By Richard Vinson
Somebody always wants something. Every day, I pass people holding signs made with markers on cardboard, asking for spare change. Year-round, my church has boxes for collecting food for the food bank and envelopes for money for hunger relief. We have a big food drive at Thanksgiving and special offerings for disaster relief. I’m confident that your church does, too. Then there are the phone-a-thons for charities, the groups that want you to leave old clothes in a bag on your porch, the public radio station that would like your old car.
Peter had no money to give to the lame man at the Beautiful Gate. He and the others who followed Jesus from Galilee had left their homes and their jobs.
So he gives what he can, a miraculous healing by the power of the Spirit. Then, in the last part of this chapter, Peter gives his testimony to the crowd in the Temple. Jesus is alive, he told them. We are witnesses, and now you are witnesses to the power that comes through faith in him.
What do you have that you can give to a needy world? You and I have money. Even those of us counting our coins are much better off than most people in the world. We can do a lot to relieve the suffering of the poor, the sick and the displaced. We can give our time and energy, through outreach programs in our churches and in justice oriented non-profits.
Like Peter, we can share our story of how knowing Jesus has changed us. I don’t think God holds us responsible for not being Peter and Paul. I think God expects us to do what we are capable of doing: we can give, we can work, we can pray and we can testify.
We can share ourselves, can’t we?
- Think about what you give to others. What about your giving works well for you? What do you wish you could change? What do you worry about?
- The famous line “walking and leaping and praising God” (verse 8) is such a great picture of a person’s sheer delight in receiving God’s blessings. What have you received recently that made you feel that way?
- What other details did you notice in today’s reading?
Prayer: O God of great mercy and generosity, help us to be open-handed in a world of need. Amen.
