A Fist Full of Dollars

Good morning, for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Em Blattner and I am the youth pastor here at Moorpark Presbyterian Church. I am excited to be here with you today and am happy to bring you a slide show that features our students from the senior high youth group when they went to L.A. on a mission trip. It was a great experience that allowed them to serve less fortunate people in the inner city, here is a look at that experience – check it out.

SLIDE SHOW FROM SENIOR HIGH TRIP TO LA.

I would like to tell you a story from our trip and I can’t believe I’m actually going to share this story because it is pretty bad… While we were in L.A. we traveled around to several organizations to help them with their ministries by offering them our services. We were split up into 3 groups and each day the groups would go to different ministry sites where they would help those organizations which included the midnight mission, Salvation Army, L.A. food bank, and many more. One of the places my group went to was the L.A. mission, an organization which offers a variety of services to homeless people including serving them meals daily. We actually had lunch at the L.A. mission.

During our visit the girls in our group went off to sort some clothing donations while the guys went off to do some more manly jobs. As we followed our leader from the organization who was going to put us to work, I thought in my mind of the many possibilities that awaited us. What would we get up to? Would we meet any homeless people? At a certain point we stopped at the corner of the lobby where about 100 homeless people sat and waited for lunch. At first they were watching the Jesus film but then the channel changed to the Laker parade. While we were standing there our leader said, “we need 2 guys to come this way to help us clean.” I sent the first 2 guys off while looking around the corner to see where they went, and they walked straight into the men’s bathroom for what looked like toilet cleaning duty. At the time one of the other guys looked around the corner and saw the same fate of the 2 guys that I saw and he said something like, “heck no!”

In my mind I was thinking the same thing, “toilets – heck to the no!” And when the leader asked for 1 more helping hand, I sent the next guy around the corner to face his fate. To be honest I felt my heart race because I knew there were only 3 of us left and I was hoping I would not be asked to help clean toilets. After 5 minutes the leader came out of the men’s room and took us around another corner where he had a cleaning cart waiting for us. He then instructed us on what we were to do… We were to clean toilets!

Inside I felt trapped, nowhere to run and toilets to clean! Terrible, we had to do it with just the 3 of us. I told the guys that we had to each shift our weight and get it done as quickly as possible, while doing a good job. We began to work and while we did I noticed that I was the one doing most of the complaining. It was smelly, nasty, and we didn’t want to be there but we did our best and we got the job done.

When we finished, we were told we could join the other 3 guys and relax until lunch time. Once we found them we asked them what they had done the whole time we had been cleaning toilets. They told us that all they did was fold a few clean items of clothing and then sit around and wait. It is strange how things come back to bite you in the rear end sometimes, if only I had joined the first team when they went into the men’s restroom, which also had a locker-room in it! 

But even though this is an interesting story, I learnt a key lesson from our students that day. One of the guys cleaning with me told me that same day, “these are God’s toilets and this is God’s city and if He wants me to clean them, then I will clean them for God.” This was a huge slap in the face for me, in the midst of my complaining I failed to realize this important fact. This was my service to God, whether it was realized or unrealized, direct or indirect, and God’s toilets needed to be cleaned, why not by me then? It was an act of worship to God and I didn’t do a very good job of it.

Today we will be looking at a passage of scripture that affirms an organized system of caring for the poor. I want to take a look at how God’s sees poverty and what our role in God’s plan should be, whether it is cleaning toilets or just giving an offering. What the Bible teaches us through this is that it is everyone’s responsibility to care for those who are less fortunate. In the Old Testament, families were to care for other family members, and towns were to help members of the community who needed it. Actually, helping the poor was an integral part of religious life! It was emphasized as worship to God in the Bible and this is what I want you to realize this morning as we take a look at our passage of scripture. As I am reading the text, I want you to remind yourself that helping the poor and giving of your time, money, and effort should be a religious act, an act of devotion, obedience, and worship.

Please turn with me to Deuteronomy 15:4-11. In the passage we will be looking at this morning we find instructions for the Israelites to care for the poor once they occupy the Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 15:4-11 (NLT)

⁴ “There should be no poor among you, for the Lord your God will greatly bless you in the land he is giving you as a special possession. ⁵ You will receive this blessing if you are careful to obey all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. ⁶ The Lord your God will bless you as he has promised. You will lend money to many nations but will never need to borrow. You will rule many nations, but they will not rule over you.

 ⁷ “But if there are any poor Israelites in your towns when you arrive in the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward them. ⁸ Instead, be generous and lend them whatever they need. ⁹ Do not be mean-spirited and refuse someone a loan because the year for canceling debts is close at hand. If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give generously to the poor, not grudgingly, for the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do. ¹¹ There will always be some in the land who are poor. That is why I am commanding you to share freely with the poor and with other Israelites in need.

In looking at this passage today I would like to make 3 points that are really important for us today.

1.  Helping the needy is an act of worship

The text we are looking at is part of a book of instructions for the Israelites once they had moved into the land promised to them by God. Now this passage is unique because we don’t often think of caring for the poor as part of our worship to God.

If you look closely at the passage, you will see that the instructions in the passage we read are actually part of a section in Deuteronomy, starting at chapter 12 called, “Laws for Proper Worship.” In other words, part of the worship of the Israelites while they were in the Promised Land was to include caring for the hungry and helping the orphan and the widow and the homeless, it was an integral part of religious life, which was an important part of possessing the land.

As Christians today, we often don’t look at helping the needy and less fortunate as part of an expression of our faith in God or as part of our devotion or worship. We often see worship as what we do Sunday mornings at church. I have heard a lot of Christians say, “I worship God every Sunday at church.” To which I often think to myself, “what about the rest of the week?” The reality is that we are to worship God on Sunday’s, but we are also to glorify Him and praise Him on every other day of the week as well. It doesn’t end the moment we walk out of the sanctuary doors or the instant we drive out of the church parking lot. In fact, worship to God should extend as far as caring for the needy.

A great part of our worship should also include sacrifice. I love what the writer of Hebrews says about this.

Hebrews 13:16 (NLT)

^“And don’t forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God.”

This verse caught my attention because it affirms that generosity is both a spiritual gift and a spiritual discipline. And the reason it is a good trait in God’s eyes is because it goes against selfishness. What we need to understand as the people of God is that through generosity we promote giving, trust, and mercy and actually draw people closer to us and to God.

During our mission trip to L.A. our students had to make many sacrifices. They were only allowed to shower every 2^nd day due to restrictions with water but also due to restrictions with the facilities. (For those of you who know me well, I am all about personal hygiene). They had to give up their cell phones, televisions, computers, and the comfort of their homes. They had to share a huge room with each other (enduring snoring and smelliness) and had to spend most of their time serving the needy or doing physical labor. This too was an act of worship to God through sacrifice. The reality is that sometimes we need to make sacrifices that please God in our service of others.   

        (Helping the needy is an act of worship)

2.  In helping the needy we are to be generous

God is so clear in this passage that we are to be very generous to those in need. In fact the verses make use of a beautiful image that we are not to be tight fisted or hardhearted to the poor. What this is actually saying is that we should give freely. Now I am not so sure when the last time was that I gave “freely” to someone. I tend to be generous and helpful to my friends giving to them freely, but then when I come across a person who is begging for money I have the tendency to do exactly what this passage says I should not do. Instead of only taking out a dollar bill, I should be reaching down and getting a 5 or 10, or even a 20 dollar bill. I should not be tight fisted!

I would like to illustrate this with a bag of chips.

Now the passage also mentions loans, and that we should not refuse a person a loan. In many ways this caring and helping is also an act of worship and obedience to God. But in Biblical times this would have been really significant language. All loans that were given were given to people but there was a catch behind the loan system (maybe if you are in the loan industry you should be taking notes at this point).

The law in Exodus 23 and Leviticus 25 stated that all debts and loans were to be cancelled at “the time of the Lord’s release.” If someone owed you money, the debt was to be written off completely when this time of the Lord’s release came. Now, it came every 7 years, which made it difficult to get a loan on the 5^th or the 6^th year. Imagine this being our reality. Most of us would probably wait until the 5^th or 6^th year before asking for a loan because after the 7^th year it would all be completely cancelled out. Wouldn’t this be cool? All mortgages, car payments, school loans, cancelled out after the 7^th year. But at the same time it would be difficult if you needed money and the 7^th year was approaching.

But regardless of the year, God says that if someone asks for a loan you should give it. The scripture is so adamant of the generosity that should be shown that it explains that someone who denies another of a loan would be guilty of sin. I was thinking about this and how harsh this statement is. What I came up with is that God has been so generous with us. He has forgiven us our sins; he has graciously blessed us and helped us and the same goodness and generosity he has shown us he wants us to show to others. You get it?

The basic point of these verses is that charity needs to come from the heart, as it does from God. The poor and needy are also a special concern to God and His expectation is that His covenant family care for the underprivileged. Not only are God’s people supposed to care for the poor, but they are to do so with generosity through free giving. When was the last time you cared for the needy generously?

I love what Proverbs shares about the poor and needy:

Proverbs 14:21 (NIV)

“He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.”

I honestly think some of this has been lost in today’s world. We often see the poor and desolate as a nuisance. Many people conclude that people are poor through some fault of their own. That it was the doing of the poor person that put them in the predicament they are in. But what this reasoning does is it closes our hearts and our hands to those who are less fortunate. And it is exactly this closed heart and closed mind that our passage in Deuteronomy warns us against. The reality is this: as Christians and as an act of worship to our God and Creator we are to care for the poor no matter who or what is responsible for their condition (period).

3.  We will receive a blessing from God through our obedience

The problem with poverty is that the poor become isolated from the rest of society. We saw this down at skid-row. Basically there is one section in town where the poor are restricted to hang out and to live. And actually what is happening is that the city is trying to move them further away from the center of town. They want to separate them from the nicer more central part of L.A. And this is our tendency; we want to separate ourselves from the poor, whereas God wants us to care for them and to be generous to them as part of His people and as part of His family. This generosity comes in the expression of an open hand and an open heart. Now an open hand and an open heart are displayed in a continual attitude of generosity and mercy because obedience to God inevitably issues generosity to others. 

But if we look closely at the verses we will see that the instruction to care for the poor and homeless is followed by a unique promise. God has promised blessing to the Israelites (v. 6+10). Now, I am not trying to approach this passage from the angle of the prosperity Gospel that is often preached today. The blessing is promised to those who obey God’s commands and part of obeying God’s commands is caring for the poor and not being tightfisted towards them.

Our giving and caring for the less fortunate doesn’t always need to come in the means of money. While we were on our trip the students spent a lot of time giving to people and children through acts of love and service. They played with kids while leading VBS in the projects in LA, they served food at the LA Mission, our students showed love by sorting food at the LA food bank or by conversing with people from other countries in the English language learning program at the community center. I feel like a great part of what we can do in our community extends beyond financial means. A great part of our care for the poor needs to come from the heart and through acts of service.

We were blessed in many ways while we were on our trip: very rewarding, we learnt lessons of love, patience, obedience, and we drew closer to one another and to God.

In concluding, this morning I want to urge you to see people as Christ sees them, and to love them as God loves them. Don’t be caught in the trap of isolation when you know that God is actually in the business of reconciliation. If you have been catching up on sleep here this morning and are just waking up now, remember that God has ALL His people close to His heart and cares for them equally.

Please pray with me…

AMEN.