Vi’s House (l) and Mark’s Boat (r)
I was excited when I came across an article on a site called PsyPost, which promises to report “the latest psychology and neuroscience discoveries.” The report was titled “People Who Pledge 10% of Their Income to Charity are More Morally Expansive and Open-Minded.” I thought I knew exactly who they were talking about. I have met many of these morally expansive people over the years. They teach Sunday school and sing in the choir, they volunteer at the food bank and tutor kids in need of some extra help. They live in the suburbs and the inner city, in Guatemala, Brazil, and Rwanda. Yes, I knew exactly who they had in mind when they wrote about “these extraordinary altruists, who often make significant personal sacrifices to help others, challenge traditional evolutionary theories of altruism, which suggest that helping behaviors are motivated by potential future benefits or kin relationships.”
But it turns out that the article was about a group of people inspired by Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Ted Turner. Yes, those “extraordinary altruists” who give away 10%, sometimes 90%, of their fortune but still have enough left to gift themselves with a $300 million yacht for their 40th birthday. So that’s what a significant personal sacrifice looks like.
The article was about a study of a group of people who have taken the “Giving What We Can” pledge, a group decidedly less exclusive than the billionaires who take “The Giving Pledge.” The Giving What We Can pledgers promise to give at least 10% of their income to charity. In the church we call them tithers. These givers are younger, wealthier, more male, better educated, more white, and significantly less religious than the general population and, for sure, than the tithers I had in mind when I saw the headline.
It’s easy to make fun of Mark Zuckerberg being morally expansive as he sails the seven seas on the $300 million birthday present he gave himself. It’s better to tell you about Vi, an extraordinary giver for whom personal sacrifice to help others was second nature.
Vi, Viola, was a widow and a member of the church I served in an old mill town. She lived in the little frame house they had bought when she and her husband were first married, the house where they raised their three children, and where her husband died. It had become the house where she was helping her single-dad son raise his two very active sons. Vi was a regular at our Wednesday morning Bible Study, brought snacks for Vacation Bible School, and volunteered at the women’s group rummage sale fundraiser. And she was a tither. Every month, month in and month out, she gave 10% of her social security check and what was left of her husband’s very modest pension.
I don’t know if I’d call Vi an extraordinary altruist, but I would call her an extraordinary giver – and an ordinary Christian.
I’ve known dozens of ordinary Christians like Vi, women and men who give not because they have more education, more wealth, or more energy than others. They give because they love and have been loved. They know God.
Vi won’t have her picture posted with the billionaires on the Giving Pledge hall of fame page, but I say, “Move aside, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Let me introduce you to Vi and a thousand others like her.”