We’re all at our best when we give!
Homily preached November 7, 2021
by Monsignor Deering

Many years ago, as an aspiring Salesman with the Eastman Kodak Company, I read countless books and listened to countless tapes on how to be a good Salesman.

One tape that I found especially helpful was by Professional Salesman, Bill Gove. In it he stressed the difference between being:

• an order-taker

and

• a problem-solver.

He pointed out that each time a Salesman interacts with

a Customer or Prospect ... there are 2 problems involved:

The Salesman’s problem … of how to get the order ... and

the Customer’s problem … of how to get a product that will do the job for him.

Well, the Salesman’s success in solving his problem is in direct proportion to …

the number of the Customer’s problems that he can solve successfully!

So, when the Salesman emphasizes his problem, to just get the order,

then he’s acting like a Peddler, and they’re a dime a dozen.

But when the Salesman emphasizes the Customer’s problem,

then he’s acting like a Pro ... a Problem-solving Pro.

He knows it ... and the Customer knows it!

Bill Gove had the chance to run this Problem Solving Idea by

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, of happy memory,  when he met him one time in NY.

He told Archbishop Sheen about this Problem Solving Idea and how he felt that: for the first time in his life ... he was holding his head up a little higher, and walking a little straighter, and absolutely taking no stress or no strain into a Sales Call, because regardless of how tough the customer was, if he was in there to help him solve a problem ... then the road … the way ... was greased.

And Bill Gove asked Bishop Sheen,

“Does this problem solving attitude have the intellectual and psychological base

that any good idea needs … maybe spiritual too?”

And Archbishop Sheen replied, “Well, I’m not much of a salesman …

And Mr. Gove interjected, “No, just one of the 3 or 4 best in the world, that’s all.”

And Bishop Sheen, who won great acclaim for his powerful television and radio programs that aired throughout the 1950’s went on,

“Probably what happens in problem solving like this …

when we’re in the areas of persuasion … probably what happens is this:

“You see we’re all at our best when we give…

and when you problem solve … you gotta give.

So you give, you feel better.

You feel better, your attitude improves.

Your attitude improves, you get through to people easier,

You get through to people easier, they do some of the things you ask them to do.

And when they do some of the things you ask them to do …

back to the beginning... You feel better!”

How profound!

If you do happen to be in sales,

realize that the sure way to become successful is to be a problem solver.

You have to be a giver ... and not just an order-taker!

It’s been 50 years since I heard Bishop Sheen’s response ...

and his words still resonate with me often … the words …

“We’re all at our best when we give.”

Those words are so powerful ... because those words are so true.

Yes, they’re true in Sales … and they’re true in Teaching, in Doctoring, in Constructing, in Mechanicing … in each and every Profession that exists …

           ‘We’re all at our best when we give.”

Yes, those words are true in every one of the 3 Vocations in life:

Whether you’re Parenting or Pastoring or living as a Single person …

                             ‘We’re all at our best when we give.”

So, yes … there is a spiritual dimension to being a giver!

Bsp. Robert Barron, in Los Angeles ...  puts it this way:

“One of the most fundamental truths in the spiritual life (is) the law of gift.

This principle could be formulated as follows: your being increases in the measure that you give it away. Common sense dictates that our being increases in the measure that we hang on to the goods that we desire: wealth, pleasure, power, honor, etc. But the truth is just the opposite, precisely because God is the source of being – and God is love.

This means that our being is enhanced when we conform it to the divine manner of being, when we make a gift of what has been given to us.”

The Church highlights this truth in all three of our Scripture readings today.

In our First Reading, Elijah the prophet asks a widow to give him something to eat, when it’s real clear that if she does that, she won’t have any ingredients left to make food for herself and her son.

And still the woman goes and gives him what he asked for … a little hearth cake.

What a moving example of true giving that was.

I saw this type of giving take place during my mission trip to Nicaragua in 1998. We had some 30 Seminarians and some 30 locals working together

to pour the foundation for a Parish Hall.

At one point the foreman was in great need of another 5-gallon bucket to help get the cement into the footings the right way. So I ran over to a house where a woman was washing clothes in 5-gal buckets.

Not knowing Spanish, I pointed to one of the 5-gal. buckets she was using and said, “Pro favor” (which means please) and

she promptly took her clothes out of the bucket and handed it to me!

She didn’t know me.

She didn’t know how long I would keep it.

She didn’t know if I would ever bring it back.

It wasn’t an extra bucket … She was using it,

but I asked for it … and she gave it to me!

What an example of giving … she was a giver!

How special she was in my eyes.

How special she was in Jesus’ eyes.

We know this because in our Gospel today, Jesus makes a point of noticing when

a poor widow put two small coins in the Temple Treasury.

She gave her money, not because she had extra money …

no, she gave because she was a giver.

Jesus applauded her giving because it reflected His giving.

God, the Good Giver has planted the seed of giving in each of us …

And when we give to others, we witness to the world the way God gives to us.

In his letter to Romans, Paul writes, “He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?”

So God gave us everything when He gave up His Son as expiation for our sins.

And Jesus continues to give us everything. We hear in Hebrews today that Jesus now reigns in heaven “that He might  … appear before God on our behalf.”

God is the Good Giver and He calls us to become good givers … always giving of ourselves even when we don’t see exactly where our resources will come from.

Jesus commends the widow for giving not from her surplus but from her need,

saying, she gave “from her poverty all she had, her whole livelihood.”

This is exactly what happens in the mystery of the Mass …

Jesus gives His whole livelihood ... to us … His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

Veiled under the appearance of bread and wine,  Jesus … the Good Giver,

gives Himself to us again and again, to be our help and our strength.

For 2000 years, in the Millions and Millions of Masses that have been prayed, Jesus continues to become truly and substantially present to us … over and over again … it is a miracle that has never ended and will never end ... till the end of time.

Elijah’s words in our First reading, “the flour shall not go dry.”

prefigured how the Bread from Heaven, Jesus in the Eucharist, would not go dry.

No, it will not cease … till the end of the world.

God is the Good Giver.

And through His Son, He gives us the grace to become good givers too.

The British Statesman, Sir Winston Churchill once said,

“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

For us to be with God, we must become like Him. That means we have to become generous givers … giving to others not just of our surplus, but of our very selves.  

Giving of our time, our compassion, our care, our understanding, our prayers, giving of our physical and spiritual gifts to those around us.

In this way we reflect God … who is the Good Giver.

That Great Salesman, Bill Gove closed his Sales talk with a story about his church Pastor … giving us some additional insight and inspiration.

He said that his Parish went forward with plans to build a bigger church and at the opening pledge meeting a very large donation was announced by one of the wealthy Parishioners.

And someone nudged someone else and said,

“No wonder this guy gives … he’s got it.”

And the Pastor said,

“I wonder if he gives because he’s got it … or he’s got it because he gives!”

In the world of sales,    order-takers are called peddlers

        problem solvers are called pros.

In the world in general, there are takers and there are givers.

God, who is the Good Giver, calls us to be givers …

to give of ourselves to Him and to others …

to give, not just from our excess …

but from the depth of who we are.

That is real giving,

That is giving that mirrors the giving of God.

That is the giving that Jesus takes notice of and finds so pleasing.

Let’s become godlike in our willingness to give of ourselves.

For as Archbishop Sheen would say,

“We’re all at our best when we give!”