God's Missionary Giving
God's Missionary Giving is the title of the first of a 3 part series on Giving.
The Readings for the day are:
We should be surprised if these readings aren't really relevant to our thinking about giving, especially if we are saying that God is Giving (a megagig!), which is the same as equating God with mission.
So what about the readings?
Paul writies to the Galatians refer to God calling him by GRACE. Grace is very much a ord of "giving" and is linked to he words "charity" and "charismatic". Someone who is charismatic is someone who is "gited". The gospel reading from Luke is the story of the dead son of a widowed mother (her only son at that) being broght to Jesus at a town called Nain. We can assume that the death of her son meant the loss of everything to her, including finacial independence. The gospel says: "When the ord saw her, his heart went out to her." This is a very special gift.
Touching the coffin Jesus said: "Young man, I say to you, get up!" The dead man sat up and began to talk. Jesus had given him his life back, and had given the widow her son (and her respect) bck. Ther ws so much giving going on that the crowd said "God has come to help his people" | Mission means SENDING or GIVING
The idea of God keeping things for himself is preposterous. It is not in his nature. He gives life - in all its fulness.
"Mission goes out from God. Mission is God's way of loving and saving the world... So mission is never our invention or choice." (Lambeth Conference 1998, Section II p121).
Mission is the creating, reconciling and transforming action of God, flowing from the community of love found in the Trinity, made known to all humanity in the person of Jesus, and entrusted to the faithful action and witness of the people of God who, in the power of the Spirit, are a sign, foretaste and instrument of the reign of God. (Adapted from a statement of the Commission on Mission of the National Council of Churches in Australia.)
| Giving and God
Questions arising:
Problems arise in the church when our thinking is not based in God. So, for many years Christians have thought of mission as something which is done by them, an have often forgotten that the Church is part of God's mission to the world.
Giving is linked to this. It is too easy to forge God's own giving whe we address th issue of giving. The Bible has so many references to God's giving tht can powerfully shape te way we think of giving. Is there anything about God which is NOT giving?
If we think as the world thinks, our thinking about giving turns very rapidly to the giving of money. After all, we have to make ends meet. Dangerously we can think that when we've givn money we have given our self. Dangerously we can be led to think that we only have to give a part of our lives to God.
But Jesus didn't give 10% of his life away - he gave it all away - not just the stuff in his pocket. Christians re followers of Jesus. |
