Grace versus Commerce

I want us to compare giving and selling with the eyes of the entrepreneur. This is so that we can appreciate the fact that God’s folly is ALWAYS wiser than man’s wisdom.

Let us assume you have a hundred acres of land and that you are growing too old to farm it.

There are two options. You could sell it to your neighbors or be ‘foolish enough’ to give them.

What happens if you sell?

You close accounts with your neighbors as they will owe you nothing.

Of course you will use that money to buy the conveniences your old age attracts.

What happens when you need company? What will happen when your spouse is sick or dies? What happens when you need to see children playing in your compound? What happens when your worker doesn’t come to work? What do you do when you still miss farming?

You see, your neighbors have the right to fence up their farms and lock you out of their lives. In fact your old age becomes a bother to them, a bother you qualified them to block.

Now suppose you had subdivided the land and shared it with them? You still have your land and your neighbors are indebted to you.

They will therefore widely open their homes unreservedly to you and take you as family.

In fact they will spare no effort to ensure you are most comfortable.

Like Jesus said, you have used earthly mammon to open doors to your neighbors’ homes.

Incidentally, that goodwill never expires and will be taken from father to children and even grandchildren, meaning that your posterity will benefit from your generosity. And it won’t matter whether you gave the land for a time or completely. Grace redounds.

Two verses.

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luke 6:38)

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. (Ecclesiastes 11: 1, 2)

Plus a story that stopped being one once I gave it but was given the personification of the same. I am therefore telling you about something that happened.

This lady had everything but only one son. She was therefore well kept, if I may use that term.

Of course you know from interacting with me that I come from an area that was involved in the freedom struggle (which was actually a struggle for the lands that were stolen by the colonizer)

The problem was that the fighters (history calls them freedom fighters) eventually became the real losers as the collaborators were the ones given the power to share out the land. They therefore were even deprived of even the little lands they owned before the war. I have said elsewhere that we were evicted from my father’s land because it was subdivided and dished out to others.

The bulk of the community therefore had very few options; no land, no education etc.

Add to that the fact that many had quite a few children and you have a really sad mix.

Yet the community thrived by knowing the need of working together. They would educate the bright child corporately since no parent could do it alone.

That is the context of my story.

Social events brought the whole village together. I remember in my childhood roles being shared out, especially in weddings, so that each villager does what they are best at, from splitting wood to washing dishes. Even the utensils were a united effort where everybody brought what they had for the function. Then they would be labeled (using paint) to avoid (more of reduce) mix up.

But our lady was too clean to do those dirty jobs. And she had the money to compensate (or so she thought).

She therefore would go to a function dressed too cleanly to take chores and then sit at a nice place, knitting. Of course she would give the money others would not.

The other ladies would not complain. But they did not feel nice, at all.

Then her only son’s time comes and she invites the villagers.

They hold a meeting before then and make a resolution.

Every lady would come with a ladies’ bag like her plus knitting needles. Those who did not know to knit wouldl be taught that day. And they will all carry money and will contribute to the one without. So that they will all come to her function the way she does theirs. And that is what they did.

Of course she was thoroughly rebuked and changed completely.

That is what commerce turns one into. They think that money is the answer to everything like a verse says, without realizing that the statement in itself was not absolute as you continue reading the rest of Solomon’s sad commentary on his life.

Like they say, money can buy you the most expensive bed, but it can’t buy you sleep. Yet commerce wants to reduce everything and everybody into money. Remember the statement, ‘everybody has his price’?  That is the reasoning of commerce.

That is why a generous man is thought as either foolish or scheming because a commerce mindset has no explanation for generosity, or, worse still, grace.

Commerce is at its base a selfish and self-seeking enterprise. Grace is at its base for the common good. Enterprise looks inward while grace looks outward. Enterprise is of the earth whereas grace originates from heaven. Remember this?

No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Luke 16:13)

We see from here that commerce and grace are simply indications of a lord, master if I need to make it clearer. At their base they have a ruling spirit who not only determines the outcome but ensures the outcome by the orders he issues to the servant. Look at this also.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. (Mark 10:25)

This is what brings out the lordship very clearly. Since things are neither righteous nor evil, why does Christ put them as a determinant of one’s eternal destination?