The Offering by the Gentiles

October 22, 2023

Today is the CROP Hunger Walk! Some wonderful people will walk about 4 miles to raise money to help people in our community and around the world, so they have enough to eat! Today is also our Harvest Home collection for the Williams Valley Food Pantry! It’s great that we are helping people we don’t even know, some of whom are very different from us, and live across the globe. Thanks for your generosity. You may think, this is just what Christians do and have always done! But not at first.

And today we’re talking about the offering by the Gentile Christians. Gentile means anyone who is not a Jew. In the early Christian church, there was the church in Jerusalem, the original! But there weren’t so many churches in Israel. Many newer churches were located in modern day Turkey and Greece. The church in Jerusalem was made up of Jewish Christians, people who grew up Jewish, then became Christians. The Church in Corinth and other cities were mostly Gentile Christians, who hadn’t been Jews first, before becoming Christians.

The offering by the Gentiles, by the mostly Gentile Christian churches, shows us a first of its kind care and concern for people far away, who were very different from the givers, from a very different culture. The offering by the Gentiles began a Christian tradition we find ourselves embracing today!

Took a long time to make this first of its kind offering happen! Paul started working on it in 1 Corinthians. Paul wrote at least two letters to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians was the first letter he wrote to the church in Corinth. In 1 Corinthians 16: 1-2 Paul writes, “Now about the collection for the Lord’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. ² On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income.” This money would be used to help the Christians in Jerusalem.

But then, there was a crisis in relations between Paul and the church in Corinth. Paul and the congregations weren’t getting along. The offering didn’t take place. It is likely the Christians in Corinth said to themselves, why should we help the Christians in Jerusalem? We don’t know them. They live 300 miles away; we’ll never meet them. They’ll never help us in return.

At the time, you didn’t help people who lived far away. And there was a “What’s in it for me?” attitude to giving. Maybe I will help my neighbor who has fallen on hard times. But I will expect them to help me if I ever need it.

There was something called patronage. If you were a Roman citizen, you gave with the understanding you would get honor and status from your giving. That is somewhat similar to what happens today when someone has a lot of money and donates to a hospital and in return the emergency ward is named after them. They are honored for their gift.

But in that culture, it went further: if someone wealthier than you helped you out financially, you owed them a favor. If he gave you money, you might be expected to help him, for example carry his shield if he had to go serve in the military!

If you watched the godfather movies, it was kind of like that. You could ask the godfather for a favor, but then he would expect you to help him in the future, or else!

Now Paul was asking the church in Corinth to give to the church in Jerusalem. But from their point of view, at first there seemed to be nothing in it for them!

Then a few years after Paul wrote the first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul and the church in Corinth repaired their relationship. So, Paul asks in 2 Corinthians 8 that the church complete its giving to the offering. Paul doesn’t believe in the patronage way of giving, where you expect to receive a favor from the person you give to. Paul calls this offering to the church in Jerusalem an act of worship. He said, you don’t have to give a big gift. This isn’t for show. But you have to be ready, eager to help! Open your heart to some far away, Jewish Christian people you don’t even know, who are poor, enduring a famine, and will most likely never send you any help!

Finally, the church in Corinth, and the other Gentile churches send the offering! Never before had a local, multicultural group felt responsibility for people with whom they had almost nothing in common, who they would never meet, who were from a different culture!

Paul worked for several years on this offering. He dedicated a lot of effort to make it happen! He got these churches to do something that to them seemed strange. And it may have even, in part, led to his imprisonment. Paul was sent to prison, then killed. Paul dedication shows he thought it was worth it!

Why was the offering worth it? Why was it so important to Paul, and also became important to the church of Corinth and other churches as they decided we want to do this? Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” Paul is saying that Jesus came down to earth and became poor, to bless us with salvation! We have received grace and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. We give grace, which is God’s undeserved favor, to others. The same grace we received we give! Paul believed, and the Gentile Christians came to believe, that they were created to make the lives of strangers better!

Paul also saw something in common between these two very different groups: the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, and the Gentile Christians in new congregations to the north. They were one in Christ! They might not realize it, but they’re one! Sometimes the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem didn’t like the idea of Gentile Christians. They thought you had to be Jewish first to become a Christian. Paul knew a connection between the Jerusalem church and the Gentile church, and love for one another would grow as they gave and received this offering.

When a stranger is kind to you, it sticks in your memory. Someone ran into my car in Tamaqua a few weeks ago. There was a guy who just picked up his kid from daycare who stayed with me on the street until the police came. I remember thinking that he had a very patient little boy, who sat in his car seat a long time! The man had seen the accident, and seen the driver of the other care leave, saying she had to go get her sister and would be back. She did come back. He wanted to make sure I was ok. That is grace, unearned favor.

When the Jerusalem Christians received a generous gift from the Gentile Christians, I’m sure it stuck in their minds! How nice of them to care about our need! It became a Christian tradition to believe that followers of Christ are created in part to make the lives of strangers better!

The offering by the gentiles started a new thing in the Christian church: readiness to help a stranger. It’s good to be wise before we give or help. But as followers of Jesus, it’s in our DNA to show grace to people we don’t even know. And that idea spread to people who aren’t Christians. In our culture, whether you’re a Christian or not, we don’t think it’s incredibly special to give an offering to strangers on the other side of the planet. But it is special! Giving readily, without thought of reward, is so inspiring, and makes a big difference!

My homework for you this week, is to think of a time a stranger saw your need and helped you. How did that feel?

I want to thank you for your readiness to help people you don’t know, will never meet, who might be very different from you! Please know the receivers of your gift are awed by your grace, that you care for them as if they were family and friends. And God is grateful, that you are sharing grace: unearned favor and undeserved forgiveness, with the world. Amen.