Moldovans are Macedonians

Eating to Survive

As I picked at my own food (if you could call it that), I stared at the orphans around me. Coming in ordered droves, they ate like utilitarians, quickly, efficiently. I could see some desperation in their eyes as they shoveled food into their tummies.

We were in the dining hall in a little orphanage in a little village called Tocuz. Meals were basic--some bread, chicken soup perhaps, always some sort of oatmeal--and came at least twice a day, as far as I could tell. Interestingly, the kids spoke very little to one another as they ate. They were all business, you could say, no pleasure. Ranging from 7-16, these kids would never sip on soda or get dessert if they ate everything on their plate. They always ate everything on their plates. As I stared at the devouring, it dawned on me that, for them, eating was a means of survival. Though meals came with some regularity in Tocuz, they could not be depended upon. The eyes of the kids said resoundingly, "This meal could be my last for a while."

I don't understand that in the slightest. I have gone hungry for, maybe, half a day. The only dilemma I have when eating is whether or not I will eat enough or way too much (I usually choose the latter). What a dilemma. The kids in front of me, however, would never experience true bounty. What they had before them was all that they had and, as far as they knew, all they would have for a while. And it was in this context that I saw, perhaps for the first time, true sacrifice.

A Macedonian Before Me

It was nearing the end of the meal and I was watching one girl eat her food. She was one of the matriarchs of the orphanage, probably 14 or 15 years old. She had only finished half of her meal when she promptly stood up. She grabbed her plate, walked briskly across the room, and scraped the rest of her food off on to the plate of a girl much younger, who quickly began inhaling it. The girl had done this before, I'm sure of it, probably every day. Though she needed the food as much as anyone there, she had taken it upon herself to care for the younger ones. Where there was no mommy to provide, she would be the mommy.

As I tried hopelessly to grasp the enormity of what I had just seen, I thought about the Macedonians. The Macedonians, as we learn from Paul, gave when they had nothing to give. 2 Corinthians 8: 1-2: "We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part." This girl was a Macedonian. Generosity had flowed not out of the abundance of her riches, but out of the abundance of grace.

Generosity is not Easy to Come By

Tim Keller says that if you really want to give, you must give sacrificially. That is, you've got to give in a such a way that it hurts. But few of us do that. Very few of us would give the way that girl gave. Why? Several reasons, and they are interconnected.

1. The more we burden ourselves with stuff, the harder it is too free ourselves to actually give any of it away. The show Hoarders is about people who are literally incapable of throwing things away. For a multiplicity of reasons, they collect and collect and collect. And usually, their collection of food or clothes or things grows to such a great degree that getting rid of any of it would prove to be impossible. The same goes for those of us who have plenty. There comes a point when you gather too much stuff to give any of it away. Mountain climbers, for example, rid themselves of anything that isn't useful to them. If they burdened themselves with the extraneous, they'd never make it to the top. How many of us are loaded down with the extraneous? Though it is counter-intuitive, the less we have, the more will give away.

2. There is a direct correlation between wealth building and stinginess. I have spoken to numerous people who believe that giving will come as a result of accumulating money and things. What I have found, however, is that the building of earthly wealth serves as a dandy memory eraser. The more we collect, the more we forget that everything we have is a gift from God. Consequently, the more we collect, the more we believe that what we have is a result of our own ingenuity and discipline. We are owed what we have. So we could say that wealth building reinforces our self-righteousness, the belief that we are our own saviors. And rarely are the self-righteous able to give sacrificially. Giving sacrificially requires faith in something outside of ourselves.

3. The degree to which you give generously will depend on the degree to which you understand how generous Christ was with his own life. Paul does not say that the Macedonians gave out of the goodness of their hearts. Contrary to that, their generosity was a result of the "grace of God." And what is the grace of God? "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." It's pretty simple. The more deeply you understand what Christ gave up for us, the more you will give up for others. But if your generosity is not rooted in the work of Christ on the cross, you will never be sacrificially generous.

The girl was a Macedonian. At 14 years old she had little but gave much. I am 30 now. Will I finally follow her lead?