In one version of our Sunday’s gospel passage, it adds the phrase: “Or are you envious because I am generous?” In Jesus time, he sensed that jealousy (envy) was becoming prevalent. When we start complaining with the words: “Why don’t I have what he or she has?!”, we tend to put ourselves on that level too.
Take for example the complaints of the older son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or the complaints of Martha about Mary who was not helping her in kitchen work, or the complaints of the early workers in this Sunday’s Gospel - these all point to the same claim: that it is not fair, that it is not just -- that is odd!
But justice is NOT the highlighted topic here, but GENEROSITY. Mercy and generosity have the same task, to GO BEYOND. Maybe, Jesus came to realize that if there was no work that day for the bread winner of the family, this would mean no food on the family table. And when the father of the family comes home penniless and hungry, this affects all the members. Too bad! Don’t we feel pity for them? This definitely calls for all to be generous.
If we don’t do anything, or empathize with the less fortunate, we will never be generous. The practice of giving to those who don’t have basic necessities isn’t merely a matter of generosity. No, it is a matter of “doing justice” actually, for generosity means following Christ’s example by going above and beyond our basic responsibility and sharing our abundance with the hungry and disadvantaged people who live in our world today.
Here are some quotes regarding generosity:
*Confucius distinguishes generosity to be rendered urgently, from the other kind which makes a person autonomous, by these words: “Give a bowl of rice to a man and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to grow his own rice and you will save his life.”
*John Holmes attributed to generosity as an expression of the heart with the words:
“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.”
*Khalil Gibran sees generosity in a personal way: “You give but little when you give of your possessions.It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
*Simone de Beauvoir would see generosity with the description: “That's what I consider true generosity:
You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.”
*St. Francis of Assisi radically states it as: “For it is in giving that we receive.”
*Lao Tzu gives us a “Christian - like view” on generosity: “The wise man does not lay up his own
treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.”
LET US THEN SHOW GENEROSITY of HEART as we OPEN our HANDS to SHARE
WHAT WE HAVE.
Fr. Ted
