Give and it shall be given unto you.
Besides football we’ve been thinking a lot about the economy this week.
You could see our gospel reading as topical in its call for generosity – topical or countercultural!
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
Give - in this word and action lies success in life although it flies in many ways against the spirit of the world.
We could think of our home economy and how it is best served by Christian principles but I will choose something more basic to many households.
Think of the meaning of marriage. In it we give ourselves. We take, yes. People don’t get married unless they got something out of one another, so to speak, but unless there is giving there is little blessing.
Giving of time one to another, giving of patience, giving the benefit of the doubt, giving care to one another.
This is not a natural action. It is so far, but when our human capacity to give seems exhausted, be it in marriage or in other realms, we need our Christianity which is the open line to heaven Jesus gives us.
Christianity is about grace, about help from above. Blessed are those who have discovered that grace and help as a reality to aid daily living and loving!
In Jesus, God's unbounded love is given to all who will welcome his Holy Spirit. We receive from his Spirit to give more than we can humanly give to others.
In the sacrament of marriage couples receive a special anointing in that Spirit. In this, the sacrament of the altar we receive the same Spirit.
With that gift, in Holy Communion or marriage, comes the call to love as the Lord loves you, to give as the Lord has given to you.
Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again.
Our lives, our marriages, our churches, to be most fruitful need to be open to God, who is able, by his spirit, to melt our meanheartedness and make us ever more generous.
Through this Holy Communion Jesus gives himself to us under the veil of bread and wine.
Let us respond to his word to us this morning by a resolve to be generous and make space for others and for him in our hearts. Amen.
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