|
"TITHING
IS MORE THAN THE NUMBER TEN"
A
Sermon by Albert C. Winn
My
first point is a brief holding action: Let us admit that in the
consideration of tithing the number then is inescapable. The very
word "tithe" means one-tenth. Long ago Abraham returned
from battle laden with booty and met that mysterious figure,
Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God. In a fit of awe and
reverence Abraham gave him one-tenth. Later in the Book of Genesis,
when Jacob was striking his bargain with God at the foot of the
ladder that led up to heaven, he promised God that if God would take
him to Haran and bring him back safely he would give God a tenth of
all that he possessed. There is evidence that the notion of God's
tenth is found in Egypt, and was indeed widespread over all of the
ancient Near East. It is incorporated into law and Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In the Middle Ages it became the law of the
church, and if you did not willingly give your tenth the sheriff
would call for it. This is all true, and we will have to deal with it
before we are done. But right now I want to put brackets around the
number ten and talk with you about certain deep principles that seem
to be imbedded in the very idea of tithing. There is more to tithing
than the number ten.
The
Principle of Regularity
My
second point concerns precisely those principles, and I believe
there are four of them. First, deeply imbedded in the idea of tithing
is the principle of regularity. To tithe is to give regularly,
preferably once a week, week in and week out. This takes giving out
of the realm of mood. We don't just give when we feel like it, or
just when our heartstrings have been plucked by come dramatic and
sentimental appeal. We give when the time comes, regardless of our
mood. Regularity takes a lot of pain out of giving.
I
think we have to be honest about people's pain in giving, about our
pain in giving. People who do counseling tell us that we ought to
deal with grief. Money is part of your life. Money represents days
and hours of sweat and tears. Money is a very part of you, and to
part with it is a grief process. It's pain. But a decision to give
regularly takes a lot of that pain away. John McMullen, in his very
interesting little book, Stewardship Unlimited, says that when we
tell people to give until they hurt, we discover that the pain
threshold of many people is very low. But by giving regularly you
don't have to make a number of painful decisions during the year. As
the saying goes, you don't have to cut the dog's tail off an inch at
a time. You make one basic decision, and then it's simply a matter of
carrying out that decision regularly and systemically.
Regularity
also saves us from self-deception. If we give nothing for a time,
and then for a heartstring appeal we give a hundred dollars, we
deceive ourselves that we are very generous. But if that's divided
into two dollars a week, not many of us can claim great generosity
from such a gift.
The
Principle of Proportionality
Secondly,
deeply imbedded in the act of tithing is the principle of
proportionality. To tithe is to give in proportion as you have
received. And suddenly giving ceases to be a transaction between you
and the church treasurer and becomes a transaction between you and
God, who gave it all to you in the first place. You start totaling up
a church budget and dividing it by the number of giving units in the
church to determine "what's my share." That spells
bankruptcy for the church and spiritual malnutrition for you. No, you
total up your income, your resources, your blessings, in order to
determine what share God would have you give. The question is,
"What proportion can I return for God's work in order to signify
and symbolize and confess before everyone that all I am and all I
have comes from God?"
The
Principle of Priority
The
third principle of tithing is that of priority, for to tithe is to
set aside God's share first. God's share comes off the top, not off
the bottom. It may seem prudent to take care of all our necessities
and then to look around to see if something is left for God; but the
tither takes care of Gods share and then looks around to see if
something is left for his or her necessities. When you do that it
reorganizes your life. All that beautiful language about "God is
first, other are second, and I'm third" becomes concrete and
actual for the first time.
The
Principle of Risk
Regularity,
proportionality, priority, and fourthly, deeply imbedded in tithing
is the principle of risk. If we actually give God the priority, take
God's share off the top, then we begin to life adventurously. Most of
us cannot see, in a time of inflation, how we are going to live off
100 percent of our income. If you give five percent away, can you
really make it on 95 percent? If you give 15 percent away, can you
really make it on 85 percent? That's to begin to live on trust, and
it brings a great deal of thrill and excitement into life. The
unanimous testimony of all tithers I know is that it's fun.
A
couple of summers ago my wife and I took our canoe up to the
Canadian border and spent two days on 35 miles of almost continuous
rapids. We were scared a great many times, and we were exhausted when
it was over, but it was so much more fun than paddling 35 miles of
calm, flat water.
Sometimes
people will tell you that if you give 10 percent, you will get back,
plus interest, every time. I don't believe that. It may happen almost
everything happens I do not think that tithing is a simple,
gilt-edged investment with a 100 percent guarantee. That would take
all the risk and fun out of it. You give and trust that God will not
let you go absolutely bankrupt or starve, but you may have to
simplify life, you may have to do without. But a gift that does not
reorganize you life and make you step out on faith is hardly a gift
at all.
Now,
for the Number Ten
Now,
the third part of the sermon: I want to come back to what was
bracketed out in the first part and talk about the number ten. If you
are going to give regularly and proportionately, if you are going to
give first and life adventurously on what is left, then what about
the number ten? Is 10 percent a floor so that no one who gives less
is a Christian? Is 10 percent a ceiling, so that if we make that
ceiling we need never give anymore? I'm very interested that the New
Testament nowhere lays this 10 percent on us. Jesus talked
incessantly about money, but only twice does He mention the tithe.
One was to condemn the Pharisees who tithed their herb gardens and
neglected justice and mercy and the weightier matters of the law, and
the other was to hold up as a horrible example the Pharisee who stood
and prayed thus within himself, "God, I thank thee that I am not
like other men . . . I give tithes of all that I get" (Lk.
18:11-12). The publican nearby beat upon his breast and cried,
"God, be merciful to me a sinner" (vs. 13). And Jesus said
that this man, rather than the other, went down to his house
justified. Jesus seems to say that if we take 10 percent as both a
floor and a ceiling, if we say no one is righteous who does not give
10 percent and everyone who gives 10 percent is automatically
righteous, we breed the worst kind of moral blindness and self-righteousness.
We
would expect Paul, that great fund raiser and stewardship preacher,
to ring the changes on 10 percent, and he never mentions it even
once. What he does mention are precisely the principles that we have
found imbedded in the practice of tithing. He is our text: "On
the first day of every week, [give regularly] each one of you is to
put something aside and store it up, [God's part comes first] as he
may prosper [give proportionately]" (1 Cor. 16:2). And elsewhere
he says, "My God will supply every need of yours" [so give
with risk] (Phil. 4:19).
In
the freedom that Christ gives us we are responsible for fixing our
own percentage. God knows that some of us have heavy obligations,
children in college, aging parents, or that we may be deeply in debt
from a medical catastrophe. And others of us may be relatively free
children grown and on their own, only ourselves and our retirement to
think of. It would be evidently unfair to impose a uniform percentage
upon all of us. There are some who can tithe in the sense of giving
regularly, proportionately, with priority on God, and at great risk,
with a proportion of less than 10 percent. And there are others who
will not be tithing in the sense until they give 20 percent, 30
percent, or even more.
Did
you ever see a ship launched? There she sits on the dry land, shored
up by beams, perfectly safe, looking altogether out of place and
utterly useless. Then the beams are removed and the champagne is
broken across her bow. And, very slowly at first, but gathering speed
and momentum she slides down the ways until she splashes into the
water. And there is a sort of a shudder, and she rights herself. The
she's afloat. She is where she belongs. She's beautiful and useful,
and terribly exciting. That is what happens when a Christian,
including a minister or a presbytery stewardship chairperson, or
synod stewardship chairperson, or staff person when a Christian
decides to launch our and begin to live by what we have called the
deeply imbedded principles of tithing. Of course, I hope we raise the
budget next year, the general assembly's budget, the synod's budget,
the presbytery's budget, and the local church budget from which all
the others come. But that is not a matter of eternal importance. What
is eternally important is how many of our people, how many of you
this year, will take the risk and move down the ways of their lives
until splash they are afloat where they belong, on the broad
adventurous ocean of the love and mercy of God.
|
