Generosity and Gratefulness

Today we find Jesus advising His host to store up  righteousness by being generous not towards the capable but towards the not so capable, who will not be able to return his generosity. Generosity in terms of being lavish like in todays Gospel; where Jesus is invite to a dinner hosted by a ruler for his friends and Jesus, one presupposes that one is grateful about something. Grateful for the good harvest, or new wife, or something good that has happened to the person. Here Jesus points to the fact that God is the source of all goodness and joy. And if God has provided us these freely, where we also are unable to give back, what should be our response to Him out of the gratitude we have for what we have been provided with?

I understand this as Jesus asking us to pay forward the generosity shown us. But not only giving generosity to those who can return our generosity, but more so to those who are unable to pay back our generosity. Where they also are challenged in their own way to pay forward, and in the end the world will be a better place. Underlined in this understanding is also the fact that we are the vehicles of God’s Goodness to the world. And as such we need to extend God’s goodness, mercy and grace by being goodness, mercy and grace to the world.

Lord Holy Spirit awaken in us gratitude and the desire to respond to God’s generosity, that God may flood this world with His love, peace and joy, in and through us.