Yesterday's Leftovers

I'm posting a daily thought for Lent at another blogsite that I call A Daily Lent:

www.dailylent.blogspot.com

I read and pray with the scripture passage for the day, notice which verse or two draws my attention, then write a brief reflection about it. On some days, it means drawing out a single verse from the eight verses or so of the primary text.

The reading for yesterday was Luke 6:36 - 38. I posted a meditation based on verse 36 at A Daily Lent. I was also drawn to verse 38, so I offer those thoughts to you here as "Yesterday's Leftovers":


Luke 6:38

The measure you give will be the measure you get back.


Jesus did not advocate a tit-for-tat, quid pro quo relationship with God, in which we give from the motivation that we'll get more back in return. That may fit the technical definition of giving, but it is really a disguised self-interest. It feels like manipulation or "working the system."

In the city where I grew up, a noted television evangelist came up with a plan to both raise money for his ministry, and to bless people who gave the money. He called it "Seed Faith Giving," and the premise was that if you gave to his ministry (and thus to God), God would multiply that amount back to you. In short, for people young and old who followed the evangelist, it became a method for getting rich. If you gave sacrificially of your wealth, God would return to you many times over the amount you gave.

The plan appealed to folks who wanted to get ahead. It included elements of faith and belief and sacrifice . . . but mostly, the plan appealed to the desire of people for wealth, health and prosperity. It was a religious-sounding strategy for increasing wealth.

I don't think Jesus was interested in the way we twist the scriptures to make them about our pleasure or success. It is certainly not the spirit of this passage. Jesus was simply stating a spiritual truth, a fact-of-life in the realm of Spirit.

This fact-of-life is that God's nature is to spend God's Self on the world, to give and give and give . . . and in all that giving, to never be depleted. In the economy of God, giving does not diminish; rather, it replenishes.

To change the image, it's as if God spend and spends and spends out of a vast reservoir of goodness, yet the "water-level" of that reservoir never goes down. The reservoir is always full. That's how it is with God.

So when one gives or spends what one has, there is always more to spend or give. Those who are connected to God, who draw their life from God, are also connected to this endless Source. It has nothing to do with money, wealth and prosperity. It has everything to do with spending God-seed on the world . . . love, mercy, graciousness, forgiveness. When we spend, we always have more to spend.

This is how God is. This is what God's people are like.

At the moment we keep or hoard what we have, the cycle is broken, and that person ceases to be a conduit into which goodness can be given. But if you spend, you'll have even more to spend.

This is a spiritual principle. It's not economics. It's Spirit.