McChickens and Generosity

One night, I was driving some youth home from youth group. Apparently, the snack that we provided wasn’t enough to satisfy the hunger of some of these middle schoolers. They were asking-begging- me to stop at McDonald’s. One of them even pulled out 50 cents and said he would pay for half of his McChicken if I paid for the other half. I decided not to mention that with tax he would probably need 53 cents to make half. 

As we pulled up to a red light near the freeway, I saw a guy holding a cardboard sign saying something about being homeless and needing help. The kid who had offered his 50 cents for a McChicken told me to roll down the window. With some hesitancy I did, thinking he saw a girl he wanted to holler at or something. He leaned out the window, and told the man holding the sign to come over and gave him the 50 cents. I said something about how nice that was of him to give up his money for the homeless man. He replied that the man he gave the money to needed it more than him and that he didn’t really need the McDonald’s anyway.

The light turned green and soon we drove by the McDonald’s in silence.

We don’t often see acts of generosity like this. Giving up everything in our pockets to bless someone else. Especially when there is something we would really like to buy with that money.

We like to make excuses and justify getting the things we want. We are really good at justifying why we can’t give to a homeless person- what if they don’t use the money in the way we want? We don’t want to be manipulated, so instead we become the manipulators, only giving our money when it benefits us or if we’re certain it won’t be used for things of which we don’t approve.

What if we learned about generosity from this middle school boy? What if when we saw a need, we gave up what we wanted and gave what we had? What if we stopped justifying ourselves and stopped making excuses for why we can’t or won’t give? What if we stopped manipulating others and stopped, as Bob Lupton says, metering out our love in exchange for the responses that we desire.

I think that we would be living out the Kingdom of God, like Jesus said in Luke 6- Give to everyone who begs from you…Love your enemies, do good, and lend- even if it’s your last 50 cents.