Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

78 THE PASSIONATE STEWARD
to do with an expression of gratitude than an appeal to vanity. One who
gives for the sake of having his or her name publicly displayed is
motivated more by the esteem of peers than obedience to the call of
the Holy Spirit to share, or even divest oneself of, what wealth one has.
Secondly, because donor recognition is inevitably tied to the size
of a gift, rather than the generosity with which it is given, the
sacrificial offerings of the un-moneyed are automatically devalued and
discounted. Where are the plaques on church walls commemorating
the women who worked their fingers to the bone cleaning the church,
polishing brass, or appearing at the drop of a hat to cater funeral
receptions? What about the laborer who gave up his vacation to help
pay for a new youth worker? Or the woman on welfare who pledged
a dollar a week to the building campaign? And meanwhile, a $10,000
gift from an individual who recently gave $20,000 to the Symphony,
and whose disposable income sits comfortably in six figures, is
memorialized with fanfare and wall plaques.
In short, the Church must not promote a system by which
recognition is arbitrarily showered upon the wealthy, but rather
should set a standard as radical as the Gospel itself. Our gratitude
and admiration belong to generosity, not wealth. And generosity is
within the reach of the poorest of the poor. Jesus’ story of the
widow’s mite is the locus classicus for the call to generosity:
[Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched
the people putting money into the treasury, and many
of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came
and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny.
Then he called his disciples and said to them, “In
truth I tell you, this poor widow has put more in than
all who have contributed to the treasury; for they
have all put in money they could spare, but she in her
poverty has put in everything she possessed, all she
had to live on” (Mk 12:41–44, NJB).