We’re rich … but we feel rotten.
 
That’s the surprising state of affairs in our society today, as we discover that cash cannot create contentment.  Sure, we may watch “The Fabulous Life of Celebrity Super Spenders” on VH1 – yes, I do … I admit it.  We may gawk at the extravagant shopping sprees of Hollywood’s best-paid superstars, but we know that most celebrities are just a few steps away from having a meltdown and ending up in rehab.
 
What grandma always said is true: Money can’t buy happiness.
 
Still, most of us expect that improvements in quality of life are going to make us feel better.  But they don’t – at least not by themselves.  In his new book The Progress Paradox, Gregg Easterbrook makes the point that life is getting better all the time: Our houses are bigger than ever, our incomes are growing, our health is improving, and the environment is becoming cleaner.  We are even enjoying a drop in crime rates, and decreases in certain problem areas such as divorce, teen pregnancy, drug use, and abortion.
 
So why isn’t all this good news making us feel good?  Gregg Easterbrook, who is a member of a Presbyterian Church in the DC area, has some intriguing ideas about why we feel rotten in the middle of our nation’s great riches.  He makes the case that:
 
First: Bad news sells.  It’s always a disaster of some kind that draws us to television news reports, and bad news is what keeps us glued to the tube.  During a snow storm in the early 1990s, Channel 4 changed the name of its weather segment from WeatherCenter to StormCenter.  Well, guess what?  They never changed it back, not even for sunny days.  Bad news sells.
 
Second: We don’t sleep enough.  Americans sleep an hour less every night than they did a generation ago.  And if that’s not bad enough, we sleep about two or three hours less per night than people did a century ago.  With such sleep deprivation, no wonder we feel cranky!
 
Third: We are full of envy.  Awards shows, feature films, celebrity Internet sites, People magazine, and programs such as “The Fabulous Life of Cameron Diaz” are constantly bombarding us with information about how the more fortunate members of society live.  This is bound to make us feel envy – even if our lifestyle is really quite comfortable.  (David Wessel, “Sad Little Rich Country,” The Washington Monthly, November 2003, 51-53)
 
For these reasons, and others, we are experiencing a progress paradox – we are feeling bad while living well.  But there is also a spiritual component to this problem, one that is addressed quite clearly by Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians.  Writing to a group of Christians in the wealthy Greek city of Corinth, Paul reminds them that they have promised to give him a “bountiful gift” for the poor Christians in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 9:5).  Although he describes this as a completely voluntary gift, it is clear that he expects the Corinthians to be generous in their support, and he promises many rewards for their giving.
 
For Paul, you see, true happiness is found in what you give … not in what you receive.
 
“ God loves a cheerful giver,” he tells them, ramping up the very first Christian stewardship campaign (v. 7).  Do you want to be enriched in every way?  Then let’s see some “great generosity” (v. 11).  Are you interested in glorifying God?  Then show your brothers and sisters “the generosity of your sharing” (v. 13).  Are you looking for God to provide you “with every blessing in abundance”?  Then don’t hold tight to a miserly attitude -- instead, “share abundantly in every good work” (v. 8).   
 
The apostle Paul is laying out for us another paradox – what we might call “The Stewardship Paradox.”  In any true paradox, you are faced with a statement that seems to be contradictory, but turns out to be true.  In Paul’s words to the Corinthians, he is saying that personal enrichment comes from great generosity, and that blessings in abundance come from sharing abundantly with others.  His point is that you receive the most by giving the most. 
 
The Stewardship Paradox.
 
But how can such a contradiction be true?  “The point is this,” says Paul, using an agricultural image: “the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (v. 6).  Whether you are growing melons or mission projects, Paul is absolutely right – you cannot expect significant results without making a significant investment.  There will be no great harvest of pumpkins in the fields, or people in the pews, unless forward-thinking men and women are willing to sow bountifully by making significant investments of time and talent and treasure.
 
As we move forward with our 2005 stewardship campaign, the words of Paul will ring as true for us as they did for the people of Corinth.  In our Minute for Stewardship this morning, we heard from Christian Education, and in the weeks to come we will be hearing from Membership Concerns, Personnel, Property, Mission Outreach, and Worship.  In each of these moments, we will be challenged to practice some “bountiful sowing” -- “bountiful sowing” that will lead to “bountiful reaping.”
 
But there’s an unanswered question in the middle of this Stewardship Paradox: How does generous giving actually lead to contentment?  The connection between sowing and reaping makes good logical sense, but the link between giving and happiness is a bit harder to establish.  It is not immediately clear how good stewardship can actually make us happier.
 
A man named Patrick Johnson found a link one day when he wrote a check for an air-conditioner.  Johnson is a vice president at an investment service, so he is doing pretty well for himself, financially, but he has discovered that his greatest joy is not to be found in managing portfolios.
 
Instead, his joy comes from giving, and it’s a joy that borders on hilarity.  As he was writing a check to help purchase a central air-conditioning unit for a local homeless shelter, he started praying and thinking about the immense joy that God was feeling as he gave to this worthy cause.  He started thinking about the joy that would be felt by the homeless men as they slept in an air-conditioned room in the sweltering Mississippi heat.  He then started thinking about the joy these men would feel when they felt God’s love, maybe for the very first time.

And what welled up in Patrick Johnson, as he prayed, was laughter.  He was actually so overwhelmed with joy that he laughed.  It was spontaneous laughter, born out of the joy that was being experienced by God, by the homeless men, and by Johnson himself, due to one small gift.  
 
Now this story might surprise you, but it shouldn’t.  When Paul writes that “God loves a cheerful giver,” what he says in the original Greek is that God loves a giver who is hilaros – the root of our English word “hilarious” (v. 7).  What God loves is a hilarious giver, a person who gives with spontaneous joy and laughter.  (Patrick Johnson, “Hilarious Giving,” Generous Giving Website, www.generousgiving.org/testimonies/display.asp?id=95.  Retrieved April 19, 2004)
 
So, when was the last time that you actually laughed as you sat down to write your check to the church?  Or to the Red Cross?  Or to 25:40?  Or to The Lamb Center?  Maybe you’re not giving at the level that will tip you over into hilarity.  Or perhaps you’re not focusing enough on the joy that God is feeling, and that needy people are feeling, as a result of your generosity.
 
Hilarious giving.  That’s the solution to the Progress Paradox that we are living with every day, the antidote to the unhappiness we are bound to feel in the middle of our self-obsessed secular society.  We can certainly capture a more hopeful view, but only by learning to give with joy and laughter.  As we commit ourselves to Christian stewardship, both inside and outside the church, we will discover that God is truly able to provide us with every blessing in abundance (v. 8).  As we share our resources with people in need, we will find that we will be enriched in every way, and we will find ourselves filled with the “surpassing grace of God” (vv. 11-14).  As we make sacrifices for others, we will come to see that money cannot buy happiness, but generosity can.  As we receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper together, we will discover again just how generous God has been with us – giving us the priceless gift of his own Son Jesus Christ.
 
Who knows?  The joy of all this giving might even cause us to break out in laughter.
 
In a world that so often makes us feel rotten, there is really just one key to contentment: Hilarious giving.  Amen.

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