II Corinthians 8:9 “God’s Mission Is Our Mission!”

There was a story that appeared in the Washington Post this past June that caught my eye. It was about a 59-year old math teacher at Northern Virginia Community College named Richard Semmler. Wealth is not in this man’s background; his parents could not afford to send him to college. His teaching job at a community college is not one that makes a person rich. Yet Richard Semmler is a man who donates as much as half of his total annual income to charity. Last year’s contributions in fact surpassed $60,000.

Professor Semmler’s goal in life is not to become a millionaire, but to give away that much. At this point, he’s up to $770,000 dollars. It’s why Semmler has a couple of extra part-time jobs. It’s the reason he does not take vacations, drives an old car, lives in an efficiency apartment, and forgoes home telephone service.

Beneficiaries of Semmler’s generosity include the college he attended, an educational foundation that provides scholarships and aid to needy students at his community college, Habitat for Humanity (where he also serves as a hands-on volunteer), and the Central Union Mission in Washington, D.C., which is a homeless shelter and soup kitchen.

I don’t know what you think. But I would say that this man has a mission. “Life isn’t always about multiplying what you get,” or so he says. “Sometimes it’s about subtraction.” Like me, some of you may want to ask, “What is it about this man that would cause the Washington-Post to make him the subject of a feature article?

In America, 8 out of 10 people spend more money than they make ($1.17 for every dollar earned in 2000). The average American family owes $17,000 to $19,000 on credit cards, $15,000 to $20,000 on family loans, and besides their mortgage, $20,000 on two car payments. Life for most of us, in other words, is not what it is for Professor Semmler. It’s not about “subtraction,” but about “multiplying what you get.”

For Jesus, however, life was about “subtraction.” Jesus gave up his place of honor as God’s Son in order to be born as a human being like us. Jesus lived here on earth much as Richard Semmler does. “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,” he said in Matthew 8:20; “but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” Jesus saw his role in life as one who “came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) For us and for our salvation, Jesus was willing at the cross to make the supreme sacrifice of himself.

Life is about “subtraction” rather than “multiplying what you get.” Was not this what made the widow stand out for Jesus in the Temple? According to Mark 12, he sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. She “has put more into the treasury than all the others,” Jesus said to his disciples. “They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything -- all she had to live on.”

The early Christians likewise made “subtraction” their mission in life. “All the believers were together and had everything in common,” its says in Acts 2:44 and following. “Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” When a famine arose in Judea, St. Paul did not lay down the law to the churches he had founded in the rest of the Mediterranean world.

“You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” or so he wrote in our text from II Corinthians 8:9, “that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” When it came to “giving more,” many of these same early Christians were already “tapped out.” Yet they went ahead and “gave beyond their means” and even begged “for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.” (8:3-4)

The life of “subtraction” that was the mission of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, remains our mission today. Professor Semmler, to my knowledge, is not a Lutheran. Well I might wish that he were a member of one of our Southeastern-District congregations. But he could be any of us. For what Semmler models for us in our own “theology of the cross.” As Lutherans we believe that the church is a “priesthood of all believers.” The ones who make the supreme sacrifices of themselves are not just the High Priest or some designated tribe of Levites. It’s all of us to whom we hear St. Paul speaking in Romans 12, where he says, “I beseech you by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God.”

In his book The Present Future, Reggie McNeil deplores how the age of Christendom perverted biblical steward-ship into a matter of keeping our clubhouse maintained for another year of ministry to ourselves. The average American donates 2% of his income to charity each year. That was good enough for Christendom. But it’s a new age of becoming ABLAZE for God’s mission that we have entered. It calls for Lutherans who, like the early Christians, are ready to become full-time followers of Jesus, and like the widow, are ready to make a more total sacrifice of self for the sake of the mission that lies beyond their church’s doors. I want to do that. But do you?

“Professor Finds Fulfillment in Emptying His Pockets” is the title of that Washington Post article that caught my eye back in June. I believe this is true. For the life of “subtraction” rather than “multiplying what you get” that was the mission of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, remains our mission today. Amen.

Dr. Jon Diefenthaler, President

Southeastern District, LCMS