Faith Works 5-5-18
Jeff Gill
Tithing, fasting, and singing among other options
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This time of year I like to counterbalance the usual fall push to stewardship campaigns and giving invitations with some reflections on our material offerings as people of faith.
If you only talk about this subject in October or November, you're doing your religious community a disservice. Money and resources and how we use or abuse them is a theme right through the Christian scriptures, and they're highlighted in most other holy books I'm familiar with.
Jesus talked about finances, what they mean to us, and how we should understand those blessings when he preached and taught, in parables and commandments. Paul drew on the Hebrew Scriptures, the first half of the Christian Bible, to talk about the lasting meaning of tithing, which was a core principle within Temple Judaism.
It's often debated in Christian circles just how much of an absolute obligation tithing is to believers today. Are the commandments of Malachi in the Old Testament still binding?
I think of tithing as less of an obligation than it is a simple spiritual principle, just as healthy food choice and exercise is for the body. Do I command anyone, in my church or anyone else asking me, to eat better and stay fit? No, but I do try to teach consistently and woven throughout my preaching, that poor nutrition and sheer idleness can have a negative impact on the bodily temple we've been given.
So it is with tithing. If you look at your increase, the blessings you receive, as entirely your own to do with as you will, first and foremost . . . bad things will happen. I'm not being a prophet here, I'm just stating facts. That kind of selfish and me-first attitude never turns out well, and that seems to be woven directly into the structure of the cosmos we've been given.
But if you set a goal, based on a proportion of your income, and give it away first, you find yourself looking with more gratitude on what you receive, and you see yourself more as a steward of what's passing through your hands, rather than an earner who deserves what you get and has a right to do whatever with it. Giving of yourself doesn't change God, it changes how you will let God's blessings work through you.
And candidly, given the divergence between storehouse tithing in the Temple era of Israel and our W-2 and FICA driven reality today, I'm not interested in getting into a long debate over exactly what tithing is. Should you commit to giving $5,000 to others if you make $50,000, or is it after taxes? What about people who are living on "unearned income" and on and on to so many different "whatabouts" you can throw in the air. Let the dust settle: tithing is the basic spiritual discipline of setting a marker of a proportion of what comes in to you, and giving FIRST. Not at the end of the year when you see what you think (now) you can spare. Some people, I'd suggest gently, might even be called to more than ten percent. A few even to sell all that they have and give it to the poor. You'll have to ask the Boss for yourself that one.
Tithing is like fasting, I think. We all could, some of us may do more than others, and each of us has to be stewards of our consciences in regular prayer and communion with the Lord as to how much of each we do. But the blessings of both are well known who have tried these spiritual disciplines. I'll honor wherever someone is sincerely led.
And after these last three months, I'd add singing. The Bible does seem to indicate we all should make a joyful noise, but it's not like there are hard rules about this. And it has been an odd sort of blessing to have gone months now essentially unable to sing a note. (Long story.) So I have had to just listen as everyone else sings.
I've long been a song leader in worship and public gatherings, and that's the role I'm used to. But for a season, at least, I've been called to listen instead. And the Lord has told me that it is good. Singing is not a rule, and I'm wary of making tithing or fasting an iron bond. But all three are clearly avenues for God's blessings when we are ready to open the gates and let them flow.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's speaking better, but still can't sing – thank you for your prayers! Let him know what spiritual disciplines you believe bring blessings at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
