Transformative Charity
Sermon preached by Natasha Smith on Sunday, March 9, 2025
Good morning!
Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God. Amen.
Last week, our worship and Sarah’s homily focused on the theme of forgiveness in our Lenten journey. Today, let us turn our attention to the crucial matter of caring for our brothers and sisters. I know from my experience that gifts given from the heart will illumine, transform, and shape our spiritual lives, leading us into the kingdom of God.
Let’s begin by reading the Gospel from Mark, chapter 2, the reading for yesterday:
"One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’
He answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he then gave some to his companions.’"
In this passage, David takes what is dedicated to God, the consecrated bread, and gives it to his friends who are hungry. He takes what is given to us freely and gives it away freely. This same process is enacted during the Liturgy at the elevation, when you see the deacon raise up the gifts with his arms crossed before the holy table. The priest says, “Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto Thee on behalf of all and for all.”
God gives gifts to us, we offer them back, and then He gives them back to us as a means for communion with Him. A beautiful relationship. God gives us His best, and we must respond with our best—engaged, sacrificial, humble, sustained charity.
Two weeks ago, we listened to a reading from Matthew 25 in preparation for Lent. It is central to our Christian journey and maybe even a little frightening. If we learn only one verse from the Bible, this might be it:
"Then the King will say, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’"
Let us reflect on this reading as we look at the components of genuine, transformative charity.
First of all, we must engage with the recipient of our charity. If one writes a check to a nonprofit, first find out more about its mission and motivation. Is there another gift of time or talent one could offer? Who benefits from that charity? If one is donating an icon to the church, one might first meditate on the life of the saint or scripture depicted.
When offering a meal to a person who is hungry, sit down and eat with that person, who is also a child of God. Find out why that person is hungry. Most likely, you will find spiritual hunger too. Pray for and, if possible, pray with that person. I have found that the connection with another person is the key to transformation for both of you.
In addition, charity must be sustained. Like other forms of exercise, spiritual practice gets easier with repetition. There is a wonderful family sitting in the congregation today who took a family of six refugees shopping for school shoes this past fall to teach charity to their child. What a wonderful day! What if we bought a pair of shoes for a needy brother or sister every time we went shoe shopping?
Thirdly, our charity must be sacrificial. God doesn’t call us to give the leftovers to the poor. He wants our first fruits. He gave us His only Son so that we might have everlasting life. Surely, there is more we can offer to Him.
Above all, alms must be given in the spirit of humility. Give anonymously unless your gift might encourage another person to be more generous. God will bless us for our gifts, and we will grow closer to Him in humility.
So how exactly does divine transformation take place? Really, this is a great mystery, but I would like to humbly give some examples from my own life.
Over the past few years, I have had the gift of serving a family of refugees who came from a very remote part of the world. The mother, Nafaz Gul, is especially vulnerable. She is illiterate and has many health problems. We spend a lot of time going to doctors’ appointments and repeatedly learning very basic skills like shopping or riding the T. She can’t remember her phone number.
In Afghanistan, she rarely left the bustling family compound and is extremely isolated in her new life. She is incapable of advocating for herself and resists learning English. I feel so frustrated with her lack of initiative, yet God gives me the patience to continue working with her even when I don’t want to.
Nafaz Gul grieves constantly because she left three children behind when she escaped her native Afghanistan. She struggles but perseveres in the hope that she will see her children again. When I have a grievance with my life, I have only to look to her situation and pray, “Lord have mercy.”
I am humbled that she carries on with a sense of humor. Even though she is very poor, she always bakes bread for me. She also has the discipline to pray five times a day, which I find hard to do. God certainly brought her into my life to teach me mercy, patience, and humility—three things we pray for in the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian:
"O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother or sister, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen."
In this holy period of Lent, where we are choosing activities, prayers, and fasting to draw us closer to God, let us try to stretch ourselves by providing charity to the other. Start small, but start. Get off the couch. Turn off the TV. God will take that effort and transform it—and us.
St. Maria Skobtsova, a nun who devoted herself to the poor and disenfranchised and was truly transformed by acts of charity, said this:
"However hard I try, I find it impossible to construct anything greater than these three words: ‘Love one another.’ Only to the end, and without exceptions—then all is justified and life can be illumined."
Thanks be to God.