I once attended a wedding reception where the couple had a champagne tower. It was an amazing sight. Champagne glasses were stacked on each other. Moving upward from the bottom, each row had fewer glasses. At the top was a single glass. During the festivities, the young couple took a bottle of champagne and poured the alcohol into the glass at the top. After the glass had filled, the champagne spilled from that glass into the glasses below. When that row was filled, the bubbly liquid spilled into more glasses. At the end, the full glasses were shared, and the crowd offered a toast to the happy couple.
The scene could have been a parable about God’s blessings. As the psalmist writes, “...my cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5). You and I are blessed. We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food on our tables. However, we have even more than this. We have friendships, family, and a caring community of faith. Most importantly, God has poured his love over us. Nothing will ever separate us from that love in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:38-39).
As God breaks out the champagne, we find our glasses overflowing. The question remains: What happens to the abundance? Does it generously spill out of our glasses into the glasses of others? Or do we imagine that God’s grace needs to be hoarded? If we consider the champagne tower, the flow of blessings is as natural as gravity. Someone has to intervene to block the blessings' movement from one glass to another. That’s the way with God’s grace. It naturally flows unless someone acts.
The First Presbyterian Church of Norwalk is a generous church. You can see it in the way we treat each other. You can see it in the ministries we support. You can even see it at every potluck where our plates are overflowing. On October 22, we will celebrate Dedication Sunday. On that day, we will lift up the financial pledges for 2024 that we have generously made and dedicate them to God. The gifts that we share should never be guilt-ridden or burdensome. Instead, they should be the natural overflow of God’s generosity to us.
Paul writes that “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). I thank God for his “overflowing generosity.” Let’s pop a few champagne corks and let the blessings flow.
Grace & Peace,
James Hodsden
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