SUNDAY, APRIL 6 2025- GENEROSITY
April 6, 2025
Deborah Laforet
“Generosity”
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by
your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Have you ever been given something or had something done for you by a complete
stranger? Maybe it was as small as opening the door for you or buying you a coffee. Maybe it
was buying your groceries when you were short on cash or stopping on a busy highway to help
change a tire or call for help. If you’ve ever had a blood transfusion, this is usually because of
the generosity of strangers who give to their blood bank. Then there are those amazing folks
who respond to an ad to give a kidney or a part of their liver to save a complete stranger’s life.
This week, I listened to a podcast called, “The Happiness Lab,” a podcast where Yale
professor, Dr. Lauri Santos, shares her learnings on what makes us happy. It’s based on a
psychology course she teaches at Yale, which happens to be the most popular class in the
university’s 300-year history. I’m still catching up, so the podcast I was listening to was from
early 2020 and was titled, “Psychopaths and Superheroes.”
In this podcast, psychology professor Abigail Marsh was interviewed. She once had her
life saved by a complete stranger when her car skidded out of control and ended up backwards
on the highway. Since then she has devoted her career to understanding what drives these
amazing altruistic and self-sacrificial people and if there are ways we can be more like them.
She talked about the amygdala. Many of us know the amygdala, located deep with the
front part of our brains, as the ‘fear’ centre, or that part of the brain that is the home base for our
primal emotions, such as fear and anxiety. However, recent cutting edge neuroscientific research
has revealed an unexpected twist—the amygdala is actually involved in a much broader range of
emotions beyond fearfulness. As it turns out, the amygdala isn't simply the brain's "fear centre."
Studies have found that the amygdala plays an important role in prosocial behaviours such as
kindness, altruism, and charitable giving, and that the more we are kind and giving, the more our
amygdala encourages kindness and generosity. It becomes less of a chore and more of a natural
response.
Have you noticed this about certain people in your life? The ones you know who are
really generous are always generous and don’t think twice about it. You might be one of these
people, and you may have no idea you’re so extraordinary because it comes so naturally to you.
The church is one of those places where you tend to find a lot of generous people. People
in churches are encouraged to be generous, to offer support to their community and beyond; as
churches consist of people of all ages, through different stages of their lives, there are natural
opportunities to offer compassion and support.
Here are a few examples:
• A few weeks ago, Jeff and I talked about a blanket that we purchased from an indigenous
vendor and asked if there were folks who might like to pitch in some money to cover the
cost. In just two Sundays, the cost was covered.
• Some in our community do not drive or need assistance at times to get to church or to
doctor’s appts. Drivers appear to help.
• When our second minister resigned, the community knew that a lot would fall on my
shoulders. Immediately, the board offered to do the welcome at the beginning of worship
that Carolyn used to do every Sunday. Our nurturing care committee also grew, taking on
some of Carolyn’s responsibilities.
• The time people give to the work of this building and property cannot be counted. There are
several people who are not on staff who are here all the time caring for the property, caring
for plants, setting up for coffee and tea every Sunday and communion once a month,
updating the outdoor sign, locking up at night, gardening and mowing, and so much more.
Generosity is on display in the story Ron read for us this morning, but it’s not an easy
passage and is often interpreted in many ways. We hear of Jesus watching people put their gifts
into the temple treasury. Specifically, our text tells us he was watching rich people put their gifts
into the treasury. This story is located near the end of Luke’s gospel and Jesus and his disciples
are in Jerusalem, and every day Jesus is going into the temple and teaching anyone who might
want to stop and listen. We are told that scribes and chief priests were watching Jesus, hearing
the subversive stories he told against them, against Rome, against the rich. They would send
people to ask him questions to try and trip him up or trap him into saying something that could
get him arrested, but Jesus kept answering in ways that condemned them but not overtly.
During this particular trip to the temple, Jesus is watching these rich people. There
wouldn’t have been many rich people in Jerusalem at that time, but just like in our own time, the
religious authorities would have wanted to cater to these people because they needed the money
the rich people gave to maintain their temple and programs. At times, these rich people were
probably given preferential treatment, to encourage their gifts to the treasury. These rich people
probably saw themselves as very generous, giving out of the goodness of their hearts to keep
their temple running smoothly.
Maybe the rich people though expected praise for their generosity, and not just from the
scribes and chief priests, but from this new rabbi who was teaching every day in the temple.
Instead, Jesus just watches, until a widow comes to the temple. She puts in two small copper
coins, probably a mere pittance compared to what the rich people were giving. Jesus says not a
word until the widow arrives. Then he says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more
than all of them, for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her
poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
This widow has given more than all the rich people put together. She goes away,
knowing life will be more difficult, that she may not be able to afford necessities - food, clothing,
shelter - but she felt the temple needed those two small copper coins more than she did. She was
not expecting praise. In fact, she probably knew she would be ignored and dismissed. She knew
her donation was very little, but to her, it was a fortune. This is self-sacrificial generosity, giving
out of a need to help others rather than one’s self.
If one only gives out of a sense of obligation or duty, if one gives to be seen giving, if one
gives because it will grant them privileges, is this generosity? According to our story, it doesn’t
matter how much you give, it’s about how you give and the intentions behind your giving. Are
you giving to make yourself look good or are you thinking of others? Are you giving to make
the world a better place or to make your own life better?
Generosity is tricky. You never want to question people’s motives when they give or
judge how much they give, because generosity comes from the heart, or maybe its the amydala,
but wherever it comes from, it comes from within, where only the one giving can know how
much they can give and why they are giving. Our job is to be gracious and appreciative of
everyone’s gifts and to assess our own gifts, our own motives, and how our own generosity, this
fruit the Spirit, works in our own lives.
May we be like the widow, offering what we can for the good of others. May we learn
from Jesus, knowing when we are more like the rich people giving to the treasury or like the
widow giving her last two coins. May the Spirit guide as as we continue to open ourselves up to
the all the Fruits of the Spirit - patience, faithfulness, gentleness, kindness, generosity, self-
control, love, joy, and peace. May it be so. Amen.
Luke 21:1-4
(Introduce yourself. - Do not move or tap microphone.)
Last week, we heard Jesus admonish his disciples for not letting the children come
to him, saying that the kingdom of God belongs to children. Today, it’s not just the
disciples but the crowd surrounding Jesus, complaining that he is going to be the
guest of a sinner. As we view this scripture passage through the lens of ‘kindness,’
let’s see how Jesus responds. I am reading from the 19th chapter of the gospel of
Luke, verses one to ten.
He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury; 2 he also saw
a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3 He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor
widow has put in more than all of them, 4 for all of them have contributed out of
their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
May the Spirit guide our understanding of this sacred scripture.