Amy and ‘Be generous when you worship the Lord’

Be generous when you worship the Lord 

Whoever keeps the Law gives many offerings; whoever obeys the commandments makes a sacrifice of well-being. Whoever repays a kindness offers the finest flour, and whoever does an act of charity makes a sacrifice of praise. Staying away from wickedness pleases the Lord, and keeping away from injustice means reconciliation. (Sirach 35: 1-5 CEB)

Be generous when you worship the Lord. (Sirach 35: 10)

What does it mean for you to be generous when you worship God?

The writer suggests an expansive notion of worship. The writer suggests that worshipping God is not limited to what we do when we gather in a particular place and time, such as in church on Sunday mornings. The writer, like the Prophets, connects how we live each moment of our lives, how we treat our selves and our neighbors, how we orient our whole selves to God as worship.

Praise, reconciliation, offerings, sacrifice. These are not just liturgical acts, laid out for us as Episcopalians in our Book of Common Prayer, our hymnals, our Scripture for use as a community.

Praise, reconciliation, offerings, sacrifice. This is what humans are made for and how we are to live each moment of our lives. Keeping the law of love of God and neighbor is our act of worship.

Whoever does an act of charity makes a sacrifice of praise…

Keeping away from injustice means reconciliation…

Whoever keeps the law gives many offerings…

How will you be generous when you worship God today?

*A note on Ecclesiasticus: The book of Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, belongs to what Anglicans call the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. These are books that not all Christian denominations read, and Anglicans read and study them as they were read in the early Church and are mentioned in the New Testament. Ecclesiasticus is in the tradition of Wisdom literature and bears close resemblance to the book of Proverbs.