“GIVE UNTIL IT HEALS ”
2004 General Conference Sermon by Bishop Bruce Blake

“I have learned so much more from OIMC than I have given,” Bishop The most progound privilege I have had in ministry is that of working with the Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference. I have learned so much from this precious resource of hte church, the Indian people.

Many of you knew tom Roughface, who was superintendent of the OIMC for many years and an insightful leader who stirred us to action. His death left a gaping hole in the life of the church. His loss was apparent, but now I want to share with you the rest of the story.

Prior to Tom’s funeral, we went to the Ponca Tribal Center for a time of sharing by the Roughface family. The sharing was not in the form of words, but in the form of words, but in the form of giving. Thousands of dollars of gifts were given to members of the tribe and friends. If persons needed food, the Roughface family gave them a basket of food. Others needed household supplies. The family gave them a basket of supplies. Some had resources to meet their basic needs, so the family gave them hundreds of blankets and shawls. Karen and I sat in awe at this expression of giving by a family experiencing grief prior to the funeral of our frined Tom. We were accustomed to friends giving to a bereaved family. We experienced the family giving to us.

One year later, we returned to the same Tribal Center for the end of the year of mourning for Tom’s family. Afain, there was a “giveaway.” Families and friends received gifts as we had a year before. Special gifts were given. A feather, a meaningful symbol, was given to a special peson in Tom’s life, one of our delegates, David Wilson. I received a pair of moccasins. Again, Karen and I sat in awe of the family ending their time of grief through giving.

I asked one of Tom’s granddaughters who is here today to explain this tradition to me. She smiled and said, “We believe you can accept death better by giving than by getting.” A them resounded like an cheo in my mind, “Give Until It Heals!” In Acts 20:35, the words of Jesus are recalled, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is so different than the message which has been preached from our pulpits and paraded through finance campaigns throughout our denomination, “Give until it hurts.” But the Ponca tradition is just the opposite: “Give Until it heals.” Giving until it heals is far more biblical than giving until it hurts. Giving until it hurts turns giving into a negative experience. It is demeaning and painful. But, in the New Testament, giving is never presented in shuch a painful manner. “God loves a cheerfulgiver” does not mean giving until it hurts. “Freely receive and freely give’ does not express the idea of giving until it hurts. “Joy to the world” does not fulfill the commitment to give until it hurts.

Could it be that we have loaded down Christian giving with so many negative menaings tht what is intended to be the positive, freeing, jouyous experience of discipleship has become so negative that we shy away from addressing the intimate relationship of grace and giving?

At the very heart of the gospel is the experience of forgiveness. We all fall short of God’s calling. We all miss the mark of faithful discipleship. However, God is a God whose standards are never lowered but who children are always forgiven. Forgiveness, the good news revealed in Jesus Christ, thrusts us into the future freed from the barnacles of our past. As a consequence of being forgiven, we in turn give for others. We give until it heals not because of our possessions but because we are forgiven.

In the practice of giving, we who live in the united States must learn to sit at the feet of those who are God’s church in other parts of God’s world. I will never forget visiting with a lay leader in Angola, trying to explain why we in the U.S. struggle in giving to the church. I tried to explain the principle of the tithe. He had never heard of the tithe. I asked him to share his understanding of giving. He said, “All I have belongs to God. My decision is how much do I need and the rest I give to the churhc.” His record of giving was that often he gives more than 50 percent of his income to the church. “Why?” I asked. His answer is etched in my memory. “Because I am fiorgiven!” We need to sit at the feet of those who have learned the intimate relationship between the good news of forgiveness and our response of giving. Could it be that the United Methodist record of giving is but a corporate witness that we have not accepted the figt of forgiveness in our lives?

Could it be that we have completely missed God’s point in following Christ by challenging persons to give to causes, programs, pastors, and bishops instead of giving because we are forgiven? The problem is that causes come and go, programs come and go, pastors come and go, and bishops come and go. Wheneer giving is tied to any of these, giving will come and go.

However, forgiveness is eternal, it never comes and goes. Forgiveness is always present , always current. Therefore, when giving is our faith response to being forgiven, it never comes and goes. Again, we are reminded that giving instead of getting is the true expression of forgiveness. We are forgiven; therefore, we give until it heals as we have been healed.

The proof of this for me is in the pudding of the lives of the people. Show me people who give until it heals, and I’ll show you people who are full of joy. the smiles of the Roughface family as they gave would not have been on their faces if they would have been recipients of gifts from others. They gave in response to even the tragedies in life.
Could it be that because giving until it hurts has been the prevailing theme of our life together as United Methodists to the extent that we have so shied away from the vital connection between grace and giving? Could this be the reason why throughout the church locally, annual and central conferences, and General Conference, we have agencies and committees with finances in their title who are consumed with how money is to be distributed and expended rather than how money is to be given.

Finance committees have become distribution centers rather than being responsible for raising the standards of giving. Could it be that it is immoral, ineffective, and unfaithful to have persons serve on committees determining how money is to be allocated without being responsible for raising the standards of giving? Could it be that we have become so obsessed with expenditure budgets that we have neglected to give attention to revenue, our standard of giving? is this the reason we have removed the responsibility of raising funds from the list of duties of finance committees and council at every level of the church?

Friends in faith, could it be that the reason money is the number one issue on your legislative table this week is because we have so contaminated giving with the negative and painful message, “Give until it hurts,” that no one wants to be on committtees or agencies dealing with our number one dilemma of United Methodists? As a middle to upper-middle income denomination in the U.S., we are now almost last in per-attendee giving. It is clear, my friends, we do not have a money problem; we have a giving problem. If we have a giving problem, we have a faith problem.

Often in our experiencing of conferencing together, we are focused on what we are going to get out of the budget. We want our group to get a fair share, its piece of the pie. Evrything is focused on limited resources, when, in fact, if United Methodists would give until it heals, we would have so much money to facilitate God’s mission in the world that conferencing would be a celebration of sharing rather than our experience of divvying up a shrinking pie. Some of you are undoubtedly responding, “Oh Bruce, wake up to the present day realities. You’ve got your head in the sand.” As I read the New Testament and experience Jesus Christ in my life, I invite us to get our heads in the gospel, not in the sand!

The Oklahoma Confernce in ‘99 met soon after the tragic tornado, the most sever ever calculated by measureing devices. Many homes and lives were destroyed. We were a typical annual conference, struggling with resources allocation until a group of young men from Lydian Patterson Institute arrived for a visit. The chaplain brought us greetings and said one of the high school boys wanted to share. They had come to Oklahoma to be on a volunteers-in-mission project. They had one day of fu at an amusement park planned on their trip. They had their fun money saved for that one day. Upon arriving in oklahoma, they heard about the tornado, and they experienced the devastation. They young high school boys came to me as they gave all of their fun money as an offering to help the tornado victims. in awe, the thousand members of the conference received the gift. These young men, all very poor, knew what it meant to give until it heals! Their gift literaly changed the mood and spirit of the annual conference. Instead of a conference struggling with the second major disaster in four years-first the bombing in ‘95 and now the tornado of’99-the conference found themselves caught up in the joy of giving. There was an outpouring of gifts from the delegates. They gave until it healed. A spirit of joy came upon the confernce as rain aon a parched desert floor. This happened because of the witness of those who were cheerful givers, who gave their widow’s mite, all that they had, freely they had received and freely they gave.

Could it be that our record of giving illustrates the reality that we are entangled in a lifestyle of being justified by works, giving until it hurts rather than experiencing freedom in bieng justified by faith and giving until it heals? We must connect our giving to our faith, not our pocketbooks.

Could it be, my friends that we have missed the point? Could it be that the real agenda of this conference is giving, not the expenditure budget? Could it be that the real difference we can make in God’s name in the wold is not by distributing the pie, but by concentrating our efforts on increasing the pie? coudl it be that we need to recognize ourselves around the centrality of giving rather than around the centrality of budgeting? Could it be that our theological personal difference would fde into the woodwork if we caught the vision of giving until it heals? Could it be that the crisis in our family of faith is a crisis of faith, not of the pocketbook?

The scripture read this morning addresses religious leader, such as delegates to General Conference and accusses us of haviving meticulous account books, but we take or leave commitment. Do we have any idea how silly we look nitpicking over commas and semicolons? So we realize we are the ones who are called to scour our lives and rid ourselves of gluttony and greed (Matthew 23:23-26)?
Cout it be that we have walked into a swampland of “giving until it hurts” and are now up to our shoulders in this much and are immobilized and cannot move because we have turned the good news “give until heals” into the bad news “give until it hurts”?

As I reflect on the New Testament and the life and teachings of Christ, itis clear that there is an intimate connection between faith and giving. It is clear that joy comes from giving not getting. The foundation for Christian giving is not the thickness ofour pocketbooks but the forgiveness of our sins. Then and only then can the gift of both rich and poor be of equal impotance and sacrificial.

As I reflect on our life together in Pittsburgh for the next 10 days, we can remain shoulder-deep in the muck of being more concerned with our standard of living than our standard of giving. Or we can decide to offer leadership in our denomination of rediscovering why we have become so negative, why our differences tend to divide rather than unite, why we face 10 days together dealing with issues driven by a limited budget instead of unlimited mission.

We have a choice: to continue as we have been-linking giiving ot our pocketbooks rather than the good news of forgiveness-or leading a denomination to raise our standard of giving rather than trying to keep our standard of living. Then and only then will we as United Methodists rediscover the joy of Christian living. It is clear to me that often we refuse to increase our standard of giving because it will lower our standard of living.

We face difficult times, but remember the words of the granddaughter of the Ponca Tribe: “We can face difficult times better by giving rather than by getting.” Let us remember the Angolan lay leader who said in answer to the question why do you give: “Because I am forgiven!” Let us remember the teaching and life of Jesus, calling us to scour our lives of gluttony and greed.

The challenge is for us to organize ourselves around the centrality of the good news. We are forgiven people! As forgiven people, we are called to “Give Until it Heals.”