Tag: Generosity

Faith and Finance

CMM, Cape Town / / Ordinary Days of the Spirit, Sunday Letter

Friends,

Last week my colleagues and I gathered for our Spring Seminar in Paarl. The theme was: Faith and Finance: Towards a Christ-like Theology of Money. It took the form of 15 TEDx-like presentations, followed by group discussions. Motivated by at least two reasons: 1) In the Gospels Jesus speaks more about money matters than just about any other topic, yet very often the only time ‘the church’ speaks about money is when it needs/wants money – as opposed to helping people live justly and mercifully with money, as was the focus of Jesus’ teaching. 2) We live in the most unequal country in all the world and a country where corruption – the theft of astronomical amounts of money is endemic – by people, it must be said, who are not strangers to the pews within our churches. No doubt 1) and 2) are somehow related.

The seminar was both an enlightening and a startling experience to hear how diverse our theology of money is – and this from a group of 50 odd clergy from within the same denomination. One of the troubling unquestioned assumptions that underpinned many presentations was that giving to God = giving to church. This is a dangerous equation – whether implicitly or explicitly stated. It is simplistic and potentially a very manipulative teaching that has more to do with the sustainability of a religious institution (and pastor’s income) than the practice of Jesus’ justice and mercy. We certainly have work to do as the Methodist Church of Southern Africa to develop a Christ-shaped theology of economics for justice and mercy to be more fully known within the church and society at large.

Little wonder then that John Wesley – the founder of the Methodist Movement – emphasised money matters as Jesus did. It was a consistent theme of his preaching and personal practice. Sadly, when it came to money and Methodists, Wesley was concerned. The conundrum for Wesley was: “… the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently, they increase in goods. Hence, they proportionately increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away.”

It was with this conundrum in mind that Wesley lamented: “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” (Aug. 4, 1786).

Wesley further lamented that even his sermon on “The Use of Money” that he had preached (and re-preached) had been ignored, if not totally misinterpreted. The sermon included the following catchy points: “Gain all you can, save all you can and give all you can”.

Not one to mince his words, Wesley later wrote: “Of the three rules which are laid down … you may find many that observe the first rule, namely, ‘Gain all you can.’ You may find a few that observe the second, ‘Save all you can.’ But how many have you found that observe the third rule, ‘Give all you can’? Have you reason to believe that 500 of these are to be found among 50,000 Methodists? And yet nothing can be more plain than that all who observe the first rules without the third will be twofold more the children of hell than ever they were before.”

Remembering that to give to God is not to be equated to giving to Church, we must therefore not reduce “Give all you can” – to what we contribute to the Sunday offertory. Rather, to give to God is to give in such a way that the poor will hear good news. This means the focus of all our generosity is to bend the structures of society towards justice while at the same time mercifully caring for those wounded and marginalised within society. There are many avenues that invite our contributions to do justice and love mercifully within society at large. I believe one of the most Godly avenues of ‘give all you can’ is education – starting with pre-school education all the way through to university. Education gives life! Education really is a gift that keeps on giving – for generations! Here is a prayer we can pray: “Jesus, give me opportunities to give towards a person’s education. Amen.”

With grace,
Alan

P.S. In today’s sermon we will reflect on one of the many parables Jesus shared about economics. We will see how this parable alone was enough to get Jesus killed by the authorities. We will see how Luke’s Gospel (and I would argue – the entire Bible) is best understood as an economic textbook rather than a religious book.

Loving Generosity

CMM, Cape Town / / Ordinary Days of the Spirit, Reflection

 

Friends,

It was Henri Nouwen who said: “Our greatest fulfilment lies in giving ourselves to others … beyond all our desires to be appreciated, rewarded and acknowledged, there lies a simple and pure desire – to give.”

This should not surprise us. Our faith invites us to trust that humanity is born in the image of a lovingly generous and generously loving God. In other words, we are born to be lovingly generous and generously loving. Is this not why we feel more in love with life when we choose to be generous and why we feel shrunken within ourselves when we decide against being generous? The generous choice is commonly motivated by love, and its opposite by fear. Deciding to pay someone the most we can afford tastes different to paying someone as little as we can get away with. Love is sweet on the tongue and nourishing for the body, while fear tastes sour in the mouth and fails to fill the stomach.

If there is any truth in what I’ve just written, then we would be wise not to leave our generosity up to “chance”, but rather do some planning. We make plans to earn money so why not make plans when we give money? Planned generosity actively searches for opportunities to be generous. Where our passions meet the pain of the world is a good place to start. And once we know where we want to give then we can set out to grow our generosity. For some, 10% of income is a good place to start, for others 10% of income is a good goal to aim for.

CMM as a community sets aside 10% of all offerings received. Over the years even when we did not actually have the cash in the bank, we kept the tithe amount on the books to remind us  that 10% of everything that comes in, must flow out for it simply does not belong to us. The giving plan of CMM works as follows: 80% of CMM’s tithe go to the following 6 areas: HIV/Aids; Education; Informal Settlements; Violence/Peacemaking; Poverty/Unemployment; Youth. 20% goes to miscellaneous concerns or emergencies. We also favour local (Western Cape) versus not local on a 70 – 30% split.

Recently we have been privileged to give R200k to pre-school education (including schools within informal settlements and the city). Another R50k will soon be going to pre-schools in Namaqualand. A remarkable organisation working to alleviate poverty and unemployment in the city received R50k on top of the R60k that they already receive annually from CMM. An organisation that has responded quite miraculously to the hunger crisis as a result of COVID-19 also received R50k. We continue to offer sustainable finance to city traders in the vicinity of the Church office. We foresee that these instalments of around R10k will need to be repeated a few more times to help traders keep their stores open until the passing foot traffic increases once again.

At CMM we are not taught to give to the church per se, as if funding a church equals “giving to God” (this teaching at best forgets that God so loved the world – not the church – and at worst it can be a manipulative disguise for personal and institutional greed). Instead, we are simply taught to be generous and to grow in a generosity that is good news to the poor. We do not give in order to get, but there is a definite reward in giving. The reward: We come alive when we give. We come alive because we honour the image of God at our core of who we are, and we honour our neighbour with whom we are one. The preacher’s task is to constantly invite us to come alive through generosity rather than determine the destination of our generosity.

I trust that every act of generosity that is good news for the poor and vulnerable is an act of life-giving partnership with the Lover-of-the-world-God. Writing out a cheque to care for vulnerable children; putting food into hungry bellies through Gift of the Givers; supporting an anti-gender-based-violence campaign; enabling reforestation to take root or for investigative journalists to continue to courageously expose death-creating corruption are all holy acts. As holy as any Sunday offering.

For this reason, I am aware that CMM is just one avenue for the gift of your generosity and therefore I write with gratitude to you. Your giving enables CMM to give. We do so with the hope of touching some of the pain of this world that God so loves with a loving generosity that heals.

—

Please continue to practice the COVID Trinity: [1] wear a mask [2] regularly wash hands [3] keep physical distance. As the 3rd wave surges to dangerous and deadly levels, please take this seriously. Attached is a letter from the Bishop (Synod COVID task team).

Please note that the  safest way to attend CMM’s Sunday service is via zoom (Zoom link available via welcome@cmm.or.za).

In grace,
Alan

 

The Execution of Jesus

CMM, Cape Town / / Good Friday, Prayer, Sermon

Good Friday Sermon
2021 04 02 Alan Storey

The Execution of Jesus

[Hebrews 10:16-24; Mark 12:1-12; Mark 15:6-15]

Prayer: Can we wait and watch with Jesus?

 

Convicted to Confess

CMM, Cape Town / / Fifth Sunday in Lent

Sunday Sermon

2021 03 21 Alan Storey
Convicted to Confess
[Psalm 51:1-12]

Time to pause …

CMM, Cape Town / / Epiphany, Happy New Year, Reflection

 

Friends

As the clock completes its annual circuit, we are invited to pause…

To pause to examine our lives. To go through each month of the past year – remembering what took place around us and within us. We do so without judgement and without the need to justify anything. We steer between the unhelpful cliffs of condemnation and complacency. Instead, we hold all things – all situations and all people in compassion. Compassion is the life-giving combination of grace and truth. Truth without grace can be mean, while grace without truth is meaningless. Together they convict and comfort (strengthen)… this frees us to make our confession (get real about our living).

We pray: Spirit of truth and grace come and convict and comfort me today, that I may get real about my living. Amen.

This past year:

  • Who were the significant people?
  • What were the significant events?
  • What am I most grateful for?
  • What has this year (COVID year) revealed to me?
  • What have I learnt about myself? People? Relationships? Life? Jesus / God?
  • Who / what has made me angry, sad, hurt, disillusioned, resentful?
  • Who / what has made me joyful and free?
  • Where have I been the recipient of generosity?
  • Have I been truthful?
  • How have I done justice, been merciful and walked humbly?
  • What do I never want to forget?
  • What do I always want to take with me?
  • What do I want to leave behind?
  • What do I want to start doing…or start again?
  • What do I want to end?
  • If I were to die today, what would be my greatest regret?

 

These questions are simple signposts inviting us to explore a particular direction of our living. How far we would like to wander along each path is up to each of us…

Note: This time of pause is served best if we carve out unhurried time. We cannot “speed reflect” – like we may be able to speed read. We can only do 30 minutes reflection in 30 minutes – no more. If a question fails to connect with us straight away, we are invited to stick with it for a little longer …

___________________________

Below are a few reflections from Augustine of Hippo. A person known for his confessions. The Augustine Confessions is, next to the Bible, the most widely read book in history. It is also the first autobiography as we know them. It is devoted to telling Augustine’s passionate journey of faith and life. We are invited to read and re-read his words – sensitive to what convicts and comforts us.

“Urged to reflect upon myself, I entered under your guidance the innermost places of my being; but only because you had become my helper was I able to do so…

O eternal Truth, true Love, and beloved Eternity, you are my God, and for you I sigh day and night. As I first began to know you, you lifted me up and showed me that, while that which I might see exists indeed, I was not yet capable of seeing it. Your rays beamed intensely on me, beating back my feeble gaze, and I trembled with love and dread. I knew myself to be far away from you in a region of unlikeness, and I seemed to hear your voice from on high: “I am the food of the mature: grow, then, and you shall eat me. You will not change me into yourself like bodily food; but you will be changed into me”.

Accordingly, I looked for a way to gain the strength I needed to enjoy you, but I did not find it until I embraced the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Clear is your response, but not all hear it clearly. They all appeal to you about what they want, but do not always hear what they want to hear. Your best servant is the one who is less intent on hearing from you what accords with his own will, and more on embracing with his will what he has heard from you.

Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!

You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you. In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you, they would not have been at all.

You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness. You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness. You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  

I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more. You touched me, and I burned for your peace.

When at last I cling to you with my whole being there will be no more anguish or labour for me, and my life will be alive indeed, alive because filled with you. But now it is very different. Anyone whom you fill you also uplift; but I am not full of you, and so I am a burden to myself. Joys over which I ought to weep do battle with sorrows that should be matter of joy, and I do not know which will be victorious. But I also see griefs that are evil at war in me with joys that are good, and I do not know which will win the day.

This is agony, Lord, have pity on me! It is agony! See, I do not hide my wounds; you are the physician, and I am sick; you are merciful, I in need of mercy.”

Grace, Alan

Update from CMM

CMM, Cape Town / / News

If you have been reading these updates since November 6th 2019, you will know that from the beginning it has been communicated to the refugees in the Church that the sanctuary is a “temporary safe place” and that we “offer a moment of calm” in which we hope “people can find one another to talk, listen and negotiate” and that “a way forward would soon be found that would include vacating Central Methodist Mission”.

In one of my sermons, I said that “it takes courage to protest but it also takes courage to negotiate”. Sadly, they have not shown courage to negotiate. I say sadly, because I believe that they have many legitimate grievances yet their singular demand to go to a “third country” is not in any way aligned to their grievances. No one takes this unrealistic demand seriously and therefore one is also tempted to not take the real grievances seriously. To therefore demand that which is at present so clearly unrealistic, does themselves and all other foreign nationals in South Africa a disservice. Many refugee organisations in South Africa have said as much.

Refugees across the country rightly complain that the Department of Home Affairs sometimes grants asylum papers that are only valid for a month or two. It is very difficult to get work if one is only “legal” for such a short period of time. Many also complain about how difficult it is to open a bank account in SA. These are serious grievances that must be addressed, but the leaders of this protest action over the past five months have not negotiated around these grievances at all. Were they to say we are protesting until all the major banks in the country make it easier for foreign nationals to open bank accounts, or were they to say we demand that our asylum papers be valid for a minimum of a year or three, they would have discovered greater solidarity and support in addressing these and other forms of administrative xenophobia. Instead, they chose to alienate and threaten everyone who pointed out to them that their singular demand to be moved to a third country is impossible and that it does not align itself with their grievances. This has not helped their cause in particular, and the cause of refugees in SA in general.

It has been disturbing to witness how people who themselves have been victims of violence have turned against each other in violence, becoming the very thing they hate and adding impetus to the cycle of violence continuing. The split into two factions on the 29th December 2019 gave rise to xenophobia and religious prejudice among themselves. Doing to each other as they have had done to them. This level of brokenness is tragic. One can only weep.

As I write this, I fear my words might contribute to a sense of self-righteousness and provide an excuse for us in the future to not respond with openness and compassion. We must guard against this if we ourselves are not to become what we hate.

On numerous occasions over the past five months, the refugee leadership gave me the assurance that they will vacate the church. They did not honour these commitments. Over the last few weeks I have put up notices (in all the languages of those staying in the church) requesting people to vacate the church. This request is being ignored. From conversations with the leadership of the refugees it is clear to me that they still believe that their demand to go to a third country will be met and that they will not vacate until it is met. It is also clear to me that they have nothing to gain by remaining in the church. They are literally wasting their time. In fact, I believe that due to health and safety reasons they continue to place their lives at greater risk by remaining in the sanctuary. The overcrowding and lack of appropriate ablution facilities, not to mention increased fire risk, makes the sanctuary an unsafe space to be in.

This leaves the church little choice but to go the legal route and seek relief from the courts. The Methodist Church of Southern Africa is in the process of doing so. This itself will take some time and I ask you to hold those involved in this sensitive matter in your heart.

Let me end with a few words about the Coronavirus. Like climate-breakdown the Coronavirus reminds us of the reality of our inter-connectedness with all of life. It has no respect for border posts and cares not about our nationality or any other social construct we like to use to carve up the world-wide-web of life. Our hyper-individualistic cultures live in denial of this reality. To live in denial of reality is self-defeating. The longer we persist the more devastating the defeat will be – as every other persistence in false separation can testify. South African history is a prime example of this.

Individualism cannot solve what individualism has caused. An example of this is people stocking up on hand sanitising products. To only look after oneself is self-defeating because we are all connected. Hoarding (in every form) is ultimately self-defeating. It is generosity, and not selfishness, that will save us. Jesus said this a long time ago: “For whoever would save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will save it”. When Jesus says, “for my sake” we remember that he self-identified as the “least among us”. In other words the Jesus approach is not to hoard sanitiser but rather to share it with as many people as possible especially those who do not have access to these basic resources. And this goes with every form of preventative method of care and health services.

As we avoid hoarding-panic let us also avoid living in spiritual cloud-cuckoo-land by saying that “our faith will protect us” and the “Coronavirus is just like the flu”. This spiritualised denialism is dangerous and disrespectful to the people around us. For the most part we have a fragile health system in this country, and we must do all we can to not unnecessarily burden it.

Grace,
Alan

Live generously

Alan / / Pentecost, Sunday Letter
Going backwards when we think we are going forwards.

Grace and peace to you …

The first thing that gets “touched” when we fall in love is our heart. The second is our wallet! This is true in all love relationships. Giving and sharing are the first signs of “being in love” with another person. To give and to share are the most natural things to do when we are in love.

The same applies to our relationship with Jesus. As we grow to love Jesus, we naturally grow in generosity towards that which Jesus was passionate about in the world, especially enabling good news for the poor. Our giving and sharing are signs of our sincerity and commitment to Jesus. In short, to love Jesus is to live generously. This is probably the easiest way we can see how much we love Jesus …

It begins with us looking at our hearts and not our pay slips (if we are fortunate enough to have a job). We do not have to be wealthy to be generous, but we do have to be loving. This means all of us, rich and poor alike can be generous. A generous life is rooted in the soil of gratitude. We love because God first loved us and we give because God first gave to us — and continues to give to us!

God is a generously giving God and because we have been born in God’s image we too are born to be generous. Generosity is part of our deepest identity — it is who we are designed to be.

This is a reminder of the gospel-call on each of our lives. We are first and foremost called to become the generous people Jesus longs for us to be. This may include supporting the work and ministry of this community and it may not — but it will certainly involve supporting the work of others somewhere, somehow, in strengthening the vulnerable, healing the sick, including the outcast and feeding the hungry, etc. If you believe that CMM contributes towards what Jesus is passionate about then I encourage you to include CMM as one of the many avenues in which your generosity may find expression.

Grace, Alan

Joyful and just generosity

Alan / / Sunday Letter

At CMM we believe that we are born in the image of a very generous God who lovingly shares with us everything that has been created. We also believe that we are called to partner God in mending our universe by generously giving back what God has already provided so abundantly. We may choose to do this through CMM or any other organisation or individual or initiative. It is not important where we give but it is very important that we give. In order to become more like God, we are encouraged to give justly and joyfully so that we can help God mend our universe!

Remember …

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it, for the Lord has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.”  Psalm 24:1
Everything belongs to the Lord. We own nothing.

“There will, however, be no one in need among you … give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so … open your hand to the poor and needy.” Deut. 15:4,10,11
Everything of the Lord’s is to be joyfully and justly shared. 

“How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” 1 John 3:17
Sharing reveals God’s love in us.

As difficult as this may sound it is actually what each of us is born for – and here is why:
• God is joyfully and justly generous
• We are born in God’s image
• We are therefore born to be joyfully and justly generous.
We are on the journey from the image of God to the likeness of God!