The Holy Martyrs Eulampius and Eulampia (305-13)
1 Corinthians 15:58-16:3; Luke 5:17-26
Read 1 Corinthians 15:58-16:3
We are blessed by a rich faith through which we enjoy many spiritual gifts that accompany our growth in the Christian life. The Church gives us so much. First and foremost it gives us Christ, for it is through the Church that we encounter Him, especially in the holy mysteries, in the Divine Liturgy, in the Holy Scriptures, and in our individual and communal prayer. The Church as the mystical body of Christ is at its deepest level a community: we are bound together through our baptism, joined to Christ and through Him to one another. We benefit richly from this community, especially when we give back to it through our prayers, through our charitable works, and through our treasure.
St. Paul clearly directs the church at Corinth to give of their financial means, to take up a collection to benefit the “saints”, which is a reference here to the poor of the church in Jerusalem. We read that he also directed the Christians of Galatia to do the same thing: to take up a collection of money to support the saints. So, the Sunday collection has been around for 2,000 years! The members of the Church have a duty to provide for the material needs of the Church: the welfare of the poor, the ill, the persecuted. Brothers and sisters, we exist in a material world and we all have material needs. Many Protestants have a practice of tithing, of giving 10% of their earnings to the church. This is an honourable practise that we should all consider adopting. We have a Christian duty to give generously of our financial resources to support the Church, and to do so not out of some begrudging obligation but out of love and from a cheerful heart. To do so is also a spiritual discipline since in it we recognize that all that we have comes from God.