March 26, 2006
Luke 11:37-46 James 2:14-18
The Spiritual Disciplines of Lent: Almsgiving and Serving

Since we’ve had a week off from our sermon series, The Spiritual Disciplines of Lent, let us get reacquainted with our topic. I’m inviting you to look at some of the ancient spiritual practices that, while expected to be part of every Christian’s regular routine, are particularly emphasized during the season of Lent. Such disciplines are: Confessing, Fasting/Abstaining, Praying, Almsgiving/Serving, and Forgiving.

My purpose in these teaching sermons has not been to convince you of the importance of these disciplines, but to help you in doing them. Maybe I have presumed too much for a modern day, mostly Protestant, congregation. These customs are both ancient and universal, and therefore are not to be lightly dismissed. It is hard for many of us to see how fasting or almsgiving might make any difference when we’re dealing with mid-semester tests at school, a whining child at the dinner table, a terrible job performance review at work, the declining health of an older parent, or signing up for Medicare Plan A, B, C, or D, but they do. We would be terribly shortsighted to be fooled into thinking that just because the details of our harried lives are different than religious folks of the past that their tried-and-true methods for addressing them are trite and ineffective. Perhaps the global wisdom of the ages might actually help you in dealing with March 26, 2006. Just maybe?

With that having been said, lets focus on Almsgiving and Serving, today’s Spiritual Disciplines. Let me begin with some scattered stories:
• In San Francisco a woman in a red Honda pulls up to the toll booth on the highway and, with a huge smile on her face, gives the attendant five commuter tickets saying, “One’s for me and the others are for my four friends right behind me.” Four absolute strangers are confused when told they don’t need to pay that day, a “friend” took care of it.
• A teenage boy in Chicago, grumbling under his breath, heads out into the snowy yard to shovel the driveway and sidewalks at his moms’ insistence. Once the blood gets going, he feels rejuvenated and, hoping no one notices, begins to shovel the neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway.
• Someone in Patterson, New Jersey makes it a habit to put change in parking meters in front of or behind her own spot when parking if they are near expiration.
• An elderly man in Atlanta, Georgia has taken to carrying a bottle of soapy water and a brush with him when he walks in the park so that he can clean a park bench or two along the way. 1
The call to almsgiving and service during Lent is founded upon the basic human need to do something good for a complete stranger. And I don’t say “basic human need” lightly. I believe deep within the core of my being that one of the distinctive things that makes us human is the ability and desire to do something that improves the lives of others, anonymously and without any chance of receiving gain in return. Unless, of course, you count the gain of feeling great because you’ve given in such a way.

What is “almsgiving?” Put simply, it is the act of giving something, money or resources, to people who are poor. Let me see if I can put it into perspective with other kinds of giving in which we church folks might participate.
- Offerings are the overarching term for anything we give as part of our response to God. Time, talent, money or other resources, wisdom, etc.
- Tithes are not so much a type of offering as they are the “first fruits” of our offerings. Biblically, tithes are ten percent of our income. We set aside from the start ten percent of what we make, and give that as an offering to God. Other offerings are over and above that. When we ask for pledges, we encourage folks to plan to give a tithe, or 10% of their income, to the church in the coming year.
- Alms are offerings given to the poor. Here at Franklin Circle Christian Church if you designate on your offering envelope “Hunger” your money will go to the Near West Food & Family Services Center, which runs a food pantry and three evening meals, including the one here on Thursdays. Other examples including giving old but useable furniture and appliances to Church Street Ministries with Frannie Milward or taking good, clean clothes or household goods down the street to St. Paul’s Community UCC.

Now, “Random Acts Of Kindness And Senseless Acts Of Beauty” are not necessarily alms, but they are a good contemporary model of giving without thought of any return and giving anonymously. Jesus was especially harsh on the religious leaders of his day especially on this point. He compared those who greedily sought places of honor as “unmarked graves” that people walk upon without giving any thought to who is buried below.

The biblical mandate to give to the poor and to serve the weak and vulnerable is almost without parallel in sheer volume of sayings in scripture. There are many passages that make the case that caring for the poor is a moral directive for all people of faith. God actually identifies with the poor and thus calls the community of faith to a special concern for them. “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue is parched with thirst, I the Lord will answer them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.” (Isaiah 41:17) In Israel, care for the needy wasn’t regarded as an act of voluntary benevolence, but a requirement of moral law.

The witness of both Old and New Testaments makes clear that concern for those forced to live a marginal existence is not-an optional activity for the people of God, nor is it only a minor requirement. Identification with these persons is at the heart of what it means to be the community of faith.

Likewise, God’s care and concern for the poor does not imply an acceptance of their condition. Poverty is considered an evil. God loves the poor in order to deliver them from their poverty.
“If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be… Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” (Deut. 15)

Yes, the ancient debate, most articulately put forth by founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, reminds us that we do not work our way into heaven. No amount of almsgiving or even service to humanity will buy our way past the pearly gates. Ultimately, it is our faith, “where our heart lies,” that will lead us to the place where God yearns for us to go. But neither are works of goodness and acts of kindness unrelated to our soul’s health. The writer of the epistle of James rightly reminds us that faith without fruit is suspicious, and good intentions without real acts of care and concern, are empty promises to God. The road to you-know-where is paved with faith without works!

And yes, the modern debate is also valid. A million good deeds do not add up to one act of justice. What I mean by that is acts of charity, benevolence, are definitely important, but working to change the system so that there are fewer people in need makes a much larger impact. I’ve quoted the Brazilian Archbishop Dom Helder Camera before when he said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” Ultimately, individual and simple acts of kindness must be joined with systemic and transforming acts of justice for Christ’s will to be fulfilled.

Finally, it is important to note that service and almsgiving are acts of spiritual discipline for both the individual as well as for the community. In a report on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS last Sunday, there was a marvelous news report on altruism. Altruism is the formal word for an attitude or way of behaving marked by an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. In this report two different types of service, or altruism, were highlighted. 2

The one which focused on an individual act was the decision by Harold Mintz of Bethesda, Maryland to give his kidney to someone who needed one. Only, he didn’t know the person who would receive it – he simply chose to give it because he and each member of his family had two healthy kidneys. Only after the operation did he learn that Gennettt Belay, a young mother of two who had been waiting and praying for a kidney for 11 years and had undergone about 40 operations, dealing with cancer, would receive his.

The other illustration was from World War II, when the entire farming village of Le Chambon, in Southern France, sheltered over a four year period over 5,000 Jews from certain death by the Nazis. That’s about the same number of citizens of the village, all mostly Protestant Christians. Jean and Hilde Hillebrand were two of the Jews saved by the villagers. They recognized that these people did not have to put themselves at such great risk, but did so, in part, because their own ancestors, French Huguenots, had been persecuted many years before.

The pastor of the church at the time was Andre Trocme, who preached: “The duty of Christians is to resist whenever our adversaries will demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the gospel. We will do so without fear, but also without pride and without hate.”

That is the essence of the spiritual disciplines of serving and almsgiving: to do the right thing without fear, without pride, and without hate.
• Whether you do it quietly on your own, or you join with dozens or hundreds of others,
• whether you offer a simple act of kindness or you work for justice,
• whether you give of your money or your resources, or you give of your time and enegy and wisdom…
… take the remaining days in this season of Lent to give of yourself. Do a random act of kindness or a senseless act of beauty, and the world will be changed,
and maybe you will, too!
Amen.


1.) A 2nd Helping Of Chicken Soup For The Soul, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, Health Communications Inc., 1995, pp. 34-36

2.)“Altruism,” on Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, Public Broadcasting Service, March 24, 2006 Episode no. 930 found on the internet at: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week930/feature.html



Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2006 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096