Mission as giving and receiving

Theologian Miroslav Volf from Yale University has written a book I want to read: Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. I am especially interested in the focus on giving and receiving gifts in ways that honor God. He says gift giving is a triangular exchange between God, the giver and the receiver.

As a missionary I am a middleman who brokers the gifts given to those in Africa where I live who receive some of those gifts. It is my responsibility to watch how the gifts are used. It is my responsibility not to siphon off the gifts for my own benefit. It is also my job to help the receivers to receive the gift responsibly. It is also my job to speak to the givers.

Volf is quoted in an article I read, “We who are affluent often don’t know how to be good givers- we give but for all the wrong reasons.” Why do we give? To puff ourselves up? To atone for transgressions? God desires that we give for the right reasons. The idea that came to me is that in all of our mission work are we focusing on the heart attitudes of givers and receivers that God may be honored? Perhaps in so doing we are also growing his church. We may (or may not visibly) see the gifts multiplied as all of our hearts are changed to give and receive in response to the free gift and love of Jesus death on the cross for us. Giving and receiving in freedom not under compulsion!