True Liberality

Marilynne Robinson has done it again.  On my birthday I received her latest essay collection, entitled When I Was A Child I Read Books.  Sure enough: I'm only 83 pages in, but already her scrupulous, uncompromising insights are exercising my brain and stirring me to new interest in areas of life (politics, education, history, theology) that I rarely take time to consider.  Although I am a dedicated reader, I tend to choose literature of the sort that tells a story rather than makes a reasoned argument.  As a result, Facebook and MPR account for almost the whole of my exposure to whatever discourse is going on in the world.  Imagine what a breath of fresh air these essays are!  Also, how chastening.

Today's essay was particularly inspiring.  Entitled "Open Thy Hand Wide", it describes the motivation for and character of liberality in the Calvinist tradition.  It portrays an attitude toward generosity rooted in Mosaic law, an attitude that promotes unconditional sacrificial giving, that shows much greater concern for the poor than for safeguarding personal property.  Citing the law in Deuteronomy 24:10-13 which commands a creditor to restore at sundown the cloak pledged by the borrower to ensure that he may sleep in his cloak, Robinson writes, "So this-worldly are God's interests that he cares whether some beleaguered soul can find comfort in his sleep.  He cares even to the point of overriding what are called by us, though never by Moses or Jesus, the rights of property."

The rest of the essay goes on to describe the utterly biblical and yet embarrassingly foreign liberalism that Calvin and the Puritans, following Old Testament principles, promoted.  Calvin declares that it is every believer's responsibility to "advance in an increasing liberality", describing it thus: "True liberality is not momentary or of short duration.  They who possess that virtue persevere steadily, and do not exhaust themselves in a sudden and feeble flame, of which they quickly afterwards repent. ...There are indeed many occurrences which retard the progress of our liberality.  We find in men strange ingratitude, so that what we give appears to be ill-bestowed. ...But let us remember this saying, and listen to Paul's exhortation 'not to be weary in well-doing;' for the Lord exhorts us not to momentary liberality, but to that which shall endure during the whole course of our life."  

These injunctions are supported by the theology of mankind being created in God's image.  More Calvin: "We must not regard the intrinsic merit of men, but must consider the image of God in them, to which we owe all possible honour and love. ...Whoever, therefore, is presented to you that needs your kind offices, you have no reason to refuse him your assistance.  Say he is a stranger; yet the Lord has impressed on him a character which out to be familiar to you; for which reason he forbids you to despise your own flesh.  Say that he is contemptible and worthless; but the Lord shows him to be one whom he has deigned to grace with his own image.  Say that you are obliged to him for no services; but God has made him, as it were, his substitute, to whom you acknowledge yourself to be under obligations for numerous and important benefits.  Say that he is unworthy of your making the smallest exertion on his account; but the image of God, by which he is recommended to you, deserves your surrender of yourself and all that you possess."  

While I know and thought that I believed all these things, I find myself rebuked when I look at my life and the choices I daily make, and discover that I am not following the Christian imperative to advance in increasing liberality.  If anything, I indulge in "momentary liberality," and grow weary in well-doing.  And all too often when I survey the image-bearers around me it is from a posture of grasping selfishness, a desire to protect my own rights and preserve my own comfort.  So often I withhold a kindness that it is in my power to bestow because it would inconvenience me, or because I think it undeserved.  I forget that "I was hungry and you fed me.  I was naked and you clothed me."  I forget what it truly means, to love my neighbor as myself.  

I love how Robinson describes Calvin's angle on this matter.  "For Calvin, every human encounter is of moment, the other in the encounter is always 'sent' or 'offered.'  So respect for every circumstance is reverence to God."

It excites me to think ahead to all the people I am going to be sent in the days that remain to me, of all the opportunities to show my reverence to God, honoring him by sharing his gifts with his image-bearers.