Faith Works 5-5-18

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.

Notes from my Knapsack 5-9-18

Notes from my Knapsack 5-9-18

Jeff Gill

 

An endorsement after the fact

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While the publishers and editors here have offered me wide latitude as a columnist, I've probably self-censored much more than I've ever been nudged, let alone told what to write on or not to opine about.

 

As some of you know, I have a weekly column in the Newark Advocate, but it's more faith and spirituality oriented. My biweekly opportunity here in the Sentinel is intended and expected to be much more general interest, and I indulge that expectation probably to a fault.

 

I've been writing these last few months, as winter has been pulled kicking and screaming off stage, and during the arrival of spring and all our local daffodil laden glories, about some of the simplest aspects of being a community. The rising of the sun, making progress even against the dictates of the federal government; the growth of weeds whither they will despite our chemical best efforts otherwise; the essential nature of what a house is for.

 

In the back of my mind, through all of this, is the deeper and in some ways less visible aspect of "being a community." Our community spirit has taken some shocks in the last year, between the political confusion from national and state government policies, a local dispute over the name and meaningfulness of our Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour, proposed developments in the village and township no less controversial than the placement of our fire department, and reassessment of properties by the auditor's office . . . bumping up Granville by 15% but leaving us fourth out of the ten school districts in the county in increase, so this is something being discussed and debated all around us.

 

And the request by the Granville Schools for an earned income tax to start displacing the emphasis on property taxes, which we all voted on yesterday. I voted "yes," but political endorsements in advance are not encouraged by columnists, a restriction I am content to work within. But I've been asked my opinion often in recent weeks.

 

So there has been discontent, with deeper roots to be sure, around what it costs to live in our fayre village even when your house is paid for and your children grown and gone. Both online and in the real world, I've been buttonholed by folks worried about our future. What does a sustainable community look like in the next few decades, and are we on that track? Will our older population all have to leave unless they're in a retirement community? Can our civic fabric survive the strains being put on it by politics and personalities?

 

In short, my answer to that last is "Yes." Absolutely. The handicap of having a wide view of United States history from 1607 to the present is that while you may despair of human nature, it's hard in that full context to despair of the American experiment. We (the nation and the village) will survive.

 

The previous questions I'm not as certain about. Not in any one circumstance, and I am uncertain in general. But I'm pretty sure of two things. We have to work together on development; village and township and county together. If we're all residential, that's where the tax base will rest, property or income-wise regardless. We need some business and even industry within our boundaries.

 

And we need to look long and hard about the fact that it is a fairly frequent occurrence for families to move in with children at or around kindergarten or first grade, and to move out of Granville almost immediately upon their youngest's graduation. That isn't something we can ban, but as a community, we need to talk openly and honestly about why that happens, what it means, and how we can reduce that. Parents of former students are a vital part of the community dialogue around education, and I am struck by how those ranks are reduced in our little patch of heaven.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; his son graduated in 2016 but he's still interested in education. Tell him what makes community vital in your opinion at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 4-28-18

Faith Works 4-28-18

Jeff Gill

 

Solomon was ready for spring, too

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In the second chapter of the Biblical book "Song of Solomon," the king of Israel writes "For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land."

 

Palestine then and now has less of a winter than a rainy season; they get skiffs of snow from time to time to beautify the stony landscape, then it melts once the sun rises. What they call winter is a lengthy period of overcast skies and rain in gouts which runs in torrents down the normally dry washes and gullies and valleys cutting between the hills and mountains. Winter is a hard time to travel, a useless time for farmers other than sitting by the fire and sharpening your tools, and generally like our Midwestern winters at least in how everyone gets on each others' nerves, crowded together indoors.

 

When the rainy season, their winter, is over, the sun shines and yes, the days get longer, and you can go out. Outside, for long walks, fresh air, and that lovely feeling of sunshine warm on your face.

 

Here in Licking County, as for Solomon long ago, the flowers are finally opening all around, and the daffodils no longer hang their heads in frosty shame for having jumped the gun. The rain is not over and gone, but the source of rain, the solid grey gloomy skies above, is not a constant presence.

 

And the time of singing? Well, I suspect it's no coincidence that the Land of Legend Barbershop Chorus usually puts on their biggest public deal at this time of year. Tonight at the Midland Theatre they present their annual concert event for the public, with the theme this year "A Night at the Drive-In!" They are also making sure to promote the future and support up-and-coming young singers by featuring the Heath High School Chorus. Small children are free, students and seniors $10, and general admission is $12 and they're sure to give you harmonies enough to be worth it.

 

Barbershop quartets on courthouse square, music coming out of open windows from passing cars, hymns in church: it is a time of singing. When you can roll your own windows down as you drive, the darndest people will find themselves singing along.

 

And turtledoves? Well, they're a European bird, but in form and color and call they're very similar to our local mourning doves. A call which some call soothing, others haunting. They're migratory, and return like robins or warblers here in the spring.

 

There was a fugitive night not long ago where it was warm enough, before Easter, to sleep with the windows open and wake to the chorus of birdsong greeting the dawn. It depends on how you feel about birds, or dawn, as to whether or not you welcome such things. I love 'em. Birds and dawns both. I miss them in the winter, and it is music to my ears on their return, just as the turtledove was for Solomon.

 

You can find commentaries on verses like this one which explain how what it really means is symbolic. Christ's arrival in the believer's heart ends the wintry rule of sin over your life, and the warmth of grace and forgiveness sets loose the active principles of holiness, the Holy Spirit free to return like the turtledove into a landscape ready for that greater dove to fly down from heaven.

 

Metaphors abound in the Bible, and I don't disagree with such parallels. As a preacher, they're my bread and butter and jam. I'm also cautious about how much layering I let myself do with a text. Next thing you know, you're making Scripture say whatever it is you wanted it to say before you opened the book and started reading.

 

Sometimes, you need to just let the text speak directly to you. Read it, hear it, listen with your inner ear, asking how it sounded to those for whom it was first spoken aloud, or sent in a letter. How would those initial recipients have received this news, and what would it have meant in their setting? And then, from that response, start to draw parallels to my own context, to preaching from the reading into the present day.

 

Jesus might be the summer arriving, but he might just be the flowers blossoming or the birds singing. And the words connect me, in any interpretation, to the reality of that moment then, and now.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's itching to get outside more before April's over. Tell him what you see in scripture and nature (but don't expect a quick email response now that winter's over) at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 4-26-18

Notes from my Knapsack 4-26-18

Jeff Gill

 

Machines for keeping the damp off
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What's a house, after all? It is, as Maslow's hierarchy tells us, "shelter."

 

Our constructed cave, our burrow with windows, a treehouse without the steep first step: a house is where we keep the water off our heads.

 

From the roof to the walls down into the foundations, most of the structure and function of a house is to keep us dry. Because water is a solvent, and unless we want ourselves and all we own to be melted down and washed away, we need a machine for keeping the damp off.

 

So most of us have shingles up above, but they lie atop a series of layers – tar paper, plywood sheathing, venting poking up through to allow vapors and gases and such to pass back through here and there – that rest upon the trusses which weigh down onto the framing which carry that weight down onto the foundation and/or beams which carry it all down to the solid earth.

 

Outside, where we don't have windows breaking through to let light in, we have more layering to keep water out: siding or stucco or paint, overlaid onto what's usually some sort of moisture barrier sheeting, the exterior sheathing which nowadays is usually plywood of some sort, and that nailed onto the supporting beams and studs. They're made of simple unfinished wood, protected from the damp by that siding and sheeting and sheathing.

 

Even working from the inside out, paint onto wallboard with wainscoting or crown molding or baseboards, there's a certain amount of the structural logic that's there to keep moisture from splashing and washing and dissolving and eroding the building from within. Those "decorative" elements are there so the brooms and vacuums and shoetips and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune don't break down the architecture one cleaning to the next.

 

And then there's what water does when it freezes; our foundations have to go at least eighteen inches, ideally more, below the surface of the soil, so as to keep below the frostline. In the surface, organic soils, the moisture content is a high enough percentage of the total that when the ground freezes, it heaves out of shape. A fence or pillar or just a mailbox, let alone a foundation, that's too shallow or poorly grounded on sterile soil, can get pushed around by the movement of the earth when it gets frozen solid, then thaws, then comes together solid again.

 

Which is why we surround our buildings with drainage and subsurface channels to get the water away, so when it freezes it doesn't create more pressure against the house. Not to mention the year-round desire to keep water out of our basements, not to have even the damp in our holes in the ground, driving off mold and keeping away mildew.

 

This time of year, as we swing wildly from frost to warmth, from sleet to rain, Raccoon Creek flooding and the sprouting earth soggy, I think about those ancient Builders, the Native Americans who first settled and civilized these valleys and plateaus. How did they build their lean-tos in the woods, or construct pit houses on the bottomlands? From the fire hearth to the entry flap, what strategies did they employ to keep both cold and damp away from their families? What woven mats or interlaced branches gave them the ability to shed the spring rains and stay dry as they slept, on earthen benches or lashed cots off the ground?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County, and yes, he recently had some work done on his house, why do you ask? Tell him how you keep the damp off of you and yours at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.    

Faith Works 4-21-18

Faith Works 4-21-18

Jeff Gill

 

New beginnings are all around us

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Last week I talked about the end of "NAMA," the Newark Area Ministerial Association, as an entity. A long history, a lengthy arc of accomplishment, which like all human creations has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But I also noted that there are beginnings sprouting all around.

 

It's spring, and the daffodils and pear trees and other signs of the season are starting to show their colors. Forsythia bushes seem to have been overruled this year, but their yellow is branching out everywhere, and we know that the snow has to come to an end sooner or later.

 

Likewise, a faith-based collaborative called "Community In Action – Licking County" has had three or four meetings, their last one on April 10^th, to bring churches and community faith-based efforts together in response to the drug overdose crisis (check them out on Facebook for their next scheduled meeting). Here, a number of area clergy, from Newark and beyond, have been part of bringing congregations together.

 

Not long ago, both Heartbeats and Gideons International held programs to invite churches and ministers to support their work. These groups have their own specific areas of interest, but have tried to provide opportunities to bring congregations together, not just for their own fundraising purposes . . . but that's always in the mix in this world.

 

The Newark Think Tank on Poverty and the Transport Licking County groups have had a number of ministers and church leaders involved in their gatherings to discuss matters both political and spiritual, about payday lending and health care options, redistricting in elections and justice for different minority groups in public programs.

 

For churches that used to turn to their judicatory bodies for advice and support, whether they called them districts or regions or dioceses or synods or conferences, there are now many fee-for-service consultants and advisors whose counsel is available on subjects from personnel to finance, mission projects or liability coverage. The basic task of finding a new preacher is something that now search services offer to do on a contract basis where the historic relationships are no longer functioning as well within denominational structures. That's a change for many of us who are older, but for younger church leaders who are used to Uber and Airbnb for personal services, contacting a private provider to look for a new minister in what's not the "standard" way of doing things makes much more sense.

 

My religious tradition is meeting today at our church camp facility to discuss how to continue being congregations in connection. We don't have the history or polity to compel financial support, but we're not good at convincing each other to share funds, either. My prayer in the week leading up to today is that we find the grace and peace and good will and discernment to work together even when we don't agree with each other.

 

This is a problem that is both growing for those used to religious tradition affiliations, and disappearing for those who have chose a path that's normally described as "non-denominational." It wasn't that long ago that families moving from one area to another looked for the logo of "their" church, but just as brand loyalty has vanished with toothpaste and breakfast cereal, in large part, so has the "nameplate" for denominations. I'm enough of a child of my particular tradition to find that a positive development, but it means for all of us, my own congregation included, that a family that once would have sought us out now has to be sold on whether our form of the tradition is really to their liking. Brand loyalty? It's gone with baked bean preferences and car sale leanings. Are there still Ford or Chevy families? Well, ditto for denominations.

 

So there are new affiliations and organizations rising up, and they are even less concerned with artificial borders between churches than our forbearers were. People of good will, come together now to work, and we'll hash out theology over lunch.

 

Which is really how we all started, isn't it?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he teaches the history and polity of his tradition, but that doesn't mean he thinks they're infallible! Tell him what you see being born between churches at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.