The Magnificent Concern

W. Carl Ketcherside

[Page 109]

     "Now, my brothers, we must tell you about the grace that God has given to the Macedonian churches. Somehow in most difficult circumstances, their joy and the fact of being down to their last penny themselves, produced a magnificent concern for other people" (2 Corinthians 8:1,2).

     It is an interesting fact that many times those who are the poorest in this world's goods are actually the most generous in helping share the burdens of those who are distressed. There seems to be a willingness to give which acts in inverse ratio to the amount of possessions. What is true of individuals frequently becomes true of the congregations which they constitute.

     All of us have known of groups of saints who struggled to get started in rented halls or storefront buildings, with a spirit of love and compassion which was unsurpassed. But we have seen the same communities of believers come unglued and fall to staves, when they became wealthy and moved into imposing structures in an elite neighborhood. It seems to be easier to handle poverty than to manage affluence.

     Paul was concerned about collecting funds from the gentile world to relieve the serious needs of the poverty-stricken saints at Jerusalem. When he reached the compromise with the other apostles by which it was agreed that they would continue to take the Message to the circumcised, while he went among the uncircumcised, he promised that he would not forget the poor in Judea. There is no indication that he ever forgot or evaded the promise.

     Corinth was in Achaia, the southern province of the Grecian peninsula, of which Macedonia was the northern province. Corinth was a bustling transfer point for cargo ships and a place of wealth. When Paul wrote the congregation there to urge them to collect a sum to be carried to Jerusalem, he mentioned that the community of saints in Macedonia had been urging him for a year or more to take their contribution to relieve the suffering ones whom they would never see.

     In the passage under consideration here he mentions the state of the saints in Macedonia, pointing out their generosity in the midst of abject poverty. This spirit he calls the grace that God has given. We seldom think of our sharing in this fashion. Sometimes we regard it as a sacrifice that we make, or a drive that we put on, or a concern that we feel.

     When we are touched in the depths of our being about the report of starvation in Biafra or India, and we feel an impulse to send the small sum which we have been saving for something special, do we ever think of this feeling as grace which God has bestowed upon us? When we are reminded of the squalor and destitution in the ghetto, and we empty our pantry shelves of the cans which we have collected and contribute them to the food drive, do we recognize our desire for what it is?

     We may feel that the recipients of our gifts are fortunate enough to share in grace because they share in our things, and all too often we look upon ourselves as the dispensers of grace rather than the receivers of it. There is the danger that we may feel that we are essential to God and that grace could not come without us, when the fact is that we could not go without grace.

     The purpose of life is to glorify God and we do this when we share unselfishly with others. The achievement of empathy with others in their straitened circumstances is the magnificent concern. It is this which makes us more Godlike and heavenly. The Macedonians were in difficult circumstances. But they were not defeated by them. Instead, the surging joy which bubbled up within, coupled with their almost penniless state, caused them to react in such a manner as to give generously and freely. Like the widow who cast in the two mites, they gave their living, and in doing so found the secret of life.