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CONLEY COMMENTARY (WSAU) – A single mother came to a church one Sunday. She was a stranger. No one knew her. She had a young child in-tow, and had another baby on the way.
She was welcomed before the service. During coffee hour, she said that she was deeply in need. Her immediate needs were a crib, a car seat, infant clothes, and help moving into her new apartment. By that afternoon members of the congregation were ready to help. Over the next few days she was set up in her new home.
Someone might say that it’s unknown if she’d ever come back to church. It’s entirely possible that she would take advantage of the good church-going folks and would never be seen again. That’s sort of what happened. She attended Sunday worship for a few weeks, and received more generosity from her fellow church-goers, and after a month of so she moved away. No goodbye. A neighbor volunteered that she’d found an out-of-town boyfriend and was living with him.
We’ve had a similar debate in our community. Until this week there was $20,000 in school cafeteria debt in the Wausau and D.C. Everest school districts. Paster Yaou Yang began a successful fundraising campaign and paid it all off. Here are some facts about the matter: parents who don’t pay for their kids’ school lunches are slackers. If they’d just fill out the paperwork, their kids could get free or reduced lunch. Parents who smoke or drink or vape should drop those bad habits immediately and pay their kids’ lunch accounts. We are, indeed, setting the bad precedent that if a family’s lunch account falls into arrears, someone else will step up and pay it.
When we follow Christ’s example of extravagant generosity, we might be taken advantage of. So what?
That woman’s baby might grow up and learn that complete strangers gave hundreds of dollars worth of diapers to their mother. Some young students might learn that caring members of the community raised money to pay off their lunch accounts. Perhaps they’ll wonder why others would do that. And that’s the moment, maybe, that they’ll see God’s love in your generosity.
Chris Conley
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