Sharing with Others
by Fr. Erasto Fernandez
Continuing with the theme of Communion itself, we need to look at another aspect of the reality of our sharing life with God, which is of great importance. When we come to commune at the Lord’s table, we come there not as individuals, (as we have seen in the previous chapter) but as a body, a community closely knit in union with Christ. But when we gather together round the table of the Lord, we go even further – we open ourselves to one another to share our very lives with them. Together with the Risen Lord we say at the Eucharist: (My brothers and sisters) ‘take and eat, this is my body which is given for you!’ And evidently, throughout the rest of the day, we seek to fulfill what we have said in the celebration.
However, we note that the point of the Eucharist is not so much that we develop the art and generosity of feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty, in short of caring for the needs of the unfortunate around us. As we again and again hear the story of what Jesus did at the heart of the Eucharist we notice that ‘he took the bread, broke it and gave it to his disciples saying: “Take this and divide it among yourselves.” So, it seems that Jesus himself made a difference between giving away (charity) and sharing (communion and fellowship). In our terms today we could possibly see a further difference in the sense that when a person gives (away) something to another as in charity, the relationship between the two still remains at a ‘one-up-one-down’ level. The dignity of the receiver is somehow not affirmed; s/he still remains the beggar while the other stands out as the donor! The gesture of giving ends up demeaning the receiver – as a person in his own right. Whereas when people share their resources as at the Eucharist, a new level of equality is created where both are seen to be and are treated as equal. Here the dignity of the recipient is not only affirmed but raised and acknowledged as being that of a child of God. Now this is what true Christian sharing is all about.
Following God’s Own Example
We notice that when God gives us, he follows the dynamics not so much of giving as of sharing. In Ex 24:3-8 we read that Moses and the representatives of Israel went up the mountain and there in God’s presence they ate and drank. Although not said explicitly, it stands to reason that on this occasion God invited them to his ‘abode’ (the mountain top) and there he himself provided a sumptuous banquet for them. When he himself provided them with this banquet, he certainly would not have himself just stood around and watched them eat and drink. He would have shared the meal with them – giving them the practical assurance that he regarded them truly as equals, as ‘members of the household of God!’
Another way Yahweh expressed this deep truth is when he reminded them that through the Covenant ‘I shall be your God and you shall by my people.’ The level of equality is clearly discernible here and the people would have realized in a remarkable way that they did actually have the dignity of God’s own children: they ate and drank in God’s own house. We recall that up to then, no one except Moses was ever allowed to even approach the mountain of God – indicating their distance from God. And the same holds true for the Eucharistic banquet to which all his beloved are invited.
All Children of One Father
In the early Church we are told that no member of the Christian community ever said that anything one owned belonged entirely to oneself. They saw their material possessions as gifts given them by the Father, primarily for sharing with all their needy brethren. They held everything in common and hence the foundation of their sharing was their equality in the eyes of God. After all, it is not what a man has that makes him rich, but how he regards himself as blessed by God and hence capable of sharing with others that truly constitutes him as rich and blessed. When he can see himself as a child of God and behave accordingly, then he doesn’t have to worry about not having plenty of material goods. Even without material plenty he is blessed indeed in his very identity, his very being! Against the Jewish background of thinking this is a very important aspect of life. The Jews believed that if and when a person lived a good life, God would bless him with plenty and make him prosper as a reward for his personal moral uprightness. An abundance of worldly goods meant that the person concerned was richly blessed by God and hence was holy, close to God.
For the Christian, however, all he can boast about is God’s gifts given to him in abundance not because he is good and lives a virtuous life, but because of the measure of God’s love for him. All the Christian has and is, is a pure gift from the Father! Besides, whether a person has or does not, he still remains precious in God’s eyes. Christians believe that whatever God gives a person is always meant for the community at large as well; nothing is given for oneself alone. Thus, they would see themselves as stewards of God’s good gifts and the more they share large-heartedly with one another the more they themselves would be assured of help in their own times of difficulty. In fact, those who did not freely and lovingly share with others were considered as ‘dead’ Christians as we see in the case of Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5:1-11. In short, we could say that a truly Christian community would be characterized by a generous pooling of resources by all – they were all of one mind and one heart! Even if they do not really form a cooperative society, they live in such a way that everyone knows that what they hold is available to anyone in need.
Lessons from the Desert Journey
This spirit of sharing and of consideration for one’s neighbour was inculcated in the Israelites right from the time of the desert journey. When Yahweh began to feed his people with manna in the desert, he warned them not to gather more than what was the daily need of each family. And if they did, they discovered that what remained rotted and was inedible the next day. This approach taught them not only to learn to trust in God’s providence, that he would most certainly rain down manna for them the next day and every day for that matter. They did not have to hoard or store for the morrow for this would indicate distrust of God’s loving providence. But it also taught them to be considerate of the needs of others, to think of others as much as they thought of themselves and their own needs. When they gathered more than required, they deprived others of their rightful share and when the extras rotted, both they themselves and also the entire community lost out on what could have been enjoyed by some, had they been more thoughtful.
Further, those who would have had to go hungry because there was nothing left for them would feel and perhaps even been seen as second class citizens. These would naturally be the sick, infirm or disabled – people who could not compete with the more able-bodied or strong. Thus gradually their very dignity as equally loved children of God would vanish and they would be relegated to the fringes of society. What was stressed, therefore, by this practice of gathering only as much as was needed, is the dignity and equality of all of God’s children, no matter what their physical condition was. It is this equality that needs to be upheld in the Church and especially during the Eucharist. History shows us how grossly this aspect has been neglected all over the world and in all different types of cultures. Isn’t this one of the major concerns in our world today, in spite of all its industrialization, globalization and other progress.
The Christian too is admonished to think of all the earth’s resources as being God’s gifts given equally to every human being, with the injunction given to each to gather only as much as s/he needs. But somehow this lesson of equality and sharing has been difficult for humankind to understand and practice all down the ages. And hence we have the great divide between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots even to our day. And with the spread of globalization we see today that the rich get progressively richer while the poor get poorer likewise. However, several far-sighted and large-hearted projects that have already proven successful, have shown us conclusively that if people can sincerely work to make the world’s riches available also to those at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ not only do the poor benefit, but the rich as well. Nevertheless, even in these experiments, the bottom-line seems to be the honesty, magnanimity and goodwill of all - those who are at the bottom of the pyramid, as also those who are at the top of it!
Most of the production of sophisticated goods and gadgets today is designed to be available for the top of the pyramid (the upper ten percent of the rich) and that is why prices are generally kept so high. The middle and poorer classes cannot afford these goods because of their exorbitant prices. These high prices would not be warranted of course, except by creating or generating an artificial need or scarcity. But logically, those at the top of the pyramid would be far less numerically than those at the bottom. So, when these same goods are designed and priced in such a way as to become affordable by those at the bottom, even though they will have to be priced less, yet because of the sheer volume needed at this level, the amount of profits obtained would far exceed what the present approach would fetch by aiming at the top of the pyramid! This has been proved scientifically and written about too - yet, not too many are ready to venture in this direction. It certainly calls for a ‘change of heart’ and an enterprising spirit ready to consider the less privileged also as brother and sister.
But would it not be possible to find entrepreneurs within the Christian community who, inspired by their faith experience of God’s own generosity and entering into God’s own mind and plan with regard to earth’s bounteous goods, would follow this new and unusual path. They would do this, not because of the profit factor, but because of the deeper and more weighty reason that all human beings are God’s children, equal in his sight, and hence needing to be treated with equal consideration. Our hope is that the celebration of the Eucharist would create precisely such a kind of thinking and courageous action. However, that will not happen automatically until we learn to draw out the full implications of what we celebrate almost routinely and in ritual fashion week after week. Perhaps the symbolism of the ‘breaking of the bread’ and ‘sharing the Cup’ should be emphasized a lot more in homilies and other ways, so that participants realize the inner meaning of what they do and commit themselves to as Christians.
This approach to material goods and sharing is precisely what is meant to be achieved among religious by their vow of poverty. Religious are meant to live the Christian life in the most radical manner, proclaiming what life in the kingdom of God (Covenant) is like. Unfortunately, the vow of poverty that religious take has been grossly misunderstood and seen very narrowly, only in terms of ‘not possessing’. Rather it all begins with a new way of thinking – that the earth’s riches are the common property of all and that a person is rich not in terms of how much s/he possesses as in terms of how much s/he can make available for the community – in this view people are seen as belonging to one another, or to a large human family, and not just as isolated individuals, fending each for themselves as they eke out their existence here on earth. Rather their ‘trinitarian’ togetherness begins here on earth at Baptism as they enter into Covenant with the Father and live their unity through an active concern for one another.
It is ironical to recall that this kind of communal possession of the goods of the earth exists (and has existed from time immemorial) among simple tribal cultures – their entire outlook on life is quite different from the consumerist attitude prevalent today in modern Society. Is there a lesson in this for us on what exactly is ‘culture’ and progress – what is the ultimate destiny and purpose of human beings on earth? Where should our priorities be especially today when we have mastered so much of Nature that we begin to feel that it all belongs to the few privileged ones of modern technological Society? Is there something we still to learn from our brethren who are nearer to the mind of God and to the way God himself dwells within the Blessed Trinity?
Eucharistic Values
Perhaps the most challenging situation that would test our Eucharistic values along these lines is when we lose something that we considered dear or precious. Whether we lose the item or it is stolen or misplaced or whatever, is beside the point. The question is: What are our feelings when this happens? How long do we ‘grieve’ for the article lost? How does this loss affect other areas of our lives? If we have been practicing the value of sharing our blessings with others in need, then we would be able to be calm and at peace, not grieving or mourning the loss of any particular thing to a great extent. We would not feel the need to go around making a big scene about it, much less would we blame anyone for the loss. Maybe we would even be able to see the loss as a gift from God, a blessing in disguise that we have lost it. It could also help us question the level of attachment we seem to have to this particular object (the same applies also to persons).
If our sharing with others stems from the Eucharist that we celebrate then one other thing we will notice is that our sharing becomes more and more selfless. We are able to share without even the slightest trace of a desire for gratitude or anything else in return. Also, we would be ready to share with anyone in need, irrespective of his/her status or position in the group. Generally, the ‘self’ is very subtly active in such situations, always looking for something for itself. But the Eucharist teaches us to be selfless as Jesus was. In fact, our greatest joy would be to see the other person benefiting from what we share. Further, we would be able to rejoice if the other can go even higher than ourselves because of the little ‘push’ we were able to give through our sharing. We would also possibly find ourselves very vigilant and on the alert to discover opportunities in which we can share with others, for the sheer joy of giving. In this way, we would extend God’s kingdom of love, joy and peace almost everywhere we go.
As we make greater progress in this attitude of sharing, we would definitely come across situations in which we would be asked to ‘give of our very life’ for the other. As Jesus said, ‘No one can have greater love than when s/he lays down her/his life for a friend.’ That would be the greatest gift, of life itself, given for the other. What we would be sharing in this case is the joy of being in the kingdom. Offered as the little grain of wheat when it falls into the ground, our life will produce a large harvest for the kingdom – and that is what we eventually will be sharing in such situations.
And when we fail, for there will always be times when we do not rise to the level we would like to, we would be able to take that set-back in our stride and keep moving, always learning from our mistakes. Underneath it all we realize that it is not we (self) who do all this, but the ‘Spirit of your father who abides in you!’ Thus, even in the giving, we will give praise to the Father for having given us the opportunity to share with others.
We might also notice that each person has a certain area of ‘specialty’ in and for his/her sharing. Some share ideas more easily than other things; still others can share things and objects more readily. It would help if we can discover which the area of our specialty is and utilize it to the full. This would help us not to feel disheartened when we fail in areas which are not our forte, as it were. These dark areas of lack or failure will keep us always humble and close to the Lord.
Putting all these Eucharistic values in schematic form, we have:
- Deep inner peace especially when we are despoiled of some possession
- Selfless sharing based only on the need of the other – not picking and choosing whom we will share with; openness to all who are in need
- Giving even what we might need ourselves (self-gift)… till it hurts
- Ready to give even our lives for others
- Not deterred by occasional failures; ready to learn from mistakes
- We recognize our specialty and excel in these areas of giving
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Copyright © Fr. Erasto Fernandez. All rights reserved.
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