{"id":223,"date":"2007-08-07T19:59:09","date_gmt":"2007-08-07T19:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/president\/remarks\/chapel-talk-2-26-07\/"},"modified":"2013-02-26T13:50:21","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T19:50:21","slug":"chapel-talk-2-26-07","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wp.stolaf.edu\/president\/public-remarks\/chapel-talk-2-26-07\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapel Talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 26, 2007
\nGod Loves a Cheerful Giver<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s text we see the Apostle Paul doing something that is at the top of most college presidents\u2019 agenda:\u00a0 asking for money.\u00a0\u00a0 More precisely, Paul\u2014having already asked the church in Corinth for money\u2014is providing a theology of giving in order to help them to do the right thing.\u00a0 In the chapter that precedes today\u2019s lesson from 2 Corinthians, Paul reported to the Corinthians that the church in Macedonia, despite what he calls its \u201csevere poverty\u201d (8:2;\u00a0 all quotations from scripture are from the RSV), has sent a gift that \u201coverflowed in a wealth of liberality\u201d (8:2).\u00a0 The Macedonians, he notes, gave \u201cbeyond their means, of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints\u201d (8:3-4).\u00a0\u00a0 Paul\u2019s message to the church in Corinth is simple:\u00a0 \u201cAs you excel in everything\u2014in faith, in utterance, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in your love for us\u2014see that you excel in this gracious work also\u201d (8.7).\u00a0 In other words, don\u2019t let yourselves be embarrassed by the Macedonians who, despite having fewer means, have made a handsome gift.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s evident in the early going of today\u2019s reading that the church in Corinth has at least pledged to make a gift:\u00a0 Paul refers in verse 5 to \u201cthis gift you have promised\u201d (9:5).\u00a0 So the work of this chapter of 2 Corinthians is to ensure that the Corinthians make good on their pledge.\u00a0 To that end, Paul is sending Titus and another unnamed \u201cbrother who is famous among all the churches for his preaching of the gospel\u201d (8.17) to Corinth to encourage the church in its process of discernment.<\/p>\n

When Paul writes to the church in Corinth he conceptualizes philanthropy as part of a process that begins with the divine exemplar, proceeds to the \u201creadiness\u201d to give (8:11), and then concludes with completing the gift\u00a0 Thus, in the chapter preceding today\u2019s lesson Paul reminds his readers that, \u201cYou know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich\u201d (8:9).\u00a0 This is the divine exemplar.\u00a0 Christ became incarnate, suffered, and died on the cross so that we might live forever.\u00a0 This was the ultimate act of philanthropy\u2014a word, we should remember, that at its root means love of humankind.\u00a0 Paul uses the metaphor of giving money away to characterize the redemptive act of Christ precisely because he wants the church in Corinth to think of the act of donating money as divinely sanctioned.<\/p>\n

Thinking of giving in this context, according to Paul, brings you to the point of readiness to make a gift.\u00a0 \u201cReadiness\u201d here doesn\u2019t simply mean that you\u2019re willing to sign a pledge card.\u00a0 Rather, it signifies an urgent desire to be counted.\u00a0 The Macedonians, Paul reports, not only gave of their own free will but were \u201cbegging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints\u201d (8:4).\u00a0 Similarly, in looking back a year to the time when the church in Corinth made its pledge, Paul remembers that the church began \u201cnot only to do but to desire<\/em>\u201d to make a gift.\u00a0 That\u2019s why today\u2019s lesson begins with Paul half-apologizing for even bringing up the subject of the Corinthians unpaid pledge:\u00a0 \u201cNow, it is superfluous for me to write to you about the offering for the saints, for I know your readiness, of which I boast about you to the people of Macedonia\u201d (9:1).<\/p>\n

This readiness to give has an important effect on the way one thinks about the amount of the gift.\u00a0 According to Paul, \u201cif the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a man has, not according to what he has not\u201d (8:12).\u00a0 In other words, \u201creadiness\u201d encourages us to think about a gift as an expression of thanks for what we have, not as a diminishment of our treasure.\u00a0 \u201cReadiness\u201d helps us to give freely from our abundance, not defensively.\u00a0 Paul wants the church in Corinth to fulfill its pledge \u201cnot as an exaction but as a willing gift\u201d (9:5).<\/p>\n

Paul has another way to express this idea:\u00a0 \u201cGod loves a cheerful giver\u201d (9:7).\u00a0 This famous phrase means, quite simply, that God blesses gifts made both willingly and deliberately, not wrung out of the giver by emotional blackmail or impassioned pleas–what one commentary calls \u201cemotional picking of pockets\u201d (The Interpreter\u2019s Bible<\/em> [1953], X, 375).\u00a0 Paul explains it this way: \u201cEach one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion\u201d\u00a0 9:7). \u00a0Research today shows us that in lives enriched by philanthropy the habit of giving begins early.\u00a0 Lifetime giving is \u201chabitual and thoughtful\u201d (The Interpreter\u2019s Bible<\/em> [1953], X, 375) rather than exceptional and extraordinary.<\/p>\n

Paul employs another figure of speech to make his point about \u201creadiness,\u201d but this one makes me nervous:\u00a0 \u201che who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully\u201d (9:6).\u00a0 Another version of this thought in today\u2019s lesson is, \u201cHe who supplied seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your resources and increase the harvest of your righteousness.\u00a0 You will be enriched in every way for great generosity . . . (9:10).\u00a0 These verses make me nervous because having just made a profound and eloquent argument for \u201ccheerful\u201d giving, Paul seems here to be encouraging generosity by appealing to self-interest:\u00a0 make a nice gift to the church because it will enrich you; it will \u201cmultiply your resources\u201d as the RSV translation has it.\u00a0 Remember the scene from the musical Chicago<\/em> where Queen Latifah, playing the warden of a corrupt women\u2019s prison that\u2019s run on a system of bribes sings, \u201cWhen you\u2019re good to Mama, Mama\u2019s good to you\u201d?\u00a0 This portion of the lesson feels a little like that.<\/p>\n

But the best way to read this part of today\u2019s lesson, I think, is to understand Paul as speaking metaphorically here, as he has been throughout this portion of the text.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a literal transaction, a kind of cosmic matching gift:\u00a0 you give God one dollar, God will leverage it into two for you.\u00a0 Rather, gifts cheerfully given do indeed produce their own reward for the giver.\u00a0 They won\u2019t necessarily make you rich, but they will enrich you.\u00a0 Now, I don\u2019t want to go so far as to claim that Paul had an advance copy of a recent article in The Economist<\/em> (10\/14\/06) which reported that a study at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders found that the part of the brain involved in making decisions based on moral beliefs\u2014such as where to direct one\u2019s philanthropy– is the same part of the brain responsible for producing the chemicals associated with the euphoria caused by sex, money, food, and drugs, so that there is a physiological basis for the \u201chigh\u201d associated with giving.\u00a0 Nevertheless, I do think it is consistent with the rest of this text to understand Paul to be arguing that the cheerful giver does indeed benefit from the gift given.<\/p>\n

Now, you may be asking yourself \u201cWhy, now, in the Monday chapel service following the first Sunday in Lent\u2014a time associated with austerity and contemplation\u2014is the President talking about giving?\u00a0 There are several reasons.<\/p>\n

For starters, I am about to start my eighth month as President of our college, and the one activity that has occupied the most of my time during that period has been asking for money for the college.\u00a0 The days when college presidents walked around campus wearing tweed jackets with elbow patches, smoking a briar pipe, and engaging in avuncular conversation with students are over.\u00a0 College presidents are, above all, the public representation of the institution.\u00a0 Among the President\u2019s most important roles are that of chief communicator for the college and its chief fundraiser.\u00a0 For our college in particular, the mandate to gather in resources is imperative.\u00a0 Compared to the other top colleges in America, the only area in which we lag is the amount of resources we can marshal to support our mission.\u00a0 We have a very clearly articulated sense of who we are as an institution;\u00a0 we have an ample supply of students who wish to receive our unique version of a liberal arts education rooted in the Christian gospel and incorporating a global perspective;\u00a0 we have an academic program that is second to none.\u00a0 What we don\u2019t have is an endowment\u2014that is, an amount of money invested by the college that generates earnings to support the annual budget and\u2014over time\u2014to make the college financially invulnerable.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job to grow that endowment.\u00a0 I think about it all the time.<\/p>\n

Another reason to think about giving at this season of the year is that we are on the downward slope to achieving our goal of $3.9 million in gifts to Partners, St. Olaf\u2019s annual giving program.\u00a0 It is the responsibility of every member of the St. Olaf family\u2014faculty and staff, students, alumni, friends of the college\u2014to contribute every year to Partners.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t hit our goal every year, our annual operating budget does not work.\u00a0 As of today our attainment towards our goal of $3.9 million is $2.3 million.\u00a0 If you are within the sound of my voice, either here in Boe chapel or listening to chapel streaming on the web and haven\u2019t yet made your annual gift to Partners, now is the time, in the words of the Apostle Paul, for your \u201creadiness in desiring\u201d to be \u201cmatched by your completing it out of what you have\u201d (8:11).\u00a0\u00a0 If you can make a gift of $10 this year, we will receive it with rejoicing and you will receive those pleasures identified by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians.\u00a0 If you can make a gift of $10,000, ditto.\u00a0 The amount matters, but so does the fact of the gift, for, as Paul has taught us, blessed giving is informed, considered, and habitual.\u00a0 Begin the habit now.\u00a0 We\u2019ll talk down the road.<\/p>\n

Another compelling reason to bring up the subject of giving now is that at 7 p.m. on March 1 in The Pause we will kick off the senior class giving campaign.\u00a0 Gifts to the senior campaign will be applied towards the Partners program, and the goal is an aggressive 85% participation rate.\u00a0 Seniors:\u00a0 think of yourself as the church in Corinth and the class of 2006 as the church in Macedonia.\u00a0 The Macedonians achieved an 84% participation rate last year, and you don\u2019t want to be embarrassed by them!<\/p>\n

A conversation about giving during Lent faces the same challenge that Pastor Koenig noted yesterday during worship here in the chapel.\u00a0 She noted that while Lent was a time for austerity and contemplation, we were also in the middle of a celebratory weekend, thanking God for the gift of a newly renovated chapel, a magnificent new organ, and a new Lutheran hymnal.\u00a0 We were caught, she noted, between two moods.\u00a0 So am I today.\u00a0 Indeed, this is Lent. But it is also the closing stretch of the Partners campaign, the opening of the senior giving campaign, and I\u2019ve spent the last eight months in the company of Oles who have lived out Paul\u2019s theology of giving.\u00a0 They have–willingly, thoughtfully, and deliberately\u2014stretched to make extraordinary gifts to our college, gifts cheerfully given, gifts that reward the giver with the blessings of philanthropy.\u00a0 Very bluntly, the future of our college lies in our ability to imitate the example of Paul in 2 Corinthians by providing the case for giving and of Oles everywhere to imitate the example of the church in Corinth by responding to the theology of giving with gifts freely given.
\nI thank God for St. Olaf College and the work it does, and I pray for its future, a future secured by the gifts freely given by the community of the faithful.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

David R. Anderson ’74<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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