This Indescribable Gift – Marilyn Zehr – Oct. 9, 2011

October 11, 2011

2nd Corinthians 9:6-15

Today my sermon begins at the end.

Starting with the last verse of our text from Corinthians:

New Revised Standard version of our Bibles:

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.

King James version:

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

English Standard Verson:

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.

New Living Translation:

Thanks be to God for this gift too wonderful for words.

And finally, The Message:

Thank God for this gift, his gift. No language can praise it enough!

What is a preacher to do when the core verse in the text I would like to study and say something about today tells me that the gift of which I want to speak, the gift for which we are most grateful,

is unspeakable, inexpressible, indescribable or too wonderful for words?

Do I dare to speak anyway?

In order to address this dilemma I found myself going to the poetry in song that has tried to express this inexpressible gift and has done so with good result.

I know that many of you know this, but maybe not all – that when you want to find a song that connects with a particular scripture passage, you can consult the scriptural allusions index in the back of the hymnal.

I checked there for hymns that contain allusions to our text for today and found that there were four. Sometimes there aren’t any and so this was a good start. #90, one that we already sang, For the fruit of all creation, is in this list and so is

# 383 A song we often sing before or after we give our offering.

Let me read the first verse:

God whose giving knows no ending

from your rich and endless store

nature’s wonder,

Jesus wisdom, costly cross, grave’s shattered door

Gifted by you

we turn to you

off’ring up ourselves in praise.

Thankful song shall rise forever,

gracious donor of our days.

This first verse begins to capture the essence of our text for today in a remarkably precise way.

Poetry’s ability to point towards realities we wish to express never ceases to amaze me.

In this hymn, Paul’s indescribable gift becomes;

nature’s wonder, Jesus’ wisdom, costly cross and grave’s shattered door.

The rest of our text for today is also captured beautifully by the poetry of this one verse of this one hymn and I’d like to show you this as well,

but let me first return to prose for a moment and share with you a bit about the content and context of our passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

When our text begins with the words, “The point is this ….,”

we have a sense that we are coming into the middle of one of the apostle Paul’s arguments of persuasion and it’s true that all of chapter 8 and chapter 9 in 2nd Corinthians are devoted to persuading and encouraging the Corinthians to make good on their promise to send money to the Jesus followers or saints as Paul calls them, in Jerusalem. This passage would make a good stewardship sermon. But for today it functions equally well as a thanksgiving sermon if the foundation of our stewardship is gratitude for what we have received.

Paul anticipates returning to Jerusalem and is pleased that the Corinthians have offered to send money with him for the needs of the Jesus followers in that city. On my two trips to the middle east in the last four years first to Jerusalem and Galilee and the second time to Western Turkey and Greece, as I wandered with guides through the archeological reconstructions of these ancient cities, I was surprised by something I hadn’t considered before. First, during the time of Jesus, the Jews in the diaspora – meaning the Jews who lived in Greco Roman cities outside of Jerusalem and the Galilean region, the Jews who lived in cities of what we know as modern day Western Turkey like Ephesus and Pergamum, Aphrodisias and Laodicea, Smryna and Hierapolis, as well a
s those who lived in Philippi and Thessalonica, Athens and Corinth were not always a poor and oppressed minority. Often they were wealthy benefactors of these cities. It would be hard to guess at their numbers, but inscriptions in gymnasiums, odeons, coliseums etcetera have led scholars to believe that many of them were doing quite well and held respected positions in their respective cities. In contrast, the Jews of Jerusalem and particularly Galilee, where the Jesus movement started, struggled under a more crippling taxation and more overt oppression. It’s hard to know exactly why their experiences were different. It could simply be that citizens of the cities of Asia Minor found themselves in more economically prosperous regions. As well, Jesus followers in Asia Minor were more mixed communities of Jews and Gentiles. I won’t choose to go into other possibilities than that for now. Suffice to say, the Jesus followers in Jerusalem and its regions were in more need of financial assistance than their Jewish and Gentile counterparts in the cities of Asia Minor.

And as Paul anticipated returning to Jerusalem he understood that part of his task was to carry with him financial aid. So in two chapters here in 2nd Corinthians he carefully outlines the reasons why the Corinthians might find that they truly desire to help and the benefits of giving. With metaphor and encouragement he creatively outlines four benefits of giving.

First the obvious, their offerings will help meet the needs of the saints, but so much more than that, the receipt of such gifts will overflow in thanksgiving to God.

Peterson in the Message version of the Bible puts it this way.

Carrying out this social relief work involves far more than helping meet the bare needs of poor Christians. (that’s the first benefit) It also produces abundant and bountiful thanksgivings to God. (that’s the second benefit) Third, “This relief offering is a prod to live at your very best, showing your gratitude to God by being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ.” Hmm, giving an offering gratefully is being openly obedient to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ. The way Paul states this third benefit reminds me of the way many Jewish people view keeping their mitzvoth or the commandments. Keeping or carrying out one’s obligations in the Torah – the mitzvoth – can bring joy, a sense of right living, and can result in a deepening of one’s relationship with God. I think that’s what Paul is getting at here when he says “obedience to the plain meaning of the Message of Christ.” The actions of Jesus and our salvation wrought or achieved through his self-giving love calls forth a response that rightly finds expression in generous living.

And the fourth benefit of giving is expressed this way in Peterson’s version of this text,

“you show your gratitude through your generous offerings to your needy brothers and sisters, and really toward everyone. Meanwhile (and this is the fourth benefit) moved by the extravagance of God in your lives, they’ll respond by praying for you in passionate intercession for whatever you need.” In other words, this last benefit is that concrete offerings out of gratitude tend to set up a mutually beneficial community. A mutually beneficial community of Jesus followers would have been of particular concern to Paul who was always concerned about the unity of the church. He regularly preached that the gospel of Christ breaks down the dividing walls between Jew and Gentile, slave and free, man and woman and it is the cross of Christ that brings about this reconciliation.

Mutually beneficial community brought about by giving out of gratitude for God’s extravagance can be as simple as what I experienced this past week. Recently, because God had blessed me with an abundant crop of beets, I decided to give my new upstairs neighbour a jar of pickled beets that I canned and a few days later he came back with an apple pie. And then yesterday he washed the floor and walls of the hallway of our apartment because he heard my parents were coming this afternoon and tomorrow. In response, tomorrow my parents and John and I will work in the flowerbeds of our mutual yard and garden. Giving has this really fun way of circling round and round. The folks from Corinth and the ones from Jerusalem couldn’t easily exchange produce or aid in the way I’ve just described but they could exchange prayer for aid and who knows what might flow from this type of exchange in the economy of God.

And this brings me back to where I began. It all starts where Paul ends. Thanking God for his unspeakable gift; the unspeakable gift that creates the economy of God in the first place.

From Peterson again, “This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.

Again I am without words to say this better than Paul through Peterson just did. God has been more than extravagant with us. How does one give more than one’s own life and love beyond measure; a love that led to giving up his own life so that through Christ we might live and live generously. My question as I prepared this sermon was, “How do I convey or invite us to know that we really have everything we need – and more than we need so that we too are enabled to be grateful and generous?” And how do I preach this against a cacophony of voices in our society that bombard us with messages that we don’t have enough, we constantly need more, and especially messages that say there isn’t enough to go around so hoard what you already have.

God’s economy of extravagant love has the potential to blow apart these other messages if we let it in.

And so I come back to the words of the hymn with which I began,