Buying Lunch & Jelly Beans

“By everything I did, I showed how you should work to help everyone who is weak. Remember that our Lord Jesus said, ’More blessings come from giving than from receiving.’” Acts 20:35

When I was first on my own, I shared an apartment with two other guys. Dave, Brad and I were all fairly new believers in Jesus, all of us coming to faith within the previous two years or so. We lived in Spokane, WA, and all worked in a strip mall in the north part of town. Dave sold shoes, I sold ski equipment, and, honestly I’ve forgotten what Brad sold.

We usually took our lunch breaks together. There were a couple of restaurants in the mall and across the street, but we usually ended up at Denny’s. Having a half hour lunch, they usually served the quickest and were within our almost minimum wage budgets. When all three of us shared lunch together, we would argue over who was going to get the “blessing”.

Yes, we actually fought over who was going to pay the ticket. It was all done in fun, and we enjoyed the running gag. To tell the truth, though, it actually was a blessing to walk out having paid the check for all three of us. None of us went back to work to discover we were just given a raise, or that the pretty Christian waitress was actually interested in one of us. But we did feel, I’m not sure how else to describe it; we felt blessed.

I’ve share the story a lot of times, but never sat down to analyze why it felt so good. What we did for each other was a far cry from what Paul described in this verse. His admonition was to make sure that we take care of those who are weak. We three guys were on fairly even footing. But we still felt blessed picking up each others’ tickets.

I think part of it was the simple knowledge that I could even do it. It felt good to take care of my friends’ lunch from time to time, and not have to say “No, can’t do it this week.” I know that is probably far from what Jesus meant about giving being more blessed than receiving, but that certainly was part of it. I felt blessed that I could actually pay for someone else’s lunch as well as my own.

Giving also provides things that “receiving” can never come close to doing. We may get new clothes, a new guitar, or any other thing on a list of desired items. And, receiving certainly can make us happy. Jesus does not indict receiving as if it is an evil attitude. I think this is how we misread His statement sometimes. We think He said that we are “happier” when we give. He actually said we are “more blessed” when we given than when we receive.

Two things: first of all, there is a blessing to receiving, it is just that giving brings “more blessing”. And, as we have just noticed, it is not “happiness” that accompanies giving, but “blessing”. Blessing is a state of mind that knows we have caught God’s eye and He is pleased. We may also feel happy when we give, but Jesus wanted to know that it is God who is happy with us too.

I give out jelly beans at the end of my Sunday morning worship. It started several years ago, and now continues with a cookie jar I keep filled with jelly beans that sits on the front platform. It is barely out of sight, and completely out of reach of the little children. Being visible, they know to ask at the end of the service; being out of reach, they know they have to ask.

More than once it has happened with a new child. They gather around me, usually after Aja and Israel have rounded up the rest of the kids for me. They are usually the first two that tug at my pants and say, “jelly beans”, so I send them on their mission. If there is a new child, I almost always try to give her jelly beans first.

Each child receives two. I dig into the jar and hold out my hands, and they pick the two the want from the assorted mosaic of jelly bean shades. A new child occasionally has received her two, begun to walk away, and see a little one still waiting. Without a moment’s thought, she looks at her two treasures, picks the least licked one, and gives it to her new little friend. She isn’t aware I have enough for everyone.

The few times this has happened it makes me smile. The child is blessed. I think that is part of what Jesus is telling us. When we give away what we have, sometimes without even thinking about it, God smiles, and we are blessed. And, even though none of us three young men were weak or impoverished, I still think God also smiled when we went to lunch and argued over who was going to get the blessing this time around.