Trio stands for The Responsibility Is Ours. It is a presentation which will directly talk to us about our financial giving to the church. It is an important subject and a subject about which we can feel very self-conscious. I want to attempt to share with you the theological basis for our appeal. The presentation will be addressing more practical issues.

I want to remind you of our Vision statement.

I want to emphasise that we are talking about principles of living. We are not talking about a good method of fund raising. We live in a world of instant gratification. A world where the instant moment is the one that has to be filled with a pleasure of some kind. So we have junk food, take away relationships and a throw away society.

Any sense that we belong to one another and have responsibilities for one another is diminishing. I am told that the younger generations are more preoccupied with this instant gratification. They demand it of God and of the church and if it is missing they look elsewhere to drugs, alcohol and other addictions. People are looking for a junk spirituality and that we cannot provide.

We spend much of our money trying to control how we are in the world and to provide for us what we want with regard to instant needs. This is in stark contrast to the biblical view of life. God is not an add on extra which we consider after we have considered everything else.

I was recently talking to a person about the Sinai experience. This was a pilgrimage into the Sinai desert to experience for a short while the Bedouin way of life. It was also to be in the place where much of our theological understanding of God originated. Stripped of everything western and materialistic and literally just living with the basic necessities of life this person was asked to go and sit in the desert away from other people for 2 hours and just be still. She told me that this experience of sitting alone, under the stars, for 2 hours in absolute and all embracing silence, away from any human contact, was a deep encounter with the Divine presence.

God Is was her experience. God is – is a religious statement. God is the Creator and the Sustainer of the Universe.

'The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof - the world and they that dwell therein Ps 24¹.

There are constant references in both the Old Testament and the New Testament to God's generosity in Creation. In Genesis the story of Creation finishes with the words

'And God saw all that he had made and it was very good.' Gen 1³¹

Later on this thought is also combined with all the ingredients that are necessary for growth. We read in Deuteronomy: -

'He humbled you and made you hungry; then he fed you on manna which neither you or your fathers knew before, to teach you that man cannot live by bread alone but lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God'. Deut 8³

And later the point is made that the generosity of God is such that:-

Always in scripture there are references to support the view:-

'Expect great things of God expect great things from God'

You will know some of these sayings nearly all of which come from Jesus himself. Listen to Jesus speaking :-

'Have faith in God. I tell you this: if anyone says to this mountain , "Be lifted from your place and hurled into the sea " and has no inward doubts and believes that what he says is happening , it will be done for him.' Mark11²³

Or again:-

In the gospels we see the disciples giving up everything to follow Jesus. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told of the sharing of all things in common. It is an attitude that we are talking about. It is a stance in life. It is a viewpoint. It is either the biggest gamble that we will ever make or it is a window into the workings of the Kingdom of God.

All history - all life – the whole belongs to God. God is the illuminator and owner. We are always in God's care. We are created in His image - He gave us life. Soul, breath, personality. Me I began with God. God watches over us. We cannot move out of the orbit of His love. The real characteristic of that love is giving. God’s nature has overspilled. God created the world. Mankind became the spanner in the works. But because God’s essential nature is of love He gave more:-

'God loved the world so much He gave his only son Jesus.' 1John 4⁹

Jesus restores through adoption our sonship. God is the owner of Creation. Creates us to be fellow heirs - co-creators, within His creation. If so we are accountable for our stewardship. Our use of our resources, time, skills and talents and money. Our giving reflects where faith in God is in our priorities.

Do we tip God when we think about it? Is our giving based on any principals or is it just what we get out of it. Is our giving equivalent to a daily newspaper or a bottle of wine or a bunch of flowers or not even that? Yet we shall say in this service

Yours Lord is the greatness the power the glory the splendour and the majesty for everything in heaven and on earth is yours all things come from you and of your own do we give you

Perhaps we should change this too.

Yours Lord is the greatness the power the glory the splendour and the majesty for everything in heaven and on earth is yours except those resources you have given to me. All things come from you and of your own do we give you after we have spent the larger part.

So then this exciting view of life, this adventurous view leads us to be the kind of person who sees and looks and eventually perceives. In perceiving the hand of God in our lives we are removing the daily cataracts which stop us seeing the hand of God. It is the person who has cleared his ears of the muck that keeps us deaf to the word of God in everyday life. It is the person who is living life in all its fullness. So this growing that I am talking about is more than physical growth. It is growing as human beings. St. Iranaeus said :-

'The Glory of God is man fully alive'

Growing is our journey through life. It is emotional and spiritual growth. It is growing into God. It is growing into the 'stature of the fullness of Christ'.

Now we know that there are certain conditions that provide good growth. There are also certain conditions that provide stagnation and decay. Plants need not only certain chemicals like nitrogen and phosphates but also water, sunlight and heat. We know that babies need not only milk ,sleep and warmth but also emotional closeness and love. Deprive them of this and they become automatons. In order to develop our potential as humans we need emotional closeness, security and the opportunity to love and be loved.

So it is with the life of the Spirit. God who is the source of all love comes towards us always loving and wanting the best for us. We often don't see or hear this gentle God whose love always or nearly always comes to us as in the words of the carol:-

'How silently how silently the wondrous gift is given.'

So I hope we can see that in giving we receive and that in growing our true nature will release us into acts of giving in the same way as God the gracious giver in creation is always giving. It is the way of God. Parents give to children not because they want to keep them quiet but because they love them. Lovers give of themselves to each other because that is the true nature of love. God sent His Son Jesus to show us the true giving Nature of the Godhead:

Although money does play a tangible part in growing and giving it much more about the life of the spirit and reflecting the divine nature in our own community and in our individual lives.

What ought I to give? Yourself. Humanity’s greatest need is to give wholly to God. It is also the most difficult. Jesus said to Peter ‘do you love me?’ – ‘follow me’. Each time an invitation for Peter to explore his resistance at a deeper level. So often we don't allow ourselves even the silence or the space to even hear the questions let alone answer them. We often say first thing that comes into our minds. The giving of our money is the giving of ourselves.

I finish with some haunting words from the poet R. S. Thomas which put the matter starkly. As you reflect on the TRIO appeal let these words trickle into your hearts like a fruit drop melting in your mouth:-

as love and money trying to be reconciled.'