“Since you can’t do good for everybody, first care for those who by chance of place or time or any other circumstance are closest to you. When our Lord told us not to invite our friends, brothers, or kinsmen to our banquet, but rather the poor and disabled, he was not forbidding us to invite kinsmen as such, but rather forbidding the kind of inviting that wants to be invited back, and stems from greed rather than charity.”
Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica as recounted in The Quotable Saint ed. Rosemary Ellen Guiley (New York: Visionary Living, 2002) 24.
Today at Camp Spofford we are considering together what it means to put God’s resources to work on mission in a manner that reflects our love for God and love for our neighbor. Here Aquinas offers us this sobering statement which really makes me think: Does my generosity only go to people who can make returns to me, and thus, if I look at it honestly, really stem from my own desire for gain? Or do I, like Jesus instructed in Luke 14:15-24, seek out people who cannot “pay me back” so as to avoid having greed motivate my generosity? Aquinas suggests that Jesus calls each of us to extend charity to needy neighbors who can offer nothing in return? Who would that be for you?