BE A BLESSING!

And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches.  In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.  (2 Corinthians 8:1-2)

  

I must confess that for me, Thanksgiving is a holiday for which I have some mixed feelings.  For I wonder – at least on one level, why we find ourselves with the need to set apart a day to celebrate and give thanks to God for what God has done for us all year long.  In some way every day should be a day of thanksgiving for us.   And also, one to the most interesting things about Thanksgiving is that it is the one day of the year that we express our thanksgiving by eating more food than on any other day of the year.  For most people, that is our primary act of thanksgiving. 

And if that’s not enough, for many, our thanksgiving will extend into the next day, and what we know as “Black Friday” – which has become the day where we as a nation spend more money shopping – and engaging in conspicuous consumption - than on any other day of the year.   

In the church, our typical act of thanksgiving in liturgy and worship is to remind ourselves of how good God has been to us, and to sing and say “thank you” to God in our time together.  In our thanksgiving, seldom are we led to reflect on anything we might do beyond saying “thank you” to God.  Seldom are we led to act on our thanksgiving.  Seldom are we led to think about how our thanksgiving can and should become thanks-living.

This is the matter that the apostle Paul sought to address with Christians in Corinth.  In the days of Paul, Corinth was a major port city on the Mediterranean Sea. It was a major city for commerce and trade, and many of the people in Corinth as a result of the economic prosperity there were blessed with a more than a modicum of good living and good success. 

Most Corinthians were relatively comfortable in their living.  They lived in nice homes and nice neighborhoods, and had benefitted from a good education, and didn’t have same the cares and worries of some of their neighbors in other countries.   Paul intimates that the Corinthians were not just doing all-right, but they were excelling.   He says to them, “you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in eagerness…”  They were a blessed people.

But Paul had a concern – a controversy with the people in Corinth.  They were excelling in everything, except their generosity.  In other words, their generosity was not in proportion to the way that God had blessed them.  Paul was concerned (he was troubled) that the Corinthians did not fully understand the economy of God, and that they didn’t realize or recognize that God doesn’t just bless God’s people for the sake of blessing us, but that God blesses God’s people to be a blessing.

And so Paul tells the Corinthians about another group of Christians – those in another place – a place called Macedonia.  The apostle takes occasion from the good example of the churches of Macedonia, that is – the churches of Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and others in the region of Macedonia, to exhort the Corinthians to the good work of charity. 

Paul reminds the Corinthians that those in Macedonia didn’t live in the same fine homes, and didn’t have the same good jobs with benefits, and they had not benefitted from the same excellent education.  By comparison, the Christians in Macedonia were poor.  In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity – in Macedonia.   In Macedonia, they were but in a low condition, and themselves in distress, yet they contributed to the relief of others. They were in great tribulation and deep poverty, yet they were the example of generosity, for they realized they were blessed to be a blessing.

Even out of their relative poverty, even out of their need, those in Macedonia gave generously, even beyond their ability, even beyond the proportion of the blessings that God had placed on their lives.   Somehow those in Macedonia had learned to be a blessing.

What nerve of Paul to shame the Corinthians in this way by comparing their generosity and blessing to that of the low-class, poor, marginalized Macedonians.  Who did Paul think he was to call the Corinthians out like this, to let them know that they needed to do better in light of all that God had done for them? 

Sometimes, God has to get our attention by sending somebody into our lives to speak the truth in love, and that’s what Paul was called to do with those he loved and appreciated in Corinth.  He was their pastor, and he wanted his sisters and brothers to know that they needed to be more like the Macedonians, and out of their thanksgiving, they needed move to thanks-living. 

They needed to reflect on and more fully act on what it meant to be extravagantly generous.  They needed to know that that it’s one thing to be blessed, but it’s yet another thing to also be a blessing.

As another Thanksgiving approaches, I’ve come to ask you (us) -  how has God blessed your life?  What good thing has the Lord done for you, lately?  What do you have to praise God for?   But now that we’ve counted our blessings… we can’t stop there.

For we know that we are blessed – not just to be blessed, but we are blessed to be a blessing.  How are you called to be a blessing?  How has your generosity been like the Macedonians, lately?  What is our thanks-living going to look like after the thanks-giving?