Community Grocery, Wisdom & Generosity

I met one of our regulars in Burnley this month. He kindly showed me one of the organisations at which he volunteers. The Burnley Community Grocery sources food which it then sells cheaply to its members, who pay five pounds a year for membership. Unlike the foodbank, it can provide fresh goods and not just tinned or packaged. Also unlike the foodbank, which is designed to help people out in a short-term, immediate crisis by giving them bags of free food, the community grocery offers a longer-term solution to pinched pockets. Next door was a room in which cooking lessons were given and a café in which leisurely cups of tea might be enjoyed, providing company, which is food for the soul. The other difference with the foodbank of course, is that because the goods are paid for, users are not receiving charity or the crumbs from others’ tables. The shop might not have had the scale or range of a typical supermarket, but it is still a place of dignity and personal independence.

There are two principles in the scriptures which seem to be illustrated here: generosity and wisdom. We ought to be generous towards others while taking responsibility for our own lives and actions. Salvation is entirely of God and Christ purchased it without recourse to our top-ups or contributions. Righteous Christian living is the evidence of this amazing grace. For example, Paul warns the loafers of Thessalonica that if they will not work they should not eat. These people likely lived off others' generosity even though they had the capacity to work and provide for themselves. Old Testament farmers were to neglect harvesting the crop around their fields’ perimeters, that the poor might come and glean, i.e. harvest it themselves; the landowners were not expected to harvest it for them and offer it on a plate.

The two extremes of thoughtless generosity and stinginess are always to be avoided. The latter is utterly contrary to the will of the gracious God whom we serve; the former creates a dependency and possible indolence which also dishonour God. So be generous with your time and money, but temper it with discernment and wisdom. Stinginess and extravagant generosity both do more harm than good.

To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity. Proverbs 1:3