Faithfully yours - The many faces of generosity

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Published on Saturday, June 18, 2016

By Neil Strohschein

The Neepawa Banner

Many years ago, an electrical fire destroyed a family’s home. No lives were lost, but everything inside the house was destroyed. Within 24 hours, the displaced family had found temporary housing. Donations of food, clothing and furniture were collected. A year later, they moved into a new home on a farm they were in the process of buying when their home was destroyed.

This is a true story. The family lived 1.5 miles north of our family farm. I was 10 years old at the time and I have never forgotten the many ways in which we and our neighbors rallied around this family and helped them rebuild their home and their lives.

Stories like this are repeated every day in communities all across Canada. An unexpected death, a fire, a tornado, a flood, a random act of violence—these can happen to anyone at any time; and in the blink of an eye, everything we have spent a lifetime building can be destroyed.

But it is in times like these that we see many faces of generosity.

Those who can donate money to emergency relief funds. Others give food, clothing, furniture or household effects. Some people will spend their vacations helping with the massive task of cleaning up and rebuilding lost homes or businesses. Their efforts may not make the national news, but they will be forever remembered by those who were helped by these generous people.

In our day, we tend to define “charity” as “financial contributions made to a charitable organization or society.” Charitable organizations come in all shapes, sizes, varieties and kinds. But they share one thing in common and that is the right to issue a receipt for money donated by their supporters. To encourage financial donations, governments give donors a tax credit, allowing them to reduce their income taxes by a percentage of their annual donations.

Now, there is a reason why governments encourage us to make financial donations to charitable societies. These societies hire administrators, purchase goods, rent buildings, lease equipment and pay workers who deliver services to their clients–all of which can be taxed. So governments will recover every dollar credited in new taxes on the salaries and services charities provide.

Now don’t get me wrong here. Charitable organizations fill a vital role in Canadian society. We need them and we need to generously support them. But generosity has many faces and we need to identify and affirm those whose random acts of kindness are just as helpful to others as are the financial contributions made at benefit galas or in response to TV campaigns.

No one understood this better than Jesus himself. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reminds all of us that God sees every act of kindness and every generous deed that people do for others. “When you give alms,” he said, “Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matthew 6:3) Here, Jesus urges us to share what we can whenever we are given opportunities to do so—whether or not we receive any recognition for what we’ve done.

Human recognition is fleeting. This year’s tax receipt will be useless next year. But the gratitude expressed by those we help, the friendships we form and the example we set for others will remain long after the gift itself has been forgotten. And at the end of life, God will reward every act of kindness, every generous gift and every investment we’ve made in the lives of others with the words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”