Intro to Chapter 28: Loving those God puts before us
We have a tendency to be too calculating in our love — charity, as agape used to be translated. We hold back in meeting the needs of those around us, because, after all, we have our own obligations. There are others with claims on our charity.
More than once, Charles Dickens had hard words for charitable societies that focused zealously on the abstract poor in far away places, while ignoring the very real needy all around them on the streets of London. Love for faceless, abstract people has a tendency to become abstract itself and largely imaginary.
“Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.” Is Jesus saying that we must pour out everything we have to whomever God puts before us? That we must love with blinders on? Maybe not. Picture a newlywed who spends his entire paycheck on roses for his wife. When she comes home, there are roses in every container that will hold water, roses in the bathtub, roses piled on the bed. Will his wife be pleased — or dismayed? Even in loving his wife, the man must be calculating. His wife needs to eat. The gas bill must be paid.
This extravagant pouring-out is not a sin to which we are prone, though. Almost always, our error is in the other direction. We are too calculating, too stingy with those whom God has put before us. We must learn to cast our bread upon the waters with faith that it will return to us.