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With our current church-wide emphasis of “Advance the Harvest”, I have been evaluating the grace of generosity within my own life. I recently came across the following story of generosity that especially touched my heart and provided a unique perspective on the life of generosity to which Jesus calls His followers.
September 15, 2013, was a perfect day for a wedding in Atlanta—sunny and 78 degrees. Tamara Fowler had planned to get married that day. But a month before the nuptials, she had phoned her parents in Roswell, Georgia, to tell them she was calling off the wedding.
Her parents, Willie and Carol Fowler, were “devastated,” Carol says. Why, then, on the same September day, were Willie, Carol, and Tamara eating, drinking, and dancing among hundreds of other revelers at the Villa Christina in Atlanta?
Because when Carol and Willie faced the prospect of losing 75 percent of their deposit at the upscale Italian restaurant they’d booked for their daughter’s reception, Willie had an idea. As Carol started to call the venue to cancel, her husband stopped her. “We’re going to have my birthday party there and invite the homeless as our guests,” Willie said. (His 70th birthday was on September 16.)
So Carol phoned a nonprofit agency and asked it to extend an invitation to local disadvantaged families; all told, 237 men, women, and children showed up.
Through the afternoon, children played tag on the restaurant’s huge lawn and sipped pink lemonade. On the outdoor patio, adults munched on hors d’oeuvres like coconut shrimp, mini croissants stuffed with chicken salad, and macaroni and cheese shooters. After dinner, they ended the evening dancing in the ballroom. “Our guests told us it was the best meal they’d ever eaten,” says Carol.
At one point, Tamara pulled her mother into a hug, whispering, “I’m glad we were able to help so many people rather than let this go to waste.” Says Carol, “We got more out of this experience than we ever thought we would.”
I do not know for certain whether or not the generous family within this story are followers of Jesus Christ. However, their act of generosity was certainly born in the heart of God. In fact, in Luke 14 we read Jesus’ instruction that His followers are to be extravagantly generous, especially to those who could never repay. “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:12-14).
I am so thankful that one like myself, who was crippled in my own sin, would be invited to feast upon the grace of God through His Son. Today, Jesus is inviting His church to participate in the joyous opportunity of generosity to those who are in need. Our emphasis to Advance the Harvest allows us to generously offer the grace of God to those who are without, and even future generations which we may never meet this side of eternity. In Christ, you are invited to the banquet of God for which you have no right to be a part. How will extend this invitation to others?
Advancing the Harvest,
Jason