Generosity

Gospel: Mt 15:29-37
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120424.cfm

Advent is a season of giving. As a season of giving, we all have the ability to be generous. It doesn’t require material things but can be the giving of our time and our care. As we live more generously, it inspires generosity in others.

Today’s gospel has been explained to me in different ways. You can read it to show that Jesus has power over the physical world and could make the loaves and fishes into more than in substance. Jesus multiplied them for the crowd. It’s a story of a physical miracle in support of the crowd to both feed the crowd and show Jesus’s divinity through the performance of a miracle. This may be the case, but there is another way to read the story. The generosity and the willingness to share small amounts of bread and fish inspired others to share what they had with the group. The real blessing is not in the offering but in our willingness to share.

When I first heard this second take of the story, I saw it as less of a miracle than the first, but now I see it as more. Giving multiplies giving, Love multiplies love. In us being generous to others, we give them permission to likewise be generous. It is in giving that we receive. The kingdom of God is established by us all living generously and taking care of each other in our times of need without an expectation of something in return. If we expected something in return, it’d be a transaction and not a miracle of multiplication.

Live generously. Amen.