Glad and Generous Hearts - A Message from Bishop Michael Hawkins

On a cool, crisp Sunday morning a man made his way in the woods.  He was taken up with the beauty and peace of God’s good creation until he tripped on a rock, dropped his rifle and slid down a hill.  A little shaken up and mad at himself for being so clumsy, he got up and brushed himself off only to find himself face to face with a bear.  He tried to stay calm but the bear was obviously angered by this sudden intrusion.  The bear started towards him.  The would-be hunter was desperate.  All kinds of guilty thoughts came to mind but trusting in God’s mercy, he prayed, “O Lord, forgive me, and please, somehow make this bear a Christian.”  The sudden miracle could not be denied, the bear stopped dead in its tracks, sat down, joined its front paws and said, “Bless, O Lord, this food which of thy bounty I am about to receive.” 

It was said of the earliest Christians, “they partook of food with glad and generous hearts (Acts 2.46).”  Is that true of us?  Saint Paul summarizes the sin of the world.  He says that sin is a confusion of the Creator with the creation and he mentions sexual immorality as well as envy, murder, strife, gossip, boasting, disobedience and being heartless and ruthless, as examples of sin but he sums the whole thing up in this way:  “Although they knew God they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him (Romans 1.21).”  Sin is ingratitude.  And it is this ingratitude which makes us mean and cheap.  We give little and we forgive even less.  If we recognize the truth that our sins of omission are always greater than our sins of commission, then we may be better prepared to see that sin for the Christian is at its root ingratitude, leaving undone those things that we ought to have done.  Sin is the refusal to be transformed by the saving generosity of God.  This is the story of the manna that rots and breeds worms when hoarded.  This is the story of the servant who was forgiven ten thousand talents and would not forgive an hundred pence. 

Yet, guilt will not make us grateful.  It is only the grace of God that can make us grateful, the generosity of God that can make us generous.  It is in the recognition of what God has done for us and given to us, in creation, in the gifts of life and health and safety, and in the beauty and wonder of human life, that we may become grateful and supremely it is in the recognition of God’s saving generosity in Christ Jesus that Christians are thankful. The Gospel of our salvation is that God is kind to the ungrateful and selfish. 

It is faith that can see and hear and understand this, faith that recognizes not only the gifts but the Giver of all, faith that can taste and see how gracious the Lord is.  At the Altar in Church and at Table at Home, we may taste and see how gracious the Lord is and feed at both “by faith with thanksgiving.”  May God’s grace and generosity so touch you and me that we too may be known for our glad and generous hearts. 

+Michael