2 Corinthians 8: 1-15 (links validated 5/29/24a)

Few books deal more poignantly with themes of giving, generosity and hoarding than John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. One scene particularly shows how generosity can, in fact, be contagious. In it Mae is working at a diner’s counter where two truckers sit when a migrant dad and two barefoot boys walk in. The dad approaches Mae. “Could you see your way to sell us a loaf of bread, ma’am? ?” Mae balks. “This ain’t a grocery store. We got bread to make san’widges.” “I know ma’am,” says the man. But we’re hungry and “there ain’t nothing for quite a piece they say.” Mae is still balking. “If I sell you bread we’re going to run out. Why’nt you buy a san’widge. We got nice san’widges. Hamburgs.” “We can’t afford san’widges,” says the man. “We got to make a dime do all of us.” Mae resists. “You can’t get no loaf of bread for a dime,” she says. “We only got fifteen-cent loafs.” From behind her Al who’s working the diner’s grill growls, “God Almighty, Mae, give ’em bread.” She protests: “We’ll run out ‘fore the bread truck comes.” “Run out then … ” says Al. Mae opens a drawer, pulls out a loaf of bread, and says, “This here is a fifteen-cent loaf.” The man answered with what Steinbeck calls “inflexible humility, ‘Won’t you — can’t you see your way to cut off ten cents worth’?” Al said snarlingly, “******* it, Mae, give ’em the loaf.” When the man reaches into his pocket for a dime, a penny comes out with it. He then notices the two boys staring into the diner’s candy case not with what Steinbeck calls “craving, but just with a kind of wonder that such things could be.” The dad turns back to Mae. “How much is them sticks of peppermint candy?” he asks. “Is them penny candy, ma’am?” The boys had stopped breathing as Mae answers. “No,” she says. “Them’s not penny candy. Them’s two for a penny.” The dad says OK, and he and the boys walk out of the diner and to their car, the boys “holding their candy down rigidly at their sides, not even daring to look at them.” In the diner, one of the truckers wheels around toward Mae. “Them wasn’t two-for-a-cent candy,” he says. “What’s that to you,” says Mae. The truckers each place a coin on the counter and turn to leave. Mae calls at them, “Hey! Wait a minute! You got change comin’.” “You go to ****,” says Bill, and slams the screen door. Mae goes to where the truckers had been sitting. She had expected their usual tip. But each man had left her a half-dollar. “Truck drivers,” says Mae reverently, as she fingers the coins. “Truck drivers,” and right “after them ****heels” took all my bread.

always good insights!

Landon Parvin tells a story about a charity organization’s chairman’s visit to an infamous miser. “Sir,” the fund-raiser told him, “our records show that despite your wealth, you’ve never even once given to our drive.” “Do your records show that I have an elderly mother who was left penniless when my father died?” the tightwad fumed. “Do your records show that I have a disabled brother who is unable to work? Do your records show that I have a widowed sister with small children who can barely make ends meet?” “No, sir,” the embarrassed volunteer stuttered. “Our records don’t show those things.” “Well,” the miser huffed, “I don’t give to any of them, so why should I give anything to you?”

On “Money” from Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark: An ABC Theologized. Harper & Row San Francisco, 1988, pp. 80-81. “The more you think about it, the less you understand it. The paper it’s printed on isn’t worth a red cent. There was a time you could take it to the bank and get gold or silver for it, but all you’d get now is a blank stare. If the government declared that the leaves of trees were money so there would be enough for everybody, money would be worthless. It has worth only because there is not enough for everybody. It has worth only because the government declares it has worth and because people trust the government in that one particular although in every other particular they wouldn’t trust it around the corner. The value of money, like stocks and bonds, goes up and down for reasons even the experts cannot explain and at moments nobody can predict, so you can be a millionaire one moment and a pauper the next without lifting a finger. Great fortunes can be made and lost completely on paper. There is more concrete reality in a baby’s throwing its rattle out of the crib. There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up. Jesus says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Maybe the reason is not that the rich are so wicked they are kept out of the place but that they are so out of touch with reality they can’t see it’s a place worth getting into.”

St. Paul’s message of grace is about Mev Puleo. I first met her when she was a college student—vivacious, intelligent, and wonderfully on fire. There was a splendor to her joy. Energy sparked her writings, her talk, her photographic genius. Later, in the hope that others might see her work, I proposed a book called Faces of Poverty, Faces of Christ—my words, her pictures worth a thousand words. This was only a small part of her labors. Mev was a theologian, like her husband, Mark Chmiel, at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and her photography graced journals and newspapers. She attended to the poor, especially of Central and South America. She revealed their faces. She recorded their voices. But then it was Mev who is poor.

("Our daughter, Mary, was about 13 months old when she became ill. She had what appeared to be a common flu bug. But she became dehydrated. Then something went wrong, seriously wrong. Her eyes crossed. Not just a little bit. They literally rolled in and the doctors knew something of a neurological nature had occurred...")

"In casting around for what to say to you, in response to this latest bubbling-up of racial and religious hatred, I've decided to share the words of another Presbyterian minister: the late Fred Rogers, of MisterRogers Neighborhood on TV. Writing a newspaper column back in the 1980's, following one traumatic news story or another, he had this to say: 'I was spared from any great disasters when I was little, but there was plenty of news of them in newspapers and on the radio, and there were graphic images of them in newsreels...

("I was a youth pastor at East Doncaster Baptist. I helped to lead a discussion group of 14 to 17 year-olds on issues of life and faith. At one point, I decided that I would like to explore the themes of faith and trust with them, and in an attempt to ground the idea a bit, I began by asking them to tell me something that they really needed..." and another illustration)

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