Give More

Up to this point, Advent Conspiracy has been challenging, but not so challenging.  Worship fully.  Spend less.  Check (mostly).  Sure, I could worship more fully in my life, finding ways to let my life be an act of praise for God.  Sure, I could spend less on stuff that really isn't important and instead buy things that are meaningful for both the recipient and their makers.

We live in the midst of a torn economic culture.  While we talk about consumerism, we also talk about extreme thrift, reusing, and coupon-cutting.  Spending less isn't exactly foreign to most of us.  But giving more: now here is where I feel especially challenged.  If I am not redirecting toward others the fruits of spending less, am I really worshiping Jesus as fully as I can?  Or, am I just hoarding for a time when I feel we can afford spending more?

I read a reader-testimonial in a recent issue of Redbook that got me thinking about this.  Without any reference to God, Jesus, or the church, a family shared about their experience during the recent economic downturn.  The woman wrote about how her family was as poor as its ever been, but that they're actually happier.  They've participated in spending less on a fairly extreme scale.  They're making things themselves that they normally bought and they've cut many non-essentials from their budgets.  But in the midst of this cutting, she wrote that they'd given more money away than ever before.  They gave to help others who needed clean drinking water, and those who needed medical care after natural disasters.

That Redbook woman, and Advent Conspiracy (and Jesus, really) have challenged me.  The conspiracy, the effort to celebrate the fact that God came to dwell among us as a human, isn't just that we play at being counter-cultural and stick it to the retailers who aren't locals.  The conspiracy is taking hold of the old maxim that it's truly better to give than to receive, and then to blow the doors off of giving - to give with a fervor and love that can only be outdone by the love God showed the world by taking on flesh in Jesus.