Cultivating a Heart of Genorosity
In our epistle, the Apostle Paul urges generosity. That is indeed the very thing that we are promoting in the fall stewardship program that I introduced last Sunday.
Generosity is an attitude of the heart that stems from thanksgiving. Therefore, we have called our program the “Harvest of Thanksgiving.” We can be sure that when we sow the seeds of love, faith, peace, and kindness wherever we go in life. The Lord of Life will make these seeds grow, and they will produce fruit in the lives of others.
Furthermore, as there is a cycle of crops in the field from preparing the soil, to planting, growing, and harvesting, so there is a cycle of our spiritual sowing and harvesting. God gives us his blessings. Then we respond in thanksgiving, and we share a portion of the blessings of the Lord with others. In turn, those who receive these blessings give thanks to God. Moreover, the seeds of God’s goodness sprout, grow, and produce fruit in their lives. And those who have received God’s blessing through us in turn share their blessings with others.
St. Paul believed that this very cycle of sowing and harvesting was what would happen in his day. The Apostle, you see, wrote the words of our Epistle as a promotion of a special project. This project was to collect an offering from all his churches for the relief of the mother church in Jerusalem.
This fall the diocese called for a similar offering. Two churches in our diocese were flooded in New Jersey, and we sent money from this parish to help. In total, our diocesan churches contributed $33,500 to the aid of these churches.
Likewise in St. Paul’s day, the church in Jerusalem was having a difficult time. The Christians in the mother church were suffering from longstanding and desperate poverty. The Apostle appealed to all the mission churches that he had started to come to their aid. Paul himself would collect the offering of his churches and personally go to Jerusalem to present that give to the church. This would be a way of sharing the love of Christ with fellow believers. It would also be a way of underscoring the unity of the Church, the oneness of both Gentile Christians in the Empire and the Jewish Christians of the mother church.
So here is the cycle of thanksgiving. Out of thanksgiving for the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Church sent missionaries like Paul to proclaim the Gospel. This was like sowing the seed of the Word of God throughout the world. In places like Antioch, Macedonia, Galatia, and Ephesus, this seed has sprouted and grown.
St. Paul spoke about his work in one of those places, Corinth. He said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6). Now the seeds of the Gospel were ready to produce a harvest in Corinth. The offering for the poor in Jerusalem was the fruit of the labors of St. Paul and others in the planting the Gospel in the Roman Empire.
In various places in scripture, St. Paul recalls the long journeys, the dangers, the shipwrecks, the mobs, the beatings, the jails, the sleepless nights, and the unending work of proclaiming the Gospel. But now his work has paid off, the Church has been established throughout Asia Minor and in Europe across the Aegean Sea.. And the sign of the establishment of the Church in the major cities of the Empire. And the fruit of intense missionary work was to be a special offering. It would be a substantial offering given in thanksgiving to God for His gift of salvation in Christ.
But what would the result of this offering be?
St. Paul believed that the mother church in Jerusalem would receive this offering with joy, and they would give thanks to God for this gift. So the cycle of planting and harvesting would continue. Those who contributed to this offering would have a double blessing. First, they would be blessed with God’s good gifts. Second, they would have the joy of knowing that others would benefit from these same blessings through them.
The driving force of this cycle of sharing in the grace of God is thanksgiving. The more thanksgiving that we have the more generous we will be. And as St. Paul said, the more generous we are, the abundant is the harvest of thanksgiving.
But now the Gospel for today adds another level of insight. Thanksgiving takes an open heart. This is true whether we are talking about receding or sharing God’s blessings.
First, in order to receive the gifts of God, we must be open to receive them. Recall that in our Gospel, the sower sows the seed on all kinds of soil. This teaches us that the Almighty God sows the seed of His Word of Grace and Life in His Kingdom in the hearts of all sorts of people.
St. John Chrysostom explains that God does not discriminate between one person and anther. Asthe rays of the sun fall over all the earth, so the Almighty God shines the gift of His grace on the world.
But some people to whom God offers His grace are not open to receive it. The Lord Jesus Christ teaches that to produce the harvest takes a “noble and good heart” (Luke 8:15). It does not depend on the sower or the seed: these come from the God of steadfast love.
Therefore, it all depends on the condition of the heart. It takes an open heart to receive the spiritual blessings of God. Like the path, it can be hardened by bitterness, despondency, or despair. Like the rocky ground, the heart can be shallow and careless. Like the weed patch, the heart can be full of worldly concerns. None of these states of the heart is truly receptive to the Gospel or the grace of God.
Moreover, the test of the fertility of these soils is the capacity for thanksgiving. If anyone should find it hard to be thankful, then he should look to the state of his heart. A heart that is bitter, downhearted, or in despair knows only its bad feelings. It cannot be grateful. A heart that is shallow and careless does not recognize the value of what is given. A heart that is full of the cares and pleasures of this world has no room for the grace of God.
It also takes an open heart to share God’s gifts with thanksgiving. The test of this willingness to share is faith. If anyone finds it hard to share one’s blessings, then he should look again to the state of his heart. A heart that lacks trust in God’s goodness will give, perhaps, but only grudgingly. A heart that doubts whether God will provide what one needs will only give sparingly. A heart that thinks that it can only rely on itself will give but only out of a sense of duty.
Generosity comes from thanksgiving, and thanksgiving is a state of one’s heart. A heart that is open to God in thanksgiving is necessary for both receiving and sharing the blessings of God. If anyone has such an open heart, he will bear the fruit of sharing the blessings of God with others.
But if anyone has a heart that is unable to receive the blessings of God or unwilling to give, then know that hearts can be changed. The hard path can be ploughed up. The rocky ground can be broken up. The weeds can be plucked up. The birds can be driven off. And hearts can become open to receive the Word of the Gospel, the grace of God, and the nurture of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, hearts can become open to share the blessings of Go, and what was once infertile soil can become fertile and produce a rich harvest to the glory of God.
Therefore, today let us pray with the psalmist that the God of Grace would “create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within” us as the psalmist says (Psalm 51:10). With this right spirit will come the restoration of the “joy of salvation” (Psalm 51:12) And with it will come a “willing spirit” (Psalm 51:12) and an overflowing sense of gratitude. Then with this open heart and grateful spirit, we will indeed joyfully produce a “harvest of thanksgiving,” We will bear the fruit of faith, love, joy, and peace in our lives and sow those same seeds of goodness in the lives of others to the Glory of God.
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