A fairground strongman was exhibiting his prowess and as a final trick he squeezed the juice from a lemon between his hands and then offered £10 to anyone in the audience who could squeeze a single drop out of it.

Several strongly built men tried, to no avail. Finally, a small bespectacled man came forward. He took the lemon in hand, and to the delight of the audience, managed to squeeze one more drop from the lemon.

As the strongman paid out the £10, he asked the man, “What is the secret of your strength. How did you manage to get that last drop?” “Oh,” the man replied, “I was treasurer in an Anglican church for 30 years.”

It was never meant to be like that.

In one sense, we do not have a ‘giving problem’ in this church. I expect that somehow we will balance our books at the end of the year. But in another sense, we have a problem: some church members are unfailingly generous, whose giving bank rolls the church, and other members just let the church roll on.

But I dare to suggest that this is not right, this is not godly and this is not fulfilling our mission: To enable everyone to become mature followers of Christ, who experience and live out God’s love in every part of their lives.

That mission statement means that each one of us needs to become a mature follower of Christ. That is a lifetime journey for all of us. We are never fully mature followers, there will always be rough edges, sin will always be lurking at our door, but that does not stop us continuing to seek to be mature followers of Christ.

Giving, our giving to God from what he gives to us, is a key part of that maturing. It’s easy to go to church, it’s easy to sing worship songs and hymns, it’s easy to chat with Christian friends, it’s easy to applaud others’ faith, it’s easy to play the part of being a Christian, but it’s not easy to give generously to the mission of God.

This is the stumbling block for so many Christians. It’s as if we let God convert our lives except our wallets and purses. They still have a hold over us, they are still ours, they are our security, our comfort, our hope. We are willing to let God change our activities but we haven’t let God change our attitudes.

This was the point that Jesus was making in our reading. He was in the Temple at Jerusalem and lined up against him were the religious leaders and scholars of the day, determined to trip him up with some neat point, which would lose him authority and status before the crowd. So he’s asked a question about which of all the laws in the Bible – there were 613 of them – was the most important. Surely, they hoped, he’d upset someone with this, or they’d be able to easily disagree with his answer.

Jesus replies – v.37. And then says in effect that if we get that right, we will automatically let the same love flow through us to those around us – v.39.

Love is not like the forgetful husband, who thought he had conquered the problem of trying to remember his wife’s birthday and their wedding anniversary. He opened an account with a florist, provided them with dates and instructions to send flowers along with an appropriate note signed, “Your loving husband.” His wife was thrilled by this new display of attention. All went well until one day, many bouquets later, he came home, kissed his wife, and said offhandedly, “Nice flowers, love. Where’d you get them?”

Love is “That state of feeling with regard to a person which manifests itself in concern for the person’s welfare, pleasure in his or her presence, and often desire for his or her approval.”

Actually the same dictionary describes ‘love’ as “An instance of affection (now rare)”.

The danger is our love for God can be an instance, now rare, because we do not follow it up day after day, and year after year.

Jesus calls us to love God with every part of our life, reflecting our devotion to God. The problem with giving to God is that isn’t part of the deal, as far as we are concerned. I love God with all my heart, soul and mind, but not my money.

It’s as if on our wedding day, I said to Sarah that all that I have is hers, except this part of my life, which I keep to myself to do with as I wish. The relationship is then not right – it lacks the completeness that gives it the totality of two becoming one.

Love in action
What then does it mean to love God in terms of our giving?

a) Our love expressed in giving is an integral part of our discipleship. This is not an optional extra. We are called to give to God’s work as if we loved God’s work, as if his concerns and ministry were our greatest passion and desire.

We don’t often have that passion to give. More likely, we’re thinking of excuses not to give to the church, such as worrying about value for money, or worrying about the imprecision of the budget, or worrying about unnecessary costs.

When people give to charity they are often concerned with the amount of the money they give which goes on administration. But God doesn’t worry about that: he wants to give to his work through us and he grants us an administration fee of 90%. All too often we want to raise the administration fee even higher.

True discipleship gives to God’s work as an expression of love for God and all he has done for each one of us.

b) Our love expressed in giving is to resource God’s mission, not to balance the books. I was at Diocesan Synod the other day and we were debating – well, more a gentlemanly expression of views – whether to allow the diocese to appoint more central posts and whether that approval for each and every extra post should be held by Diocesan Synod, which meets three times a year or Bishops’ staff, which meets fortnightly.

Now, those who tackle me on this subject know that I am no lover of irrelevant diocesan posts, but I cannot believe that, for instance, middle management in the diocese exists on part-time secretaries. No other organisation would be so foolish as to fail to offer proper support to its officers.

What was happening in the debate was that the tail was wagging the dog. The mission of the church was being determined by the fear of balancing the books. No-one it seemed was willing to raise the bar of expectation or to offer a challenge to the Synod to put mission first and let God sort the finances out.

When we truly love someone or something, the cost is not the point. The expression of that love is the point.

We give partly because we ought to, partly because we care about God’s mission and yet mostly because in giving we are freed from the power of money and freed from our own desires and wants.

c) Our love expressed in giving is a corporate responsibility, a trust laid upon the whole household of faith. It’s not their responsibility; it’s our responsibility to resource the mission of God together.

We held a dusting party at church the other day. When I announced this to the staff, there was no wild enthusiasm, just a willingness to serve. When we came together with three members of the congregation who joined us – I thank them publicly now – it was good. In fact, Julie admitted in an unbidden comment that it had been fun. Taking responsibility together for the task is good and encouraging.

Over the next few weeks, we are going to look in more detail at Christian giving, so that we can know and understand the principles that undergird it and in that knowledge and understanding we will, I pray, take steps to fulfill our mission statement together: to become mature followers of Christ in this area of our Christian life.

We have been greatly blessed by God over the past few years. We need to express our corporate and individual love for God in thankfulness and in continuing to resource God’s vision for us.

We need to expand the paid staff team so that the administration and resourcing of the ministry here can more effectively be carried out. We need to look at the size and complexity of our children’s and young people’s work and consider whether it needs further paid workers. We need to prepare ourselves for the redevelopment of our buildings here to further the work of mission among us, enabling more people to come to know and love God.

For all these things, we will need a greater love for God that will be expressed in our giving to his work, giving not out of our surplus, but out of love for him who loves us with a love greater than any man.

The principle hindrance to our discipleship is our unwillingness to be fully devoted disciples, fully mature followers of Christ. And that creates the principle hindrance to the advancement of God’s kingdom. We are keepers of our money rather than givers; it has a hold on our lives which needs breaking.

Until that hold is broken in free and cheerful giving to God’s work and mission, there will be a brake on the extension of God’s kingdom, a brake on our own personal growth in faith and love, and a brake upon the life of this church and upon the life of Christian organizations at home and overseas, which also need our cheerful support.

It’s about resourcing the mission of God, that, here at Christ Church for instance, we may grow in our discipleship, our faith and love, and that the many in our parish and town who do not yet know Christ as their Lord and Saviour may know the purpose we have, the hope we know, and the everlasting joy of eternal life begun now and going on forever with Jesus.

And for that, we are called to love God with every part of our lives. Do you do that? And do you do that in this crucial area of giving as part of your daily discipleship?