Tithing - Why We Give Generously and Sacrificially
I spoke about this topic a little bit last year, and it seemed appropriate that as Trinitytide begins to draw to a close to speak to you in this homily on the subject of tithing. Now, it's important to get some clarifying and qualifying comments out there right away. I've never been a fan of the conversations about monetary giving in the church that start in and operate within the context of a budget, or maybe a particular building campaign, or whatever it might be. There are some who are able to navigate that conversation better than me, but I always feel like a salesman in that context.
Now that's not to say that I am somehow denying the practical reality of individual Christians giving of their income to support the ministry of the church; nobody is denying that. It’s the reality–the local church depends on the generosity of its members. And yes, we have a budget at St. Thomas. We need a certain amount of money to operate. We would love to think about what a new building might look like for us, perhaps a school as well. All of those things are true, and I'm not trying to gainsay them as unimportant, but that’s never been the way that I’ve been interested in having the conversation. Rather, for me, my desire is to wrestle through the underlying, maybe we call it, pastoral or biblical idea of, “What does it look like for us to be faithful with our mammon? What, according to the teachings of Jesus, does faithfulness with our wealth look like?”
I'm speaking very honestly when I say I struggle with Jesus–in the sense that I find many of his teachings to be remarkably difficult. This is one of those topics. If you were to sit down, let's say, over the course of a month and read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (a commendable idea by the way–I’d recommend that you do this if you haven’t read them in a while), and were then asked the question, “What are the main themes that Jesus addresses in the Gospels?” you’d be forced to say that one of the primary themes is wealth. Obviously there is a lot to the conversation, but what Jesus stresses is that there are few things out there that pose a greater or more serious threat to discipleship than wealth. It's not that wealth is intrinsically evil, but it does pose a very serious, live and persistent threat to Christians as potentially one of the biggest impediments to discipleship to Jesus.
Faithfulness With What We Have Been Given
So what do we do with this? This is the conversation that I’m interested in. And this is not particular to St. Thomas. If you were to leave and go to a different church (or if you attend a different church), we all still need to be thinking about this. And I'm in this boat too, so I hope you hear what I have to say as a fellow wayfarer needing to continually wrestle through Jesus' teachings on wealth–needing to wrestle through what Jesus and what the Scriptures teach about faithfulness with what we have been given.
This is the first point to be made. St. Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, asks a very simple question. He says, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”
Faithfulness with our money must begin with the recognition that everything that we have we have received from God. I have found that this makes some of us uncomfortable. I think it's somewhat understandable because we think that what that means is some sort of denial of our own efforts. The point, though, is not to deny our work, but rather it is to get you to the perspective where you recognize that even your ability to do so is, in itself, a gift from God. Your very life, the body that you have, even the breath that you take is a gift, that, without the mercy of God, you would not have. This is why the Priest, when receiving the offering plates during the Liturgy, raises them up and says the prayer from Chronicles where David has petitioned the generosity of the people for the building of the temple, and it says, “All things come of thee O Lord and of thine own have we given thee.”
Sacrificial and Generous Giving
The giving of our money to God is a symbolic representation of the giving of our whole selves and our whole lives back to God in thanksgiving for all that we have received from him. This is the biblical principle of first-fruits. We give our first and our best fruits to God, symbolizing and representing the giving of our entire selves to God.
The giving of our first-fruits is what enables our giving to fulfill the biblical requirements of being both sacrificial and generous. These biblical requirements are not legalistic. What the Bible seeks to do, rather, is to form our hearts in these underlying values of sacrifice and generosity towards our money, and then out of that, it asks us to give joyfully.
What does that mean? Giving should be sacrificial in the sense that it requires something of us–it demands, it hurts in a way. The principle of sacrifice is that we willingly lay down something good in faith that it will produce a greater good in the end.
Then, our giving should be generous - and the point about generosity is that it is not calculating, rather it is liberal. It doesn’t make sure that everything is in place and in perfect order first and then, and only then, give. No, rather, generosity is the ability to see the need, to see the good, and then in a heartfelt way to simply respond–to lay down and to give whatever is needed for the attainment of that good.
This brings me to what is, for me, one of the most poignant stories in the bible about giving–just a few verses from Luke 21, often referred to as “The Widow’s Two Mites.” It says, “Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So Jesus said, ‘Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had’” (vv. 1-5). I encourage you to spend some time reflecting on the Widow’s sacrifice and generosity in this story. Consider prayerfully asking yourself, “What does it look like to not simply give out of my abundance?”
What Can You Do?
I submit to you that the giving of our first-fruits to God–sacrificially and generously–is the most significant thing we can do to properly order our relationship with our wealth. That is, to properly order your relationship with your money, you should give it to God. Paul says in 1 Timothy that the love of money is the root of all evil. He says that many, through coveting after money, have wandered away from the faith, and in doing so, have pierced their hearts with many sorrows.
I think we all sense, in our honest moments, the way in which our wealth, our possessions, our lifestyles, have a hold on us. We want what we want, and we don’t want to give it up. And it’s into this space that Jesus comes and says simply, give it away, give it to God. This is the best way of combating the dangers and threats that wealth brings.
I’d like to ask you to prayerfully consider giving a tithe, that is, 10% of your income to your local church. I say local church to reiterate my point that this is not particular to St. Thomas. What I am advocating is a spiritual practice, a spiritual discipline, that you adopt in perpetuity, regardless of where you attend church. I believe what I’ve said, that this is the primary weapon in combating the threat of riches;when we give sacrificially and generously to God, it frees us from mamon’s hold. I have never known nor heard of any Christian, who has adopted the practice of tithing over an extended period of time, who in the end, has regretted it.
As I close here I’ll say this: With our giving we are ultimately called to follow the model of our Lord, which St. Paul lays out for the church in Corinth, as he encourages them to give generously for the Saints in Judea. He writes, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).