Why Generosity? -- FPC sermon excerpt

In a sermon last fall, I told the story of the writer Stephen King being hit by a minivan while walking along a country road. He could have been killed by that accident, as it left him covered with mud and blood by the side of the road, with a badly broken leg.

Now King, as most of you know, is the popular and successful author of a string of horror novels. What is less well known is that many of King’s books contain Christian themes. He used his near-fatal accident as an opportunity to reflect on how fleeting life is, and how important it is to be generous along the way.

After that sermon, a visitor to FPC said to me, “I have never heard a preacher use Stephen King in a sermon before.”

And I thought, “Hey, we’re an uncommon Christian community.”

Lying in that ditch by the road, Stephen King realized that the greatest power we have is the ability to give. Nothing else we do will have a more positive impact on the world around us … or on ourselves. “Giving isn’t about the receiver or the gift, but the giver,” said King. “It’s for the giver. One doesn’t open one’s wallet to improve the world, although it’s nice when that happens; one does it to improve one’s self. ... Giving is a way of taking the focus off the money we make and putting it back where it belongs — on the lives we lead, the families we raise, the communities which nurture us.”

King is right: Giving is for the giver. Giving is a form of self-improvement. It takes our focus off of money and puts it back where it belongs — on improving quality of life for ourselves and others.

This message is the second in a series on Extravagant Generosity, and our topic today is the question, “Why Generosity?” If Stephen King were asked the question, he would probably answer, “Because it makes us better people, by shifting our focus from money to the things that really matter.”

That is a good start, but we need to go deeper. Yes, it is true that we want to be better people, but in particular we want to be better Christians. And we do want to shift our focus, but for us that means giving more attention to God, to the church, and to our neighbors. The apostle Paul includes all of these focal points in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, when he reflects on the importance of generosity.