A Challenge To Generosity

Having looked in recent posts at sustainability and simplicity, the logical next step is GENEROSITY.

This post by Phil Whittall is a good starting point. The issue of generosity, he writes, goes further than simply the wallet - "it reveals the condition of my soul." He assesses very honestly the natural selfishness of his own (and, no doubt, your) conditioned responses, which instinctively says spend and not give. He concludes, bravely: "My hope for my baby son, is that I can introduce him to the greater joy of giving before he figures out the lesser joy of receiving."

One very early Christian text can back this up. The 'Didache' (pronounced "didder-key", it's Greek for "teaching") is of uncertain date, but internal evidence leads most commentators to place it at the latest AD 100. It is a short handbook of moral and practical governance for churches, perhaps in Syria, and it is anonymous.

Here are some quotations on generosity (and meanness) which carry the freshness of Early Church clarity.

Let your money sweat in your hands until you know to whom you should give it.

Be not one who stretches out his hands to receive, but shuts them when it comes to giving.

Do not hesitate to give, nor grumble when you give; remember who is the good Paymaster of the reward [i.e. God].

Share everything with your brother, and do not say it is your own; for if you are sharers in the imperishable, how much more in perishable things?

Whittall concludes: "I want a richer life and that means giving. I want to be like Jesus and that means giving, I want to be blessed by God and that means giving. So I don’t want to work out how to live on less but work out how to give more." It is desires like that which resonate so well with the Early Church, as shown in the Didache. More than that, they're prophetic.