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The fortune cookie said: “If you continually give,
you will continually have.”
We Episcopalians
pretty much rely on Scripture for guidance, but
occasionally inspiration will strike suddenly from
elsewhere. Getting the fortune “If you continually
give, you will continually have” in the midst of
our annual pledge effort really took me up short.
I don’t expect such fundamentals of our beliefs
about stewardship to surface following a serving
of pork lo mein.
“If you continually
give, you will continually have.” That sounds like
a self-contradictory statement, but it strikes at
the heart of our beliefs about stewardship. It is
a truth Jesus reinforces by word and deed
throughout his life. In God’s economy, those who
give have all that they need. That’s the way that
God’s economy works. What God provides us, he
expects us to share with others.
This giving is not
just a money thing either. Too often we equate
stewardship with money, because that is what we
hold on to tightest, but stewardship and giving is
intended to permeate our lives, in God’s economy.
It just becomes easier to loosen our grip on our
possessions when giving is a basic part of who we
are.
In the adult
education session on November 2 we paged through a
typical, benign, consumer magazine and looked at
the messages that tried to grab us on every page.
It actually was comical. Page after page
advertising messages reinforced that we are
lacking in many aspects of our lives and if we
just purchase the right possessions or use the
right products, we will be better people. The
clever, engaging, entrapping, messages are what it
takes for manufacturers to get their products
noticed and purchased in a very competitive
marketplace.
The side-effect of
all of these sales messages is that we
sub-consciously come to be convinced that we have
perpetually unmet needs. We continually fall
short. We experience a continuous scarcity of
whatever it is that we need in order to be
fulfilled, happy, human beings. We must consume
and consume and consume if ever we can even
approach satisfaction.
God offers something
quite different. His economy is one of abundance.
The only appropriate thing to do with abundance is
to give from it. We can only come to enjoy our
abundance when we recognize it as such and give
from it without reservation. . “If you continually
give, you will continually have.”
(by the way, the lucky numbers on the fortune
cookie fortune were 16, 17, 23, 24, 28, and 36 and
the Chinese word for telephone is Dian-hua) |
