Worldly Generosity, Christian Charity
"Those who are gracious to the poor lend to the Lord, and the Lord will fully repay them." -Proverbs 19:17
The Bible is explicit about the importance of Christian charity, the act of imitating God by giving freely and lovingly from one’s time, money, or other resources to lift up the poor and the needy, yet it can be a touchy topic for Christians and churches to discuss. Christians are meant to be set apart from the world, but it is impossible to have a mindset impervious to the commands of society, which is built around the accumulation of wealth. So when the topic of giving freely or the mention of a camel and the eye of a needle comes up in a sermon, there can be an audible rustling of uncomfortable churchgoers in their pews.
However, this discomfort allows charity to serve as a useful indicator in determining one’s personal alignment with the heart of society compared to the heart of Christ. This evaluation is not as simple as considering whether one gives liberally compared to their income. After all, the world encourages generosity; there are thousands of charities with no religious affiliation whatsoever. It is a truth of human nature that we are social creatures and have sympathy for the poor and needy. But worldly generosity is limited in that it is undercut by the fundamental societal prioritization of wealth.
As an Accounting major, this is easy to see on a daily basis. At times, it is possible for me to walk into a business class and be able to predict the mood of my professor and many of my classmates in advance simply by looking at the amount of green on the screen showing stock performance on my way into the building. But more generally, every college student has experienced the most common icebreaker question, “What’s your major?” and many know the common follow-up, especially those for whom the path from field of study to career is not obvious: “Oh. And what are you planning to do with that?” The implication is clear. There is no value to having studied what you chose unless you will get a lucrative career out of it. You must be making decent money.
The prioritization of wealth comes into conflict with the worldly mandate of generosity in that the best the world can offer are monetary incentives for giving. You are incentivized to give according to the boundaries of tax breaks, advised to give selectively, to research strongly before donating to charity just as you would before a large purchase, to make sure that each dollar donated is used to get the most “bang-for-its buck.” Those practicing worldly generosity ask to be convinced that their donation is an investment. If you donate to reduce carbon emissions, your return will be another few years of an inhabitable earth; to education, a more prosperous society resulting from molding the minds of future leaders.
But of course, if the worldly reward for giving is a material one -- the same as its cost in substance, just lesser in degree -- it soon becomes clear that there is no compelling incentive to take this deal. For Christians, the same “deal” differs in both the cost and the reward.
In fact, to refer to the Christian method of giving as a deal is somewhat misleading. Christians do not practice charity in pursuance of a reward, whether this be monetary, a clean conscience, a good reputation, or otherwise. Salvation through Christ has removed the guilt and the pressure associated with the idea of giving as a way to attain anything through good works. In this way, Christian charity is a more genuine form of giving, an outflow and imitation of God’s love for us rather than a self-gratifying exercise done out of guilt or pursuance of personal gain. But although Christians do not practice charity for the purpose of a reward, there is a reward for imitating God’s love through charity: the storing up of spiritual treasures in heaven. This is not a transactional reward; you don’t withdraw from your earthly bank account and make a deposit in your spiritual gift account in heaven, but by giving, you are imitating God, whose every action towards us since creation has been charity, born out of his love for his creation.
Because Christian charity is by nature done freely and out of love, it differs from worldly generosity in that there is no bitterness or regret attached to giving up one’s resources. This is possible because there is (or should be) no cost to charity because Christians are commanded to have no love of money. In practice, of course, Christians struggle with this, which results in the discomfort associated with the topic. However, in theory, this should allow Christians to give of their time or money gladly. From a perspective of worldly generosity, this extra element of giving without reluctance or bitterness seems like an additional burden. “You want me to not only give my hard-earned money away, but also do it gladly?” However, to the Christian, there is no cost in this transaction, and the reward is greater than any earthly riches.