Getting and giving

Today’s world is very focused on getting. Our media is full of advertisements trying to persuade us to get things. Many of us want to be rich because of all the things we would then be able to get. We judge lives by how much stuff people have gotten. When people say someone has done well for themselves, it’s usually because they have got a high-paying job, a good house and good investments.

But things don’t need to have a dollar symbol attached, to be part of our culture of getting. A look at anyone’s to-do list will reveal a wide range of gets. We want to get fit, get married, get pregnant, get a boyfriend, get more friends, get famous, get a university degree, get a trophy.

And when we are feeling miserable about our lives, what are we usually upset about? What we haven’t got. We haven’t received the love, the friendship, the opportunities, the beauty, the money, the accomplishments, the treatment we deserve. We wanted to have gotten more and we’re annoyed that we didn’t. 

Some churches have also jumped on the getting bandwagon. They tell Christians about all the things they can get if they pray. They tell them that God wants them to get that job, get more money, get healed. We pay a lot of attention to “For everyone who asks receives”.  Not so much to Act 20, where Paul tells us that Jesus said “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Whatever happened to that? Was is just something that worked well in Jesus’ day, but isn’t really applicable in today’s consumer culture? I don’t know so. I’m pretty sure the idea seemed just as strange then as it does now. But it’s often the things that seem the strangest that have the most to teach us.

It’s a completely different way of measuring things than the one we are used to. We are taught to believe that how much stuff a person has and how much we get is what’s important. To place more value on giving completely turns things around.

It’s kind of hard to get our heads around. We may say it. We may even believe it. But do we live like this? When we go to bed at night, are we thinking of all the ways we gave? Or are we thinking about all the things we failed to get, all the things we did get and all the things we want to get tomorrow? When we write out our goals, are they all about giving? Or do most of them revolve around getting? When we think about accomplishments, do we think of the things we gave or do we think of the ways we got?

So it’s not quite gospel truth – but Acts is pretty close and Paul did say that Jesus said it. So taking it as gospel truth, how does that change the way we think about our lives? Do we think differently about what ourselves and others have achieved? Does it change our goals and priorities at all? Does it make us see that what we thought was important really isn’t that important after all?

And it works. This isn’t just something that looks good in the bible, but fails to work out in real life. It really works. A parent receives much joy from their relationship with their children – even though it is a relationship that involves lots of giving and not much getting. When I feel down, I have found the best way to cheer me up is to go out and help someone – and I’m sure I’m not alone. The happiest people are often those that are in jobs that involve lots of giving. The unhappiest people are generally the most selfish ones.

So why not try it? Cross out a few gets on your goals list and replace them with some gives. Think about your accomplishments only in terms of what you gave. Try to give more love than you receive. And if you’re feeling down, forget about cheering yourself up with a spending spree. Try a giving spree instead.

Committed to the cause

If I were a king and wanted to get a whole heap of warriors to fight for me, there are three ways I could do this. I could scare them into fighting. Threaten to kill them or torture them or make their life a living hell if they didn’t fight. That would work – until they started thinking I wasn’t that scary anyway. Until they began to wonder whether I really had the power or the resources to carry through on my threats.

Or I could bribe them into fighting for me. Promise them rewards – good pay, gold, land, whatever. That would work too. Unless they didn’t get those rewards when they expected them. Or unless those rewards weren’t as good as what they thought they would be. Or until someone else promised them better rewards.

Or I could get them committed to the cause. And once they were committed to the cause, I wouldn’t need to persuade them to fight. They would want to. And they would fight longer and harder than any of the other two groups of warriors. In a battle between the three, I’d be backing the ones that are committed to the cause. I’d rather have ten warriors committed to the cause than 50 warriors who are there for the rewards or 100 warriors who are there because of fear.

So too are there different ways of getting people to follow Jesus. For a long time, the church relied mainly on fear. There was the fear of hell. But also there was the fear of the Inquisition or ex-communication if a person failed to believe or failed to do the right things. It worked. Fear does work. But then people started to read the bible for themselves. They started to wonder whether the church was really that scary. They started to doubt if it really had the power to do the things it had threatened.

Fear is not such a big thing nowadays, but we still use it. Become a Christian or you will go to hell, we tell people. And sometimes it works. But it’s kind of lost its power. Many people nowadays don’t even believe in hell. They are not going to be scared of going there. Personally, I think hell is a real place and it’s not somewhere I ever want to go. But it’s a pretty poor reason for getting people to follow Jesus.

The other way churches get new Christian recruits is by promising rewards. If you follow God, he will bless you and make your life better. You’ll get that job, have more money, be healed, live longer, be happier. That works too. But what happens if those “rewards” don’t come when the person expected them to. If a person is in it mainly for the rewards, how long are they going to stick around if they fail to materialise?

By far the best way of getting people to follow Jesus is to get them committed to the cause. Now, in my opinion, the cause of Christ is the greatest cause in the world. I don’t see why everybody doesn’t want to fight for him. But I have to be realistic and recognise that not everybody sees that. I think part of the problem is that they look at the cause of some Christians, and believe that’s the cause of all Christians or of Jesus. One example of this is issues of morality. For many people, the issue of morality is not one worth fighting for.

But the cause of Jesus is so much greater than this, and I believe there is something in it that every single person in the world can care passionately about. Instead of telling new Christians what they should be caring about, we should be helping them find what it is about Jesus that speaks deeply to them. Do they care about letting people know of God’s love and acceptance? Are they passionate about social justice? Is the idea of living a better life with God’s help one that appeals? Is caring for the poor something that speaks deeply to them? Are they amazed by this idea that we don’t need to do good works to get into heaven?

This is not to say that only one issue is important and people can just focus on one issue and forget about all the rest of what Jesus had to say. But when people become committed to those aspects that appeal most strongly to them, they will also see that the rest of what Jesus had to say is also a worthy cause. Commitment to one issue can soon turn into a very strong commitment to Jesus Christ. And I would rather have a church full of ten people that are committed to the cause, than a church of 10,000 people who are not.

Nature, Food and God

Once upon a time, in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve wanted something to eat, they picked it off the nearest tree. Nowadays, we pick it off a supermarket shelf. There’s something wrong with this picture.

I think that God designed us to interact with nature. When we do so, there is a spiritual dimension to that interaction. These sound like religious sounding words, but I don’t want to suggest that only people of faith have this spiritual dimension to nature. It can also apply to people without faith – sometimes more so.

One of the ways we can choose to live more natural lifestyles is through the food we eat. Many people in the western world don’t eat nearly enough food that could be considered at all natural. It has been processed, modified and added to. Even fresh fruit and vegetables that we buy from our supermarkets may not be as natural as we think it is.

But it’s not just a matter of what we eat. It’s also how the food that we eat comes to us. When we buy food from the grocery store, we are pretty much removed from the whole food process. However, when we grow food ourselves, we are part of that process. There is something a lot more natural, rewarding and spiritual about getting our food in this way. Stuff that just can’t be bought in a jar.

One of the other aspects of food that we often forget is the cost. No, I don’t mean the total price when you go through the checkout. But the complete costs to the world and to the environment is buying processed, packaged food from supermarkets. There are the costs of transport, processing and packaging (in terms of environmental costs, using up of resources such as oil, carbon emissions). When you pick up a product off the shelves, it is worth asking yourself how much is this costing the world?

Christians are taught to be good stewards. I don’t believe this just applies to how we use our money and whether we use it wisely. Although this is important. It also applies to how we take care of the world around us. We must make the best choices with what we have. We should also be good stewards of our body. When we eat natural foods, we are taking care of our body in the best possible way. As well as this, I think Christians should be people who try to give more and take less. We should think about this in everything we do – and this includes the food we eat.

Growing a vegetable garden or fruit trees is one way that we can interact with nature, eat more natural food and decrease the cost to the world in terms of our consumption. Food grown by yourself doesn’t have far to go before it is eaten. There is far less cost in terms of transport and processing. You also know that the food you are eating has not been modified or added to in any way.

Not everyone can grow their own vegetable garden. However, there are other options. Many communities have community gardens, where people can come and work in the gardens. It’s worth seeing if there’s one near you. Or if not, why not get one started? Farmers markets are also a better place to buy fruit and vegetables than the supermarket. When you buy from a farmers markets, the people selling their products are local. That means the food has not traveled as far. Also, because they were themselves involved in the growing of the food, you can ask them about how it was grown. Try doing that to the checkout operator at the supermarket.

We’re not in the Garden of Eden anymore. And let’s face it, no matter how hard we try, very few of us are going to succeed in leading completely natural lifestyles. But the closer we get to this, the better we will feel – both physically and spiritually. I think it’s worth creating our own little Garden of Edens whenever we can.