Have you ever realized how convenient it is to have a hand that opens?  Think about it.  If during our time of fellowship you could not open your hand, what would that look like?  How would you open your hymnal or participate in the element of worship entitled offering?  It seems to me that we can accomplish a lot more with an open hand than a clenched fist.  Gilbert Bilezekian wrote in his book, Community 101, that an open hand is the symbol for community.  This scripture is a passage that highlights some of the advantages of having a hand that opens.  The three key words are that an open hand enables us to enjoy, employ, and invest our resources.  It is true that we can accomplish far more in life with an open hand.
 

An Open Hand Enables Us to Enjoy Life

We have been careful in this series about our relationship with our money to point out that this passage in I Timothy 6 does not condemn or judge those who are affluent.  Having stuff does open us up to particular dangers, but it is not wrong to have stuff.  We just need to be very careful.  There were those coming through Ephesus that promoted getting rid of it all and becoming an ascetic depriving oneself of even the basic comforts of life.  This passage seems to denounce that by reminding readers that God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.  I witnessed that on Tuesday as I saw college students, children, and people in their 50’s playing in the snow.  It was a fun day, but none of us fooled ourselves into thinking that the hundreds of muddy snowmen that were built would bring lasting joy.  Many of them were gone the next day and none of them remain today.  But it was fun.  Enjoy life, just don’t obsess about stuff.

One of my favorite stories to read to my children when they were small was a little book that I introduced to some of you several years ago.  It is entitled, An Elephant Is Not a Cat, and is a tale about a miller named Pieter Vanderloon:

Pieter Wanderloon vas a wery fortunate man. He hod a fine vife. He hod six roly-poly children. And he hod the best mill in all of Holland.

“Eweryone agreed that Pieter’s mill ground corn, better than any mill in Holland. From miles around people came to buy ground corn from Pieter. And from miles around people brought their corn to be ground into meal . . . Since he charged three pieces of silver for each sack. Pieter grew richer ewery day. His fine vife grew jollier, and his six roly-poly children bloomed like roses.”

“One sunny morning, Pieter vent into his mill to start the grinding vheels and vhat did he see? Two tiny mice as bold as brass, sitting on a sack and having a fine breakfast of four kernels of corn.”

“ Vife, vife!,” he cried, running into the house. “Ve are poorer today than ve were yesterday, and ve’ll be even poorer tomorrow!”

When he told his wife about the mice and the four kernels of corn, she laughed and said, “How can four kernels of corn make us richer or poorer? Ve have more than enough. Let the mice have their bit to eat.”

But Pieter would not calm down. He went out to buy a cat. On his way he found a circus man who convinced Pieter that an elephant was a better buy. “It is perfectly clear to anyone vith eyes,” he said, “that from the tip of his trunk to the end of his tail, there is far more to an elephant than there is to a cat.”

In fact, he gave the elephant to Pieter Vanderloon. The greedy miller was so proud of his steal until he got home and found that the elephant he brought to chase away the mice was a voracious eater of sacks and sacks of corn and if the mice had not frightened that elephant away for “Pieter found out vhat everybody knows—elephants are frightened to death of mice.” Then Pieter may indeed have gone from riches to rags.

We are not called to ascetism, depriving ourselves of all things material, but neither are we to be obsessed with what we possess.  Adam Hamilton wrote in his book, Enough, “The truth is more stuff makes us less happy.  There comes a point when we have enough stuff, and everything above and beyond that level only creates stress.”  I’m not sure if there is a benchmark for enough.  However, I think we might be able to recognize it when we don’t take time to enjoy our daily bread (over which we prayed earlier in the service), because of an obsession to acquire more.  If I were to draw a picture of the open hand enjoying life it would be the celebratory high five at Reed Arena after Lone Star Showdown victory.  It is true that we can accomplish far more in life with an open hand.  An open hand enables us to enjoy life.
 

An Open Hand Enables Us to Employ Resources

Verse 18 outlines how we might increase our sense of fulfillment with stuff, “They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.”  I found it interesting that the word, “good” in this verse is actually two different Greek words from two different roots – the verb “do good” is an ethical word, from the root agathos, that addresses right and beneficent.  It would be used to describe what is going on in our parking lot with the three Portable Medical Clinics or the commitment to the Call & Response event of ten days ago.  The second word translated, “good,” the adjective used in the expression, “good works,” is an aesthetic term – from the root kalos referring to something beautiful, precious, attractive, and praiseworthy.   This would be the word that we would use to describe this morning’s music from the Centenary Choir.  The ethical and the aesthetic are included in our employment of resources.  We are to be generous and ready to share.  These words bring to mind the 1996 movie Michael.  The movie is about Michael the Archangel played by John Travolta.  He tells Dorothy Winters, played by Andie McDowell, to sing.  When she begins to break out in song he says authoritatively, “Not yet.  I’ll tell you when.  Just be ready.”  We who have been blessed with affluence need to listen to a God who created us to give.  We need to be ready to share.

Hamilton points out in the book, Enough, that there are two voices that war against our God-given impulse to open our hand and share – fear and self-gratification.  Both are concerned with whether or not there will be enough for me if I share with you.  Those voices were not heard on Thursday when I was invited to Sam Rayburn Middle School in Bryan to receive a gift of $1,405 from Middle School students who wanted to share from what they had to help the people of Haiti through the Portable Medical Clinics.  This is only a couple of weeks after Neal Elementary School presented us with a gift of over 1,800 for the people of Haiti.  God created us with the desire to give and when we employ our resources for the good of others it is both right and beautiful.

Of course, there is another option.  We can respond to the opportunities to employ our resources for others with clenched fists.  Hamilton crudely referred to this as financial and spiritual constipation.  Nature teaches us that to take in and not give anything back is unhealthy and leads to joylessness.  To take a less graphic image we only need to consider the Dead Sea.  It receives lots of water, but it has no outlet other than evaporation.  It is not called the Dead Sea for nothing.  Things can’t live in such an environment.  Apparently, Frederick Nietzsche knew some of these clenched fist Christians.  The 19^th Century German philosopher is credited with remarking, “I might believe in the Redeemer if His followers looked more Redeemed.”

Leviticus 25:23 declared to the Israelites, “The land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.”  We are managers and tenants in this life given the responsibility to care for the resources that have been entrusted to us.  However, we are not the estate owners.  We are like Trustees of a foundation responsible for distributing the resources according to the expressed desires of the benefactor.  I have known a couple of such Trustees who tell me how much fun it is giving away money that is not even theirs, but I also know how seriously they take this responsibility.  We are Trustees of the Foundation that the Lord has given to us.  Take seriously how you distribute the resources, but also experience the fun of employing those resources with an open hand.  It is true that we can accomplish far more in life with an open hand.  An open hand enables us to enjoy life.  An open hand enables us to employ resources.
 

An Open Hand Enables Us to Invest in the Future

A couple of years ago CNN did a story revealing that fifty percent of Americans have less than $25,000 set aside for retirement.  Of course, the whole retirement subject is a topic about open hands.  We have to open our hands and release a certain percentage of our income to the future.  Some of us are quite involved regarding that money, trading stocks, buying bonds, putting money into CD’s.  Some of us actually hire or trust others to do that management for us.  Either way, we still have to invest in our future.  The same thing is true with how we use our resources for kingdom purposes.  If we invest in those things that truly last, verse 19 assures us that we are storing up for ourselves, “the treasure of a good foundation for the future.” 

This church knows more than most about the treasure of a good foundation.  Due to some issues with plasticity index and the potential vertical rise of Easterwood shale we were delayed by 26 months from getting complete access to our Great Hall in the Christian Life Center.  The foundation was critical to anything that would happen in that beautiful room.  I wonder if we always understand how important the foundation is in our lives. 

Giving has been a central part of worship since the people of God starting worshipping God.  Altars were built.  The best and first fruits were brought forward.  It was foundational to worship.  Hamilton states, “We give our tithes to the church to accomplish the work of God’s kingdom through the body of Christ, and the church is responsible for praying and discerning how God wants these resources to be used.”  Then he talks about 10 apples – gifts from God for us.  The tenth apple is holy to the Lord.  “Giving this apple to God first, before we consume the other nine apples, is a way for us to express praise, love, obedience, faithfulness, worship, and devotion to God.  This also serves to supply the resources for God’s purposes to be accomplished in the world through Christ’s church.”  Then he described how so many people find themselves overextended financially and they look over at the tenth apple all shiny and bright.  They think to themselves, “The Lord won’t mind.”  And they take a bite out of the tenth apple.  Then something else comes up and another bite is taken.  Pretty soon all we are doing is giving God the core.

Last week, Don House gave his witness to giving.  He told us that he and Paula tithe and that they enjoy doing so.  He said, “I make spending mistakes.  But the 10% that goes to the church is not wasted.  It is spent with good care—changing lives, giving people joy, teaching morals and ethics to children, encouraging people to have a closer relationship with their creator.  I have had the privilege of serving on finance committees of all levels of the church.  Every dollar is viewed as precious.  The church is the best steward of my money.”

I, too, find joy in tithing.  It is an investment in ministry and an investment in a good foundation for my future.  If you’re not already tithing I encourage you to discover the joy that you simply won’t find anywhere else.  If you are giving out of a sense of reluctant responsibility, I commend you for that and pray that God will give you the joy of giving.  It is true that we can accomplish far more in life with an open hand.  An open hand enables us to enjoy life.  An open hand enables us to employ resources. An open hand enables us to invest in a future.

Winston Churchill wrote, “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”  This week as you reflect on what you will commit to this church, I pray that you will determine what percent of your income you are currently returning to God and move that toward the tithe by at least a 1-2% increase of your income.  At that rate you will be doing in five years what you once thought impossible, and you will experience joy in doing so.  Live in wonder in all that you can accomplish in life with an open hand.  Amen.