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St. Lawrence on the Role of Almsgiving
00:31:23
Dr. Tim Gray and Dr. Michael Barber discuss St. Lawrence and the true "Treasure of the Church."
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A
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith. Welcome to form Now, I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute, and Joining me is Dr. Michael Barber, our professor of scripture here at the Augusta Institute. And we're going to talk. Today is the feast day of St. Lawrence, and he's a remarkable martyr in the early church. And we're going to talk a little Bible study about his main occupation for the church. And so he was an archdeacon for the church in Rome. And that meant he was, as the role of deacons to take care and serve, especially those who are needy. And so one of the things that the early Christians were particularly well known for was, was their almsgiving and their generosity to help widows, to help the poor, the needy, the handicapped. And so the early Christian community was known for its works of charity. And, of course, the Catholic churches, to this day, with our hospitals, our Catholic charities that help the poor, all the different wonderful things. In fact, I think someone told me this stat that there's no greater work of charity than the Catholic Church in the world. If you take all the giving, the Catholic Church's services to the poor and the needy outweigh every other government or any other organization. It's really quite remarkable. But, you know, St. Lawrence, he was in charge as archdeacon of Rome of the giving the alms, giving to the poor. And during a persecution, you know, the emperor had seized him and wanted him to hand over the. The treasures of the church, all that money. And what he did is he gave because he knew that the persecution was coming down. He gave all those treasures and dispersed all those goods as alms to the poor and the needy. And then he went to show the emperor and his minions what the treasures of the church were. He says, you want the treasures of the church? He said, yes, bring us to the treasures of the church. And then he showed them the poor and the blind, the lame. He said, these are the treasures of the church, and is the poor and the needy. And then, of course, for that, he was duly martyred by the emperor. And, you know, one of the things I thought that Dr. Barber and I could talk about is the importance of almsgiving. And I think, Michael, one of the things that happened in the history of the church, when I have to say that how important it was that the church was focused on almsgiving, it was such a focus of the early church, true that today we still have hospitals and Catholic churches and things. But I think that the Reformation changed this. I think that in the time of Luther and the Reformation, Luther, you know, because there was an abuse of almsgiving. And what was happening is the almsgiving was always seen in the Jewish tradition and then in the Christian tradition as very important, as good works to try to bring heavenly merits, to do these good works that would be seen as pleasing to God. And you want to do these good works that would be almsgiving, giving to the poor. And it goes back to texts like Deuteronomy 15, but also texts like Proverbs 19, verse 17, where it says, he who is generous or lends to the poor is making a loan to the Lord. And of course, the ancient rabbis said, well, this is crazy. Who could say that, that God owes you anything, right? But the word of God says, if you give to the poor, God's in your debt to repay you. Which is just extraordinarily remarkable, Right? It's a remarkable text that. And I know that in the early church, Fathers Augustine, St. John Chrysostom and others quote that text of Proverbs 19:17. I know the rabbis quoted it. And so we see that the early church loved almsgiving. I want to dive into some of the biblical texts for the. But what I want to say is that Luther, during the time of the Reformation, saw an abuse of this. And that was what you had is bishops and even popes who started to do fundraising for their cathedrals, the building of St. Peter's the building of cathedrals. And that fundraising, they said, would count as almsgiving. And Luther, in his 95 theses, said Luther's primary objective was the use of almsgiving for building buildings rather than caring for the poor, because it was taking up all this money that would go to the poor and the needy. And in a sense, this cathedral building, which was charitable giving, but it was taking up all the charitable giving that was going to the poor. And Luther rightfully critiqued that. Now, unfortunately, later on, Luther just throws out all almsgiving. And one of the moves that Luther makes is he, as he begins to be an advisor to these princes who are casting off Catholicism, is he says, look, the state should do a tax for almsgiving and collect that and give it to the poor. And that's what starts happening in all these Protestant countries, is that there's taxes that are added that then start. And from that taxation, then the state disperses almsgiving to the poor. Now, it's interesting, by the way, when Philip ii, King of Spain says, hey, that's a good idea. I'm the prince, I'm the king. Maybe we could disperse and collect all this money and give it to the poor. And when he suggests that he's going to do that, there's almost riots in Spain. They say, how dare you take away our good deeds and our almsgiving, which gives us merit in God's eyes. You can't do that. And so they. He's not able to do that. And so it remained the tradition in Catholic countries that there wouldn't be a tax for taking care of the poor. There would be. Instead, it would be up to the philanthropy of the local people to give to the poor. But all this is rooted in Scripture, isn't it?
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Right. Definitely. I mean, and it is sort of scary to get to the place where people think, well, I'm not going to give to the poor because the government's going to do that on my behalf. You know, there we're really being deprived of a unique opportunity. And, you know, one of the books of the Bible that emphasizes Alma's giving in a particular way is a book that. Well, non Catholics actually don't have it in their Bible. It's the Book of Tobit.
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Unfortunately, Luther had it, but he threw it out of the Bible.
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So it's been read as Christian scripture long before the Protestant Reformation. And in the Book of Tobit, we have this beautiful story. And, you know, maybe someday we should do a Bible study on Tobit.
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That'd be a lot. Oh, yeah, that'd be fun.
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So much to think about there. But you look at the beginning of Tobit, and we read about this man who is a devout Israelite. He doesn't go along with the other northern Israelites who end up rejecting the worship of God's temple in Jerusalem. The northern Israelites end up worshipping golden calves, which, by the way, is part of the government, is a big part of their government's propaganda. Northern Israel didn't want the king of northern Israel didn't want his people to go down to Jerusalem to worship, so they set up idols. He doesn't do that. But in so many ways, Tobit, the Book of Tobit, emphasizes his holiness and his piety. And one of the things that he does is, in addition to not going along with idolatry, he. He becomes a man devoted to charity. And why is this? Well, because there's an understanding. He can't offer sacrifices in the temple. He can't offer the normal gifts that Jews would present to the Lord in the temple. And so his almsgiving becomes a type of sacrifice. And so we see, for example, in chapter two, there's a man who's murdered, and he's left out in the street. And. And it's during the festival of Pentecost. And to touch a dead body renders you ritually impure, but that doesn't matter to him. He goes out there and he buries the dead man, and he goes on to perform many righteous deeds, many acts of almsgiving, and yet.
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And so many corporal works of mercy. I mean, this is where we get. Oftentimes the list for corporal works of mercy. He buries the dead, which is one of the corporate works of mercy.
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That's right.
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He feeds the hungry. He clothes the naked. All these beautiful corporal works of mercy Tobit's embodying.
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That's right.
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And, you know, and I think what's so striking for people is think of Tobit as one of the most successful Jewish businessmen of that age, you know, because he's made the. He's in charge of all government. What do you call it? Purchases, basically. Procurement, I guess, would be the more technical term. He was in charge of procurement for the king of Assyria. And because he was, you know, very organized and competent and very, very gifted, he rises to the ranks and gets that position. So he's got great pay. He's a man of wealth. That's right. Yeah. And so it's just him burying the dead. When you think about one of the most important government officials and one of the top, wealthiest Jewish businessmen, and he goes out himself, leaves the dinner table when he hears that there is a Jew who was killed, and he buries the dead. It's just a remarkable humility, rendering himself.
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Ritually impure and unable in some ways to fully participate in a cultic sense.
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And this is exactly the. I'm sorry, but this is exactly the kind of corporal works of mercy that St. Lawrence and the early Christians are embodying.
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That's right. And so in chapter four, he sends his son Tobias out to back up a little bit more. So Tobit ends up doing these works of mercy, and he has to sleep outside because he's such a faithful Jew, he can't go into his house because.
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It would render the house unclean, because ritual impurity.
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So he sleeps outside. And while he's asleep, these birds.
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Droppings.
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Their droppings go into his eyes, and he ends up going blind. And it seems so unfair. It seems like this guy is doing everything for.
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For meticulous Torah observance.
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And all receiving in charity. For all these things, he gets blinded and he sends out his son Tobias, and he gives him some very interesting instructions. He says, remember the Lord all your days. He says, do righteous deeds all the days of your life and do not walk in the paths of wrongdoing. What are the righteous deeds there? The righteous deeds are almsgiving. In particular, he says, for those who practice what is true will prosper in their deeds. In other words, you can't be more generous with God than he will be with you. So if you are giving away your wealth, God is going to take care of you. You know, oftentimes we hoard our wealth. Why? Because we have a lack of faith. We think, I've got to trust in my treasury, I've got to trust in the work of my hands, because that's what our wealth is, right? It's the result of the work of our hands. So a lot of times we think, oh, I can't give anything to the poor because I need all this security. But what Tobit explains is, no, no, no. Practice what is true. You will prosper. He says in 4, 7. Do deeds of mercy from your possessions to all who practice righteousness. Do not let your eye begrudge the gift when you make it. Do not turn your face away from the poor man, and the face of God will. Will not be turned away from you. He goes on to say, if you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion. If a few. Do not be afraid to give according to the little that you have.
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A
And that's the key line there, Michael. It's do not be afraid. And when you talk about giving, I think the greatest obstacle to generosity is the uncertainty of the future. We don't know the future. And because the future is uncertain, I don't know how much we're going to need in the future and. And when. I don't know how much I'm going to need in the future, I need to lay up more now. And so I'm afraid to give. Even though people have a generous heart, they're afraid to give in the present because of an uncertain future. And that's why Jesus, who quotes Tobit, I believe in the Sermon on the mount. In chapter 6, Jesus addresses after he talks about the importance of giving and generosity and storing up treasure in heaven. He addresses anxiety and fear because he knows our Lord knows that that's the number one cause of people not being generous.
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And look at the next line. The next line, he says to his Son, is relevant to this. So if you do them, you know, if you have a little bit, do not be afraid to give according little half. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity. In the day of want, you'll have treasure. Well, wait a minute. No, I won't. I just gave it away. What are you talking about, Dad? I should give away my wealth so that I. I'll have stored up treasure on the day of necessity. That doesn't work.
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What is that day of necessity?
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Because ultimately, he's talking about spiritual treasure. And if you read writings from ancient Judaism, you'll see that ancient Jewish sources describe a sort of heavenly bank account that you store up treasure in. Not in an earthly sense, but kind of spiritual bank account, if you will. Credits in a spiritual bank account. And the way you get those credits in a spiritual bank account is by showing faithfulness in earthly things. Now, of course, Jesus will explain in the Gospels that we are to do this. And he uses this exact imagery, as you point out in the Sermon on the Mount. Of course, we can only do this by God's grace. It's not as if we earn God's favor by forcing his hand. Obviously, if we do good works, it's because he's working within us. So this is all part of the context of the covenant, in the context of our relationship.
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And I know you talk about that beautifully in your book on salvation.
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Oh, thank you for mentioning that.
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Which I love. And I think that it's kind of like when my dad would give me a little budget for Christmas shopping when I was a kid, and he's like. And, you know, and take me to the store because I couldn't get there myself. I couldn't drive there so I could pick out a gift from Mom. Right. And so I was always so proud that I had picked out a gift from my mom, and then I had purchased it, and then I got to wrap it and. Really?
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Is it a baseball bat?
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No, but it really. I couldn't have. I mean, I couldn't have afforded it. I couldn't have gotten to the store. It was really my dad who got my mom a gift, but my dad was gracious in giving me his money. And so the Lord gives us his grace that enables us to do good works so that we can love by his power.
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And that's the idea here, is that on the day of necessity, which ultimately points to the day of judgment. Right?
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Yeah. Let's just talk about that for a second, because I don't want to assume that for anybody, the ultimate day of necessity. The day that we are going to have the most important day in all of our existence is going to be when we approach the judgment seat of God and we are judged, and we either go to heaven or we get condemned to the darkness. And that's the one day you don't want to be a bad day. You can recover from any other bad day. That's the one bad day you can't recover from.
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And Jesus actually uses that language in Matthew, chapter 16. He says, the Son of man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father. We're talking about the parousia, the second coming of Christ. And then on that day, he will repay. Notice the financial imagery there. He will repay everyone according to what he has done. So just as Proverbs says that he who lends to the poor, lends to the Lord, right? God is going to repay you on that last day. So this is what we're ultimately storing up. These, you know, these acts of mercy. For Tobit 4 goes on for practicing mercy delivers from death. That's the point, isn't it? On the last day, we face what the book of Revelation would call the second death. I mean, the ultimate application of this passage is that almsgiving is a way of preparing ourselves to stand on that last day. And it goes on and keeps you from entering the darkness. You mentioned that already. For practicing mercy is an excellent offering. And there we have that language of a sacrifice. There we have that language of a sacrificial offering that you would make in the temple. Tobit, he's in Assyria. Tobit's been taken away into captivity. If you read the context of the story, you'll find he's a captive and he's unable to worship in the temple. But how does he continue to present his gifts to the Lord? It's by loving your neighbor, Right? And there's always that connection. Love God and love your neighbor. You love God by loving your neighbor in those kinds of acts.
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That's so true. And just to bring it full circle later on, in the story of Tobit, In Tobit, Chapter 12, we have the angel Raphael, who guided Tobias, Tobit's son Tobias, on his journey. And Raphael reveals that he is an angel of the Lord sent by God. And that wasn't. They didn't know that earlier, but he gives them an exercise.
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I love that scene. It's like the Sixth Sense or one of those movies.
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Yeah, exactly.
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You realize at the end of the story he was an angel all along. And he even explains, it looked like I was eating, but I wasn't really eating. Go back and you'll see I never actually put the food in my mouth or something like that.
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It's a great scene. Yeah, it's a really great scene. And so, you know, he says so many beautiful things. But I'll just jump to verse seven. He says, it is an honorable thing to keep a king's secret hidden and gloriously to reveal and acknowledge the works of God. So notice the importance of the works of God, which are going to be charity and almsgiving. Keep doing what is good and evil will not come upon you. Pray with sincerity. Practicing mercy and righteousness is better than wealth with injustice. So it's better to be poor, but to practice mercy and righteousness. And going back to what Dr. Barber said earlier, righteousness, by this point in late Judaism, hasadim means to be somebody who's practicing charity. Gemalut chassadim, which is works of mercy. And so that's what righteousness means. To be a righteous man means to be somebody who's generous to the poor. And then he goes on and he says, it is more honorable thing to do a work of mercy than to store up gold. So it's more honorable to do a work of mercy than to store up and have bigger and bigger reserves. And he says, practicing mercy. Here's the point that you were just talking about with Jesus. Practicing mercy. And here by mercy, he means almsgiving. And charity by practicing mercy delivers from death and it purges away every sin. Wow. I mean, that's what a motivator. If you've got sin that you in your past, you want to get purged out. Almsgiving is one of the most effective ways to do that, as well as making a good confession, of course. And those who do deeds of mercy will have full satisfaction from life. But those who practice sin and injustice are enemies of their own souls. So if you want to be good to your soul, practice almsgiving. And that's why Holy Mother Church gives us. And this is why, during the time of St. Lawrence, so many Christians, they were giving generously for the poor and the needy. Every serious Christian in the early church was giving almsgiving for the poor because they knew these stories. They read the Book of Tobit. And I'm afraid, Michael, people today don't know this. They don't know the Book of Tobit. They don't know Proverbs 19:17. They don't know even what our Lord says in Matthew Chapter six.
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You know, one of the reasons for that is Tobit has been neglected. And oftentimes the translations that we have of Tobit are archaic, they're hard to read, and they're actually not always based on the best manuscripts. In fact, this is one of the things I'm most excited about, this ESV Catholic Edition, because the deuterocanonical books, the books that are in the Catholic, have basically been given a brand new, fresh translation using the best manuscripts we have. I was just talking to a Bible author of Bible Studies, he's a friend of mine on the phone, and we were talking about deuterocanonicals, and he said, when is anybody going to come out with a better translation of Tobit? And I said, well, I got news for you. It's in the ESP Catholic Edition. And, you know, I think you're right. If we're not reading these stories in Scripture, then what's going to happen? Well, it's not going to form who we are. It's not going to be a part of our consciousness. Of course, I will say, although it's in Tobit, it is found in another book that sadly is often neglected, and that is the Book of Acts. I get to teach a course on the Book of Acts here at our graduate program every. Every year or every other year or so. I love teaching Luke Acts. There's a great scene in Luke Acts where we read about a man named Cornelius.
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And you could find this at Acts, chapter 10. So Acts, chapter 10.
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In Acts chapter 10, we read about a pagan Cornelius. At Caesarea, there was a man named Cornell Cornelius, a centurion. So he's a Roman soldier, and he actually has soldiers under him. Right. A devout man. Get this. He was of the Italian cohort. A devout man who feared God with all his household, but he's not a Jew. But he still fears the true God, the Creator God. He gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God.
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Wow. I love that. The two attributes of fearing God is giving alms and praying continually very important.
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And Tobit says the same thing, pray with sincerity. And how do you know you pray with sincerity because you're giving alms. In other words, if you say you love the Lord, but you're not loving your neighbor, then you're not really doing what the Lord has asked.
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You're not listening to the Lord in prayer. And that's why in Matthew 6, where Jesus talks first about almsgiving, and then after he talks about almsgiving, he talks about the. Our Father and how to pray. And then after he talks about prayer, he teaches about fasting. And notice that if you want an intimate life of prayer with the Father, you have to frame that life by a life of generosity to others. This is what alms giving names and sacrifice of self, which is what fasting names. And so what Jesus has given us is the true technique of prayer, which is not a breathing rhythm and it's not a sitting or kneeling pose.
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Isn't there an app?
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Yeah, it's not a special app. The key to prayer, Jesus is saying, is generosity to others and willing to sacrifice self. That frames and creates the conditions for deep intimacy with your Father in heaven.
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Well, what we go on to see is not only did he give alms generously to the people and pray continually, we then go on to read something remarkable about the ninth hour of the day. This would be about 3pm in the afternoon. He saw clearly in a vision an angel. And the angel tells him, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial. That's the language for sacrifice before God. Now this is a remarkable passage because earlier in the book of Acts, we read that Peter and John go up to the temple at the time of the evening sacrifice, which at that time was at 3:00pm by the way, Jesus dies at the time of the evening sacrifice. There was a sacrifice that was offered every day in the morning and in the evening. It's called the Tamid, which means continually. Right. It's a continual offering. It's the most prominent sacrifice in the temple in Jesus's day and in the Apostles day. But what's remarkable here is Cornelius is a pagan, okay? But yet, because he's praying sincerely, because he's giving alms, an angel comes to him and says, you, sacrifice has been accepted. Now this is remarkable because in ancient Judaism you can't present worthy sacrifices if you are unclean. You have to go through ritual cleansing before you can offer an acceptable sacrifice. Earlier in Luke's gospel, Acts is a sequel, if you know this Acts as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. In Luke chapter 11, Jesus makes a remarkable statement about alms giving. What he says is that if you give alms, everything is clean for you. So alms giving purifies.
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Yeah, I love that context because he's rebuking the Pharisees who are doing outward ritual purity, but interiorly aren't. And then he tells them to do the kind of purification that really matters, which is not washing their hands, but to give alms to make all that's inside clean. Which is just a. Again, Jesus is interpreting the Jewish tradition, but authoritatively.
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Right. Jesus certainly thinks that purity and impurity matters. And what he wants to say is here, if you're practicing almsgiving, you're learning a form of true purity. And that's what Cornelius has discovered as a pagan. And of course, after this, Peter comes to him and baptizes him, which is a remarkable. And it's the first Gentile to come into the church baptized by the Prince of the apostles themselves, which would thus seem to indicate that this is okay to have Gentiles come into the church and what prepared them for that almsgiving. So, alms, right there we see a beautiful link between Tobit, where alms giving is presented as a kind of alternative to sacrifice, and Acts, where we discover Cornelius has made a similar kind of substitute sacrifice through his alms.
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A
You know, you could see another. I love Tobit. And there's another great book and that's in the deuterocanonical books and that's the book of Sirach, that speaks a lot about the importance of alms and as a kind of sacrifice. I've got. I just got this new Bible yesterday.
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Jealous.
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So I don't have it marked up, but I think it's Sirach 36 or 34. I'll see if I can find it. But Sirach talks about the importance of almsgiving, that God gives a reward sevenfold. You know, that if you give to the poor, God will reward you sevenfold.
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I think it's 35, but I could be wrong.
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Alright, so it's right, 35, 12. Yeah, that sounds right. So if you had the passage. Do you want to just read it? Yeah, just read it for everybody.
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Give to the most High as he is given and as generously as you are able. For the Lord is the one who repays and he will repay you sevenfold. I love that passage because it emphasizes God isn't just like, you know, miser here.
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Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, look, if you. If I could tell you that you, for your investment, for your money, I can get you a sevenfold. Seven times. That's a multiple of seven, you know, that's a 700% return on investment and that you're guaranteed a 700% return on investment. Well, that's what God the Father is guaranteeing to you. When you give to the poor and to the needy, he's promising a 700%. And of course then Jesus takes that up a few notches when he says to Peter, and I know it's in a couple different places. But in Matthew 19, he says, you know, anybody who sacrificed for the sake of the kingdom will receive a hundredfold in the next life, right? And that's even beyond the seven, you know, sevenfold return on investment, which is just really extraordinary. But here's the point. God the Father wants to incentivize giving because he knows that nothing conforms our hearts more closely to Jesus Christ His Son, than generosity and generosity to those who can't repay you. You gain nothing in a worldly sense. But this is exactly what the Father wants us to do, is to give those who can't have the capacity to return the favor and give back to us, or to give us a favor back. We give to those who are needy. And I love and I just want to, you know, close with the image from Tobit that we began with in Tobit, chapter 4, verse 6, and following where Tobit says to his son Tobias, and he doesn't think he's going to see his son Tobias again. So he's kind of saying, here's how to live a good life, my son. Here's how to be successful. And at the center of what he advises his Son to do to be happy in life is to give alms, whether he has little to give in proportion to that little, or much to give in proportion to much. He says, and do not turn your face away from any poor man, and God will not turn his face away from you. And what Tobit is referring to there is the great Haberakah, the great blessing that we get in the Book of Numbers that Moses gives to Aaron. And the great blessing is, may the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. Right? And turn his countenance upon you and grant you his peace and his blessing, right? So the idea is, the Jews want God's blessing. We all want God's blessing. We want God's blessing. And that's evinced by God turning his face to us, and then we're blessed. So he's saying, don't turn your face away from any poor man. And whenever we see a beggar or a panhandler, what's the first reaction? To turn our face away? No, turn our face towards the poor in the need. Don't be afraid to look at their need, and with generosity, let's bless them. And this is the whole point of Psalm 112. The righteous man gives generously. Because in Psalm 111, God is righteous and he gives generously. And so the righteous man imitates God. So that's what we're called to do. My friends and I want to thank everybody here who's part of our Mission Circle. You are a great blessing to us because right now, your support, your generosity, your alms giving to us allows our ministry to happen. And right now, during the month of August, for anybody who's not on the Mission Circle yet, which is our monthly giving society, just go to the Donate button on the top right of the form, click on Mission Circle and you'll find that we have a whole new landing page. We have all kinds of special benefits for our Mission Circle members, and you can join that Mission Circle and find out more about it. But by joining the Mission Circle, your almsgiving is supporting our ministry and helping us reach literally over a million people unformed. And so it's a great blessing, it's a great service and I'm grateful for all of you who support us. I pray that the Lord may give you a sevenfold and a hundredfold return on investment. I'm deeply grateful. We pray for you always. Thank you and God bless you. You can watch these interviews in video format by visiting formed.org formed is an online Catholic streaming service created by the Augustine Institute and Ignatius Press with award winning studies and parish programs, inspiring audio content, movies, ebooks, and family friendly kids programming to support the mission of the Augustan institute. Please visit missioncircle.org.