A Cup of Generosity: Give to everyone who begs from you

A Cup of Generosity is a monthly letter from Pastor Dana Karen Reardon and the Grand Canyon Synod Stewardship Team. Feel free to use the posts or PDFs in congregational newsletters, sermons, programming, or any other use. View our archive page, or view our main stewardship page here.

Sometimes the needs in this world seems overwhelming, don’t they? I get tote bags from Doctors without Borders and pens from another organization while they ask for help. I see devastation on TV and feel like I should be doing something more. Then there are the people who beg on the streets. One time I was driving down the street listening to the Gospel lesson for the week which I had recorded to learn by heart and Jesus was saying, “Give to everyone who begs from you.” I looked up and there was a man with his hand out, so I gave him the only $10 in my purse. 

This can make us think that it is all too much and that nothing we do can make a difference. It sometimes makes me want to give up on giving. 

I see Jesus saying, “Give to everyone who begs from you” as less of a command and more of an invitation into an attitude of generosity. I see all the requests and pleas and need out there as God offering us options. 

I no longer think that every envelope that comes in the mail and ad I see on television needs a response from me in spite of those words. What I see are opportunities to help being offered like a menu. You like chocolate cake and I like pudding. You are deeply concerned about animals and I am touched by the needs of asylum seekers. 

Let the Holy Spirit guide you and let your heart be touched and then give where your heart and mind lead you, knowing that I am giving to the causes you did not feel led to support and that someone else is also being moved. We do not do anything in this world alone even when we think we do. God is reaching out to all of us to be a part of what God is doing. It is such a blessing to be invited into that circle of giving and caring. 

Most of all know that generosity is not a chore but a way of being closer to God. Not because we are earning points toward heaven but because where there is need that is where God resides.