Sermon preached at St. Mary’s Welwyn by Stephen Fielding
30 September 2007

This is a sermon about giving – about the giving which we see at the heart of the abundant Christian life.

But before I speak about that, I want to thank all of you who have welcomed us to Welwyn with such warmth, who have made us feel so welcome. It is a great privilege to be part of the Welwyn team. I am immensely looking forward to working with and for you, looking forward to sharing with you as a community of faith giving its life to God, and looking forward to sharing in the good news of Jesus Christ.

On Friday I spent part of the morning at the Fleming and Partners Family Office. This is the office that manages the wealth of the Fleming family - the family that Ian Fleming of James Bond fame belonged to - and manages the wealth of 50 other families too. My sense is that it does a good job. But what struck me was that this office gives a huge amount of attention to charitable giving – to philanthropy. It has programmes to educate the younger as well as the older members in their responsibility to be giving money away. The duty to give money away is seen as part of the asset management process.

And then I thought – I pictured our gospel story today – the story of the rich man and the beggar, Dives and Lazarus,
and I figured how the rich man in that story could have benefited from the focus on philanthropy – just giving it away – which is available in a family office. Except that 2000 years ago there were no family offices.

Oh but there was advice in those days – age-old advice - and Jesus refers to it explicitly. Speaking here with a tone of voice and a passion that is severe and uncompromising, he effectively says to the rich man: ‘You did know, you had heard, it was all there in our scriptures.’ Jesus speaks with the voice of the ancient prophets – those men of Israel who insisted again and again that God’s way for his world is based on justice and love. Those ancient prophets like Amos, from whom we heard a passage this morning, who says:

‘Let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream’.

Those prophets who said that God is a God of love who longs for his people to love as well, to walk in his ways – which are good ways - who because they have not loved him have suffered judgment and exile but who if they do love him will know abundant life, and who in the fullness of time will know what life with God forever is really like.

It is into this mixture – of a God who loves and a God who judges because he cares – that Jesus speaks in his own day.
He speaks to a Jewish audience who know from their scriptures that right conduct matters, that they ‘must love their neighbours as themselves’ and that God has a special place in his heart for the poor.


Let’s look at the story of Dives and Lazarus again. Here is an exceptionally rich man. A man who has everything. Nothing wrong with that in itself. I personally worked for 10 years in the UK’s leading private bank. Wealth management was our business. It is better done well than badly. But in the parable the rich man has spent all his riches on himself. He has closed his heart, and shut his ears, and closed his eyes, to the poverty stricken beggar at his gate. He has no care for the one who most obviously needed it. This is sin, says Jesus; it always was, and it still is. And it is deadly in its effects. Dives is cut off from the blessing promised to the descendants of Abraham. And it was all avoidable – through listening to the word of God and acting on it.

It is severe, it is harsh, and it is uncompromising. And it is still relevant, says Jesus. You must have a care for the poor and needy in your midst. Dives had failed to live up to that command to share his bread with the hungry and shelter the homeless poor. If he had, there would have been a double blessing – for himself and for the beggar.

Jesus said that giving and sharing are at the heart of what life is about. For Jesus it is a giving to the uttermost – a giving that ends in death. And he says that if we love him we should model giving and sharing in our own lives. And it will involve our use of money. We are not to suppose that Jesus was so otherworldly as to be speaking of our spiritual lives alone. In fact, how we use our money and give an account of ourselves in that respect may well be a commentary on our lives overall. What we have done with our money may well be what we have done with our lives. To make an imaginative and generous use of it may well be the only test any of us has to pass.

Loving money too much for itself and for himself was the rich man’s failing in our parable. And St Paul, in writing to Timothy, tells him not to fall into this trap – not to idolise it -
but instead ‘to lay hold of eternal life’ - a life richer by far - the life of God himself which is there in his grasp in the risen life of Jesus. Paul knows how Jesus has performed a great rescue mission for him and for all humankind and so Paul will give himself unsparingly. Do likewise, he says to Timothy, and the life of God will live in you. Breath-taking stuff, isn’t it? Good news, certainly.

But now you may say, ‘Look the task is too great and the need is too great. I don’t feel up to the task’. Here’s a story - perhaps you know it.

An old man was walking on the beach at dawn when he noticed a young man picking up starfish stranded by the retreating tide, and throwing them back into the sea one by one. He went up to him and asked him why he was doing this. The young man replied that the starfish would die if left exposed to the morning sun. ‘But the beach goes on for miles and there are thousands of starfish. You will not be able to save them all. How can your effort make a difference?’ The young man looked at the starfish in his hand and then threw it to safety in the waves.
‘To this one’, he said, ‘it makes a difference’.

We are called to do our bit, specifically and concretely, day-by-day, one step at a time. We have enormous power to make a difference. Perhaps it might mean that we open a Charities Aid Foundation account and pay into it month by month. It might mean reviewing our wills – or writing them in the first place – to see what we are giving away. There are hundreds of people on our streets – we may walk past uncomfortable or embarrassed. We may say, ‘They’ll only spend it on alcohol or drugs’. Maybe they will – and maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll spend it on the food and drink that will enable them to survive another day. A cup of coffee would warm a homeless person –and the knowledge of that may warm us up too. Donate your old specs to a charity. Or you could choose a charity as a family to support. Putting a box somewhere near the door at home. These are just a few ideas. None of them mean we should exempt our politicians or fail to hold them to account in what they do for the poor. We will continue to be horrified that the gap between rich and poor has widened in recent years. But let us not delegate our own personal duties.

In this eucharist we recall the great self-giving of Jesus and in knowing ourselves to be so richly blessed we will want to extend that blessing to others. The way we live tells a story. The way we serve others tells a story. The more we give the more we get. It is the blessing of abundant life.

Heavenly father, open our eyes and our hearts
To the need around us, give us the desire and will
To act in giving
And so may we know and feel the reality of your eternal life.
Through the one who gave himself to the uttermost
Jesus Christ our Lord AMEN