2 Corinthians 9: 6-15

Harvest Festival tells us to look around and realise that there are other people in the world, who are no different to us, no more or less deserving, no more or less loved by God, who need us to pass on what we’ve received, to live as generously with them as God does with us. Some of them are in our Poverty and Hope leaflets today. There’s Moussa, in Burkina Faso. A small gift to him of goats, chickens and sheep from Christian Aid and it has turned his life around. The sheep pay the children’s school fees, and provide his family with a financial cushion if the harvest isn’t good. That means the children don’t have to work underground in dangerous mines – their only other option. They can get an education which will unlock all sorts of opportunities for them, their families and their community. A little bit of generosity, a small seed, landing in the right place in Moussa’s life has transformed not only his life but the lives of many others too...

A traveller came to a certain village, and asked for some food, but none of the villagers would help him. So the traveller said to them, “never mind, I’ll make myself some soup, using my magic stone, and then there will be plenty for us to share.” He produced a stone from his pack, and asked if he could borrow a pot. The villagers were intrigued, so someone fetched him a pot – a large pot – which he filled the pot with water. He built a fire, and set the pot over it, and then, solemnly, dropped the stone into the water. Now and then he stirred the water about a bit, and eventually he took a sip from his spoon. “Is it ready?” asked the curious villagers. “Hmm” he said. “It is tasting good, but it would be even better if I had an onion to put in it.” One of the villagers happened to have an onion – she’d had a glut in her vegetable patch that year - so she fetched it and gave it to him...

One of the biggest stories relating to giving recently, at least around here, is the Carson King story. You probably know who I am talking about. A guy holds up a sign during the College Gameday broadcast from Ames several weeks ago saying “Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished” and the way to give. It was caught on camera, and people actually sent money. He just did it for laughs, but when money came in he decided to donate it to the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. And it went viral. It became a massive story that had a number of twists and turns and controversy, but in the end people donated $3 million to the hospital. A guy makes a joke about beer money on national TV and the hospital gets $3 million...

Lynne Twist, an activist with the Hunger Project, has written a book called The Soul of Money. In it, she describes the mantra of scarcity. “For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is…I didn’t get enough sleep. The next one is…I don’t have enough time. Whether true or not, the thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of. We don’t have enough exercise. We don’t have enough work. We don’t have enough profit. We don’t have enough power. We don’t have enough wilderness. We don’t have enough weekends. Of course, we don’t have enough money…ever. We're not thin enough, we're not smart enough, we're not pretty enough or fit enough or educated or successful enough, or rich enough ever. Before we even sit up in bed, we are already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds race with a litany of what we didn’t get to or get done that day.”...