Would you invite someone to dinner if you had no food? Who gives when they have nothing? Apparently, that’s what the poor widow in our Gospel story did, as Jesus tells it:
A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
Out of nothing – everything she had. Was that nothing or everything? This overturns the notion that you have to have something to give something, that you only need to give if you have a little left over. What would it look like if people gave whether or not they had anything?
My church group served dinner at the men’s shelter in Stamford last night, as we do every month. None of us asked the men to give us anything – but why not? Why do we assume that, just because they have no home or financial resources they have no assets to share as human beings? And yet, as I went around offering to pray with each man there, I didn’t think to ask them to pray for me.
What if we expected recipients of charity to give generously as well as receive, if that was considered normal? I don’t mean that we should ask someone who comes for a meal to sweep out the kitchen. I’m not talking about charging for help we give. I’m suggesting we create a culture of giving even among those who “have nothing,” as a way of fostering wholeness and integrity in community. I suspect we’d have a lot more empowered people filling our shelters and soup kitchens, and empowered people do a lot better on job interviews.
There is a spiritual principle at work here. We claim that God created the universe ex nihilo, out of nothing. We proclaim that Jesus, who had no earthly goods, poured himself out completely, giving his entire life and spirit to what looked like defeat. And on Easter we trumpet his victory out of nothing, celebrating an empty space, a void, where a corpse was supposed to be. Out of nothing, everything.
That widow in the temple might have given her last coins because she was out of options, out of strategies – she was casting herself entirely upon God’s mercy. She gave what she had and left herself empty and ready to receive.
We all know how to give out of our plenty. What are the areas in which you feel you have nothing? What would it look like to give from that place? Where is God inviting you to try that?
No comments:
Post a Comment