I was stood by the door waiting for someone else to arrive when a refugee banged on it. I was annoyed. It wasn’t opening time yet and it’s always awkward explaining that across a language barrier. I took my time coming to the door and fiddled with the key, hoping my body language would set the tone for a short conversation.

“We’re not open yet”, I said as I cracked the door open and felt the chill of the early December cold snap.

The Iranian man looked me earnestly in the eyes, thrust a heavily laden shopping bag into my hands and said in a heavy accent:

“I’m sorry, I can’t come today”.

He flashed me a grin that showed his missing teeth, leaned over to hug me, turned his bike around and rode off up the hill.

I’d known Ebrahim (not his real name) for a few weeks – maybe a month – since another refugee had introduced me to him. I’d heard rumours of his generosity, but this was my first experience of it.

I shut the door to the church against the cold, and as I locked it my mind wandered back to an interaction with John Barclay – a professor at Durham University. I was a PhD student at the University of Nottingham at the time, and he was a world-leading theologian who had been invited to give the Firth Lectures. It was as close as you come in academia to meeting a rock star.

He came to mind as I closed the door because in those lectures, he argued that one of the key reasons the first Christian communities grew was because they practiced risky generosity.

The first followers of Jesus were likely poor enough that they relied on each other to get by: you can borrow my coat today because I’m going to need your saucepan tomorrow. That was not unusual in the ancient world and lots of communities were generous in that way.

What made Christians unique was that they were much more willing to risk including outsiders – they were willing to give to people who they didn’t know well enough to be able to rely on them giving back.

I retreated from the door wondering what had just happened and whether Ebrahim would get a decent meal today if he couldn’t come to our drop in. But mostly, I wondered why he was being so generous and I was so stingy. I mean, one of us is rich by almost any metric – and it’s not Ebrahim.

As I turned round, I saw Sami (not his real name) across the room. He’s been around longer than Ebrahim and has actually been helping us by translating sermons into Farsi for other Iranian refugees. He was already inside because he was helping us today.

They show up with gratitude, and give generously of the very little they have. They practice this risky generosity with no guarantee of return.

I know a bit of Sami’s story – how he has arrived in the UK seeking asylum because his family found out about his faith and suddenly he was no longer safe in his own home. I’ve seen the scars he got from living through that story. And yet, when Sami manages to find a way to work under the radar to supplement the pittance he’s living on and make his days more meaningful, he is as generous with what he earns as he is with his time.

There’s something striking about the risky generosity I see in Ebrahim and Sami. I can’t imagine living through what they’ve endured, but they show up with gratitude, and give generously of the very little they have. They practice this risky generosity with no guarantee of return – not least because the church is so mindful of being taken in by a sob story that we make big demands before we’ll baptise or send letters of support for anyone. It challenges me. Despite the fact that I’m the rich one, my asylum seeker friends seem closer to the attitude of the first Christians than I am.

It particularly challenges me when I then read stories about small boats, Home Secretaries and Rwanda. Because somehow people like Ebrahim and Sami seem to go missing in all the debate.

I’m not in a position to solve immigration, and I’m not for a second pretending it’s not complicated. But I thought about Ebrahim, Sami and John Barclay again when my children’s CofE primary school told me what they were teaching my boys about British values and Christian values. It’s probably no surprise that there was no mention of this kind of risky generosity that was in fact a hallmark of the first Christian communities and that I think I’ve seen in these brothers from another nation. I think that’s a shame.

There’s no doubt that the Bible talks clearly about God providing for his people –wealth is not bad, and Jesus’ call to give it all away came to one particular person rather than to every follower. But God’s own generosity runs like a thread throughout the story told in Scripture.

Maybe that’s why Paul writes that ‘God loves a cheerful giver' . The original Greek word translated ‘cheerful’ there is hilaron and we get the word ‘hilarious’ from that root. It might not be funny, but within the conversation we tend to have about wealth it is surely laughable for Ebrahim to give away a bag full of goodies when he has nothing? It’s risky, certainly: better to hold onto the money as you might need it next month if the Home Office moves you without warning again. And yet, he gives.

And because he gives, he challenges me. If John Barclay is right – and I think he is – Christians have always been the kind of people who take risks to welcome others into their community. That makes no sense if you’re trying to keep your own food and energy bills down in the face of inflation. It’s laughable, in fact. But apparently, that’s the kind of giver God likes – a hilarious one!

I think he likes that kind of giver because when he looks at them he sees the image of his own generosity. After all, according to Genesis, that’s the image humans were made to carry. Seeing Ebrahim and Sami giving reminds me that for all the complexity of the immigration debate these are human beings. Their risky generosity challenges me to live up to the actual values of the first Christian community.

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13 September 2023

3 min read

The common sense driving local charity

Catherine Jupp and her friends give furniture to those who need it at no cost. Ryan Gilfeather explores what motivates them.

Ryan Gilfeather

Ryan Gilfeather explores social issues through the lens of philosophy, theology, and history. He is a Research Associate at the Joseph Centre for Dignified Work.

A group of people stand in front of the side of a van marked 'Furniture Friends.

Catherine Jupp and her Furniture Friends.

It will come as little surprise to the UK public to hear that Christians are involved in charity. In times of great need, several high-profile Christian charities offer help. For example, after the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria last year, the UK’s Disaster Emergency Committee pooled the resources of 15 leading aid charities to provide relief. Of those charities, four explicitly identify as Christian: Tearfund, Christian Aid, CAFOD, and World Vision. Anyone following these efforts would easily grasp that Christians are involved in large-scale charitable activity that helps those in need.

Outside of the public gaze, however, are ordinary Christians serving the marginalised in their local communities. Around the country, they are running warm banks, food banks, and other enterprises helping those unable to provide for themselves or their families. Despite how hidden these efforts are, they make an enormous difference to their local communities. The collective impact of all these different groups is vast.

My colleague, Catherine Jupp is one of these faithful people. Catherine and I both serve our parish church in rural Hertfordshire, I as a priest and she as a lay minister. In her previous life, she taught in a secondary school in a challenging area. Now, alongside her ministry, she and her husband run a local charity called Furniture Friends.

Their mission is simple: to give furniture to those who need it at no cost. Day to day, this involves volunteers who work with them driving around in a van, collecting beds, sofas and other items from people who have no more use for them. They take calls from a network of social workers around Hertfordshire, asking for particular things for certain people. And, they go and deliver furniture to these individuals and families in need.

Catherine speaks of the challenging circumstances their clients live in: families living without any furniture. Furniture Friends makes a massive difference to these children who can now sleep on beds and families who can sit on a sofa. One recipient said to them,

“Yesterday all I had was a mattress and a camping stove, today I have a bed and a beautiful chair. I feel like a queen, thank you so much.”

A social worker praised their work with these words:

“I just wanted to let you know what a difference you have made to our families. I visited my client today and for the first time in four years the children were dressed and clean, the house was tidy and organized. Your help and donations have given this family a new direction and a sense of pride in their home which has had a huge impact on the children and their wellbeing.”

Over the past year, she has shared her concern about the huge increase in referrals as the cost of living crisis sunk its teeth in. From the outside, I see how they have responded to this increasing need. Working as hard as they can, they deliver a significant amount of furniture around the local area. Although they are one small charity, they have a significant impact.

She also often talks about what drives her to this work. Catherine is theologically trained and taught ethics for years, so she could offer a theologically complex account of her motivation if she wished. However, she has no need to. She simply says that it is the most obvious thing in the world that she ought to do this work. “It’s just what you do,” she says. By this, she means, that it is the clear outworking of her Christian faith.

I often hear this expression when speaking with Christians leading social justice enterprises and movements. When I dig a little deeper, they tend to say that growing up in Church, they regularly heard in sermons that serving those most in need comes hand in hand with loving God. Christians believe this because the Bible repeatedly expresses that God has a special concern for the poor and that we must too. When one hears this message week after week, year after year, it becomes common sense to us. Hence, when Catherine says she delivers furniture to those who most need it, because “It’s just what you do,” she means that for her, love for God and love for neighbour must always come together. It is for this reason that Catherine does this work, outside of the public gaze, which makes all the difference in the world to the many people she serves.