Walking along the Thames Path yesterday, from Vauxhall to the Tate Modern, was both delightful and uncomfortable. The weather was beautiful, and the sights astonishing, and full of historical and cultural interest. But there were challenges too, in those begging along the way. Questions arise about what help such people need, and are they really in need? How hard to be fully caring, and to treat people equally, when absorbed in our own lives and activities.
The early Christians faced some similar challenges, and St. Paul reflects on the fruits of committed Christian living. 'Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God.' (2 Corinthians 9.11) Paul is aware that being truly generous is a miracle that happens when we commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. He tells his stingy (but rich) friends in Corinth about his poorer but generous friends in Philippi. 'For I can testify that they gave not only what they could afford, but far more. And they did it of their own free will. They begged us again and again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the believers in Jerusalem. They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do.' (2 Corinthians 8.3-5)
In our troubled world, we need to commit ourselves to the Lord, if we are to continue to be a 'healthy church is a generous church'.
Best wishes,
Richard
charitable, but is it enough just to be generous? Perhaps Christians should give up all their money and possessions to give to the less fortunate, as Jesus himself suggests in Luke 12:33 (New International Version)
ReplyDelete33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
and again in Luke 18:22
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”