Give to Those Who Ask

Fair warning: today isn’t about a great revelation but a great struggle.

“Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow.” -Matthew 5:42

I can say I have never hated a verse so much as this one. Carla and I have always tried to do what the Bible says, but this one almost killed us. When we were in Dondo we were trying to do this, but we were surrounded by need and people asking! Even worse, the people who kept asking were exactly the ‘evil people’ it mentions in verse 39. I knew what we were doing wasn’t helpful long-term to the culture and I was angry at God for putting such a stupid command in the Bible. To make matters worse, this was consistently preached in our organization. We were surrounded by people who had given up cars, houses, and businesses to be on the mission field - the missionaries themselves were extremely generous and good people but the people around us were greedy and backbiting, and I couldn’t help but think it was our attitude that made them that way.

If we had anything, we gave it away to others. It was sobering when we realized some of the Mozambicans had more than we did but were still begging. One year, all the pastors were asking for bikes. We were able to get hundreds of bikes in a container to them and distribute the bikes throughout the province. The next year, people were asking for motorcycles. To put it in perspective, Carla and I had our clothes and a computer - no transportation, no home, etc at that time. I was extremely discouraged at the ungrateful attitude but they laughed it off as "development." I don’t know whether they meant to drive us into the ground with their constant requests but we left hurting and broken and they walked away with their faith in the ability of Americans instead of God.

Anyway, I still don’t like this verse. I don’t think it’s in the character of God. I still don’t really understand it. I have essentially survived by surrounding myself with givers. My receptionist is a great blessing because of the number of people she fends off. What got me thinking of this verse again was a conversation I had on Friday - I brought this up and Bernardo brought up the scriptural command for multiplication; which one is more forcefully commanded by scripture? I had rarely connected multiplication to finances, just to discipleship and talents and abilities.

I have lost friends over this verse. I have seen people leave the church because they didn’t want to pay me back… I don’t know another verse that I have seen so much pain from. Here are my thoughts on this verse as it stands: 

 

• If I’m living this out but the outcome is not consistent with the godly outcomes in scripture, I may not be practicing this verse appropriately.
• “Do not resist an evil person” - um, there are clearly many places in scripture where we ARE supposed to resist an evil person! At least in the soldier example, resistance is talking about unjust people who have authority over you, not in situations where your resistance will actually change the situation. Also, verse 47 & 48 make it clear that Jesus is more concerned for our hearts than the situation. In really digging into verse 42, we have to keep the rest of this in context.
• I don’t live in the setting where Jesus is talking… While this is a dangerous way to describe a Bible verse, consistently in scripture there are differences in the way you treat brothers and the way you treat foreigners. In Mozambique, people can run away from me and I don’t have the same securities I do with people of my own culture. I am not in the same culture and the attitude towards money is different. As shocking as it is, I don’t actually understand real need here: I used to give money to people who were starving all the time, but when I appointed a committee of people to handle my giving for me, they just laughed and started sharing stories of the number of days they had gone without food! No, the real emergencies here were medical emergencies and houses without any covering on them during the rainy season.
• As a foreigner, I am not going to know the character of the people around me as much as the local people. At the Dondo base, the Mozambicans who could speak English were the more well-off and consistently received the most donations; even when we asked the visitors to talk with us before giving something, that seemed to be the one rule no one obeyed. Now I wait for my team to come with someone else in need; that way I truly know there is a great need.
• Though it has taken a long time to get here, I also believe these verses are not superseding the importance of our other responsibilities; our family or our ministry.
• I think this has something to do with the way I was taught to say no also. How do you say “I can’t” when you can? It’s 1,000 times harder to say “I choose not to”.

In essence, the will of God is multiplication His way towards His ends. It’s a delicate balance of multiplying what we’ve been given, looking after God’s interests like the poor, and doing it all His way. It takes a deep relationship with God to know what areas I need to improve on right now.