Eat Your Vegetables

"Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake." That’s from this morning’s reading from Deuteronomy. And the epistle is all about giving also. What are we doing with these stewardship readings in the middle of the summer? Didn’t the people who put together the lectionary realize that no one comes to church in the summer (at least in Maine)? Or that "stewardship season" is in the fall? Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they thought people come to church year ‘round; maybe they thought people were actually mindful of stewardship year ‘round. Or maybe these readings are more than just proof-texts in support of the practice of pledging and say something more general about daily living.

The line I quoted a moment ago from Deuteronomy caught my attention. "Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake." It reminds me of all sorts of classic lines from parenting… If you eat your vegetables, then you can have dessert. That line usually works for motivating children. It’s a rare child who doesn’t like or want dessert. But does this line from Deuteronomy motivate us as adults? If you give liberally and ungrudgingly, then God will bless you. It’s only going to be motivating if being blessed by God is something we really want. And, of course, we have to believe that God really will follow through with blessings if we give.

Do you want to be blessed by God? Have you ever in your life felt blessed by God? Really felt in your heart the blessing of God? I’m not asking, "Do you believe, or think, you have received God’s blessings in the past?" That’s a different question. I’m asking about a feeling in your heart.  I’m not asking you to intellectually inventory your life and count your blessings. When we do that we tend to think of things like family, or health, or freedom, or the food on the table. Things to be grateful for certainly, and these may very well be the sorts of blessings that the writer of Deuteronomy had in mind. In much of the Old Testament, in fact, God’s favor is linked to personal and material success. The Scriptures suggest that those who fear God will receive very tangible rewards. We hear this perspective in today’s psalm.

Now that might motivate folk to give liberally and ungrudgingly. If you follow the Lord’s command, your children will be mighty in the land and wealth and riches will abound. If we were asked to count our blessings, might and wealth and riches would certainly be blessings that we would include in the count.

If you eat your vegetables, I’ll give you dessert. If you give money to the poor, I’ll bless you with might and riches. Is that how God runs God’s household? Is that the economy of God’s kingdom? I suspect that most of us, if we really thought about it, would answer "yes" and "no." Everything else in our lives works on a system where effort is rewarded. If we eat our vegetables, we do get dessert. If we do other household chores, we do earn special privileges. If we practice hard enough in sports, we do get fame and recognition. If we do well in school, we do get a better job. And if we keep God’s commandments, I think most of us do expect some sort of reward.

On the other hand, if we all really believed that giving liberally and ungrudgingly to the needy would bring in return blessings of might for our children and wealth and riches for our families…  if we really believed that, no church in Christendom would ever have to talk about stewardship again. People would give generously indeed for the ministry of the church if they knew they would be rewarded for giving. It's a win-win situation.  But since church coffers are not generally overflowing, people must not expect to be rewarded for their contributions. "Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake." Yes, or no?

I realize I can only carry the vegetable analogy so far, but in my own case, it’s a wonderful analogy, because I like vegetables. I love vegetables. Well, everything except beets. I love vegetables. And when I eat vegetables, eating the vegetables is a wonderful experience. I like dessert, too. But I don’t eat vegetables just to earn dessert, at least not any more. Eating vegetables a wonderful blessing all by itself. I love the taste of vegetables. But I wouldn’t know that if I had never tried them.

The blessing is the experience of eating vegetables. The joy, the satisfaction is in the flavor of those peas picked fresh from the garden (in just a few days.)

The blessing is in the experience itself. How it feels. "Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake." The blessing is in the experience itself. The experience of truly living generously.

That is where we will really feel God’s blessing.

I will admit I have only felt this blessing myself a few times, and even then my experience was more perhaps like the smell of a wonderful food than the actual experience of eating it. But even so, it was wonderful. The blessing that comes from the experience of living generously…  It isn’t some reward that comes later, it is the feeling that comes in the actions of living generously. I can only describe it as an incredible sense of freedom. Freedom of spirit. Unburdened, unbound, purely free.

Living generously. That’s much more than just pledging to the church. So these lessons really are about a whole way of life. And they are about our attitude as well as our actions. "Do not entertain a mean thought," Deuteronomy warns, "thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near.’" Every seventh year the fields were left fallow to renew the soil. The practice was for the overall benefit of the earth and the people, but it meant, of course, that there would be no harvest that seventh year. God does not expect us to act in ways that are self-destructive or suicidal. But I do think we are called to live without counting the cost. That is what living generously means. To live without counting the cost.

To forgive a family member or friend, without counting the cost to our own pride. To give of our time to a neighbor, or to someone we’ve never met before, or to a child without counting the cost to our own full and carefully planned schedules. To listen to someone who needs to talk without counting the cost to all of the things we really think we need to say. To share food, produce from the garden, to split the very last cookie in the cookie jar, just because we have it to give without counting the cost of what we will lose. And to give of our resources, including money, even if the seventh year is just ahead, even if winter is coming, even if our employment status is uncertain, even if we face uncertain expenses in the future. Give without counting the cost.

Instead of counting our blessings and hoarding them to ourselves, we are to live without counting the cost. Live generously.

It isn’t easy—at least for me. It isn't easy.  Children are often told to eat their vegetables because "vegetables are good for you." Or "because, I’m your mother and I tell you to." Or "because somebody somewhere went to all the work to grow this food and fix it for you, and you’re going to eat it."

Those are all good reason to try to live generously, too. It is good for us. God tells us to, and God’s authority is to be respected. The talents and resources that we have are given to us as gift, and we should respect that gift by sharing with others. But whatever motivation it takes, just try it. Resolve to live daily life generously without counting the cost.

It can take years of maturing for a child to discover that the best reason to eat vegetables is actually that they taste good. It can take years of Christian maturing for us to discover that living generously is its own blessing…  That it brings an almost indescribable feeling of freedom, joy, and peace. Living generously is a blessing. But we won’t know unless we try.

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