Luke 3:11

In the first story Luke and Matthew offer us after John the Baptist returns from his leave for solitude in the wilderness (Luke 1:80) where “the word of God came to him” (Luke 3:2) (…as he munched on crunchy grasshoppers and tasty wild honey), we find John preaching the necessity of true repentance - But only after he tells the crowd how it is, calling them a “brood of vipers”; hateful to God, and hating one another.

In verse 10, we then find the crowd responding to John’s words, asking of him “What then shall we do?” To which, John says, “Hey, if you want to live the kingdom, if you have to coats give one away, and do likewise with your food.”(v12)

Como say what?! Does he really mean that? …If you have two coats give one away, and the same with food?

Along these same lines, Basil the Great has this to say -

"When someone strips a man of his clothes, we call him a thief. And one who might clothe the naked and does not — should not he be given the same name? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute."

Or, in the words of Dorothy Day, "If you have two coats, one of them belongs to the poor." Should we not, then, return our stolen goods with humility, like a child returning a stolen candy bar to the grocery store clerk? Should we not cry out, in the words of St. Vincent de Paul: "May the poor man forgive me the bread I give him"?

In light of these words, giving to the poor is not charity, but simply giving back what was stolen. It is what is expected of us.

From John to Jesus, repentance is linked to redistribution. This is evident in Luke 19, when Zacchaus for some strange reason decides he wants to go to heaven. So he gives half of what he has away, and decides to pay back what he has stolen from people tenfold, to which Jesus says, “Ok, now salvation has entered this house” (19:9). Apparently, there’s a lot more to salvation that simply saying “Hey, I’m sorry. I am sinner.” It’s about repenting from our sin. (see Luke 13:1-5)

And apparently, as John and Jesus seem to suggest, part of our sin is holding onto all of our things.

You see, poverty was created not by God, but by you and me. (See Deut. 15:1-11. You should consider seriously studying this passage.) We are responsible for today’s imbalance that leaves unthinkable numbers of people dying every single day due to lack of basic human needs. We are the murders. We are the thieves. The blood is on our hands. Gandhi puts it this way, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but there is not enough for everyone’s greed.” And it because of this earthly reality of imbalance and the spiritual reality that we are all created equal that the way of Jesus is all about a radical way of sacrificial living for the sake of redistribution; for the sake of actually loving (which is in a Christian sense is primarily a verb) your neighbor as yourself. In other words, Jesus is telling us not to just talk about it all the time, but to actually love our neighbors in the sense of being willing to work for their well-being even if it means sacrificing our own. And to do it without limitations.

Jesus also tells us to embody a reckless faith that is dependent on God like the lilies and the sparrows, constantly in need of the Lords providence - making the most room for the transcendent as possible by not worrying about missing out, or being preoccupied with getting, which might be so that we can begin to respond to His giving. This vision of such a reckless faith is given to us in Matthew 6:25-34where Jesus tells us not to worry about three things: our food, our clothing (all image laden pursuits), and our shelter. I mean really Jesus? Because we worry about this stuff all the time... And food? The most basic need of life? Craziness.

Jesus says it’s the pagans nations, it’s the unbelievers, that strive after all these things. And I think the reason why we are to do differently is becayse when we live out this unconcerned recklessness, we are truly free to be preoccupied with God affairs, “seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness”.


But the thing is, if I were to say anything like this, or say the simple coat idea, to another Christian they’d surely think it’s a nice thought, but it’s likely their real thoughts are along the lines of, “Well hey man! It’s just a coat.” Why is that? I wonder if has to do with the fact that most of our lives we’ve been taught the moral things. Don’t drink, don’t to smoke, don’t have sex before marriage, and as long as we do these things we are free to spend our money as we want - to live comfortably and in abundance. Why? Because we’re doing the things Jesus said not to do! But the funny thing is,it seems to me that Jesus relatively didn’t have much to say about the “don’t do’s” in comparison with the “do do’s.” Yet, it is the typically evangelical occupation to lead people to the cross foot of the cross to lay down their sinful life, and rightfully so; however all too often we forget the very thing Jesus was most concerned most with, which is all that we’ve been given to pick up.

For me, redistributing my wardrobe and all of my other possessions was a very spiritual thing. And it continues to be as I continue to risk more, recognizing that I am surround by over-abundance, having way more than I need. And furthermore, it continues to be as I press on in ripping myself from my consumerist ways, filtering all my every day decisions through the lens of the ultimate goal of keeping not what I want, but only what I need to survive. If you think that sounds crazy then good. Maybe now you’re beginning to catch a glimpse as to why the Apostle Paul refers to himself as “fools for Christ’s sake” (1 Corinthians 4:10).

In the early church we see a trend of them selling everything they have to provide for the needed within their community. Acts 2 they sell everything they have and give to the needy, Acts 4, Acts 15, Acts 18; it keeps happening. And the more people they meet they find, the more they get rid of. Apparently they were addicted to giving. Apparently they understood what Jesus meant when he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)

And the more I give, the more I want to give. Almost as if there’s truth in these words Jesus spoke. Like the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away. Simply put, giving is addicting. A friend Peter who lives on Skid Row cleans a few storefronts every morning (which most often entails the disposal of urine and feces) for some extra spending money even though he can make it on his social security and the provision of the missions. When I asked him why then he works and what he spends it on, he told me he gives it away, which I found totally peculiar, so I then asked why. He motioned me to come near, looked left and right, and then exuberantly whispered in my ear, “it's better than sex!”

It was once said that Mother Theresa didn’t care about nice things, to which she interjected, “Are you kidding me? Of course I do. I am a woman. But I’ve found something greater, and far more important,” referring to the people of her community in Calcutta. The people she needs to survive; just as Adam, though in the actual presence of God, (and not just in his presence like we talk about where you can’t see him, but presence as in walking side by side with God) yet was still lonely. We need each other, that’s all there is to it.

Don't have any sweet ending for this put two more thoughts...

In terms of the family of Yahweh, our community is worldwide. As Christians it is imperative that we attend to universal issues and withdraw our attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences.

And for us to create these scenarios where what we have we’ve earned, as if God was blessing us with it, is tragic because if anything it seems that our things tend to keep us away from God, who is mysteriously found in those people in need of what we have to give (Matt. 25).