Joy in Giving

            Recently, I attended a 3-day conference on stewardship. The conference (Stewardship Kaleidoscope) was held in San Diego, Ca and it was wonderful. I ran into several people that I knew, which was a surprise, including someone I graduated with from seminary. The theme was “vital signs of a healthy steward.”

            (Aside: Stewardship is a “churchy” word. A steward takes care of something. Stewardship is how we take care of things whether it’s time and place, money, our bodies, each other, our environment, etc. I’ve heard it said that stewardship is not a program; it’s a lifestyle.)

            Our keynote speaker was Erik Law, a writer, episcopal priest, and the founder of the Kaleidoscope Institute (https://www.kscopeinstitute.org/). In one of the group exercises, everyone got bookmarks that represented currency (it could be monetary currency, but could also be the currency of time/place, wellness, leadership, relationship, or truth, what Eric Law calls the Holy Currencies). Our task was to take the bookmarks and give some of what we had to someone else. “Give until you have more and I have less.” If I had four bookmarks, I had to find someone with three bookmarks and give them one or more of mine. Then someone would find me and give me bookmarks so I had more and they had less. So I had to find someone who had less and give them more. Then someone found me…this went on for at least ten minutes and I think Mr. Law was right when he said that if he hadn’t stopped us, we would have kept going. The energy was palpable. Everyone, even the introverts, were engaged in this exercise, and we had a blast. We were excited to find someone to give our bookmarks to, and we actively looked for the people who had less so we could give.

            Simply put, giving was a joy.

            That’s what we noticed. What it made me wonder was this: when does giving bring joy?

            When we pass the offering plates in church, I don’t notice the same expressions of joy that we experienced in the conference. True, we were exchanging currency in the form of identical bookmarks. Obviously real-world currencies are more valuable. When you donate time, do you experience (and express) joy? When you donate space for something – like when a community group uses our church building – do we experience and express joy? When you put your offering in the plate as it is handed to you on Sunday morning, do you experience and express joy?

            Another exercise we did was this: find a partner and talk about the best experience of receiving a gift and the best experience of giving a gift. My best experience of receiving a gift was when my then-boyfriend-now-husband gave me my engagement ring. To me, it was more than a ring. It was a promise. It was a promise that the long-distance relationship we were in would be no-distance soon enough. It was a promise that we were bound together and that Team Mallozzi would make it. So much love went into that ring, and the love it represents was the best gift I’ve ever received. My best experience giving a gift is when I adopted a family for Christmas. My husband and I adopted a family last Christmas and bought three kids and a single mom Christmas presents. The mom sent me pictures of the kids opening their gifts and just seeing the joy on their faces brought so much joy to me, that I knew it was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

            And that feels weird to admit, because it feels a little bit like tooting my own horn. But Jesus reminds us in the sermon on the mount to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). I think the way we give glory to God is by doing what Jesus suggests in Matthew 25: reaching out to the least of these. If my giving encourages your giving, praise God! There is joy in giving, regardless of what we’re giving. I get to give, and yes that feels good, but it also does good.

            What would it look like for year-long stewardship to remind us of the joy of giving? What would it look like if we experienced and expressed joy every time we put something into the offering plate, or every time we volunteered at a soup kitchen, or every time we paid for the coffee for the car behind us in the drive through, or every time we held the door for someone, or every time we donated school supplies to schools for kids in need, or every time we *fill in the blank*? Do you experience and express joy in giving?

            In some ways, the gift-giving because a sacramental practice. It’s an expression not just of joy, but of grace. Jesus gives us love; our giving spreads that love back out into the world where it belongs.

            As the line from the musical Hello, Dolly goes: “Money – if you’ll pardon the expression – is like manure. It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around, encouraging young things to grow.” 

                                          (Eric Law's song, sung to the tune of the Doxology)