A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 26

Chapter 26 – When You Give

 

Mother Teresa asks us, “Have you ever experienced the joy of giving?” (p. 166) She goes on to say how she doesn’t want to see people giving simply to give away their stuff or their money, as in to hide the money from the government, but to give because they want to do so, to give from their heart.

 

So often in today’s society, the people who give the most are those who have the least. I think it’s because they understand what it means to be without, so when they see their fellow human beings in need, their first instinct is to help them. On the flip side, there are a lot of people who live with such abundance that they could never spend all the money they have, or they fill their house (or maybe more than one) with more stuff than they could ever use. Now perhaps it’s because they grew up with nothing so there is an instinct to surround themselves with everything they couldn’t have earlier in life. But there are certainly plenty of people who grew up wealthy, remain wealthy, and yet can’t seem to part with their money or their possessions. And when they do decide to give, there needs to be all this fanfare around it. I suppose it makes them feel important?

 

Jesus says, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them…So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets…to be honoured by others.” (Matt 6:1-2) It is important that we share our resources, that we give from what we have, but it’s just as important to do so with humility. If we make giving all about us, then we’ve missed the point.