Sunday, May 23, 2021
Katie Snipes Lancaster
Scripture: Matthew 6:19–21
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Spiritual Practice: Generosity
If you have been reading along since Easter, you have been submersed into the possibility of fifty spiritual practices. If you go back over them, there are so many ways to dig deeper into the presence of God. I don’t know which of these practices most called to you, but I know that at least one of them can and will. Each of us will be called in our own way.
Our final spiritual practice is one of generosity.
• “Generosity is the virtue of giving good things to others freely and abundantly.” —Christian Smith
• “Generosity changes us, filling us with joy and filling our lives with blessings.” —Adam Hamilton
• “Generosity is a spiritual virtue that is part of a larger life of discipleship.” —Karl Travis
We live a generous life in large and small ways: the smallest of generosities can shift us toward larger ones, and vice versa. And we pattern our generosity after the generosities of Christ. I love the stories of Jesus being followed by crowds, and you can hear his exhaustion, and you can hear their need, and it is as if he takes a deep breath and gives his all, again. He heals the woman who has been sick for years. He heals the rich man’s slave. He heals the young daughter. He heals the man who was sitting at the sacred pool for years. He sits with the children. He says, yes, feed the crowds. This is the kind of generosity Christ invites us to: a constant, sacrificial, abundant generosity based in the real need of real people for whom your small and large acts of generosity will make a transformational difference.
Daily Prayer
God of generosity,
Teach us again to live
Sacrificially
With love.
Amen.