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On Generosity On our own, we conclude: that there is not enough to go around we are going to run short of money of love of grades of publications of sex ofbeer of members of years oflife we should seize the day seize the goods seize our neighbor's goods because there is not enough to go around. And in the midst of our perceived deficit: You come You come giving bread in the wilderness You come giving children at the 11 th hour You come giving homes to exiles You come giving futures to the shut-down You come giving Easterjoy to the dead You come—fleshed in Jesus. And we watch while the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed 3 the deaf hear the dead are raised the poor dance and sing. We watch and we take food we did not grow and life we did not invent and future that is gift and gift and gift and families and neighbors who sustain us when we do not deserve it. It dawns on us—late rather than soon— that "you give food in due season you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity override our presumed deficits quiet our anxieties of lack transform our perceptual field to see the abundance ... mercy upon mercy blessing upon blessing. Sink your generosity deep into our lives that your muchness may expose our false lack that endlessly receiving, we may endlessly give, so that the world may be made Easter new, without greedy lack, but only wonder without coercive need, but only love without destructive greed, but only praise without aggression and invasiveness ... all things Easter new ... all around us, toward us and by us all things Easter new. Finish your creation ... in wonder, love, and praise. Amen. Columbia Theological Seminary chapel service/ September 26, 2002 4 ...

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