The Church Helps Everyone Contribute

Have you ever felt that those around you wanted you to hear their voice, but they wanted you to keep silent? It is very common.

The Church can help the community overcome this strange apartheid.

In the contributing community, people want to give. Giving is especially important if it is to something they think is needed and worthwhile. The contributions of all persons are accepted and celebrated. The people know that what they are doing is worthwhile. Systems are in place to enable every person to make their own contribution to the well being of the community. The Church is in a leadership role in the development of these systems.

Luke 21:1-4

"He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasure; he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. He said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has but in more than all of them; for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on."

Jesus' words about the scene in front of his small audience were more than a call to the poor to give. He was, it appears, calling for the gifts of even the poorest to be both accepted and recognized.

Our current society is tempted to assume that only big industry can provide economic salvation for themselves. Fayette, Mississippi, panicked when a major automotive manufacturer closed a wiring harness assembly plant. The Navajo Nation is frightened and held captive by their own imagination. The people fear the prospect of a coal company being forced out by politics or high wages. In both cases, small industry could supply jobs and benefits, given strength in the proper areas.

Even in slavery many if not most people have been able to contribute to the goodness of life for the community. Many African-American and Native American slaves not only learned to read and write, but taught others. Many taught their children and the children of other slaves. Some even taught their masters and the masters' children.

In the migrant labor communities of the 20th century, community people who could no longer work in the fields often tended and taught children. Some cared for elderly or cared for whatever homes they could. The great civil rights struggle of the 20th century has been to give everyone the opportunity to contribute as well as the right to receive.

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