The generous Jesus

One of the things the preacher, Simon Ponsonby, mentioned this Sunday was how Jesus was generous. When he opened his mouth, gifts came forth

Now I am a Christian curmudgeon, insofar as such a thing is possible. One of my pet peeves is people applying every positive adjective in the English language to Jesus. He was amazing, he was all things, but hey, let’s be a little precise here.

(Another pet peeve is Christianese, throwing words around indiscriminately, for the good of the cause, so to say. Choruses which substitute words at random. Jesus said, My joy I give you. My peace I give you. We cannot go on singing the chorus substituting nouns…. Wealth, health, abundance, insurance…)

Ponsonby is not normally a careless speaker, so I started thinking about how a man who had nothing could be called generous.

Well, he gave his life to redeem those who could not redeem themselves!

And though he had nothing, he gave a lot. He gave entrepreneurially, creating something from nothing. Wine from water. 5000 loaves from 5. Telling the disciples where to cast their nets.

And God, who was in Christ, one with Christ, is immensely generous, continually creating, continually giving good gifts, and blessings and grace–because that is his very nature.

I am increasingly deciding when faced with two choices, the generous one and the stingy one, to take the generous choice, as a daughter of a  generous and giving God