How To Sell Your Possessions And Give To The Poor

Lord, have mercy on the suffering:
Give food to those who are hungry;
Give clothing to those who lack it;
Give shelter to those who shiver in cold;
Give love to children without parents;
Give comfort to abused women;
Give redemption to the oppressed;
Give assistance to those ravaged by war.
May you teach them to grow toward you in light of the hardships they suffer.
And to all of these may you give your gospel that they might attain your kingdom where their sufferings will be exchanged for the joy of your loving presence.

What Resources Do We Have?
For those of us who are wealthy, if we wish to live the life of Christ before God, we must sell our possessions and give to the poor. There is no getting around it-- Christ's command is clear. But that command brings up our fears of losing security and our anxieties of having nothing left for ourselves and our family. To overcome that anxiety, let's discuss what the Lord wants us to do, translating that command into simple, practical steps.

The first step we take to selling our possessions is determining what we have. What resources does the Lord require us to give? In this command, Jesus mentions our possessions. In I John, we are told to give our worldly goods. In the gospels, our family is mentioned, our occupations, our livelihood, and even our very lives. What is it we are to surrender? Not just a tithe, not just a portion, not just a good part-- but all of us, all of who we are and every aspect of our being is to be laid down before God to be used at his disposal. Our primary responsibility is not to provide, but to surrender. Our first priority should not be to control but to sacrifice. Everything, all we have and are, is to be placed under our love for God. The primary command is: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength." In Semitic languages you repeat something you want to emphasize. Sometimes you might repeat things twice, but if you want to speak of ultimate emphasis, you repeat it three times, like "Holy, holy, holy." Yet our Lord had the "all" repeated 4 times-- the greatest emphasis placed on anything in Scripture in one sentence. Thus if we live before God, absolutely everything is at God's disposal-- and at God's command, it is at the disposal of the poor as well.

That's the sticking point, isn't it. You see, if we surrender everything to God, then we still have a certain amount of real control and we can still feel good about being submitted to God. But God didn't tell us to lay our possessions and lives and resources upon some imaginary altar. Instead, he told us to give it to the poor. That is real, tangible and easy to check on. Did we do it? Or didn't we? Are we giving? Or aren't we? All we need to do is to check on our account books.

Now, what is this "all" that we have that we surrender to God and to the poor? We have what we own in our home or garage or property. We have our relationships which can be used for good or evil. We have our time with which we do all things. We have our energy which is used to provide action. We have our bodies which we use to communicate, transport and work. And, of course, we have money. All these we must give up to God, surrendering every aspect of our lives. The fundamental act of every Christian is this: We acknowledge that all these things are not to be used for our own interest-- not anymore-- rather we are to give our lives for God's interest and for the needy. God help us to live this way!

Evaluating Our Resources
Okay, to follow the command to sell our possessions and give to the needy, we first acknowledge that all we have and are, every aspect of our lives is at God's disposal and because of God's command they are to be used for the needy.

Yet in this surrendering of all, we must admit that now we too are impoverished and have nothing-- as do our family. And so God assists us in how we determine hat to do with God's possessions-- his life which you surrendered. God says, first of all, provide for the needs of your family.

Whoops! We've run into our first big snag-- what are our needs? How do we determine our needs from our wants? Are social obligations needs?

First of all, we recognize that Paul said that there are a couple needs that are basic: food and clothing. To this we want to add shelter-- especially during the winter months. Food, clothing and shelter-- these three items themselves uses up many people's income in the world. But we must remember that we are speaking of needs-- not the most extravagant versions of these three basics. We need food, but simple, nutritious food is sufficient, not junk food or expensively made dinners. We need clothing, but not closets full of the latest fashions bought at the "right" stores. Simply made clothes, even second hand is sufficient. We need shelter, but not large home twice the size of our need with plenty of storage and rooms that we feel obligated to fill and remodel. Let us conserve our resources, so that others might share in God's gift besides our own family.

There is so much else we must evaluate-- transportation, insurance, education for our children and many other issues. For these we must seek out the Spirit and the world-wide community of Christ to see what we need and what is unnecessary.

After determining our familiy's needs, we must then remember all the others we are responsible to provide for. The Lord commands us to care for our church leaders, for our brothers and sisters in need and for everyone we meet who happens to be in need-- we are responsible to share our resources with all of these. While our family is our first priority, they are not our only responsibility. Thus we must take utmost care-- how can we share our time, possessions, money and lives with all of these needy, not just our family. Oh Lord, give us wisdom!

Transferring Resources
Now that we have determined what resources we have, and we have whittled down what we give to our family to simply what we need. Yet we have not finished living our Christ's command: All these were simply preliminary steps: now we get to the heart of the matter-- selling our possessions and giving to the poor.

We have so much in our homes that are unnecessary. We have trinkets and books, videos and music, entertainments and worldly pursuits. We use so much of our time and our energy pursuing things that have nothing to do with God's love. What Christ calls us to do is to take all of these "extras"-- all the areas in our lives that do not assist the needy, and re-create them in a way that directly meets the needs of people.

The obvious thing to do is to transfer objects or time into money. Money is a medium that can be transferred to assist many needs. With money, one can buy food or clothes or shelter to meet people's needs. Some items you have may not need to be transferred at all-- if you have extra food, it can be given directly to the poor. Clothes can be given to community services who distribute clothes. Perhaps you have an extra room that can be used for a needy person on the street.

Sometimes, though, the Lord causes us to enact a creative transfer of resources that allows us to help the needy. Perhaps we can reduce our work hours in order to volunteer for the needy. Perhaps we can take some free time we have and spend it listening to those who have no companions-- such as the elderly or the homeless. We can send newspaper articles to missionaries or invite our pastor's family to dinner one night.

Primarily, however, we must be open to meet the needs we see. These needs can pop up anywhere, anytime. When they come, we must be ready. We must be ready to listen to the Spirit as we ask for wisdom. We must be ready to respond with compassion and not condemnation. And we must be ready to be open and generous with the resources that are not ours, but are God's to command, to use and to dispose of. In this life of mercy and justice, we will see God at work in us and through us.