The Command of the Open Hand

This is a blog mostly inspired by this blog post from a good friend about giving; something that should shock and challenge us, but fails to.

"Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.  There will always be poor people in the land.  Therefore, I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land" - Deuteronomy 15

"And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." - Luke 6

Giving is always a sort of tongue in cheek subject in the States: something we know is important, but doesnt ever seem to register too much.

One of my friends here in Chile is a Haitian man who I bizarrely befriended on the street one day (apparently out of all the people he would try to start a conversation with, I was the only one who turned around and responded).  Ivers has been in the country a little over a month now, and works at a bakery making a small amount of money.  One day, I saw him on the metro and said hi to him, noticing he's drinking a box of chocolate milk.  Without hesitating, he sees me, leads me back to a random snack stand and buys me a chocolate milk as well and then walks off.  This sort of thing, as an American, usually just leaves me flabbergasted.

Another friend of mine, Heyner from Peru, walked with me one day to go get an ice cream cone and bought mine without any hesitation.  I try to be polite and throw out a "oh no really you shouldnt" or "I'll pay you back" but its usually in vain, and just provokes some weird looks from any of my friends.  To them its normal to buy things for friends and in the end for them an ice cream cone or a chocolate milk is a small and expected cost to pay when you're with a friend.

Conversely, Im used to experiencing something like last night when I was in Valparaiso with some gringo friends.  As the check comes forward, all joyful conversation comes to a stop and we discuss business; "how much per person?" "whats 5600 divided by four?" "how much is that with tip?" "All put in this much, and you'll just owe me" "how much do I owe you again?"  The check dances around from person to person, as the amount that each person pays must be a carefully, crafted sum that neither cheats nor overly benefits anyone.  Once the check and the money given are carefully scrutinized by all parties involved, a satisfactory conclusion is reached and everyone can leave comfortable.

Its such a funny thing, isnt it?  I see myself so needlessly close handed for no other reason than that it is the way that my culture has raised me.  I try so very hard to fight against this, but my Americanness cant help but calculate the cost of everything, make sure I pay back everyone the exact penny I owe, and find non-chalant ways to remind people they owe me money.

Yet, my friends from other cultures seem to live in a way that is so effortlessly open handed about money, even when they give in need: both the friends I mentioned gave not out of their excess, but out of their poverty.  Charity out of necessity becomes much more than just the object itself, but rather a symbol of friendship and of love.  It reminds me of one movie, called Ushpizin about one Israeli Jew who hosts two escaped convicts at his house.  They abuse his hospitality constantly through the movie, yet he continues to serve them out of his poverty.  Those who have been in Arabic cultures know that it is extremely hospitable, possibly more than any other culture in the world.

Yet interesting how one ancient Middle Eastern text, the Torah, says very explicitly that God commands people to be open handed.  What we treat as a suggestion, a post-script, a good idea when the time is right, is, according to Deuteronomy, a mandate as strong as any other.  When Christ shows up on the scene, the idea is reiterated with the idea that you should not only love your enemy, but also lend them your things and never expect anything back.  I would hazard to guess that even for a Middle Eastern culture this would have seemed crazy, and for Americans its just plain ludicrous.

In fact, do an experiment for yourselves: show any God-fearing Christian that Bible verse and watch how the excuses will pour forth!  They will no doubt squirm and say "yeah, but," frantically reach for the book of Proverbs, hoping there's going to be some verse in there that says "thou shalt make wise decisions with your money and not give it to people who dont deserve it," and finish their justification by saying "well thats just not wise!"  And God wants us to be wise right?

The fact is, no one is comfortable with this verse: I've never heard a sermon on this verse, never see it held up at football games, and never see anyone write it as a Facebook status to get any likes from the youth pastor (because everyone is on facebook, dont you know).  There is something so ruthlessly brutal about the suggestion of lending to the evil that brings up every justification in existence to be able to shove it into a corner and never speak of it again.  Arab or American, Peruvian or Haitian, no one likes to see their money go to waste and no one is ready to be taken advantage of.  The command of the open hand, if actually followed, implicates a shift in one's life and philosophy that few have the stomach for.


But lets think about this, I mean really think about why Jesus might have said this.  What are the results of living a life that follows the command to be open handed and lend to the evil?  My take:

1. It invokes a serious change in how people begin to see you.  When you do something so brutally against everything the human race seems to be chasing after, there is no way that people cannot notice you, and no way that people can continue to equate you with any other person or culture.  You are no longer defined by your own cultural precepts, but by Christ alone.  It is no coincidence that Christ follows up this command with the promise of a new title: "you will be children of the Most High."

2.  If you truly follow the command of the open hand, it is impossible to be attached to any sort of material thing.  Can you truly have your work schedule depend forever on a rented car?  Base your life around a rented apartment that you must someday give up?  When we truly realize the command, nothing becomes your own, rather a good to be passed to someone else; we stop thinking of how long we can hold on to something and start thinking of how we can pass it on.  Nothing, as Deuteronomy suggests, can any longer be held closed in your hand, but you must be able to let go of anything at any given moment.  Still many will say this is unwise and will lead to poverty (and those looking for a justifying Proverb will only find 23:5 - "Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone"), but what does the author say?  "Because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to."

3.  The last, as my friends have shown me, is that when you learn to be open handed, wealth abdicates its lofty position and friends and relationships receive the due importance that Christ really stresses.  My grandfather is in the habit of stressing this, in a peculiar sort of way; we, his grandkids, loved to tell him hippy aspirations of living in poverty, but he would always look at us, smirk to himself, and declare the wisdom of Christ that too few people quote these days: "Make friends with unrighteous mammon!"  This verse I think hits home for alot of people in my generation who backlash from materialism and want to vow to poverty, cursing the result of greed rather than greed itself.  Wealth is useful, just not for the uses that we would like to think.  In the end, the wealth we receive is made to passed on to someone else, and only when we do this do we really see what material wealth was meant to be in the first place.

I can scarcely imagine what the world would be like if Christians (myself included) begun to really take this seriously.  So how can we implement this?  What are the practical steps we can take to begin living this way?

In my opinion, it seems to me one key is getting it in our heads as a command.  This is not a suggestion, Jesus isnt saying "oh gee wouldnt that be swell" and Moses isnt a passive-agressive mother sighing to you saying "oh dear, well I'd rather you listen..."  This is a command, just as serious as any other.

And last, Im thinking its like getting to Carnegie Hall: "Practice, practice, practice."  One ice cream cone, one box of chocolate milk at a time.

If youve read this far, then surely you wouldnt mine giving your own two cents in the issue.  What are practical steps we can take in getting there?  How should our view of homeless people, beggars, and the people we hate change?  Comment button is below.  Just sayin.

~Jared