grace-centered giving

I had just settled down on a bench on our city’s riverfront to do some studying. Out of the corner of my eye I see 3 little girls walk by carrying bags of fish. As I watch them pass, one of them makes eye contact and begins timidly approaching me. She shyly asks for some change. Reaching into my pocket, I see her two friends walking up behind her. I reach out my and to give her the coin and I feel two little hands clamp on my hand with such ferocity that I’m stunned for a moment. They begin arguing violently, their faces change from sweet-little-girl faces to little-monster faces. Soon they realize I am just looking at them, not releasing the coveted coin. We share an awkward moment, just looking at each other. Not sure what to do, I finally hand the coin over to the girl who asked for it. They leave me sitting alone on my bench with my thoughts of what just took place.

Often when we help and serve people we have certain expectations of how they should respond. I’ve even fallen into the line of thinking that justifies not helping someone because of what the final outcome will be, “Oh, they’ll just buy booze with the money” or “if we keep giving handouts it will breed dependency”. These arguments make sense, but whoever says the Gospel should make sense? I mean really, isn’t the whole point of the Gospel that we respond to it because we received something we didn’t deserve?

So how do we know who to help? We obviously have finite resources, and we are accountable for how we use those. I’m finding there is no easy answer, but there is an Answer. This is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he used language like “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit” (Jn. 15:5). Without a constant, dependant relationship with Christ, all we can do is create some laws for giving. And as in so many other cases, rules fall dramatically short. With a “rule” I may miss an opportunity to partner with God in touching one of the “drunkards” who my rule says doesn’t measure up.

In John 15, Jesus is essentially saying, the fruit that we are trying to produce may not make sense to us at the time. We instead have so tied the fruit to the action that if we don’t see anything good come out of an act of kindness, we think it was a mistake. But in the act of giving, is it possible that the fruit may be produced in our lives? Could it be that God asks us to give, not to bless the recipient, but the giver?

It was easy for me to forgive those young little girls, it’s much harder to forgive someone who should know better. But in those moments, I’m finding that it is much more important to get past those gut reactions and emotions, and listen for the still small voice of God. It often doesn’t make sense, it’s backwards, maybe doesn’t even seem fair. But couldn’t that also be said of Grace? The gloriously nonsensical, backwards, unfair gift that followers of Christ have received.

posted by Josh