Sun, Feb 14, 2021
Guilt and gratitude
2 Corinthians 8:7-15 by Craig de Vos
A sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving
Series: Sermons

They sat there on my dinner plate––

a small collection of soggy, grey-green globs…

otherwise known as Brussel Sprouts.

I had eaten everything else on my plate:

the lamb chops that had been grilled within an inch of their life;

the mushy boiled potatoes;

and the squishy, over-cooked carrots––

it’s truly amazing what you can do, as a kid, with lots of tomato sauce.

But Brussel Sprouts were altogether different!

There was no way to hide their hideousness.

And there was no way that I could pretend that I had even tried them.

I pushed them around my plate several times…

in the process of eating everything else.

I had rearranged the pile.

And now, they sat there, next to my neatly placed knife and fork…

trying to announce, pleadingly, that I had indeed finished.

Dad looked up from his dinner, cleared his throat, and asked…

“Aren’t you going to eat your Brussel Sprouts?”

“Ewwww… yuk!”, I exclaimed histrionically.

“But they’re beautiful!”

Scarily, to my mind, he actually meant it––

the Dutch are funny like that.

And, clearly, my face displayed my disbelief.

So Dad tried a different tack:

“When I was your age… 

and our family didn’t have much to eat–– 

because the German soldiers took everything––

I would have loved to have had a plateful of Brussel Sprouts”.

I sat there, screwing up my face…

utterly unconvinced…

and yet knowing from experience that it wasn’t good to offer some witty retort…

to one of Dad’s, “when I was a boy” speeches.

So I said nothing.

Realising that he wasn’t getting anywhere, Dad pulled out all the stops:

“Well, think about all the starving children in Africa”!

And there we have it!

It’s become an almost proverbial retort––

one that many of us have probably heard…

and one that some of us have probably even used…

as a means of trying to get children to eat something that they don’t want to eat.

The subtext, of course, is that you ought to be grateful—

that you ought to be thankful––

for what you have.

But, unfortunately, when used like that it’s dressed with guilt.

If you won’t do it out of gratitude and thankfulness…

then do it out of guilt.

It’s the quintessential carrot-and-stick.

And, in subtle ways, the same dynamic is at work…

when people jangle coin-filled cans in our faces… 

at the entrance to supermarkets and shopping centres.

And, subtly or not, it’s the same dynamic at work…

in the graphic images used to get us to donate to some charitable cause.

And it’s hard to assuage that.

It’s hard not to have a Pavlovian response.

After all, so many of us have been trained so well via guilt-manipulation…

from such a young age…

that it’s almost ingrained.

 

In this morning’s reading, Paul raises the matter of giving with the Corinthians.

He’s reminding them about an earlier undertaking that they had made…

but which they hadn’t kept.

And he’s trying to do it very carefully.

He’s quite adamant that he’s not telling them that they ought to give––

which, given the nature of the Corinthian community…

and Paul’s somewhat rocky relationship with them… 

is probably a good thing.

Rather, he tries to encourage them.

He begins by commending them for their faith…

and the way that it’s manifest.

He asks them to give, not out of guilt or out of a sense of obligation…

but as an expression of love…

and in response to the love that they, themselves, have received, and known, and experienced.

Paul’s point is that we give––

and we give generously––

not out of guilt or a sense of obligation…

but because we are recipients of the grace of God…

manifest and made known to us in Jesus Christ.

We give because of the love that has been so graciously given to us––

a love that is unlimited…

unconditional…

unmerited…

and utterly impartial.

Paul reminds us that, in love, Jesus emptied himself––

gave his life––

so that we might have full and abundant life.

He became poor so that we might become rich.

And if we know that––

truly know that––

if we know ourselves to be the recipients of such grace…

if we know ourselves to be utterly, unconditionally loved…

then that cannot but flow out of us in acts of generous gratitude.

Consequently, for Paul, what matters is not what is given…

or how much…

but why.

For Paul, giving is a genuine and loving response to the love of God––

not because of a sense of obligation…

and certainly not because of a sense of guilt.

 

And yet, Paul goes much further than that here.

He suggests that the Corinthians’ giving to the needy in Jerusalem––

who were suffering through a series of droughts and famines––

was about establishing a “fair balance”.

In particular, he suggests that the Corinthians give out of their abundance to those who are needy…

but who may, at some later point, reciprocate.

In a way, that may seem somewhat contractual or commercial––

even clinical or mechanical––

but that’s not the sense of what Paul is saying within the culture of the first century world.

The sort of dynamic that he’s suggesting was the exchange dynamic of kin-groups…

of families.

In effect, what Paul was suggesting to the Corinthians…

was that they treat the poor in Jerusalem as if they were family.

It was an appeal to enter into an open-ended relationship of giving and receiving…

of care and support.

Paul wasn’t just asking them to be generous and gracious givers––

in the sense of donors to charity––

he was asking for a fundamental change in their attitude…

their affections…

and their actions.

He was asking for a fundamental change in the

the way that they related to others.

And yet it was a change that was fully consistent with the theological principles that he had enunciated:

they were all, equally, recipients of God’s grace in and through Jesus Christ;

they were all, equally, loved by God;

they were all, equally, children of God and… 

therefore…

brothers and sisters of one another.

That attitude––

that way of thinking––

was meant to underpin their approach to life…

and their approach to giving.

 

Today, as we celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving…

as we remember with gratitude the produce that we enjoy…

and we give thanks for the abundance of resources with which we, in this country, have been blessed…

it’s appropriate that we too…

like the Corinthians…

pause to consider those who are less fortunate…

those who lack the necessities of life…

those who will have to wait a very long time for a vaccine…

and those who rely upon us, in our abundance, to meet their need.

We’re certainly not called to give beyond our means.

But we’re called to give out of gratitude and thanks for God’s graciousness to us;

and we’re called to give out of love and concern for those in need––

not out of a sense of guilt or obligation…

but out of an awareness of our shared humanity…

and our common kinship in Christ.

And we’re called to strive, in whatever way we can…

to ensure that…

“the one who has much does not have too much,

and the one who has little does not have too little”.