by Martha E. Stortz

You’d give someone the shirt off your back," one locker room buddy teased another after water aerobics class. "But then you’d be arrested for creating a public disturbance." We took stock of Susan’s ampleness — and burst out laughing. The loudest laugh rose from our full–bodied friend herself, as generous with her laughter as with everything else. We all walked out together. I watched Susan rumble away in a car that had seen at least a decade on the road, while the rest of us hopped into the latest that Detroit and Tokyo had to offer. As we went our separate ways, I reflected on the exchange. Objectively, Susan had less than the rest of us in terms of salary and status. She lived on a schoolteacher’s pay; she rented rather than owned — and we saw her bathing suits sag after seasons of use. Yet, Susan would give you the shirt off her back. She lived an abundance that contrasted sharply with our anxiety over making ends meet, repairing the house, and squirreling away enough for the future. Susan embodied generosity.

As I turned into my driveway, I realized that Jesus had Susan in mind when he said: "to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away" (Matthew 25:29). Our banter put the whole passage in a new light. Jesus was not making some strange and punishing prediction, nor was he dictating a regressive divine economy that would give tax breaks to the rich while bleeding the poor dry. Rather, he was stating a simple fact: A generous person feels overwhelmed with abundance. She is free to share her possessions. In contrast, the ungenerous person feels anxious about what she has. In her mind, her possessions — whether emotional, spiritual, or material — are under constant siege. She lives in a state of scarcity, and she hoards what little she has, lest "even what she has be taken away."

I offer this locker–room story as a parable of generosity, one that invites us to see generosity itself as a gift that keeps on giving. In seeing generosity as a gift of the Spirit, we are freed from our possessions and freed for belonging to Christ. Finally, as we pattern our giving on Christ’s gift, we step into a divine circle of generosity.

Possessed by our possessions
Ancient words from Mount Sinai name the biggest threat to Christian generosity: "I am the LORD your God...; you shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:2–3). The commandment refers to the various gods and goddesses that people of the ancient world worshiped: the bloody god Moloch, the fecund fertility goddess Astarte, the beaked Egyptian goddess Isis, and so many others. But we fool ourselves into thinking that idols are a thing of the past. If we rummage through our anxiety closets, we can find plenty of others that threaten to enthrall us.

Martin Luther located these other gods by following our heartstrings. In explaining the first commandment in his Large Catechism, he found the pulse of idolatry: "That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is...really your god." Our possessions tug at us, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the great biblical worry warts: "Will moth or rust infest my harvest?" "Will thieves make off with my profit?" "Will the stock market uptick or downturn?" "Will people like me?" Anxiety turns the heart in on itself (Luther’s cor incurvatus in se), transforming possessions into gods.

Jesus knew all too well the obsessive power of earthly treasures to enthrall. For this reason, he repeated over and over again to anyone who would listen: "Be not anxious." He knew that possessions gradually take over their owners: People become possessed by their possessions.

An old fable illustrates this by describing how trappers catch monkeys for export to zoos around the country. First, trappers dry a gourd, drill a small hole in the side, and fill the hollow gourd with sweet nuts. Then they hang the gourd in a tree and wait. Without fail, a monkey comes, reaches a little hand into the gourd, grabs a fistful of nuts — and finds that he cannot pull his nut-filled hand out. While the monkey twists and turns and tries to get away, the trapper bags him.

According to the story, the trapper knows that the monkeys will not let go of their treats. If they would only let go, they could run free. But the monkeys desperately hold on.

Generosity is God’s way of teaching us to unclench our fists. God intends us to move through life with open hands. The inheritance from Grandmother, the refund from the IRS, the paycheck that rolls in every two weeks: Are these entitlements? Just rewards? Hard–earned wages? Or gifts? How can we receive these gifts with open hands, rather than anxiously clenching our fists around them?

A people possessed
The most vivid healings in the New Testament involve demonic possession. Again and again, Jesus rebuked demons and commanded them to find another home. He kicked out the thousands of demons inhabiting a Gerasene man, and the spirits moved into a herd of pigs, stampeding them into the sea (Mark 5:1–13). In casting out demons, Jesus repossessed the man, claiming him for his rightful owner. These healing stories reach across the centuries to teach us a valuable lesson about possessions: They teach us who we really are by showing us whose we really are. We are a people possessed!

When we gather in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we confess our rightful ownership. We testify to whom we rightfully belong. The apostle Paul put this new membership quite bluntly: "you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God" (1 Corinthians 3:23). We become part of Christ’s body in baptism; we feed on that body through the Lord’s Supper. Membership in that body changes everything: We can give of ourselves because Christ gave himself. Paul tells the Christians at Corinth how to feast on this body: "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you..." (1 Corinthians 11:23). The implication is clear: "Therefore, you should give what you have so abundantly received." Christ’s generosity patterns our own, and we are freed to live life abundantly. Citing Jesus’ command in his final meal, the Words of Institution, Paul places Christ’s gift of his body and blood at the heart of Christian generosity.

Martin Luther makes a similar connection. He faced his own dilemma of abundance and scarcity. In the medieval world, priests and members of religious orders played a key role in caring for the poor. Priests and religious houses dispensed alms, and the priest in each village knew who needed help. With the dissolution of religious orders in the Reformation, an elaborate welfare system collapsed. What would happen to the poor? Luther needed a reformed welfare system for the reformed church, and he turned to Paul’s table etiquette for the Corinthians. He commended to his own congregations the ancient practice of gathering food and material goods in the church. In addition, he appointed a new priesthood in charge of caring for the poor: the priesthood of all believers.

If we accept Luther’s designation as members in a priesthood of all believers, we assume the responsibilities of that role. As Christians, we should be particularly attentive to the poor in our midst. Our belonging in the body of Christ means nothing less. Nourished and empowered by the body of Christ, we are freed to move into the world in lives of joyful service.

A divine circle of generosity
In a small fresco entitled "Charity" in the Scrovegni Chapel in the Italian city of Padua, the 14th–century artist Giotto paints a full–bodied woman framed in a doorway. She reminds me of Susan, both in her figure and her generosity. Her right hand encircles a bowl filled with fruit; her left reaches up to a haloed man who leans down to her from a corner of the doorframe with outstretched hands. In his hands and in hers are ripe pomegranates. But who is giving what to whom?

Perhaps the woman offers fruit to the man leaning down to her, and we turn to words from Matthew’s Gospel for its intended meaning. Jesus tells of a great king who commends his people for feeding him, giving him drink, clothing him, and welcoming him. The people are stunned. They cannot comprehend that this royal personage clothed in majesty had ever been naked, thirsty, or shunned. Then the king explains: "Just as you did it to one of the least of these..., you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). If this text interprets Giotto’s fresco, then the woman is giving fruit to someone in need, who turns out to be Christ himself.

But perhaps Christ is giving fruit to the woman. Then the apostle Paul captures the artist’s meaning. In speaking of Christ, he breaks out in praise: "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Corinthians 9:15). If this text interprets the painting, Christ bestows fruit on a woman whose bowl he has already filled to overflowing. Christ not only gives the gift, Christ is the gift.

Which text better interprets the artist’s intent? It’s impossible to ask Giotto to tell us, but I suspect both interpretations ring true to the spirit of generosity. The artist captures a divine circle of giving. We give from abundance because we give what we have first been given. A familiar offertory prayer puts Giotto’s message into words: "We offer with joy and thanksgiving what you have first given us, ourselves, our time, and our possessions, signs of your gracious love."

We can only step into that circle of divine generosity with open hands, for we can neither give nor receive with clenched fists. On his deathbed, Luther remarked that we are all beggars. The remark was striking, and it puzzled the crowd at his bedside. But Luther wanted to leave his loved ones with the image of open hands. We move through life with open hands, hands outstretched for the hand of the neighbor. Generosity is God’s way of freeing us from our possessions and freeing us for the wonder of creation. All of life is a gift: May we be generous in passing it on.

Martha E. Stortz is professor of historical theology and ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., and the author of A World According to God (Jossey–Bass, 2004).