8th March 2026
Overflowing Generosity
The story at Little Fish this week has been Zacchaeus, and the toddlers have enjoyed hearing about this small man who climbed a tree and did not so much see and find Jesus as learn that he had already been seen and found by Jesus. You can read the story in Luke 19, verses 1-10. Famously, Zacchaeus, the cheating tax collector's response to being found by Jesus is much more than simply giving back what he owes. He gives away "all my possessions" to the poor and, to anyone he has cheated, he gives back "four times as much".
As the third of our spiritual disciplines of Lent, generosity, like fasting and prayer, is first and foremost a question of the heart. Zacchaeus' response to Jesus is significant not so much in the amounts that he is giving, although we can infer that these are not inconsiderable, but in the fact that his open-handedness demonstrates his changed heart. Jesus has come, he declares in verse 10, to "seek and save" the lost - and Zacchaeus, found by a Saviour who, instead of avoiding or rejecting him, invites himself round for tea, can only respond in gratitude and generosity. We could compare Paul's description of the Macedonian churches in 2 Corinthians 8 who, "during a severe ordeal of affliction, [in] abundant joy and extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity" (verse 2).
Paul goes on to remind the Corinthians about "the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty, you might become rich" (verse 9). We who have known the overflowing love and generosity of God in Jesus are called to model our hearts and lives on his. We who have known the overflowing love and generosity of God in Jesus are called to respond with overflowing love and generosity in our turn.
What this means in practice, of course, will be different for each of us. There is no formula to growing in spiritual disciplines - it's about the work each of us does, "in secret", with our Heavenly Father, to be shaped and formed in the likeness of Christ, to discern how we are called to live out God's love and generosity by the way we use our time, talents and treasure in the world.
That world this week in particular seems to be a dark and dangerous place. But it is precisely in the darkness and danger of the world that Christians are called to be salt and light, to live out the self-giving love of our Saviour in practical acts of generosity, care, and peace-building. It is precisely in the conflicts of a divided world that Christians are called to be generous spirited, loving our enemies and praying for our persecutors. It is precisely in the places of scarcity and want that Christians are called to the life of God's abundant grace. For we "are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us—in one stroke he became poor and we became rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9 -The Message)
