This lectionary-based resource is here to help you preach confidently not just about money, but about generosity in every sense.
Preaching Generosity is a new, weekly, bite-sized preaching resource, produced by the Diocese of Rochester in partnership with St Augustine’s College of Theology and the National Giving Team of the Church of England.
Each week, a short sermon idea drawn from one of that week’s Common Worship lectionary readings will be made available to give preachers the tools to become comfortable and confident in preaching about generosity.
For weekly inspiration direct to your inbox our inbox, please register here
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January 2025
Being faithful to the Gospel means living a life that is about giving in all its forms.
The Ephesians reading spells out our life in Christ as 'a plan for the fullness of time', as if it is a financial plan, but one that has us secure not just until we die, but for eternity.
We all might try different things to prepare for our own financial futures, maybe thrift, or a savings account, or an investment if we are able, because we recognise the challenges of retiring without much to live on. If we're lucky, we may also benefit from an inheritance from our parents or someone else who has cared about us and considers us worthy of their financial blessing.
As it happens, the letter to the Ephesians tells us that we are all fortunate enough to have 'obtained an inheritance'. But this particular inheritance is a spiritual one that we have 'in Christ', as part of his 'plan for the fulness of time' for us, as we 'gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth'.
As we hear ‘the message of truth’ so we become included in Christ who is our good news. And when we believe in Christ we are marked with the Holy Spirit which, we are told, is like a deposit or down-payment, a guarantee of our inheritance from God. And so as we live our life in Christ we remain faithful to the Gospel, and doing this involves living a life that is about giving in all its forms.
Michael Mullins is a former editor of online magazine, Eureka Street for the Australian Jesuits. He lives in Sydney and Paris.
Generosity extends across cultures and communities, enables the Holy Spirit to flourish and the church to grow.
This is a story from the very earliest days of the Church after Pentecost. Persecution had forced some of the disciples to flee from Jerusalem to Samaria, where despite all their expectations the gospel had been received warmly and new church communities sprung up. If you know anything about how Jews viewed Samaritans you’ll realise how challenging accepting them as equals was for the early church. Maybe when Peter and John went to Samaria it was to see if the Samaritans were proper Christians. But when they saw the Samaritans had received the gospel, their immediate response was to pray that they would also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit – that they would have all the blessings God had poured out on the church in Jerusalem. These Jewish Christians were genuine in their desire to reach out and bless the new Samaritan Church. The early church demonstrates to us the many ways in which generosity can be expressed. We see here the gift of ministry: Peter and John sent from one context to another; the gifts of acceptance and welcome, and the gift of prayer, which was answered in God’s gift of the Spirit. Generosity is extended across traditions and cultures and to unknown communities and peoples. This expansive generosity saw an increase of the work of the Holy Spirit and enabled the church to grow. How does our generosity and the generosity expressed by our churches today, compare to that which we see in the early church?
Leah Vasey-Saunders is currently serving as Vicar of Lancaster in the Diocese of Blackburn. Previously she has served in a variety of different contexts both parishes and Cathedral from city to town and suburbs, predominantly in former mining communities. Leah is also Chair of On Fire Mission; a charity working to support and enable renewal in the catholic tradition of the Church of England.
We share our gifts boldly, knowing that whatever they are they glorify God.
Have you ever shown up to a party, say a bring-and-share meal, and feel like what you brought massively missed the mark? Maybe everyone else brought home-cooked delights and you showed up with a big bag of crisps and a slightly mediocre dip? They spent hours prepping but you just managed a quick trip to Tesco. Maybe someone saw your offering and raised a sceptical eyebrow.
The Corinthian church excelled at creating this kind of ‘less than’ feeling. They prized some gifts over others. The public, exciting and more ’spiritual’ kind of gifts. But the reality, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12, is the opposite. Gifts are just gifts and, yes, there are a bunch of different kinds. But your gift doesn’t make you more spiritual than anyone else: if you can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ you have the Holy Spirit (v.3)!
Spiritual gifts are different and do vary. Some are pretty normal, and some can be surprising and we are each equipped differently to serve the body of Christ. But the one who does the giving never changes: the Holy Spirit. To go back to the bring-and-share meal analogy—it’s the Spirit who brings the food. The home-cooked ham and the beautifully iced cake. And the shop-bought crisps and hummus. He brings it all and then gives us each our part to serve. We need never feel less-than, because it’s not about us! It’s what God by His Spirit has given us to give—so we share our gifts boldly knowing that, whatever they are, they glorify God.
Suse McBay is a tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and primarily teaches OT and preaching. Her website and blog can be found at susemcbay.com
Enjoy good things, acknowledge God’s generosity and share with others.
This reading tells us something about the lives God wants us to lead, and particularly what generosity looks like. In this reading from Nehemiah, the gathered people are encouraged to ‘eat the fat and drink sweet wine’. They are not being called to an ascetic life, but to one where there is joy and good things which can be savoured. God longs for everyone to enjoy their lives, and that includes us.
But, if all we do is party, without a thought for others, it becomes self-indulgent and selfish. And so the people are called to ‘send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared’. There is an echo of this in Isaiah 58 and particularly Luke 14:13-14 when Jesus says ‘But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous’.
Banquets, celebrating, partying are not intrinsically bad – we can look back on our Christmas dinners with fondness you will be pleased to know. But what is bad is to do this and be thoughtless, to be selfish, not to acknowledge God’s generosity to us for what we have been given. And a good way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to make this thinking of others so ingrained it happens instinctively. It is like giving in Proverbs 3, woven into the warp and weft of Christian living, an intrinsic part of the living out of our faith.
Jonathan de Bernhardt-Wood is the Director of Giving for the Church of England. Previous to this role, Jonathan was Generous Giving Adviser for the Diocese of Oxford. He has held senior leadership, fundraising and governance roles within the charity sector for over 30 years. He is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising as well as a Lay Canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. He recently presented a discipleship course on Living Generously with RightNowMedia. He is the author of The Porcupine Principle (and other fundraising secrets) and has a Certificate in Management and an MA in Applied Theology. He is based in Suffolk.
February 2025
A gifted child gives flesh to a message which becomes the Christian Gospel.
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple stands out as one of the most recognised episodes in the Gospel of Luke. The Feast of Candlemas and the associated procession with lighted candles reflects Simeon's proclamation of 'a light for revelation to the gentiles'. Simeon's eyes saw salvation and the child's parents were amazed that so much was being put upon their young son. They marvelled at what was being said to him. Maybe not wholly understanding all that it meant, they held on to the words and returned to their home town of Nazareth in Galilee, to bring up the child in their ordinary circumstances.
The last verse of this reading is perhaps the most poignant, for how little yet how much it says about Jesus' formation: 'The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favour of God was upon him.' A gifted child! Indeed there was clearly a sense of propitiousness in the Nazareth air that endowed the child with what it took for him to give flesh to the message that became known as the Christian Gospel. He was able to endow his community, that became the Church, with a certain generosity that was to become one of its defining characteristics.
Michael Mullins is a former editor of online magazine, Eureka Street for the Australian Jesuits. He lives in Sydney and Paris.
How do we respond when we encounter God’s generosity?
This reading provides one of the more humorous interactions in the gospels - we have here the honest response of fishermen when an ex-carpenter cum rabbi comes along and gives them advice about fishing. Their natural first response is ‘I think we know what we’re doing.’ They have been fishing all night and caught nothing, and their expectations of what can and will happen are not unreasonably shaped by their experience. Who amongst us would not play it safe, pack up and go home when we have experienced failure, and things haven’t turned out the way we had hoped? But because it’s Jesus who asks they do it anyway. And all their reasonable and well-founded expectations are overturned. God confronts them with generosity on a scale that drives them to their knees. We should be careful not to misunderstand. The point of this story is not that God will always miraculously provide for us and therefore we should stop relying on our experience and common sense. The fishermen didn’t set up a booming fishing business on the back of Jesus’s fishing tips, rather they left their nets to participate in a more rewarding and challenging catch. The point is that our horizons can be broadened by encountering the generosity of God. From thinking ‘we’ve done it before and it didn’t work’, they were brought to their knees and then rose to follow their Lord and Saviour. How do we respond when we are confronted with God’s Generosity?
Leah Vasey-Saunders is currently serving as Vicar of Lancaster in the Diocese of Blackburn. Previously she has served in a variety of different contexts both parishes and Cathedral from city to town and suburbs, predominantly in former mining communities. Leah is also Chair of On Fire Mission; a charity working to support and enable renewal in the catholic tradition of the Church of England.
If you trust in a gracious God you can give freely, without fear.
In this short passage from Jeremiah 17, God presents two contrasting images. The first is the shrub in the desert, desperate for water, representing people who have trusted in the finite: in their own flesh and humankind. The second is a tree planted by water, with roots that can feed from the stream. Evergreen. Ever-fruitful. This second image reflects people who trust in the immortal one, namely the Lord. An image of fertile land and a flow of provision and food while the other is an image of effective famine and scarcity and desperate thirst.
While Jeremiah 17 isn’t directly addressing the question of generosity, it nonetheless reveals a lot about why we might hold back from giving and being openhearted to those around us. Do we live from the point of view of scarcity and lack or from overflow and grace? Famine or feasting?
Generous hearts and lives come from people who are secure. People who know they are safe on a foundation that won’t falter. They have come to know a gracious God who will provide and will keep them safe. People who have learned to trust only in themselves or those around them—people whose foundations have limits and can only offer so much—they will find it much harder to give.
If you have only a cup of water, you need to be careful about how much you give to another. If you live by a fresh spring, the true Source, you are able to give freely because you can give without fear.
Suse McBay is a tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and primarily teaches OT and preaching. Her website and blog can be found at susemcbay.com
Let’s focus on the miracle worker in our boat.
You can feel the disciples’ panic in this story. They are fixated by what they can see in front of them, and what they can see is an imminent threat to their lives – “we are perishing!”. That fear has clearly scrambled their brains, because they are forgetting that within the boat is someone who has already performed numerous miracles. Jesus has already healed the sick; he’s even raised the dead. So focused are they on the storm, that they forget the miracle worker in their midst. They can either look at the storm, or the Son of God. They cannot do both. Finally, then, they look at Jesus, who is not only unfazed by what terrifies them, but is sleeping through it.
This story is symbolic of many challenges we face as we live out our faith. We too can focus on the metaphorical storms, rather than the miracle worker in our midst. The storms can take many forms, and financial storms – unemployment or job instability, high inflation, mortgage worries, cost of living struggles - are among those. We can have them as churches too – how will we repair the roof? How can we pay for our heating?
If these sweep down on us like the gale on the lake, it is easy to fixate on the storm and not see beyond it. Just like the disciples, though, we need to focus on the miracle worker in our boat, to turn our eyes away from the storm and to the one who can silence it.
Jonathan de Bernhardt-Wood is the Director of Giving for the Church of England. Previous to this role, Jonathan was Generous Giving Adviser for the Diocese of Oxford. He has held senior leadership, fundraising and governance roles within the charity sector for over 30 years. He is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising as well as a Lay Canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. He recently presented a discipleship course on Living Generously with RightNowMedia. He is the author of The Porcupine Principle (and other fundraising secrets) and has a Certificate in Management and an MA in Applied Theology. He is based in Suffolk.
March 2025
We are invited to stop striving and to open our hearts in gratitude.
'The skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.' Moses was transfigured.
Have you ever had an experience that has left you feeling like you were glowing? Maybe you have seen this with other people? It can seem to happen at very special moments in our lives, when we experience something out of the ordinary. Perhaps you have experienced such a moment when you were talking with God, that it felt completely extraordinary, a moment of transcendence.
Often when a moment like that occurs it is not something we had planned. It just happened. We couldn’t explain it. But because it is something that leaps out of the everyday we can’t manufacture it or will it into existence. If we seek transcendence it’s not likely that it will happen. And this can mean that often when we pray we are not overwhelmed like Moses was and we don’t appear from our quiet times with faces glowing so much that we need to cover them in front of others. Trying harder to create it by ourselves doesn’t work. Instead, we are invited to stop striving and simply to open our hearts in gratitude so that we can receive the consolation of the Lord. And as we receive all that God has for us, so we are transformed by him as he creates in us a generous spirit.
Michael Mullins is a former editor of online magazine, Eureka Street for the Australian Jesuits. He lives in Sydney and Paris.
We are called to give regularly, as we receive. Not as an afterthought.
Have you noticed the new trend of rounding up your card payment at the checkout with a gift to charity? Clearly it’s a great idea for the charities who use it - it makes giving easy and a few pennies here and there quickly mounts up. However, it might encourage us to fall into the trap of approaching our giving as an afterthought. Our giving is something we do with our spare change, what we have left over. This reading reminds us that if we look at things from the right perspective we should recognise that everything we have comes from God, that everything is a gift and not to be taken for granted. We therefore first consider what God wants us to do with what we have been given. It’s about not offering God our left-overs, but in the language of Deuteronomy, offering God our first-fruits. And then considering who God would want us to share it with. The law specifies that the first fruits should be shared with those who have little (the immigrant and the Levite who have no land to grow a harvest on). So our thankfulness to God for all we have received is then expressed in intentional generosity. We are called, instead, to plan to give regularly, as we receive, not as an afterthought with what we have left over, and as we give we can consider carefully who are the people in our context with whom we are called to share our abundance.
LeahVasey-Saunders is currently serving as Vicar of Lancaster in the Diocese of Blackburn. Previously she has served in a variety of different contexts both parishes and Cathedral from city to town and suburbs, predominantly in former mining communities. Leah is also Chair of On Fire Mission; a charity working to support and enable renewal in the catholic tradition of the Church of England.
What do you prize? What do you worship?
What you give worth to is what you worship. What do you prize? What do you value? That’s likely to be the place where you are happy to give the most. I know I’m more likely to give time, money and energy to something I believe in. I could say I ‘can’t afford’ to give to X, but then turn around and give that same amount to Y. Why? Because it’s not always about whether I can afford it (though not everyone will be able to) but about justifying it in terms of my priorities and that there are more important things that need my time, money or energy.
So what do you prize? In Philippians 3, Paul contrasts between the priorities of those who follow Christ vs. those who don’t. Their lives will look quite different! If all we’re living for is here on earth, we’ll be consumed with earthly things. We’ll use what we have to fill our bellies, indulge our desires and invest in things that will not last. But if we follow Christ, if we’re truly citizens of a heavenly kingdom, we will take the risk of giving and investing in those things that don’t necessarily reap a reward in this life, perhaps even the opposite. But they will bring glory in the next.
So what do you prize? What do you worship? Are they things of heaven or things here on earth? Are you waiting for your reward in the here-and-now or are you waiting for the day of the Lord?
Suse McBay is a tutor at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and primarily teaches OT and preaching. Her website and blog can be found at susemcbay.com
We ask God to feed us with the spiritual gift of generosity.
This parable is often seen as one of the “tricky” ones. It all feels a bit brutal. However, I think within it there is a message of encouragement as we try to live generously.
Sometimes, left to our own devices, we can make little progress when it comes to living a generous life. We try, but it just feels too hard, we haven’t got it in us. And anyway, how generous is generous enough? We know in our heads we should be truly generous, we know “everything comes from you, and of your own do we give you” but it can be hard to live that out when we live in a society that believes the opposite.
In a way, then, we can be like the fig tree in this parable, where we cannot bear generous fruit by ourselves. We need a forgiving and patient gardener, who can feed us with what we need so we can bear that generous fruit. Happily, that is exactly what we have.
In Galatians 5 it talks about the fruits of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Generosity is a sign of the Holy Spirit at work within us, it is itself a spiritual gift. It’s the virtuous circle of generosity that itself starts with a gift.
So, if we are the metaphorical fig tree in this parable, we need not to look to ourselves to become generous, but first ask God to feed us with the spiritual gift of generosity. A bumper harvest awaits.
Jonathan de Bernhardt-Wood is the Director of Giving for the Church of England. Previous to this role, Jonathan was Generous Giving Adviser for the Diocese of Oxford. He has held senior leadership, fundraising and governance roles within the charity sector for over 30 years. He is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising as well as a Lay Canon at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. He recently presented a discipleship course on Living Generously with RightNowMedia. He is the author of The Porcupine Principle (and other fundraising secrets) and has a Certificate in Management and an MA in Applied Theology. He is based in Suffolk.
We remember all that God has done, and continues to do.
This is a turning point in the long story of God’s liberation of the people of Israel from slavery. After the confrontation with Pharaoh, the decades in the wilderness, sometimes trusting, often doubting, the endless miracles of God’s faithfulness, the people are at last not a disparate ragbag of ex-slaves but a nation. Moses, the symbol of their transformation, is dead. He had been to them something like a father, or perhaps a step-father, someone they revered but did not entirely love; someone they complained at but did not always collaborate with. They treat Joshua differently, which says something about Joshua but also something about their own status. Joshua is more of a peer, and they no longer carry the memories of slavery. Joshua is ready to be a different kind of leader, and they are ready to be led.
The heart-lifting sign that they have reached journey’s end, that they are coming home, is that God’s provision for them changes. Instead of the manna, God’s gift of food where none was to be found, now the people can eat the daily bread, the produce of the land. It is still God’s provision, but it marks an entry into a settled way of life, still full of thankfulness, still full of awareness of dependence on God’s generosity, as great in its everyday form as in miracles.
And so the people celebrate the Passover, to remember all that God has done, and will continue to do, because this is their God.
Dr Jane Williams is the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College.
April 2025
Let Your Love for Jesus Shine Through Your Generosity
God embodies love and generosity and today’s Gospel reading illustrates love through generosity. Mary exemplifies giving to Jesus unreservedly, sacrificially, and intentionally.
Mary's love is beautiful yet costly. She pours a pound of pure nard, an expensive perfume, on Jesus' feet and wipes them with her hair. The Bible highlights that this gift was worth a year’s wages for a labourer. This offering powerfully demonstrates her love through its monetary value and deep personal sacrifice.
Mary’s actions challenge us in a world where generosity is often convenient. She gave remarkably, her love for Jesus surpassing material possessions. Like King David, who refused to offer God what cost him nothing (2 Samuel 24:24), Mary recognised that true love for God requires sacrificing meaningfully.
We observe a ripple effect of Mary's generosity, as Jesus states that wherever the Gospel is proclaimed, her story will be shared as a reminder of her love and sacrifice (Matthew 26:13; Mark 14:9). Little did Mary know that her act of devotion would inspire believers for centuries to come.
Mary’s example prompts us to consider showing love for Jesus through generosity. Generosity isn't limited to money though, it can be expressed in various ways: offering our time to mentor others, volunteering for causes or simply showing kindness and compassion to those in need. Like Mary, we are called to give ourselves in ways that reflect our love for Jesus.
Kina Robertshaw is the Rector of the Benefice of Highley, including Billingsley, Glazeley, Deuxhill, and Chelmarsh in the Diocese of Hereford. Before ordination, Kina was a fashion entrepreneur in Johannesburg and Lusaka. She trained at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, where her research on Christian entrepreneurs led to the co-authored book A Voice to be Heard and the Conversations with Christian Entrepreneurs series.
Is our generosity free and unfettered?
What would you say if someone came by, got the keys to your car and said, ‘the Lord needs it’? We do not know what the owner of the colt said, but the colt went and bore Jesus into Jerusalem. Was the owner’s generosity lavish or reluctant? Did he follow the colt at a distance, to be sure he’d get it back?
Generosity can easily come with strings – with an expectation of getting something back, an expectation of good returns on investment, or that what we give will be used in certain ways. Here in this passage, unfettered generosity abounds, and not just with the donkey. People throw their cloaks before Jesus – for many, a cloak would have been an important possession, and not one you would want soiled by the dirt of the road, or the passage of a donkey. Yet cloaks are shared spontaneously. Palms are waved, and creation joins in, as would stones if people did not shout out. Praise is contributed generously too: the crowds do not hold back, they respond whole-heartedly to the work and presence of God among them.
Jesus’ saying about stones is telling: praise, worship and generosity will happen, and some human beings will try and stop it, or withdraw, but it will not stop the work and love of God. The question is, whose side do we choose to be on?
Isabelle Hamley Principal of Ridley Hall. She has written extensively about the book of Judges, and around questions of justice, violence and otherness. Her other strand of work is focused in particular on questions of spirituality, scripture and mental health. She writes regularly for BRF, LICC and Church House Publishing, speaks at various events, and contributes to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and the Daily Service.
Can we rejoice in God’s lavish generosity?
All the New Testament stories about Peter suggest an impulsive, open-hearted, adventurous person, one who is able and willing to continue to grow and develop as he allows God to draw him further and further into the Good News. What we are witnessing in today’s reading from Acts is a challenge accepted by Peter, which will enable him to challenge the church, then and now: who decides the limits of God’s generosity? Hint: it isn’t us.
Peter might feel justified in thinking of himself as one of God’s favourites. He followed Jesus from the start; Jesus called him to be ‘the rock’ for the new community; filled with the Holy Spirit, he witnessed and enabled the conversion of many new believers. Yet Peter says, without any apparent hurt pride, ‘God shows no partiality’. Peter sees in Cornelius another of God’s ‘favourites’, and rejoices. It is a sign of Peter’s own profound conversion that he is not afraid but thrilled when he finds God lavishing gifts on others. Peter has seen Jesus crucified and met him risen again, and he is not about to set limits on what God can do.
Effortlessly, Peter co-operates with the generosity of God to Cornelius. Jesus’ disciples throughout the centuries have not always been so willing to let God take down our boundaries. Today, of all days, when we see the barrier between death and life crash down for our sake, today is a good day to lay aside our own ‘partiality’ and see God’s glorious fullness.
Dr Jane Williams is the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College.
Kingdom of Priests – A Call to Generosity and Service
Let’s pause and think about what it means to be a “kingdom of priests.” In the Old Testament, priests were intermediaries, they offered sacrifices and represented the people of Israel before God. But we have Jesus, the ultimate High Priest, and he has made a way for all believers to come directly to God.
Romans 12:1 urges us to present our bodies as living sacrifices—holy and pleasing to God. This is our true worship and our lives can be generous offerings to God.
As a kingdom of priests, we are called to live out generosity in every area of life, including our time, talents, and finances. Our resources are gifts from God, entrusted for his purposes. Generosity reflects God’s heart; it's not merely about giving what's easy. The world needs to witness Christ's love in action, and our generosity powerfully demonstrates this love.
Let us be a kingdom of priests who reflect Christ’s generosity, living sacrificially for others. We are called to advance God’s kingdom by using every resource he has given us—our time, our skills, and our finances. As we do this, we are fulfilling our royal calling to serve God and others. Our lives can be a testimony to his grace and mercy.
May we, as a kingdom of priests, live in a way that reflects God’s heart and reveals his kingdom on earth. Let our generosity and service show the world the love of Christ in all we do.
Kina Robertshaw is the Rector of the Benefice of Highley, including Billingsley, Glazeley, Deuxhill, and Chelmarsh in the Diocese of Hereford. Before ordination, Kina was a fashion entrepreneur in Johannesburg and Lusaka. She trained at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, where her research on Christian entrepreneurs led to the co-authored book A Voice to be Heard and the Conversations with Christian Entrepreneurs series.
May 2025
Can we be generous with our forgiveness?
The story of Paul on Damascus Road is so well-known, it is easy to miss quite how extraordinary it is. Yes, there is the great light from heaven, and the disembodied voice. That is impressive. But what about ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’. God is reaching out to Paul – not with judgement, or condemnation. God is reaching out with complete, free, overwhelming grace – and what’s more, this grace is extended to the one who persecutes the Body of Christ, the Church, hence Christ himself.
How staggering is the generosity of grace here? When we speak of generosity, it is easy to speak first about things, then about time. It is much harder to be generous with what we hold close: the hurts we nurse, the resentments, the still-broken parts that we do not want to expose to God’s light. It is easy to think it completely unreasonable of God to ask us to be generous with our forgiveness, with the gift of grace that God has offered the world. And yet, this is what God himself models here: grace for Saul, the man who persecutes Christians, the man responsible for the death of others, a man secure in his own righteousness, who was not seeking forgiveness or acknowledging his wrongs.
There is no generosity in our lives that does not start with the generosity of God towards us: with grace, forgiveness, love, healing and presence. This generosity is what we are called to model, even in the most unreasonable circumstances.
Isabelle Hamley is Principal of Ridley Hall. She has written extensively about the book of Judges, and around questions of justice, violence and otherness. Her other strand of work is focused in particular on questions of spirituality, scripture and mental health. She writes regularly for BRF, LICC and Church House Publishing, speaks at various events, and contributes to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and the Daily Service.
Jesus trusts in God’s generosity.
Jesus’ whole being, everything he is and does, is formed by trust, by the generosity of the self-giving relationship with the one he calls ‘Father’. Whereas the people who come to Jesus in today’s gospel reading expect to weigh up where they will and won’t give themselves.
But is their request really so unreasonable? They just want a plain answer. From the way they phrase the question, it sounds as though they at least believe that they would be genuinely open to it if Jesus said, ‘yes, I am the Messiah’. But Jesus’ answer suggests that he doubts that. From his perspective, they have had as much proof as any reasonable person can ask for, in all that Jesus has said and done. The truth is that they do not want the answer to be ‘yes’. They want to be uncertain and to be able to blame Jesus for it. Uncertainty requires no action on their part.
Self-righteous uncertainty is always a good excuse for inaction. We don’t want to make fools of ourselves by committing to that person or project or charity or group; it is only sensible to be cautious.
This passage is not a call for wild abandon but it does ask for a willingness to be truthful about our own motivation, and to notice that we constantly, subtly, even unconsciously, change the criteria that others must meet before we will trust them. But sheep learn the trusted voice and follow to life-giving pastures. Learn from the sheep.
Dr Jane Williams is the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College.
A Call to Emulate Jesus' Love.
In John 13:34, Jesus says, ‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ True love is more than words or feelings—it’s shown through action. Jesus demonstrated his love by sacrificing his life on the cross, and throughout his ministry, he loved by serving the sick, the poor, and the marginalised. His love was not passive; it was active, generous, and sacrificial.
To love others as Jesus loves us, we learn to give of ourselves willingly—be it our time, energy, or resources. This requires helping others even if it pushes us outside our comfort zones, sacrificing our ease, and enduring pain without seeking revenge. Loving like Jesus is challenging; people will notice when you embody this love. In such moments, we have the chance to witness God’s love within us. ‘God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us’. (Rom 5:5).
When we love others sacrificially, it draws unbelievers to Christ and strengthens and unites believers in a world that is often hostile to God. This kind of love, though humanly impossible, is possible only through the Holy Spirit working in our hearts. To love like Jesus, we must humble ourselves, remember his sacrifice he made for us, and rely on the Spirit who pours out God’s love within us.
Let us commit to loving others with the same sacrificial love Jesus showed us, bringing light to a world that desperately needs his love.
Kina Robertshaw is the Rector of the Benefice of Highley, including Billingsley, Glazeley, Deuxhill, and Chelmarsh in the Diocese of Hereford. Before ordination, Kina was a fashion entrepreneur in Johannesburg and Lusaka. She trained at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, where her research on Christian entrepreneurs led to the co-authored book A Voice to be Heard and the Conversations with Christian Entrepreneurs series.
When we give, do we really give freely?
‘I do not give to you as the world gives’. How does the world give? It isn’t entirely clear what Jesus has in mind here, other than to say, a lot of gifts in our broken world turn out not to be gifts at all. Either because what we think is a gift or a blessing is totally the wrong thing for us or another person, or because we often do not give freely but expect something in return, or because we create obligations so that ‘gift’ becomes exchange, or because our gifts are limited.
Jesus is drawing attention to God’s generosity on a completely different plane. Jesus knows what it is his disciples needs most – true peace; not the peace of worldly possession and false security, but the knowledge that he is with them, and holds them securely.
We are not God, of course. But it is worth asking, how do we ensure that our generosity is well-directed? How can generosity become building life with other people, together, rather than doing charity? How do we build what can last?
This is not to say that practicalities do not matter: food, shelter, appropriate wages, and so on all matter, and these are things Scripture calls us to share. But to give as Jesus gives is to go a step further: without strings, seeking to understand what someone else needs, and seeking to build people and communities up for the future.
Isabelle Hamley Principal of Ridley Hall. She has written extensively about the book of Judges, and around questions of justice, violence and otherness. Her other strand of work is focused in particular on questions of spirituality, scripture and mental health. She writes regularly for BRF, LICC and Church House Publishing, speaks at various events, and contributes to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and the Daily Service.
June 2025
With freedom comes risk and choices need to be made.
The parallel themes of profit and loss, freedom and captivity run through today’s reading from Acts. The slave girl is a captive to her gift and its money-making power for others, who see her not as a human being but as a commodity. Something in her intuits and responds to the way in which Paul and his friends also have their choices circumscribed: she sees it as mirroring her own ‘slavery’, But she has enough freedom and ownership of her gift to focus it on Paul, even though that brings her owners no profit.
Paul frees her from captivity to her gift and to her masters but also risks losing her her livelihood. We hear no more of her, but have to wonder what it was like to rediscover herself as more than a divining rod.
Her liberation puts Paul and Silas in prison. Another bit of topsy-turvy narrative ensues. The jailer, it turns out, is so enslaved by his job that death seems to him the only option when he believes himself to have failed. Meanwhile, Paul and Silas sit peacefully in their broken chains and wait to offer freedom to their captor.
Like the slave girl, the jailer now has a troubling freedom. How will his new self deal with his old job? Paul and Silas have introduced risk into this equation of profit and loss, freedom and captivity by giving the slave girl and the jailer back to themselves. They now have decisions to make about how to live in the generous freedom they have been given.
Dr Jane Williams is the McDonald Professor in Christian Theology at St Mellitus College.
The Peace of Jesus.
In John 14:27, Jesus says, ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.’ This peace is a gift from Jesus that transcends life’s circumstances. It’s not based on the world’s definition of peace, but a supernatural peace that comes from trusting in him, regardless of external turmoil.
During challenging times, Jesus reminds us, ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid’. (v27b). He acknowledges the reality of suffering and pain but urges us to trust in God's promises. With Christ's peace, we find our true security in God rather than in worldly circumstances, enabling us to be generous. Embracing this peace strengthens us to share our time, resources, and love, even amidst uncertainty.
The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) exemplifies generosity by helping a man in need, prioritising kindness over fear. By accepting Christ's peace, we can also help others—offering our time, finances, or kind words. Like the Samaritan, willing to give sacrificially, we can extend generosity rooted in Christ's peace. Understanding our security in God allows us to overcome fear and anxiety that hinder our generosity.
Isaiah 26:3 states, ‘You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.’ This peace empowers us to live generously, reflecting God’s love.
Let Christ’s peace guide your heart. Trust his promises and allow that peace to lead you to love others as he has loved you.
Kina Robertshaw is the Rector of the Benefice of Highley, including Billingsley, Glazeley, Deuxhill, and Chelmarsh in the Diocese of Hereford. Before ordination, Kina was a fashion entrepreneur in Johannesburg and Lusaka. She trained at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, where her research on Christian entrepreneurs led to the co-authored book A Voice to be Heard and the Conversations with Christian Entrepreneurs series.
Creation is a story of abundance, overabundance and extravagance.
Creatures great and small feature heavily in Sunday school songs, just as the beauty of creation has inspired hymn writers for centuries. There is something uncontainable about creation – its abundance spills out everywhere. Creation stories and Psalms like Psalm 8 praise the creator and recount the generosity of God in creation. God did not just create merely the necessary. Actually, God created simply out of love. Once creation took form, far more was created than was needed: more colour, more lushness, more diversity, more species, more landscapes than anyone could want. Creation is not just a story of abundance, but of overabundance, almost extravagance.
Creation reflects the character of God, his desire to share beauty and richness beyond imagination, to offer blessing that stretches the mind and the senses. And human beings are made in the image of this extravagantly generous God. Then… Psalm 8 brings us back to earth with a bump: human beings are small! They do not quite look like the image of the invisible God who flung stars into space. They are crowned with glory and honour and given ‘dominion’, yet too often hold the gifts close and grasp for more. The grasping paradoxically makes them smaller, further away from who they are meant to be. They lose abundance by hoarding. Can we relearn to find our true humanity and the image God, by caring for the world around us and sharing the gifts we have – however limited we might think them to be?
Isabelle Hamley Principal of Ridley Hall. She has written extensively about the book of Judges, and around questions of justice, violence and otherness. Her other strand of work is focused in particular on questions of spirituality, scripture and mental health. She writes regularly for BRF, LICC and Church House Publishing, speaks at various events, and contributes to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and the Daily Service.
There is hope for all of us.
If you go to the Kent town of Margate on a Friday afternoon you will see a stream of people pouring out of the train station wheeling weekend bags, as they come to enjoy the art and trendy restaurants, soak up the atmosphere and appreciate the beautiful beach and the skies, described by the painter JMW Turner as ‘the loveliest in all Europe’.
What they won’t notice in their midst are the outsiders. Those people living with demons of addiction and mental health troubles, whose homes are damp and cramped, or the street. Those who don’t have beautiful clothes and whose food comes from the Foodbank or Community pantry rather than Michelin restaurants.
‘Legion’ as he called himself was akin to our homeless dirty addicts on the street. We are fearful of them. We ostracise them. They are indeed outsiders.
In healing this man, and driving out the demons; in clothing him, Jesus gives him an identity, and some control over his life. Jesus liberates him from his isolation and restores him to the city where he will find life again in the company of others and tell everyone what wonderful things God has done for him.
The lesson here is there is hope for all of us. No matter how hopeless or how entrenched our demons, Jesus doesn’t give up. His generosity liberates us so we can be free – free to come inside, free to go our own way, hopefully praising God. Independent and healed.
Liz Mullins is Generous Giving Adviser in the Diocese of Rochester
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