God’s generosity is something that it’s all too easy to take for granted. Sometimes - at least on the good days - we remember to thank God for the gifts of material things: the glory of creation, the food on our tables, the breath of life in a newborn baby. All good things. But when Paul writes in Romans about the generosity of God, he’s talking about something far less tangible. He’s talking about the gift of life with God.
Paul is overwhelmed with the enormity of that gift. He grew up in a world where the gift was far more limited, bounded by the Jewish law. It’s as if the law drew a circle, with God at the center. Inside the circle were those who kept the law; outside were those who didn’t. The line that marked the circumference of the circle also divided those who belonged to God from those who did not. He, and others like him, were in; everyone else was out.
But then he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, and discovered that the circle had been erased. God was still there in the center, but there was no circle defining who belonged to God and who didn’t. Instead, there was something like a web, lines radiating out from God to each individual, and then stretching sideways from person to person.
Sometimes the lines reached barely an inch; others, the reached as far as the horizon. But always they connected people to God, not because those people had been especially obedient or fulfilled some preordained role, but because they had reached out, and God had reached out, and their hands had connected.
We can talk a lot about what it means to be a Christian, about living faithfully, and spending time with God, and putting our trust in Jesus Christ. But in the end, it’s as simple as this. God is generous. Reach out to God, and God will reach out to you. And
and you will be firmly and tightly connected to God.
And a byproduct is that you will also be connected to other people, companions in this thing we call faith. Although that’s not always comfortable - because God is generous. God is generous to everyone, everyone and anyone who reaches out to catch hold of God’s outstretched hands. That includes sullen adolescents and joyous toddlers, socialists and tea partiers, overtired parents and relaxed retirees, and everyone in between, people of every race and nation and age and social standing. All of us, recipients of the generosity of God, inviting us to hope beyond fear and life beyond measure.
God is generous.
