It is not that this world, this life, is unimportant! Clearly, from Jesus’ behaviour and teaching, we know that this life and its challenges are important. But there is an even more important world to come. And it our investment into that world that really matters, that counts in the short and long run.

Our capacity see that world rests in faith. It is “by faith” that we see that world. Faith is the central topic of Hebrews 11. The writer reminds us that “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb 11:1). Paul similarly writes, “we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7). In this chapter from Hebrews, the writer uses the phrase “by faith” 21 times to emphasise that the legacy we inherit from our biblical ancestors is one of faith. While we typically want an instant return on our faith investment, our ancestors were willing to wait generations for the return:

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth (Heb 11:13).

Abraham was able to see the future through God’s eyes. He heard and believed God’s promise that he would become the father of many nations (Genesis 12:2, 15:5 and 22:17), even though he did not see this for himself in his lifetime. He could see it because he could see through God’s eyes. Through the eyes of faith. It is these eyes that we need to be able to see the world beyond this one, to see God’s provision in the midst of hardship, to see God’s promises fulfilled even if not yet. These are the eyes of faith. These are the eyes of God.

And so Jesus says,

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Luke 12:33-34).

This is a message not just for those with money (though we, especially, should heed it), but also for those without (think of the story of the widow’s mite in Luke 21:1-4). This what God calls his people to:

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow (Isaiah 1:17).

It starts at home, within the church community:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. …And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need (Acts 4:32-35).

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