Give What You Have
“One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.””
— Acts 3:1-6 (NIV)
Luke says a few verses later that the man was over forty. For many people in his condition, handouts from strangers were the only realistic income. The hour named here fell in the middle of the afternoon, and it went with the second of the two daily offerings, when worshippers came through in the greatest numbers. Their day was split into twelve hours of daylight, so that same point arrived earlier in winter. Their own law commanded open hands toward the poor, and people on their way to pray were the likeliest to give. The Greek word behind his request comes from the word for pity, which English wore down into alms. The name Luke uses for that entrance appears in no other ancient source, and nobody now knows for certain which one he meant. The two visitors were fishermen from the north, in a capital where a man from their region had been executed not long before. Alms were usually copper. Silver and gold was a stock phrase for money of any kind, so Peter is saying only that he has none. Before that same evening was over, both men were under arrest and held overnight. He had nothing the man had asked for, and he had the one thing nobody else was offering him.
When someone needs something from you, the first thing you see is what you are short of. One person cannot find a single useful word for an ill neighbour. Another is still studying, with no money and nothing anyone would call useful. Someone else comes home used up and finds that the people there still need them. And for others hardly anyone is left near them now, and they are the ones waiting to be asked. What you can give may be worth more than what anyone asked you for. Someone asks for a minute, and you can stay to the end and really listen. Jesus kept stopping for the ones everybody else walked past.
Ask one person how they are and hear the whole answer
- 1In person or by phone, ask one person outside your closest circle how they are actually doing, then stay quiet and let them finish. No advice and no story of your own. If they ask about you, answer briefly and turn it back to them. If you get interrupted, come back to the question later. What counts is hearing the whole answer, not how long it takes.
- 2If no one like that comes to mind, call or message someone you have not spoken with in months and ask them the same question.
God, I keep counting what I do not have. Today I have time and I have ears. Put one person in front of me who needs to be heard. Help me stay quiet until they are finished. Help me not to rush off the moment they stop talking. Amen.
Today I hear somebody out to the end, face to face or on a call, and I do not check the time.
How old was the man at that entrance?
Luke reports a few verses later that he was over forty, and he had been unable to walk from birth, so that spot had been his place for most of a lifetime.
Why does the hour matter in this scene?
That time of prayer went with the second of the two daily offerings, which pulled the heaviest traffic of the day past the entrances. For a man living on what passers-by handed him, it was the best hour to be there. Their hours were twelfths of daylight, so the same point fell earlier in winter than in summer.
What does October 4 have to do with this reading?
Francis of Assisi is remembered on this day. He handed back the wealth he stood to inherit and spent the rest of his life giving away what he still had, which is the move made at that entrance.