Dear Friends,
This week, I have been reflecting on these words of Jesus from Luke 6:35 (NIV), "Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked."
There is a fair amount of debate in conversations about caring for people in need around whether those benefiting from gifts or services are at fault in their situation of need and whether they actually deserve assistance. I find this problematic in that it seems to assume deservingness on the part of those who have resources already. But, if we pay attention to the teaching of Jesus, there is a much bigger reason to dismiss arguments against caring for people in need, and that is that Jesus doesn't argue for generosity on the basis of just deserts but on the basis of the character of God. If we wish to be children of God, we are not to be generous to people we like because of what they deserve. Instead, we are to be generous even to those we think of as enemies because, in this way, we participate in the very nature of God. God is kind to all, including us, in spite of all of our faults and failures and in spite of all our ingratitude, which stems from the illusion of our deservingness. And so those in Jesus are to be indiscriminately generous in our love and care for others in imitation of the one whose children we claim to be.
A prayer for today,
"Father, forgive me for my ingratitude as I imagine myself to be more deserving than others. Forgive me for judging and for failing at kindness. Teach me to be kind as you are kind, forgiving as you are forgiving, and generous as you are generous. Let me be your child, doing the things that you do together with you. Amen.
Love in Christ,
Michelle
