Dear Friends,
The people of Boulder are a generous people. The people of First Church Boulder are a generous people.
I have seen this in action in little and large ways in my time at First Church. I watched a few Sundays ago when a person I know lives on the street was talking with a person he just met who was stranded in Boulder, and I saw the person I knew reach in his pocket and pull out all his cash and hand it to the person who was stranded.
A month or two ago, when Pastor Lynnette preached, she was joined in the pulpit by member and Illuminator, Travis, and he told about how he carried around a whole lot of stuff and was always giving it away, and whenever he turned around he was always finding more stuff than he had recently given away!
I was at a Boulder Chamber of Commerce celebration recently, where they were celebrating women in the Boulder Community (two of whom we know pretty well around here – Suzanne Hoover and Paloma Delgado-Corchado). These women were celebrated for the ways in which they have shared themselves with money and time and hands-on involvement. Boulder is a generous place, from the humblest tents along the creek to the finest homes looking out on the mountains around us.
Boulder is a generous place. I was most struck at the event celebrating women when Suzanne Hoover mentioned that one of the areas of her and Dave’s philanthropy, their generosity, is their church. As far as I heard, she was the only one who mentioned a faith community. First Church is a generous church.
Our generosity comes not because we think this church is a good investment (even though it is), but because we are a generous people aware of God’s love poured out on the world and on our lives and wanting to be such generous givers ourselves! (We are, after all, made in the image and likeness of God.)
This generosity comes when times are hard and when times are good. The passage we are focusing on this month from the gospel of Luke talks about “leaping for joy.” The passage begins the verse before where it says “blessed are you when people hate you and exclude you, revile you and defame you on account of me [Jesus]”….it hardly seems the occasion for joy, and yet it is what Jesus says next…”Leap for Joy.”
Generosity is the response you make and have made for 166 years. We will continue to Leap for Joy, no matter what comes. Those 166 years weren’t all sweetness and light. Yet we are here today because our ancestors were generous.
We continue the tradition!
Keep tellin’ the Story,
Mike
Enjoy this children’s choir singing – “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.”
This week’s takeaway: Boulder is a generous place. First Church is a generous place. Let’s share our generosity as graciously and grandly as we can!