We share the air we breathe with all life. We share the ground we walk upon with total strangers. We share the stars in the night sky with dreamers. We share our cozy houses with guests. We share our warm meals with family. We share our ideas with thinkers. We share memories with friends. We even share our love.
You see, we share because we are by nature sharing creatures; we are all partakers of this moment, this creation, of this little thing we call life. We were made that way, and were we placed within a creation which affirms and supports this quality we possess. We are relational. To live is to share life.
Throughout history any ideology or practice that has stood up against this design has inevitably failed over time. You can't work around it, it can't even be improved upon, sharing is both foundational and aspirational to all that is living. The farmer gives the soil a seed. The soil gives the seed root. The root gives the plant nutrition. The nutrition gives the plant fruit. And the fruit gives the farmer seed. Pull any stage from the cycle and the whole system breaks down. Of course that illustration over-simplifies my point, but one mustn't look all that far to discover the various evils and afflictions that have occurred at the hands of those who hoard, steal, poison and destroy (qualities that all take life). In fact, we've all played the victim AND the culprit to the pain that ‘taking’ causes, haven't we?
The Apostle John will go so far as to say that "anyone who does not love his brother...cannot love God"(1). And that is most certainly echoing a theme of Jesus in perhaps his last parable while on earth when he says that to do for the "least of these" was to do for him as well(2). Our life to God is tied precisely to our life to others(3). But does that really surprise us? God didn't just create us, He intimately created us. Inasmuch as a child cannot help but share some resemblances with his or her parents, so too creation was designed to reflect qualities of it's maker. And for anyone within creation to truly possess life he or she must recognize that we have been given everything by God and that we too ought to live a life of cheerful, and even sacrificial, giving to others, it’s what we were made for.
So, when an opportunity presents itself to share with those around you...take it (or, rather, give it), you aren’t really living until you do.
(1) 1 Jn. 4:20 (also see 1 Jn. 3:16) (2) Mt. 25:40 (3) One example of this: Mt. 6:15
