October 31, 2004
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
If you have ever gone back to your old home, you quickly realized that your current home is so much bigger and better. (Lauren and Dan just moved yesterday.) If you were to look at your payroll stubs 10 years ago, you would be amazed about how much more money you are making today.
When we visited my parent’s village in China in few years ago, I can understand why they called California: Gold Mountain. It’s so much better here than there. Since we retrofitted and renovated our church building four years ago, it’s much better than before. We’ve never had it better.
But why does it seem that we are still feeling bad? Perhaps we feel this way because we know that there is always something even better out there. To borrow a saying, “It was the best of times; it was the worse of times.”
In our society today, we are discovering that money cannot create contentment and possessions don’t always provide us with a sense of peace. For almost anyone who owns a home, one of the most popular TV watching activities is the HGTV. You get convinced that with just a little money, your home can look like a mansion. We watch TLC to pick up tips on how to have a makeover and to dress for success by just spending a mere $5000 on a shopping spree. Most of us expect that improvement in our quality of life whether it’s in our homes or in our appearances, would make us feel better.
But in the end, we know that money can’t buy happiness. Joy knows this when we told my mother that we wanted to get engaged, she told Joy, “Donald has no money!” That’s 32 years ago and I still don’t have much money!
In a new book, The Progress Paradox by Gregg Easterbrook, he makes the point that life is getting better all the time: our houses are bigger, our incomes are growing, our health is improving, and the environment is becoming cleaner. We are even enjoying a drop in crime rates, and decreases in certain problem areas such as divorce, teen pregnancy, drug use, and abortion. But for some reason, this good news is not making us jump for joy. We seem to be feeling bad in the middle of good times. We are healthier but nonetheless feeling unhappier.
According to Easterbrook, some of the reasons for this are that we love to hear about bad news. Bad news sells—that’s what we see on the evening news. Good things that are happening don’t get reported. We watch all these TV programs like award shows, celebrity lifestyles, “The Rich and Famous” that are bombarding us with information about how more fortunate others are that makes us feel envious even when our lifestyle is really quite comfortable. And finally it seems that the solution to one problem creates another. Scientists come up with a vaccine but then worry about its side effects. We all carry around cell phones and then live with the fear of getting cancer. Doctors may just have come up with a cure for malaria, but then worry that we will not be able to afford it.
For these reasons, and others, we’re going through a progress paradox—we’re feeling bad while living better.
Corinthian Christians
In the Scripture lesson we read today from 2 Corinthians 9, Paul was writing to Christians in the wealthy Greek city of Corinth. It seems that when Paul first asked the wealthier Corinthian Christians to come to the aid of the poor Christians in Jerusalem, they didn’t give enough. The problem was that it wasn’t a very generous offering, not according to what Paul thought the Corinthians should be able to do. Although he describes this as a completely voluntary gift, it is clear that he expects the Corinthians to be generous in their support. By being generous, he promised many rewards for their giving.
The Corinthians thought that they were in the best of times. But Paul told them that unless they are generous, they will continue to be in the worst of times. They were thinking to themselves that life is better now that they are Christians but Paul comes along and tells them that life can’t get any better until they are more generous.
For Paul, true happiness is found in what you give…not in what you receive. “God loves a cheerful giver,” he tells them (v. 7).
Do you want to be enriched in every way? Paul says, “Then let’s see some great generosity” (v. 11).
Are you interested in glorying God? Then show your brothers and sisters “the generosity of your sharing (v. 13).
Are you looking for God to provide you “with every blessing in abundance?” Paul says, “Then don’t hold tight to your selfish attitude—instead, share abundantly in every good work” (v.8).
Like the paradox in our lives, we see that even with more money and possessions, we are not necessarily happier, Paul is telling us that personal enrichment comes from great generosity; and that blessings in abundance come from sharing abundantly with others. His point is that you receive the most by giving the most. When we are giving much, we are required to give much.
You can say that this is a giving paradox. The more God has given to us, the more we are required to give away. Like in any paradox, what seems to be inherently a contradiction turns out to be true. The more we have been given, the more we are required to give away.
So how does this work? Paul uses an agricultural image to explain his point: “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (v. 6).
It’s like this, today is Halloween and when it’s Halloween, we think about big pumpkins. The winner of the biggest and heaviest pumpkin this year came from someplace in Oregon. If this farmer was stingy with watering his pumpkin plant, he won’t have a big pumpkin at the end. If he didn’t give it the necessary pumpkin plant food, he wouldn’t have had a winning pumpkin.
Whether you are growing competition pumpkins or growing a church, Paul is absolutely right—you cannot expect significant results without making significant investments. There will be no great harvest of pumpkins in the fields, or people in church, unless generous men and women are willing to sow bountifully by making significant investments of time, talent and treasure.
2005 Ministries
As we look forward to the work of the church in 2005, the words of Paul ring as true for us as they did for the people at Corinth. We know that even though we may have so much more resources and possessions than ever before, we are not necessarily happier or at peace. We are feeling bad while living well. We know that if we want personal enrichment, we are to be great in generosity. We know that if we want God to provide us with every blessing in abundance, we need to share abundantly in every good work.
The work of the church in Jesus Christ next year will require from us both deep faith and great generosity. We are asking for bountiful sowing so that we may have bountiful reaping.
*Over eight years ago, our church believed that God still has a mission for us in Chinatown. God’s work is not done so he wanted us to remain faithful and committed to why we have been here in the beginning almost 125 years ago. As long as there are people who have not known Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we must remain. And blessed with the gifts and talents and the partnership that we have in our Chinese-speaking and English-speaking church members, who is more equipped and prepared to accomplish this mission in Christ’s name than we are!
For the first time, we will be combining the many outreach programs that we have into one part-time staff position. In a coordinated strategy, we will be able to more effectively address the needs of city college students who are here Monday through Thursday, students who come to our Friday Night School, the many children from our neighborhood who come to our Sunday school classes, as well as visiting people in their homes than we have been able to do before. Until we bountifully sow the Community Worker staff position, we will be able to bountifully reap persons to know Christ.
*One of the strengths of our church has been our ability to attract and reach English-speaking people to come and become a part of our ministry. Even with more convenient church options that are in the Bay Area to attend worship, we continue to be blessed by having a growing congregation of English-speaking people and families coming to our church. The new 9:30 Worship Service that has been meeting weekly since September 12 is an example of this phenomenal growth of dedicated service, involvement and worshipers. This new service along with a greater focus on young adults and attending to some administrative tasks have led us to propose a part-time English-speaking staff person to begin in the middle of next year as we anticipate greater needs for ministry. Until we bountifully sow the English-speaking staff person, we will be able to bountifully reap persons for Christ.
*At the corner of our building facing Sacramento Street is a marble stone that reminds us that we were once the reason why American Baptists started this mission to the Chinese. We have come a long way since 1880! For a long time now, we have ceased being an object of mission to being a proponent and supporter of missions not only in Chinatown but to the far corners of the globe. Whether it’s sending out short-termed missionaries or giving as we are this month to the World Mission Offering to support missionaries overseas, we have shifted our understanding to becoming a mission-sending church.
Next year we plan to cast this reality to light by sponsoring mission involvements to Northern Thailand. As a church, we would go to visit missions as well as to engage in missions. And when we return home, we believe that we will become more strongly committed to becoming a church carrying out the great commission. Until we bountifully sow to understand missions, we will be able to bountifully reap meeting the needs of people for Christ around the world.
*Next year we are going to have a big party and each one of you is invited. No one will be left out. Out forefathers and foremothers many years ago never imagined that what they did in their times would be an investment that we are receiving benefits today in our times. After two earthquakes and many renovations, our church will be celebrating our 125th anniversary in 2005. I am blessed and thank God for calling me to be here to participate in this anniversary party. Just like we would take time to celebrate a milestone birthday of a family member, we will be doing the same because we are turning 125 years old! Celebrating our birthday in the name of Jesus Christ is a good reason for us to have a party.
Next year we will take time to learn more about our history—all the men and women who have given their lives to help make this church the vibrant witness that it is. As we learn about our past, we would also be making history in our present. Until we bountifully sow to understand where we have come from, we will be able to bountifully reap the vision of knowing where God is leading us in the future.
Some of you know that I am a die-hard, life-long Boston Red Sox fan. I once thought that not winning the World Series for 86 years was a curse. But when I think about how our church has withstood greater odds and challenges—earthquakes and fire, prejudice and powerlessness, misunderstandings and schisms—and the fact that we are still here and looking forward to our 125th anniversary, what the Red Sox did last week looks pale to what FCBC has accomplished with God’s help and guidance in the world!
Our Happiness
Now you might say, “That sounds logical and biblical for us to give to the work of the church but how does generous giving actually lead to our own contentment? The connection between sowing and reaping makes good sense, but the link between giving and our happiness is a bit harder to establish. It’s not real clear how generous giving can make us happier in our rich but rotten-feeling world today.
There’s a story of a vice president of a bank who was doing pretty well for himself financially. But he discovered that his greatest joy is not to make more money but from giving. In fact, his joy borders on hilarity.
When he wrote a check to help purchase a central air-conditioning unit for a local homeless shelter, he started praying and thinking about the immense joy that God was feeling as he gave to this worthy cause. He started thinking about the joy that would be felt by the homeless people as they slept in an air-conditioned room. He then started thinking about the joy these men would feel when they gave their hearts to Jesus Christ and felt God’s love, maybe for the first time.
And what welled up in this banker as he prayed was laughter. He was actually so overwhelmed with joy that he laughed. It was spontaneous laughter, born out of the joy that was being experienced by God, by the homeless men, and by the banker himself, due to one small gift.
This story shouldn’t surprise us. When Paul writes that “God loves a cheerful giver” (v. 7), what he says in the original Greek is that God loves a giver who is hilaros—the root word of our English word “hilarious.” What God loves is a hilarious giver, a person who gives with spontaneous joy and laughter.
So when was the last time that you actually laughed as you sat down to write a check to the church? Maybe you are not giving at the level that will tip you over into hilarity. Or perhaps you’re not focusing enough on the joy that God is feeling, and the needy people are feeling, as a result of your generosity.
Hilarious giving is the solution to our progress paradox that we are living with every day. It’s the antidote to the unending unhappiness that we feel in our rich and self-focused society. We can go through life feeling more content, but only by learning to give with joy and laughter.
We do thank God for blessing us with a better life. I know that my life here in California has been wonderful. But the only solution that I know that will help us to discover true happiness is when we share our resources with people in need and for the work of the church, then and only then will we find that we will be enriched in every way for our great generosity, and we will find ourselves filled with the “surpassing grace of God” (v.11:14).
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, your blessings upon us have been generous and undeserved. Teach us, move us, lead us to give of ourselves, our possessions, and all that we have to the point that we might laugh for the joy of participating in your plan, in the salvation of others, and in the happiness and contentment that we would feel when we give. Grant us a giving heart for the life of this church in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.