Finding Time for Radical Charity

To my right, I held my younger sister’s hand. She held my dad’s, as he lay in his hospice bed. As he was taking his last breaths, and my hand gripped tighter to my sister’s, the other wrapped around my belly, eight months pregnant with my first child. I stood, quite literally, between life and death.

It was a strange time. There was joy and sadness, excitement and dread. I stood between two ends of a spectrum, and yet each was treated with the same act: radical charity. They say you haven’t lived until you’ve done something for someone who can never repay you, and that is exactly what a newborn and a dying cancer patient have in common.

My dad couldn’t repay me for sitting with him. He couldn’t repay my husband for walking him from his bed to the bathroom. He couldn’t repay my mom or sisters for staying up with him at night because he had stopped sleeping. Out of love, and respect for his dignity, we did it anyway.

When my son was born, he couldn’t hug anyone back after they had spent hours cuddling him. He couldn’t say thank you to his dad for walking around with him for hours to sooth his cries. He couldn’t even smile at me during the wee hours of the night spent nursing him. Yet, out of love, we did it anyway.

I experienced and lived radical charity at the beginning of one life and the end of another, each which could give nothing in return, could never repay anyone. Loving someone like that is a beautiful thing. I’m amazed every time I see it. However, those opportunities don’t usually come up too often, at least not for me. Maybe it happens once a month or so that someone is in serious need. Maybe. Though I sure know I’m called to practice charity a lot more than once on month.

We are called to live radical charity in our daily lives, in the mundane and the simple times between the beginning and the end of life. There are two problems we run into, though. The first is that most people in our daily lives can repay us, and the second problem is that we usually expect them to do so.

I write this and find myself convicted. How many times have I gotten up early with the kids and demanded that my husband return the favor and let me sleep in the next morning? How many times have I bought a friend dinner and expected them to pay the next? How many times have I done a good thing and thought of it at a bargaining chip for the next time I asked God for something? If we act kindly toward others, but expect something in return, is it really love? I don’t think so. The only way we can act with true charity is when we love with abandon, expecting nothing in return.

Jesus tells us in Luke 6:35 to do good, and to expect nothing in return. In our world we sometimes expect to be given things, even when we don’t deserve or earn them. Participation trophies, consolation prizes, and the like have given us a sense of entitlement. It’s all become about the “gimme, gimme, gimme” instead of the give me. The gift of me, of myself, to others. That’s a gift, not an exchange. It’s radical, and it makes no sense in our world, but that’s what Jesus taught us living truly is: giving of yourself. And hey, you know what? Maybe that makes you worthy of receiving something in return. So what? That’s great, but do you need it? Is that why you did it? Then don’t ask for it.

Easier said than done? Yes. Impossible? Maybe for us, but for God, nothing is impossible. (Luke 1:37) For the sake of love, do anything. Give everything. Expect nothing.

Try and find the time for radical charity, you know, somewhere between life and death.