by Patricia Lull

I live in a neighborhood with curbside recycling. Walking together on a summer evening, my neighbor and I commented on the many blue recycling bins set out at the curb. We talked about how we each had learned to take recycling seriously. She spoke of growing up in the country and her family’s deep regard for the land. I recalled lessons from my childhood, which were mostly about reusing things that weren’t worn out. But as we walked, I also credited the many young adults whose insistence on recycling a stray pop can or bundle of cardboard had helped me acquire this new discipline.

Both those who have gone before us and those coming up at our heels can help us learn to see the world in a new way. In the case of recycling paper and glass and plastic containers, seeing the connection between the environment and our own lives changes how we live. No one thinks it’s enough to talk about the environment; talk must be translated into action. And most of those actions can be broken down into small, daily decisions and deeds.

There is another great teacher for many of us. In the Christian community, we are also shaped by the actions of God. The testimony of the Bible tells us how God chooses to interact with the human community, and whether or not we have grown up in families with values about recycling, reusing things until they are worn out, or in families with high regard for the land, as we listen to the Word of God we come to see the world in a fresh way.

"The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season," the psalmist proclaims in Psalm 145. "You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing." Living with open hands is a description of God’s way of interacting with us.

I remember hearing this Bible passage spoken as a table prayer when I visited a friend’s family while I was in college. To my ear it was beautiful poetry; for my friend it was a daily litany, written deeply into her being. Whether or not we speak the words of Psalm 145 as a daily table grace, in the Christian community we learn to trust our open–handed God to provide all that we need. God’s interaction with us forms our most basic interaction with others.

Asking and trusting
As a parish pastor, I have had the privilege of learning from several congregations what it means to offer an open hand of generosity to others. The people of one of those congregations, a small church in southern Ohio, were particularly experienced in reaching out to people in dire need in their town. When a young couple living at the homeless shelter showed up for worship on a Sunday morning, they were invited to stay for brunch. Soon, several adults in the congregation were serving as informal mentors and friends to the couple.

When the church needed a parttime custodian, the young man was everyone’s top choice. He was a hard worker and eager for the affirmation of being part of the staff. Some months later, several checks were stolen from the church office. It quickly came to light that the young man, the eager custodian, was the thief.

Confronting him with the cancelled checks, I asked him why he had done this, why he would betray the relationships he had built up with so many in the congregation. He explained that there had been unexpected bills at home and that he and his wife were desperate. Then he said one more thing: "I knew I could never ask for what I needed." That was really a profound description of the many wounds and disappointments he had borne in his young life.

How many of us go through life like that, grabbing and hoarding what we think we need but for which we dare not ask? As the young thief discovered as he apologized and repaid what he had stolen, truly open–handed relationships are about asking and trusting, not about stealing and hoarding.

Yet in the human community, learning to name our real needs, like learning to trust those on whom we depend, takes time and practice. And who has been more patient and open–handed with us than God? God knows what we truly need, whether that be material things or relationships that give meaning and joy to our lives.

Hospitality and generosity
As a Christian I continue to be instructed by the generosity of others others within the community of faith. Living with open hands has little to do with economic wealth or social status, but it has everything to do with trusting in God’s generosity to us and God’s care for all in need.

I regularly travel with seminarians to a small city in the highlands of Guatemala. Our hosts in San Lucas Tolimán are members of the Roman Catholic parish there. These Mayan women and men have written hospitality and generosity to those in need into the mission statement for their parish. Year-round they welcome 50 to 100 guests at a time, inviting people from the United States to come and share their life.

Guatemala is an extraordinarily beautiful land with a rich cultural heritage and a complex history of colonial oppression and a recent devastating civil war. All the economic inequities of our world are visible in this small country where the few, who are very wealthy, have much and the many, who are very poor, have hardly anything at all.

But understanding God’s openhanded generosity really has nothing to do with having money. During our stay in the highlands, the seminarians and I learn directly from the life of these Christian sisters and brothers who feed and house us, invite us to see the way they are investing in grassroots rebuilding of a community, and gather with us for prayer and worship of our generous and life–giving God.

Near the close of each trip I wait expectantly for the seminarians’ reflections on what they have learned during our stay. Always there are comments about the impact of working at the coffee co-operative or the reforestation project, both sponsored by the parish. Students remember the hours with local leaders clearing land for a housing project or a neighborhood park. Eventually the conversation always comes around to the profound Christian faith of our hosts, reflected in their respect for the poorest members of the community — including widows and young children — generosity toward us as guests, and confidence in God’s grace and mercy to provide all that is needed.

Year after year, the seminarians never fail to note how our own group has been transformed by living together for two weeks in this context of generosity. Living communally and traveling light, our group always has its eyes opened to how differently relationships are built when there are fewer material distractions to pull us away from one another. During our time in Guatemala, we discover how precious the gift of simply having time for one another has become in our busy lives. One of the best lessons our hosts teach us in Guatemala is this way of seeing one another as signs of God’s gracious presence in this world.

Thankful living
Like the young couple welcomed into the life of that congregation in Ohio, we all crave relationships in which we are welcomed with openhanded generosity. Human dignity depends on all of us living with trust and confidence that we may ask for what we really need, rather than believing that we must steal or grab, hoard or withhold so that we may be among the few who thrive in our world.

I now belong to another congregation that practices open-handed generosity. We often use a liturgy for our early evening worship service that includes an offertory song based on Psalm 145 (Unfailing Light Liturgy by Marty Haugen and Susan Briehl, including "By Your Hand You Feed Your People," words © 2000 GIA Publications, Inc.; music © 2004 GIA Publications, Inc.). As the monetary gifts are carried forward and the bread and wine are set upon the table, the congregation sings in praise of God’s gracious and open–handed love for all creation.

That song of praise echoes throughout the week in the lives of those who worship there. An attorney offers her services pro bono to a group advocating for people with mental illness. A schoolteacher takes extra time with a child whose family just arrived from Somalia. A retiree creates cards and sends them to the people on the prayer list. A young couple volunteers at the homeless shelter. Each expresses in daily deeds the same generosity by which God feeds us at that table.

"You open your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing," people of faith have sung through the ages, and from generation to generation God has responded. This psalm is both petition and benediction. Said at the dinner table, as it was by my college classmate’s family, it evokes a response of gratitude for God’s unfailing generosity. Thankful living is open–handed living. We who have received God’s grace come to see others differently, and in that seeing, our own lives become increasingly open–handed and generous.

It should be no surprise that Jesus had a particularly effective ministry with thieves and tax collectors, those who approached life with a clutching and grabbing spirit. Once Jesus invited himself to dinner at Zacchaeus’ house (Luke 19:1–10), turning the tables on this leader whose life was based not on trust in an open–handed God but on shaking a disproportionate profit out of others. But when Jesus sat at Zacchaeus’ table, it was the life of the host that was transformed. At the end of the meal Zacchaeus himself announced, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much" (19:8).

And so it goes with all of us who have received from God’s grace and generosity. As we have received, so we offer to others — from the open hands of God to an open-handed attitude toward others.

The Rev. Patricia Lull serves as dean of students at Luther Seminary and as an affiliated pastor at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul, Minn.