“Christian trinitarianism encourages a distinctive understanding of divine generosity as embodying a deep responsiveness and receptivity. As Rowan Williams says, Christian faith has a “picture of the divine life involving receiving as well as giving, depending as well as controlling.” The incarnation of God in Jesus Christ shows us that “what we understand by ‘God’ can’t just be power and initiative; it also includes receiving and reflecting back in love and gratitude.”
This intratrinitarian dimension of God’s generosity likewise shapes the contours of our own generosity…Unlike missional paradigms in which Christians are always the ones sent, always the ones called to give witness to the truth, Christian understandings of generosity within God’s own life call us to expectations of receiving and depending on others. Joyful receptivity and responsiveness…is one way we acknowledge and mirror divine generosity.”
Amy Plantinga Pauw in Do We Worship the Same God? ed. Miroslav Volf (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) 43.
Many Americans fail to grow in Christian generosity because we struggle with knowing how to joyfully receive and respond! Our culture forms us to think independently and function from a self-centered framework rather than live mutually interdependent and others-centered lives. Think about it. Most so-called Christians follow the cultural norms of stockpiling for themselves and doing whatever it takes to avoid having to depend on or care for others.
What should we do? We must encourage each other daily to live Christianly and not be tainted by the deceitfulness of sin (cf. Hebrews 3:13). Pauw rightly notes (echoing the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams) that when we look at our Triune God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–we find that giving and receiving characterize God’s life, and so giving and receiving should also reflect ours. As we do, our lives mirror “divine” generosity.
When the early church lived this way, humble obedience became the primary missional paradigm that won the pagan, polytheistic world despite persecution and poverty (cf. Acts 2:44-47). The early church exhibited joyful receptivity and responsiveness. Father, form us into such a people by your Holy Spirit, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.