Share: to partake of, use, experience, occupy, or enjoy with others.

Sacrifice: destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.

When it comes to our abundance, it is about sharing our abundance. There is a quote attributed to Mother Teresa that states that we should “give until it hurts”. While this might sound selfless and heroic, it would be more likely to keep people from sharing their abundance. People like rewards. They like to feel good and they like to eat. Giving until it hurts is not a sustainable model. It also goes against many faith traditions where taking care of those in your family must come first before taking care of people outside your family. Taking care of your children, your parents, and your spouse are all integral to healthy family dynamics. So just how much should we share?

The answer varies but generally it comes down to: what we’re comfortable with sharing. There are suggestions everywhere, one of the most common is based upon a percentage of our income. Not always the easiest thing to calculate in our society of multiple jobs and types of income. But, not surprisingly, many churches have invested the time and effort to figure it out and refer to it as a tithe and it’s usually only counted against material abundance. This concept originates in the Old Testament; Genesis 14: 18-20 but it doesn’t actually state a percentage, just a share. No one forced Melchisedech to share anything and Melchisedech was not making a sacrifice.

“18 But Melchisedech the king of Salem, bringing forth bread and wine, for he was the priest of the most high God,  19 Blessed him, and said: Blessed be Abram by the most high God, who created heaven and earth.  20 And blessed be the most high God, by whose protection the enemies are in thy hands. And he gave him the tithes of all.”

The Quran also suggests sharing wealth. “[True] righteousness is [in] one who believes in God, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets and gives of their wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes Prayer and practices regular charity…” [Quran 2:177]

This is a lovely article on how generosity (sharing) is a cornerstone of Buddhist thought. https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/article/theres-more-to-giving-than-we-think/

Can we get something out of what we share? Of course. Taxes are a way we share our abundance. Community service is another way we share as well. Yes we do benefit from each of those and it often seems like it’s not our choice when we pay taxes. We can choose not to pay taxes if we are willing to accept the consequences. We just tend to avoid negative consequences and have, as a species, for a very long time. There’s a story in the New Testament, Acts 5: 1-10, about Ananias and Saphira. I’ll paraphrase a bit here, they had sold a large piece of land and in the early church many were giving all that they had to the church, although it wasn’t required. Ananias and his wife Saphira lied about how much money they got for the land instead of saying that they didn’t want to donate all the proceeds. Looking pious is seemingly less painful than being pious. They were struck down dead on the spot; not because they didn’t want to share but because they lied about it. We always have the choice, it’s our abundance, but we are responsible for our choice.

We are not called to self-destruct in our efforts to share our abundance. Instead we are able to choose how much and where and when we share. To quote “The code is more what you call, guidelines, than actual rules.” But all the guidelines agree, more good can happen when we share what we are willing to share, then when we try to share more than we can.