I have been working with some friends on a project called have 2, give 1. The project is about looking at the teachings of Jesus on possessions, wealth, generosity, etc. As part of the project, we’ve been looking at our stuff, selling what we don’t really need and giving that money to the poor. We decided that we wanted to cap the process with some kind of prophetic event on the busiest shopping day of the year.

For the prophetic event, we put together some post cards to hand out in Union Square in down town San Francisco. On the front of the post card in the middle of the hand we glued a nickle– a small but very real token of our generosity and the invitation of the master to a life of generosity and abundance.

It is a lot harder to give away money than I thought. People weren’t as receptive to it as I thought. Maybe it was because of the bombardment of other stuff that is pressed into your face on a busy day– the biggest shopping day– in down town SF.

We tried all kinds of catch phrases to try and get attention. Here are a few:

“My friend and I are trying to be generous and give away some money.”

“We’re trying to encourage generosity by giving away some money.”

“Here is some spare change. If you can’t use it, give it to someone who can.”

“Do you want some spare change.”

As the day wore on, it seems like the third one was working the best to get people’s attention. We noticed too that some people were more receptive than others. For example, middle aged, mostly upper class Caucasians seemed to be the most skeptical. It seemed like the most negative response came from them. The hipsters and art students were intrigued by the hand and the most curious.

Mark and I were handing out the cards in front of a Louis Vuitton (sp?) store. At one point, one of the staff came out (a younger Asian fellow) to have a smoke. He was curious about what we were doing, so we chatted for a few. When he told me he worked there, I asked him what his average sale was. He thought for a second and said about “six G” meaning six grand. He casually mentioned that he was holiday help and that some of the other staff do much better. Louis Vuitton is a high end luxury store. To give you an idea, they sell purses for around $3K.

The juxtaposition of this kind of retail/consumption and the fact that about 1/5 of the world lives in abject poverty blows me away. Where are we? I think this is a place where as followers of Jesus we should be on knees in prayer with the scriptures in one hand and the painful juxtaposition in the other seeking guidance and clarity on pointing in a new direction.