05/03/2015

Good morning. With the build up to Comic Relief next week, I’ve been thinking about charitable giving. The World Giving Index recognises different aspects of generosity by ranking countries not only on how ready their citizens are to donate money and time, but also by their willingness to help a stranger. In 2014, the UK came a respectable seventh in this worldwide ranking of generosity.

In the fourteenth century theologian John Wycliffe wrote “Charity should begin at himself”, and this is thought to be the first recorded instance in English of the proverb which you and I know as “Charity begins at home”.

But what does it actually mean? When my mum used to say it, she meant that we should help our family first rather than give money to strangers in need. A quick internet search will reveal that she wasn’t the only one who interpreted it like that.

But the same search will also unearth the claim that this is one of the five most misunderstood proverbs of all time. Others have said that the true and original meaning is that developing a charitable attitude at home ensures a charitable attitude to strangers. If we can’t be kind, loving and generous to those we know best, then we’re unlikely to be genuinely kind to strangers. The person who might abuse others but gives money to a deserving cause is not a philanthropist but a hypocrite. As Charles Dickens put it in his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, “charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.”

So, whatever we think the proverb means, perhaps we could at least agree to say: “charity begins at home but it shouldn’t end there.”

Father God, forgive us for the times when we lack in charity. Give us generous hearts that respond with compassion to the needs of friend and stranger alike. We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ who showed us how to love our enemies, Amen.