The Slow Way: On Extravagant Generosity

What if we become people who believe there is enough grace, joy, and courage to heal us all?

for the frantic strivers, serial doers, and weary achievers

Ace and I have been loading ourselves in the car every morning at 7:25 this summer and driving 35 minutes to and from a therapeutic treatment that I'm still not quite sure how to describe. I won’t try to here. What I will say is that it’s an alternative treatment, not covered by insurance. And it’s not something easy to find or do. It’s a six week commitment, five days a week, 35 minutes there and 35 minutes back. And it just might make a difference in his ability to communicate and engage with the world around him. Also? It might not. 

Choosing to take that kind of risk has been emotional for me. Something I’ve been praying about, practicing holding with open hands, sometimes crying about. And the closest I can get to my answer about my choice to take this risk, to pull out the cash, to give away every morning of our summer, to spend hours driving up and down the same highway listening to the same five Sesame Street songs Ace loves every day, five days a week, for six weeks, is this: extravagance. There’s something about loving a child that makes us do extravagant things, tossing opportunities everywhere we can sling them, in hopes that something might stick, might grow.

This past Sunday we read what the church has traditionally referred to as “The Parable of the Sower,” a story in which Jesus compares God to a farmer who throws seed in a wildly inconsistent way: The sower throws seed on the rocky path, on thorns, and on good soil. Some of those seeds take. Others get choked by the thorns, eaten by the birds.

When preaching on this passage, Barbara Brown Taylor spoke about the worries she has always felt when attempting to make sense of this story in Matthew 13. As if it is a mandate to clean up her thorns, remove the rocks, turn herself into a well-fertilized field ready for the work of God. But instead, she says:

“it has been known for centuries as the parable of the Sower, which means there is a chance, just a chance, that we have got it all backwards. We hear the story and think it is a story about us, but what if we are wrong? What if it is not about us at all but about the sower? What if it is not about our own successes and failures and birds and rocks and thorns but about the extravagance of a sower who does not seem to be fazed by such concerns, who flings seed everywhere, wastes it with holy abandon, who feeds the birds, whistles at the rocks, picks his way through the thorns, shouts hallelujah at the good soil and just keeps on sowing, confident that there is enough seed to go around, that there is plenty, and that when the harvest comes at last it will fill every barn in the neighborhood to the rafters?”

My pastor read that quote on Sunday and I thought about how much of life is a choice to fling or not to fling. Will we be extravagant with the love we’ve been given, or will we hold ourselves back because of fear, the chance that all our flinging might not make a difference, or that we’ll be hurt in the process? “An abundant imagination feeds us courage,” my pastor Michael Rudzena said. “There is more than just one shot. There are seeds showering down all around us.” 

I needed to hear that Sunday. There are days when the needs of my kids, and especially the needs of my child with disabilities, feels like it’s more than I can give for another day. My exhaustion is high, and the risk of scarcity seems more real than my attempt at an abundant imagination. 

But, imagine a God who showers on us opportunity after opportunity of faith, of transformation, of meaning? And what if we chose to be people who live, as Ronald Rolheiser says, “in the flow of God’s life”? What if we become people who live with extravagant generosity? 

On Monday morning, Ace and I got back in the car, blasting Elmo songs and trekking the miles to his appointment, and I didn’t feel like there was any clarification that this was exactly the right thing for Ace. What I knew though was a kind of generosity of spirit. That doing this with him, giving him this opportunity, was exactly what the sower would do. Seeds scattered everywhere. Seeds showering down. Extravagance. 

A Slow Practice

This week’s practice is to remind yourself of God’s generosity toward not only you but the human beings all around you. How do we grow our abundant imagination? How do we live in the “flow of God’s life?” 

This is not a prayer practice for your quiet place. This is a prayer practice where you need to get out into the world. Into the city, into a store, into public transportation, into a coffee shop. But wherever you go, go with five minutes to be alone and quiet, even as you’re among others. Maybe you can show up somewhere five minutes early, find yourself a seat, and pay attention.

Your goal in this practice is to allow yourself to see the people around you and imagine the love God has for them, the seeds showering down. (Remember, don’t be creepy! You don’t need to stare!) Just let yourself acknowledge the belovedness of each person in the coffee shop. Pray “you are loved” or something like it silently in your mind as you pass each stranger on the subway or sidewalk. Imagine the sower casting seeds everywhere and allowing you to be part of all that love and all that grace. 

And when you’re ready to be done, thank God for the seeds that were cast toward you, and the ones that took root. Honor the gift of that love with gratitude. 

End with this:

Holy and Reckless One, fill me with love so abundant that I offer it freely for the sake of the world. Amen.