How to Share God’s Generosity
Homily for 1st Sunday of the Holy Cross, 18th after Pentecost
2 Corinthians 9:6-11.......Luke 5:1-11
Probably we think we know the message of the story of the miraculous catch of fish in today’s Gospel reading. Surely it tells us that Jesus Christ has chosen us to help bring Him a miraculous “catch” by preaching and teaching the Good News of Salvation and “fishing for people.”
But notice that this passage from St Luke’s Gospel also shows us God’s great generosity. After an exhausting and frustrating night of fishing with no results, Simon Peter agrees to try again when Jesus tells him to put out into the deep water and lower the nets for a catch. The huge catch begins to break the nets. They have to call their friends in another boat to help them. And the fish practically overflow both boats. God provides. Bountifully. Abundantly.
Today we read a passage from St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians that also talks about God’s generosity. It contains one of the most over-used and possibly mis-used verses in the whole New Testament: “God loves a cheerful giver.” Every fundraising campaign, every pastoral appeal, every pledge drive uses this verse. We hear it so often that it doesn’t, in fact, make us cheerful.
But in the context of the Apostle’s message, we can hear it differently—less as a kind of accusation and more as a kind of promise. We can begin to understand how our sharing of God’s generosity helps to make us “fishers of men.” Bringing people to Christ by giving them the Good News and by giving them material assistance also brings us joy.
St Paul tells us that God can “provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”
He continues, “You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us.”
We can see that St Paul envisions voluntary generosity—not extorted by force or shame, not performed with profit or reward in mind. This generosity mirrors God’s generosity, which comes from God’s life-giving and saving love for the world.
But sin besets and afflicts the world, so that human greed often thwarts God’s generosity. People who have much always seem to want more. Not that they actually need more. They see that they can increase profits by cutting salaries or firing workers. They claim that they can achieve savings or increase efficiency in government by eliminating programs that distribute surplus food to starving people or by reducing the number of food safety inspectors or by allowing private contractors to cut, mine, and drill in national parks, forests, and monuments. None of this brings people to Christ by sharing God’s generosity.
However, we must follow and act on the words of Jesus, as Simon, James, and John do in today’s Gospel story. We may think that our efforts are fruitless, but we have to put out into the deep water, lower our nets, and go fishing, in faith and obedience.
In practice, we have at least three ways of sharing God’s generosity (and becoming cheerful):
One-to-one giving to other people who need help. We can provide meals or transportation or home maintenance to a disabled neighbor. We can give cash to people who approach us on the street, not worrying about how they might use it, but sharing God’s blessings. We can “adopt” a family to help them get through hard times or to get established in their new country. We can volunteer to teach people to read or to help them file their taxes.
Giving to charities that assist people by pooling individual contributions. Local food banks use donations to buy supplies more economically in large quantities, instead of trying to use random boxes of mac’n’cheese and corn flakes, bags of rice and noodles, and assorted cans of soup and green beans. Individually, we cannot pay scientists to fight cancer or AIDS or Alzheimer’s or diabetes, but thousands of us can contribute to organizations that fund medical research.
Paying our taxes to fund government programs that provide food, health care, housing, and education to our brothers and sisters. Some people argue that this is not voluntary and is not the job of government, but only the government, acting on behalf of all the people, can do so much for so many people on such a massive scale. And surely we should prefer to care for our sisters and brothers instead of bombing babies, building ballrooms, and benefiting billionaires.
We act as God acts because God has created us in God’s image and likeness. We give because God has given to us. We bless because God has blessed us. We are generous because God is generous. Consequently, we will reap bountifully and God will increase the harvest of our righteousness. For this we cheerfully give thanks and praise and glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever and to ages of ages. Amen.
