2 Corinthians 9:6

He who gives away all before he's dead, let him take this hatchet and knock him on your head.

So that the meaning of the strange inscription becomes clear when you learn what happened to Mrs. Hester Clark. In the process of building these almshouses, she fell into want due to the cost of building the almshouses and found herself a resident in the almshouse that she herself had paid for. So her liberality, her generosity, was met with ill fortune in this case. And I think to most people, this looks like madness, hence the inscription. In fact, in our society, while we do applaud generosity, and we decry stinginess, as a society, it's clear that our focus is on number one, meaning me, myself, and I. We choose to hoard treasures on earth, where thieves steal, where rust and moths cause decay, because we do not trust God to give good gifts, and we use these gifts selfishly for our own ends. But this should not be so for us. Our generosity must be rooted in God's generosity, and not just meaning the food, the shelter, the money, the clothing with which we receive our daily needs, That's not all. The salvation we've received from God is also a gift. It's not something that we earned. We do not bring anything to God except our sin, our vanity, our pride, our foolishness. Even the faith that we have is a gift of God. So if you lack this faith, you should first ask God for it.

Ask and you shall receive.

Turn from your sin, repent, and pray to God for forgiveness. But these daily needs, these daily things that we need, are not even a part of all that God has done for us. Even our very lives are a gift from God. So a fuller theology of creation helps us to see this. God didn't just create the world and then let it go. He didn't just wind up a clock and then let it go. That's deism. Rather, he continually upholds it by his power. So it's not just the stuff that we have that we owe to God, but life itself is to be received as a gift of God. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4, 7,

what do we have that we did not first receive?

And so we see that our generosity should be rooted in God's generosity. But for what? What is all this generosity to us for? Let's take another look at the text.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully.

So hearing this, we're probably likely to react in one of two ways. One, the cynical option, oh no, there must be a building project. Or two, oh no, that sounds like the prosperity gospel, smash the spiritualize button. Okay, those are the two likely responses that we will have to text like this. But we do find this principle elsewhere in the Bible too. For example, in Galatians 6 and in Proverbs and other places as well. John Stott writes that

sowing and reaping seems to be a principle of order and consistency which is written into all of life, material and moral.

So the principle there is good seed equals good crop. Spiritually, good seed equals good crops. sowing spiritually, receiving a crop of spiritual good gifts. But for what? I think this is one of the principal errors of the prosperity gospel, is that it sees this here as a sort of cash machine, what the former prime minister called

a magical money tree

, where we put money in and we receive amazing things and wealth and new cars or private jets out. This is a mistake. But they also earn what that wealth is for. So if we receive good gifts, it's not to expand our lifestyle, but it's so that we can continue in generosity. We see this in the text as well. In verse 10, Paul writes,

he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way which through us will produce thanksgiving to God.

So generosity leads to righteousness and sanctification and thanksgiving for the recipients. And this brings glory to God because his servants are showing that God is generous and that we trust him. Note that we don't have to start with grand gestures, so it's not up to us to go build almshouses right away, for instance. But it's in these small acts that we will find ourselves growing in generosity. As John Newton writes,

religion does not consist in doing great things for which few of us have frequent opportunity. but in doing little necessary things of daily occurrence with a cheerful spirit as unto the Lord.

So it will get easier to give as we give. Let's return to Mrs. Hester Clark as we conclude. So I don't know if Mrs. Hester Clark was a Christian, although I suspect so, but for Christians, what looks like foolishness here in a worldly way may in fact look like wisdom in the economy of God. So perhaps a more fitting epitaph for Mrs. Hester Clark would be, might mirror Paul's use of Psalm 112 verse nine in 2 Corinthians.

She is distributed freely, she is given to the poor, Her righteousness endures forever.

May this be said of us too. Lord, I pray that my words will do good. Lord, I pray for all of us that you'd help us to be generous in spirit and generous in giving good gifts and that we would also receive these good gifts with gratefulness. I pray this in your name, amen.