Living By The Spirit - 6

LIVING BY THE SPIRIT

6 - GENEROSITY

Almost every mail delivery brings requests for a contribution to one cause or another. Then the telephone rings and a telemarketer asks for support for her or his special project. Or the doorbell rings and a student solicits money or offers me a product to raise funds for a school program or sports equipment no longer paid for by public taxation. My grandchildren are involved in similar enterprises too to pay for a trip with a group to some distant place.

My response is always the same no matter what the request, I throw the junk mail in the recycling box. I say thanks but no thanks to the telemarketer. I never buy anything from anyone at the door. When it comes my grandchildren, I waffle and make a contribution, sometimes more than they ask for.

I do have my own preferred charities and I give what I can from the fixed income of a senior citizen. Occasionally I do feel guilty about not being more generous. Or angry because government cut-backs and downloading are depriving so many people of what they need, forcing them to depend on food banks and hand-outs from charitable institutions. Whenever I am able to contribute a modest amount to some special cause, it makes me feel good.

Paul Had a Word for It.

That is only a small part of what Paul meant when he used the word agathasuné. Very few 20th century English versions translate the word as "generosity." Most of them, from the King James Version of 1611 onward, speak of it as "goodness." That leaves me wondering just what to goodness goodness is.

For Paul, God is the source of all goodness. In II Thessalonians 2:17, for instance, he prayed that God would fill the Thessalonians with a powerful resolve to do good. In Romans 15:14 he spoke of his confidence that the Christians in Rome, whom he had never met, were "full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another." He anticipated they would support one another on how to live as Christians in Rome during the unstable reign of Emperor Nero. In Ephesians 5:9 he urged the congregation in Ephesus "to live as children of the light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true."

Many books have been written about the biblical metaphor of light. That’s a curious phrase the translators used for what Paul had said, "the fruit of light." Yet that is exactly how the Greek words should be translated. Light as a metaphor for good also appeared quite commonly in the Hebrew Old Testament and in Jewish literature of the period between the Old and the New Testaments. God first created light and called it good. Jesus astonished people by the way he treated them with endless compassion. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) he spoke of doing good (literally "good works") as a light shining for all around to see. That was the way he lived.

In a remarkable series of statements attributed to him in John’s Gospel, he said "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life." (John 8:12) Again he said, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world." (John 9: 5) And yet again, "I have come as light to the world so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness." (John 12:46)

In the prologue to his gospel John wrote, "What has come into being in him was life; and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out." (John 1:3-5) Jesus creates new life for everyone who believes in him. The good life comes not from having wealth or a comfortable living. It comes from having a relationship with God through faith in Jesus. Such a relationship banishes hostility, creates the compassionate, and makes effective the love for one’s neighbor Jesus expects his followers to show.

In the First Letter of John we read that light and goodness are inseparable."This is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another; and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." (I John 1:5-7)

Obviously, not everything that happens in the real world can be described as good. When we speak of evil, no matter what its cause, we often use the word darkness to describe it. We all know that we have a dark side too. The challenge for Christians then as now has to do with how we live in the ever-changing world around us. That has to do with our relationships.

We relate to one another in a myriad of different behavior patterns. We also relate to everything in our environment. That makes environmental issues vitally important. We have exploited so much of the world’s resources us that we are in grave danger of ruining our home. Even if we don’t engage in a disastrous nuclear war, we may yet return this very small and fragile planet Earth to primordial chaos and darkness. Have you noticed that a great many of those protesting the economic machinations of big business, the World Bank and the World Trade Agreement are young people? They have made defending the environment their major concern. To them, goodness means preserving a healthy world to live in when they have responsibility for global decision-making.

So what then is "goodness?" And how do we make it real in everyday living?

As a student training for ministry, I spent three summers serving two small congregations in Quebec’s Laurentian mountains. Each winter weekend too, I traveled from my college residence in Montreal to conduct worship for those folk. Some of these families had lived there for several generations. In summer I boarded with a lovely childless couple, Duncan and Marguerite Shaw. They had never had much success at farming the hilly land Duncan had inherited from his Scottish ancestors. He had wanted to be a minister, but had been forced to give up that dream to care for his aging parents.

Duncan was the leading elder of his congregation. He had also served as a lay delegate to Montreal Presbytery at the time when The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925. He was proud to have been the first person in the presbytery to cast a vote for the union, but he was still staunchly Presbyterian in his outlook. He knew the Shorter Catechism by heart and could quote Bible verses at every turn of a conversation. And he was generous to a fault. If his wife or anyone else questioned a decision that revealed his inherently generous nature, he would quote the King James Version of James 4:17 "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is a sin."

Definitely not a passive virtue.

At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel we have a description of a typical day in the life of Jesus. (Mark 1:21-39) He was busy doing good from morning to night teaching, healing, meeting endless crowds of people who clamored for his help. And that was the sabbath! He was exceedingly generous with his time and energy. When did he take a break for himself? Mark 1:35 says it all: "In the morning while it was still dark, he got up and went out to a desert place, and there prayed." His time of fellowship with God was his sabbath.

The monastic life, followed by fewer and fewer people these days, did not consist entirely of prayers and chants as television and popular literature may portray it. One immediately thinks of Thomas Merton, the monk who spent the last few years of his life as a hermit in a restricted corner of the Trappist monastery in Gethsemane, Tennessee. He participated in the peace movement, the civil rights movement, and liturgical revival. He also traveled widely and wrote books that became extremely popular. He died as a result of an accident while attending a Christian-Buddhist conference in Bangkok. Since his death his writings have been influential in fostering contemplative practices for many lay people who have never visited a monastery or only go there for occasional retreats.

In the monastery not far from my boyhood home, a group of Trappist monks used to carry on their strict devotional life in what had once been a mountain retreat. They also made a many significant contributions to the betterment of Canadian life. They had a beautiful and productive farm on the southwest slope of the mountain overlooking the Lac des Deux Montagnes (Lake of Two Mountains). They founded an agricultural college to train agronomists and veterinaries. They carried on plant and animal research. They developed new varieties of poultry, fruits and vegetables specially adapted to the local climate of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence River valleys. One of their most significant achievements was the making of Oka cheese, an aromatic delicacy much desired by sophisticated palates. Kraft Foods Inc. paid a handsome price for the licence to produce this cheese commercially when the monks could no longer continue making it for the open market. Many years ago, the provincial government took over the agricultural college. Quite recently the aging monks with fewer and fewer applicants to take their place announced that their monastery would be sold because they could no longer continue their special ministry. Like the Master whom they served with fully dedicated lives, those monks were highly regarded as good men by all who knew of them.

In January 2000 Canada Post honored two women and two men with commemorative stamps for their special humanitarian services. One was the well-known Prime Minister, the late Lester B. Pearson. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in creating the international force to maintain peace during the Suez Crisis of 1954. That initiative launched Canada’s continuing role as a global peacekeeper. The other three are less well-known, but nonetheless qualify as good people.

Raoul Dandurand, a Montreal lawyer, spent 44 years in the Canadian Senate and served as president of the Assembly for the League of Nations, forerunner of the United Nations. The citation on the Canada Post web site tells of him as "a tireless promoter of equality, peace with justice, and security through cooperation."

Pauline Vanier, wife of the former Governor General of Canada, General Georges Vanier, served as a Red Cross volunteer in Paris during and after the Second World War. Later, she and her husband founded the Vanier Institute for the Family to do research into and develop programs to undergird Canadian family life. At the end of her life, she retired to help care for residents in L’Arche, the community for disabled adults which her son, Jean, had founded.

Elizabeth Smellie headed nursing services at home and abroad during both World Wars. Between the wars, she supervised the Victorian Order of Nurses, a public health nursing service. Early in World War II she was invited to organize the Canadian Women’s Army Corps with the rank of colonel, the first woman to be so ranked in the Canadian army.

My wife and her brothers knew Miss Smellie as Auntie Beth. Actually, she was a cousin of my father-in-law. The daughter of a medical doctor and his wife from Port Arthur, Ontario (now Thunder Bay), she took her nurse’s training at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. There she became imbued with the patient-oriented approach to health and healing originated by Sir William Osler. Throughout her long career she had a passion for the well-being of those for whom she cared or with whom she worked. I personally felt her generosity when she thanked me for the way I read a passage from I Corinthians 15 at the funeral of my wife’s real aunt.

In a Saskatchewan farm community an elderly widow swept and dusted the local church for which she received the modest sum of two dollars a week. At one point the church needed a new roof. The stewardship committee decided to hold a special fund raising campaign to pay for unexpected expense. Every family associated with the congregation was visited and asked to contribute. All except this one widow. Everyone knew her limited circumstances and felt it would be an imposition to ask her. One day she met the chair of the stewardship committee and demanded to know why she had not been visited. "I want to give my two dollars a week to the roof fund until we can replace it,"she told him. The embarrassed steward graciously accepted her generosity.

Psalm 34:8 puts the Hebrew idea of what is really good in the simplest of words: "O taste and see that the Lord is good." Their word for good, tov, occurs hundreds of times in the Old Testament. God is good. Creation is good because God made it so. What God wills is good. What is good had no existence apart from God. We humans have no chance of knowing what is good except by reference to the will of God. The prophet Micah put the Hebrew faith as clearly as possible: "He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8) From the story of creation onward the Old Testament reveals that it is the saving acts of God which provide the evidence of God’s goodness. The New Testament proclaims that the greatest good of all is that God came among us in Jesus of Nazareth so that we might not only know what is good, but have the power to do it.

From private to public good.

James Madison, the Virginia-born champion of religious freedom and fourth president of the United States, may have been the first to popularize the idea of public good as distinct from private rights. He emphasized the importance of protecting both in his Federalist Paper, no. 10 written in 1787.

The idea of public good has not been popular in the corridors of power in recent decades. Instead, private initiative and enterprise in every aspect of life have been given most attention. Yet the concept of public good is as old as the oracles of the Old Testament prophet Amos. Speaking for God he thundered, "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." He was crying out for the Israelites to be as concerned for the poor and needy neighbors as for their own wealth, pleasure and comfort. He was speaking of what God wills for all of humanity.

Is this just a far off dream of Utopia? Or is it, perhaps as never before, that this has become a real possibility in our time if the wealth, resources and productivity of the world are shared by all?

Introducing his Moderator’s Consultation on Faith and the Economy, the Very. Rev. Bill Phipps, Moderator of the United Church of Canada from 1997-2000, pointed out that many individuals and organizations - the churches included - were responding "with keen analysis and committed compassion" to the Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative for the year 2000. That ambitious undertaking focused on the cancellation of the crippling debt of the world's most impoverished countries, the redistribution of wealth, release for those enslaved by debt, and the renewal of the earth.
Phipps said further:

Among other things, biblical faith is about economic relationships. The word "economy" comes from the word meaning "household," and the biblical criterion for a healthy society is how well that household is managed so that no one is excluded from its well-being.... The criteria for economic justice are how the hungry are fed, the homeless housed, the refugees welcomed, the oppressed set free, the earth tended. God's dream for the earth and all its creatures is no theoretical construct. It is real, specific, and life-giving.

A friend once said, "the economy is how we love one another collectively." The moral economy is one where we manage the resources of the earth so that everyone participates in well-being without the earth being destroyed in the process. It is an economy in which the complexity and variety of the human experience is celebrated and enhanced.

Loving one another collectively is the essence of the public good. Only so can we build a free, peaceful, prosperous community. Jesus envisaged this kind of community in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-11. According to John 15:13, he told us how to create it: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." He showed us what he meant by his death on the cross. As biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann put it: "Jesus presents an entirely different kind of economy (than the market-driven madness now infecting the global economy), one infused with the mystery of abundance and a cruciform kind of generosity."

The early church actually created such a community soon after the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 2: 44-45; 4:32-35) Some people may hastily condemn such utopian ideas in the same way they now regard Communism and Socialism. Communism never did escape the violence of class struggle nor deal with the selfishness and corruption of those who gained power by brutal means. Socialism, on the other hand, still gives many people hope that society can be organized for the welfare of all. Its Achilles heel, however, is the difficulty of organizing the political and economic means to carry it out. The need to gain and maintain political power by democratic means continually confronts those who try.

Because of its ideals the British historian Arnold Toynbee once called Communism a Christian heresy. It tried to implement the sharing economy of the apostolic community without the spiritual motivation. For a considerable part of the 20th century, Socialism received strong support from a large number of devoted Christians. Included were clergy from small parishes and such dominant theologians as William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury and titular head of Anglican Churches throughout the world from 1942-44. The current distortions and disruptions of the global economy by rampant "market-driven" capitalism give no evidence that we can expect more success to come from that system than from any other which may have been tried during the long history of humanity.

In 1949, Herbert Butterfield, then professor of modern history at Cambridge University, delivered a series of lectures on the BBC later published in a short book, Christianity and History. He presented his thesis that Providence of the living God of the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition is the moving force of history. History moves forward by cooperating with Providence rather than challenging it. Disasters, however tragic, may in fact have compensatory effects of which no one may ever be aware until long afterward. Butterfield regarded the two closely related world wars of the first half of the 20th century as just such a disaster. He could not see what would happen in the half century to follow, nor did he try to predict it. He did say this, however, which the history of the past half century has been proven to be prophetic:

Millions of men in a given century, conscious of nothing save going about their own business, have together woven a fabric better in many respects than any of them knew. And sometimes it has only been their successors who have recognized that the resulting picture had a pattern, and that that particular period of history was characterized by an overarching theme.

As I have witnessed it through the past 50 years, the theme of history has been a remarkable generosity. I cite three main events or processes as Butterfield called them. The reconstruction of Europe and Japan after World War II, the liberation of the majority of the world’s people from European colonialism, and the increasing concern for the well-being of the planet Earth’s total environment. One could also name the creation of the United Nations and its many agencies dedicated to science, health, human rights and the resettling of refugees.

At the end of 2001, the Hon. Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Great Britain, published an article in the Washington Post advocating generosity of historic proportions to accomplish the ambitious development targets set by the world community for 2015 - halving world poverty, cutting child mortality by two-thirds and guaranteeing every child primary education. He wrote:

My plan is this: In return for the developing countries pursuing corruption-free policies for stability, opening up trade and encouraging private investment, wealthier countries should be prepared to increase development funds by $50 billion a year: the resources needed to achieve these agreed-upon development goals.

On the other hand, Professor Butterfield also issued this warning to those who would seek to manage history:

The hardest strokes of heaven fall in history upon those who imagine that they can control things in a sovereign manner, as though they were kings of the earth, playing Providence not only for themselves but for the far future .... And it is a defect in such enthusiasts that they seem unwilling to leave everything to Providence, unwilling even to leave the future flexible, as one must do.... It is agreeable to all the processes of history, therefore, that each of us should rather do the good that is straight under our noses. Those people work most wisely who seek to achieve good in their own small corner of the world and then leave the leaven to leaven the lump, than those who are forever thinking that life is vain unless one can act through the central government, carry legislation, achieve political power and do big things....
From his approach, Butterfield drew the conclusion that the purpose of history is, from the personal point of view at least, to engage in doing what is right and good following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. He said in conclusion:

We can do worse than remember a principle which both gives us a firm Rock and leaves us the maximum elasticity for our minds. The principle: Hold to Christ, and for the rest be totally uncommitted.