There was a young man who was attending church one Sunday, and when the offering plate was passed to him, he dug into his pocket, pulled out a quarter and dropped it in. Not wanting to belabor the process, the young man quickly moved the plate onward, but as he did, he felt a small poke on his shoulder. He turned around and saw the smile of an elderly woman who had been a well-known member of the church for many years. In her hand she held a $20 bill, which she handed to the young man. Deeply moved and impressed by her generosity, the young man quickly placed the $20 note in the offering plate as his heart began to stir with emotion. “What generosity this woman has shown”, he thought to himself. As the plate made its way down the pew, the young man felt the small poke on his shoulder again and he turned around to the woman behind him. With a kind smile she said “Young man, that $20 bill fell out of your pocket.”
Generosity can be moving- it stirs something within us; a 2017 study in Nature Communications highlights a neural link between generosity and happiness, stating “generous behavior is known to increase happiness, which could thereby motivate generosity.” We are seemingly hard wired to respond to another’s generosity with generous behavior of our own. And perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the modern cultural phenomenon of the fast-food drive-thru pay-it-forward line.
In December of 2020, the town of Brainerd, Minnesota made national headlines when over 900 customers kept a pay it forward line going at Dairy Queen for multiple days. The generosity of one person had a ripple effect- a chain reaction if you will- which carried on to others and offered an inspiring story during a difficult social and economic time. I wonder if the first person who paid for the car behind them knew just what kind of impact they would have through their small act of generosity. It is amazing to think that many of the people involved in this story likely didn’t know one another, yet their generosity compounded into something greater than a single act of giving. And if you are like me and have found yourself in the wonderfully awkward position of being told the car in front of you paid for your meal, you know that there is a certain feeling to respond- whether out of generosity or social pressure that’s for you to decide- but because we are hard-wired towards generosity, I think that is one of the reasons so many people end up carrying on the pay-it-forward energy. In fact, we are so hard wired towards responding to generosity with generosity that one young man went viral online this past April because he refused to carry on the pay-it-forward energy when he ordered a $7 meal while the person behind him had ordered over $55 worth of food. You really can become famous for anything these days. But drive-thru lanes aside, generosity is a gift from another, and how we choose to respond to that generosity can cause a chain reaction.
Generosity is a gift from another, and how we choose to respond to that generosity can cause a chain reaction.
In the second chapter of John, Jesus and his disciples are invited to a wedding in Cana. Weddings at this time were different from weddings today. At that time weddings were events that lasted many days, sometimes involving an entire week’s worth of ceremony and celebration. During the course of the wedding festivities in Cana, Jesus’ mother makes the startling observation that the hosts have run their stores of wine dry. Whether this is for poor planning or a wild crowd, the scriptures do not say, but what we likely can presume is that the family of the groom have found or are soon to find themselves in an uncomfortable position. Planning a wedding is difficult and tedious and there is perhaps nothing more worrying than the idea of running out of food and or wine for your wedding guests. Jesus’ first miracle, the changing of water into wine in response to this embarrassing miscalculation, highlights the importance of generosity in the life and death Jesus has come to embody. Jesus’ ministry begins by highlighting God’s generosity just as his forefather, David, did in Psalm 36:
How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
David recognized that God’s generosity and love are like an overflowing well which cannot be contained, and because God’s generosity has been poured out into our lives, we now live differently:
For with you is the fountain of life;
In your light we see light.
Because we have received life and light from God, we see light and are called into this new way of life which is identified by generosity and love.
I find it interesting that the first miracle of Jesus is not attributed to him by those in attendance. No one, besides the servants (likely the lowest class of those present at the ceremony), recognizes that it was Jesus who brought about the abundance of wine. That isn’t to say the effects of the miracle went unnoticed- the steward calls for the bridegroom and relishes at the fact that the good wine has been saved until now- but there is no recognition that Jesus was the one to have provided the choice wine. I can imagine the joy and adulation that would spring forth throughout the wedding festivities when the steward enters exclaiming that they just found 6 full vats of vintage wine. I’m sure the celebration livened up, joy spread, and those in attendance felt a response, of some type, for their generous hosts. Like those at the wedding in Cana, like the young man in the pew, and like the 900 customers in the pay-it-forward line, we may not know exactly where the first act of generosity came from, but we find ourselves in a place where we have the choice to respond and how we respond matters.
But if we are careful to observe that which is happening around us, like the servants at Cana, our faith will point us towards that first act of generosity. We are reminded of this first act in the first chapter of John. “All things came into being through the Word, and without the Word not one thing came into being.” God has made a choice to give life, God has made a choice to love. As David exclaims in the Psalm:
Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O Lord.
All of life is included in this generous act of love. God’s generosity pours out throughout all places and all times, and it is in the life of Jesus where we find the fullest testament to the abundant generosity with which God so loves the world. Just as Jesus’ first act of ministry on Earth highlights God’s generosity, so too does his final act of ministry before his resurrection. The cross of Christ stands as an exclamation point which proclaims just how far God’s generous love is willing to go in pursuit of us, God’s beloved people. When we pull up to the drive-thru window, the good news of the gospel rings loud and clear- your bill has been PAID!
When we pull up to the drive-thru window, the good news of the gospel rings loud and clear- your bill has been PAID!
So, how will we respond to that good news of generosity today?
How will we respond to God’s generous gift of and in our lives?
How we will share that generosity with others?
How will we live like servants, like those servants at the wedding in Cana, who witness the truth and stand ready to live into the response to that miraculous generosity?
We are hard-wired for generosity, but we live in a culture that has become inebriated on cheap wine. We are encouraged daily to focus on ourselves, to worry little about where our blessings come from, and in so doing, forget the importance of sharing our blessings with others. We are faced with the illusion that it is our efforts which bring about a heart of generosity- our pride and our egos drive the ways we choose to be generous. It has become harder and harder for us to remember that it is God whose generosity not only frees us but claims us- we are able to be generous because God first loved us. Because God has been so generous with and in our lives, we are freed and inspired to be generous to and with others. Our response matters, there are implications no matter how we act.
Because God has been so generous with and in our lives, we are freed and inspired to be generous to and with others. Our response matters, there are implications no matter how we act.
In his 1963 book, “Strength to Love”, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes: “every [individual] must decide whether [they] will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” When we respond to God’s generosity with generous and selfless acts unto others, we widen the doors; doors which God has opened for us in Christ, doors through which others can enter into this blessing of generosity. But we have a choice, and our choices have the power to set in motion a chain reaction which is bigger than just one single act of giving- a chain reaction rooted in the love and generosity of what God has already done for us in Christ. Will we choose creative, life-giving selflessness, or will we choose to recede into the darkness of destructive selfishness?
In this weeks lectionary text from Isaiah, the prophet states:
“For Zion’s sake, I will not keep silent
And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest”
We have a responsibility to live out the generosity of God without ending. Everything we do should be rooted in and point to the grace which God has so generously blessed us with. Like the prophet, we have the choice to live into this generosity or not, but for Zion’s sake, we are called to not keep silent. Do not rest in showing the generosity and love of God- it is needed in the world now more than ever.
So how will you respond to God’s generosity today?
Our bill has been paid, how will we pay it forward?
Originally preached on Sunday, January 19th, 2025 at Webster Groves Presbyterian Church.
Scriptures: Psalm 36:5-10 and John 2:1-11
The TASK 
Leave a comment