Matthew
5:23-24:
23 So when you are offering your gift at the
altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you,
24 leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your
brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.
Well,
the subject is money. That topic tends to put people on edge. So I am going to
violate a rule of preaching by telling a couple of jokes at the beginning. My
seminary professors said not to do that. Fortunately, they're not here.
When I
was still in the Army, I found myself needing pocket change for a Coke one day
at the PX. (This was back when you could get a Coke for pocket change.) A
soldier was walking by, so I turned and said, "Trooper, do you have change
for a dollar?"
He
answered, "Sure do, buddy."
I
replied, "That's no way to speak to me! I'm an officer! Now let's try it
again! Do you have change for a dollar?"
And he
stood at attention and said, "Sir, no sir!"
One
Wednesday evening three businessmen, Tom, Dick and Harry, were on a company jet
crossing the Pacific when lightning struck the plane and knocked out the
radios. To avoid the fierce storm the pilot flew hundreds of miles off the
planned course. They wound up ditching plane next to small, uncharted island.
The next
morning the crew and Tom and Dick took stock and announced that they were all
going to die. No one in the world had any idea of where to search and their
only fresh water was what they had saved from the plane. They looked around and
saw Harry lying beneath a palm tree, hat over his face, happy as a clam.
“What’s
wrong with you?” Tom yelled. “Don’t you understand that we are all going to
die?”
“Nah,”
said Harry. “It’s Thursday morning. We’ll be rescued before Saturday night.”
“How on
earth can you say that?” Dick demanded.
“Because,” Harry said, “I earn twenty thousand dollars every month. And I tithe. Trust me, before Sunday my church’s finance committee will find me!”
A five-dollar
bill met a fifty-dollar bill and said, "Hey, where have you been? I
haven't seen you around here much."
The fifty
answered, "I've been hanging out at classy department stores, went on a cruise
and did the rounds of the ship, came back to the United States for a while,
went to a couple of Titans games, to Disney World, that kind of stuff. How
about you?"
The five-dollar
bill said, "Oh, you know how it is for a five-dollar bill – church, church,
church."
Jesus
talked more about money than he did about prayer. Jesus told thirty-six
parables, and seventeen are about money and stewardship. There are more
Bible verses about finances and material possessions than any other single
topic. The
primary subject of Jesus’ parables is the Kingdom of God, so Jesus must have
thought money management was pretty important for the kingdom.
When I
was growing up I remember sermons in which the preacher would pound the pulpit
to make sure we all understood that it was our Christian duty to tithe. Just so
everyone is on the same sheet of music, tithe means ten percent. Someone might
give thousands dollars per year to a church, but if that amount is less than
ten percent, it’s not a tithe even though it might be a lot of money.
I think a lot of people believe that tithing means God gets ten percent and the other ninety percent is one’s own to use as one wishes. The New Testament does not teach that. In fact, the New Testament doesn’t ever say that Christians should tithe. The New Testament teaches that everything we possess is to be devoted to building up the Kingdom of God. Therefore, our possessions are not divided into ours and God’s. It’s all God’s, who expects us to use it all for his purposes
So why
do Christians make a big deal about giving ten percent? Maybe I can illustrate
the value of the ten percent figure with a story about my wife. When we lived
in Oklahoma from 1982-1983, Cathy decided to run a marathon. In her research on
how to train for it, she read a book by the track coach of the University of
Oregon, which routinely sent runners to the Olympics. He wrote, “You are not a
serious runner until you can run an hour nonstop.” You see, training to run an
hour nonstop takes serious devotion to running. It’s not a casual undertaking.
Cathy did run the marathon, finishing second. By then she could run six
hours nonstop.
The
tithe, ten percent, is low enough so that we can attain it. But it is high
enough to require serious attention to managing money according to our
obligations to God. Tithing is not a casual undertaking. Tithing means
rearranging all of one’s finances according to faith, love and trust in God.
Tithing is
not an investment in the sense that you show a profit on it. There are
blessings to be gained from tithing, but they are not to individuals as a
return on investment. The prophet Malachi made two major points about
offerings. One was this:
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse . . . and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.
There is
an overflowing blessing from tithing, but it is given to the community of faith
for the good of the whole church and the church's work in the world. Note what
the Lord said, too: "Put me to the test" whether his blessings will
pour down on us. It is the only case in the Bible where God allows us mortals
to make him prove something.
In the
church of my youth there were always a couple or three laymen at
stewardship-campaign time who told how they used to be misers but then got
convicted by the Spirit and became tithers. They always ended by saying,
"I never miss that ten percent!"
I
thought that was bunk then and I think it is bunk now. With mandatory retirement
less than a decade away I can certainly think of other uses of that ten
percent. Tithing is not painless, it’s not meant to be painless, and almost
certainly will mean making hard choices to do without some things. But the
Lord's work either comes first or it doesn't. We have either promised to be
faithful or we haven't.
Nonetheless, based on New Testament teachings, I can't tell you that it is your Christian duty to tithe, though it is a worthy goal. It is our duty is to live completely for God, including what we do with our money. The first issue in tithes, gifts and offerings is not the money. It is our individual and communal relationship with God.
Hear
Jesus again: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember
that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in
front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother or sister; then
come and offer your gift.” Perhaps because Methodists partake of Holy Communion
at the altar and give their offerings in the pews, a lot of folks have come to
the erroneous conclusion that they can’t take communion unless they are right
with their fellow men or women. But that’s not what Jesus said. What he said
was that he doesn’t want our money unless we are reconciled to one another.
In the
book of Galatians Paul wrote, “The entire law is summed up in a single command:
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” In Romans, Paul quoted a few of the Ten
Commandments and then wrote that all the commandments “are summed up in this
one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’. . . love is the fulfillment of the
law.”
“By
this everyone will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “if you love
one another.” Our discipleship is blunted when we do not love one another. To
love one another is our response to God’s grace and our answer to the redemption
God gives our lives with the cross. The love we have for God is completed only
when it is offered to others.
The
first principle of Christian giving is love. God is love, so it not possible
for us to manage our wealth by God’s principles without love. Jesus appears not
even to want us to try to do so. His message is, “Keep your money until you
love.” You see, we build the Kingdom of God mainly with love. We cannot buy our
way into heaven, we have to love our way in.
The
second principle of Christian stewardship is found in First John, chapter four:
“There is no fear in love. . . . Perfect love drives out fear. . . . The
one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
Fear . . .
Christian
author James Hewitt told of a church member who told his Sunday School teacher,
“I am afraid to give much money to the church when I have so many bills to
pay.”
The
teacher replied, “If I promise to make up the difference in your bills if you
fall short, would you double your giving for just one month?”
After a
moment’s pause, the man responded, “Sure, if you promise to make up any
shortage, I guess I could double my gift for a month.”
“So,”
said the teacher, “you are willing to trust a mere mortal like me who possesses
not much more than you, but you are afraid to trust God, who owns the whole
universe!”
Fear!
I
wonder whether we Americans spend our money from anxiety or fear. We worry
about having enough money to repair a broken car or whether our mutual funds
will beat the market. We are fearful that our retirement plans won’t sustain us
through old age. We worry that if we get laid off we'll not have enough money
to last until re-employment.
Even in churches, fear often governs what and how much people give. Some persons give a lot because they fear others won’t give enough. Some give a little because they fear their offerings won’t be spent wisely. We fear because we are alienated from one another. We fear because we don’t trust one another. This fear come from being out of right relationship with one another.
Scripture teaches us to live lives of love, not of fear. Love overcomes fear. Love of God leads to love of neighbor. Love leads to trust. Trust comes from right relationship with God and with one another. So Jesus tells us to be reconciled to one another, first because we must do so to be reconciled to God and second, because the Kingdom of God is corrupted when fear, alienation and mistrust are present. There are no banks in heaven. Like they say, we can’t take it with us. The only thing we can take to heaven is the love we give away here. Dollars are the currency of commerce, but love is the currency of the Kingdom.
By
focusing on loving God and one another, we can be kept from loving the wrong things.
And that closes the triangle between God, neighbor and money. In First Timothy
we are given that famous admonishment that “the love of money is a root of all
kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and
pierced themselves with many griefs.”
What is
the relationship between money and love? Jesus said, “Where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21).
I used
to think that people more or less automatically spent their money on what they
already loved. I have since come to believe that most people frankly don’t have
a very good idea what they spend their money on for the most part. Somehow, our
money slips away and for a large part of it, we don’t really know where, many
of us, much of the time.
Jesus says to store up treasure in heaven because if we do that our hearts will be heavenly. Storing up treasure in heaven is a matter of obedience to the call of discipleship. And discipleship is about Christlikeness. So if love and money are related closely, as I think they are, the question, “How much can I give to church?” is the wrong question to ask at offering time. That question really asks, “How much do I love money?” But Timothy says eagerness for money can make us wander from the faith, piercing us with many griefs.
The
question of how much to give to the church is really part of a much larger
issue: not what we have but whose we are and who we love. These questions force
us to consider how to use all our resources the way God wants us to. God is not
a tyrant. God knows we have to feed our families and make our mortgages. By
living in faithful trust in God and love of God’s kingdom, Christian people
come to know what gifts to the church spring from their relationships with God
and their brothers and sisters in Christ.
When
Cathy and I were newlyweds in 1980 I bought a motorcycle to get to work. When I
went to pick out my helmet there was a sign on the wall that said, "If you
have a ten-dollar head, get a ten-dollar helmet." That was a stark caution
against trying to save my life on the cheap so I bought an expensive, full-face
helmet. Seventeen months later that helmet saved my life when I got hit by a
truck.
So do
we have a ten-dollar church? I don't think so. I can't tell anyone how much to
give and won't try. But I will say this: Our gifts should reflect our faith in
God and our love of God and of one another.
Lenten sacrifice: tithe!