By George Banitch

When I reflect on the virtue of generosity, I think of trying to give not from a sense of duty, but out of gratitude for the abundance of God's blessings. But I must admit, generosity has not always been easy, especially when I was younger and Nancy and I were raising our family and trying to save for retirement. It felt like there was a scarcity of resources, and we needed to keep a sort of boundary around generosity.

Yet, the longer I live, the more I've come to embrace the truth of the old adage: "you can't take it with you." While I want to provide for my family after my death, I've set down the goal of leaving a large legacy to my heirs. So the central question leading me has become, "What can we do to give generously to what matters most to us, both here in the present, and also when we are no longer walking the earth."

First of all, I believe that as Christians, we are called to be generous. Of the many teachings and actions of Jesus, anyone can see the essence of generosity. After all, everything comes from God as a gift to us. We are only stewards for our short time here on earth. I can't think of a better way to put our generosity into practice than to give freely and abundantly to our church to support the work of worship, spreading the gospel, and helping those in need. This is not to slight other charitable organizations; they should be a part of our generosity too. The more generosity, the better.

A few years ago, I served terms on Vestry and Endowment board. I became particularly interested in the various different endowment funds, and the seminarian sub-fund especially drew my attention. Its purpose is to provide funding for seminarians as they pursue ordination. I've always felt inspired by the young clergy at Transfiguration, and those we have sponsored for seminary. I am grateful to know these folks will be teaching and leading churches long after my death, so I have given with joy to this fund.

Our actions to spread the gospel through our generosity today will have consequences we cannot see or know. This generosity will flow into future generations of our congregation, and then out into the world. I won't be here to see it (well, hopefully for a while!), but I know that our church will endure. The Fig is only 70 years old – close to the usual lifetime for a human – but our faith is 2,000 years old, and far older than that when you consider our Jewish ancestry. So we are part of an ancient tradition of faith and action. Our generosity here and now will help create the path to the future, with and only with God's help and blessing.