Stewardship—Creating a Culture of Giving
Some old paper money was headed to an incinerator to be destroyed. One of the $50 bills said to a $1 bill, “I can’t complain. It’s been a good life. When I was 1st issued, a young couple took me to Hawaii on their honeymoon. I was in some of the best hotels & restaurants on the islands. I went from there to Japan & some great Japanese hotels. From Japan I was taken to New York. In NY, I went to the theater, Carnegie Hall, & some great restaurants at Times Square. It’s been a good life.” The $1 bill replied, “I wish I could say the same. My whole life has been church, church, church!”
This story points to an uncomfortable fact. We’re quick to spend on other things. But too often, we’re slow to invest for the Lord. So, let’s ask. How much should we give the church? It’s an important question. As we saw last week, Psalm 24:1-2 is the basis for stewardship giving. The earth is the Lord’s & all that is in it, the world, & those who live in it. For he has founded it on the seas, & established it on the rivers.
Everything belongs to God. We tend to forget that. We fill our lives with thoughts about ourselves. We worry about our stuff & what we think it’ll do for us. Instead, we need to remember. The earth & we who live in it belong to God. Stewardship means we’re caretakers, not owners. Everything we have is in trust to build God’s Kingdom.
Building His Kingdom means we’re indebted to our neighbors across the street & around the world. Why? In Romans 1:14, Paul says he’s indebted to all who need the gospel. After all, who did Christ die for? Didn’t he pay our debt, too? So aren’t we indebted to them, too? In Luke 3:11, John the Baptist says the debt includes all their need. “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, & the one who has food should do the same.” Jesus would’ve agreed. Sharing the gospel is all about giving. That brings us back to our question. How much should we give?
Ever since OT times, people have called our giving tithing. The very word “tithe” means “1/10.” Tithing has been a practice of Jews & Christians for thousands of years. Genesis 14:18-20 has Scripture’s 1st mention of a tithe. Abraham had just rescued Lot. He was returning from the victory. He gave Melchizedek, the king-priest of Salem, a tenth of all the spoils from the war. Later, in Genesis 28:22, Jacob promised a tithe to God if God helped him to prosper. In Leviticus 27:30 & 32, the Law set a tenth of their livestock & crops as the amount God’s people were to set aside. This tithe supported the Levites & their church. It also helped the needy: widows, orphans, & travelers.
NT Christians didn’t talk so much about a tithe as their standard for giving. Their thinking went something like this. God set us free from Law’s requirement for a specific amount. Christians are to give from the heart. Why? We’re grateful to God for what He did for us in Christ. Therefore, a tithe is only the starting point for a follower of Christ. What did Jesus mean in Luke 12:48? “To whom much has been given, much will be required.” Remember the basis for tithing? It’s all God’s. NT Christians would say our offering to the Lord is supposed to be above a tithe. Jesus won’t judge us by what we give. He’ll judge us by what we keep. (Remember Mark 12:41-44? The only one Jesus praised was the widow who put in 2 small copper coins—all she had to live on.) Ever since then, people have struggled with how much to give. In the 16th century, Luther said, “The last part of a person to be converted is his wallet!” Most of us still struggle to allow God to be Lord of our finances. The same was true in Malachi’s day.
Malachi 3:6-7a starts by calling the people to repent. 6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees & have not kept them. Return to me, & I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. Throughout history, Israel’s people were unfaithful to God. Still, the Lord didn’t destroy them. Instead, God remained loyal. (Has God changed?)
Malachi 3:7b -10a challenged the people of Israel to show their repentance. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes & offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you —because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house.” The people of Malachi’s day were withholding the tithes for themselves. They were spending their money on their own wants & desires. To the extent that they did this, Malachi said they were robbing God.
For most, tithing is a struggle. A Wizard of Id cartoon once showed a woman & baby. At the end of worship, she & her husband greeted the pastor at the door. Apologizing for noise during the service, she says, “I’m sorry the baby cried so loudly. He just started teething.” Pastor replied, “That’s why the baby was crying. But why was your husband crying?” She answered, “He just started tithing.”
Our culture values instant gratification & selfishness, not tithing. How do we learn to tithe? We need to recover the ancient spiritual discipline of 1st fruits giving. First-fruits giving helps us get a handle on our finances. Too often, they own us. Too easily, we fall into the trap of buying as expensive a house or car as we can afford. Tithing helps us put our needs into perspective. Our culture tempts us to ask, “How much can we afford?” Stewardship invites us to ask a different question, “How much do we need?”
In Exodus 23:14, 15b, 19, God commanded our 1st fruits as a giving principle. 14 “3 times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. …“No one is to appear before me empty-handed. 19 “Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. Proverbs 3:9 summarizes. Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops. By disciplined giving, we remember. Who gave us life? Who gave us the harvest? When we pay the bills, 1st fruits giving means making our 1st payment to God. 1st fruits giving is giving back to God a portion of what God gave us.
Why does God want us to tithe? Does He need our money? Can’t God get His work done without it? Of course He can. The Bible says God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. God created the universe out of nothing. God doesn’t need us to tithe. We’re the ones who need to tithe. Why?
In Malachi 3:10b-12, God explains. “ ‘Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty. ‘See if I won’t throw open the floodgates of heaven & pour out so much blessing you won’t have room enough for it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops. The vines in your fields won’t cast their fruit,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Then all the nations will call you blessed. For yours will be a delightful land,’ says the Lord Almighty.”
God challenges His people to put Him to the test. Bring the full tithe into God’s storehouse. See what will happen. What’s the principle God argues. We can’t out-give God! If you haven’t been tithing, make a commitment to tithe for the next 3 months. If after that time, you don’t find yourself in as good a situation or better financially & spiritually than you were before, then quit. You’ll see. God keeps His promises.
Now, does this mean that if we tithe we’ll get a Cadillac? No. But God will honor those who honor Him. God always looks out for His children when we try to walk in His ways. I challenge you. Put God to the test. Bring the whole tithe into God’s storehouse. See what happens. If you can’t jump immediately to a tithe, begin with 1st fruits giving.
What are the benefits of 1st fruits giving? Others benefit from our gifts. We build community. We become less anxious about our own money, time, & talents. We realize that we don’t find our joy in possessions. We simplify our lives. We prioritize our values. How? We put our money where our mouths are. That brings us back to our question. How much should we give? One seasoned 1st fruits giver (a PC USA elder) said it well. “Don’t give until it hurts. Give until it feels good.” That’s how much we should give.
Why should we give to the church? It’s church that instills our values. In our Book of Order, 1 of the 6 great ends of the church is showing “the Kingdom of H eaven to the world.” Our church is to be God’s kingdom on earth. That doesn’t mean we’re perfect. Far from it. In church, we learn how to disagree. Seriously! We learn how to disagree in a way that gives glory to God. We learn, through practice, forgiveness & cooperation.
Values aren’t automatic. We aren’t born with them. We learn values. Further, we don’t learn them once & “get” them. Instilling values of community, giving, joy, right-relationship, & peacemaking, takes a lifetime of practice. It requires a lifetime of worshiping, learning, disagreeing, serving, laughing, crying, forgiving, & caring. We never finally “get” it. The getting is in the doing—in the faith community. Do we want it to be there for us? For those who come after us? That’s why we give to the church. But how much of our giving should go to the church? Giving to the church is part (but not all) of our tithe. We also give to God by giving to charities & ministries that help others & do good for the earth. That’s good. But it’s after our 1st fruits giving to the church.
Tithing (1st fruits giving) is a spiritual discipline. The values of our culture want us to embrace them. Consumerism adds force to our natural selfishness & pleasure seeking. The spiritual discipline of 1st fruits giving helps us appreciate that all of life belongs to God. So does all our stuff. If we have extra, it’s to help others. 1st fruits giving also helps us manage, control & simplify our lives. Finally, 1st fruits giving helps us experience the joy of giving our lives to God & others.
In addition to 1st fruits giving, there are other ways we can make lasting gifts to God. We’ve been blessed by the faithful stewardship of those who came before us. Our beautiful, mortgage-free building is one way they were faithful. How could we pay it forward? We might consider an endowment gift as one way. But that isn’t the only way. Two examples from Colorado churches in our Rocky Mountain Synod illustrate.
One woman had 3 children. She didn’t just divide her estate into 3. She treated the church as a 4th child & divided her estate equally among the 4. Her reasoning went this way. “My children don’t need my money. But they do need the church. They need a place where my grandchildren can learn values & experience God’s love.” Another man decided he wanted to continue his pledge to the church after he died. So, in addition to his yearly pledge, he began to contribute to his church’s endowment fund. He also included the church in his will. His goal was to provide a large enough gift so the earnings on his gift continue his pledge, year after year. As these 2 examples show, our giving need not stop, even when we die.
God doesn’t need our tithe. We are the ones who need to tithe. It’s in tithing that we are no longer possessed by our stuff. In tithing, we remind ourselves regularly: all we have & all we are belongs to God. We’re just stewards. In tithing, we begin to lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven. In tithing, we learn to loosen our grip on the things of this earth. In tithing, we use our resources to help the needy & less fortunate. In tithing, we spread the gospel to places our feet will never travel.
Let’s return to our starting question. How much should we give? Scripture’s question is different. Scripture invites us to ask, ‘How much should we keep?’ The difference in these 2 questions shows our real need. We need to create a culture of giving. How? Take Malachi’s challenge. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse. See if we can out-give God. Need to start slow? Start bringing our 1st fruits. Then, don’t just give until it hurts. Give until it feels good. After all, we’re to love God & love neighbor. And the basic act of love is giving.
I close with the story of Miguel, a poor worker in Portugal. He was an old man. He made $ .30 a day picking up trash in the streets & selling it to the city. When he got home, he’d put $ .15 in a tin can for the church & keep $ .15 for himself. Once, someone said he was giving too much. They thought he should keep more for himself. Miguel replied, “Sir, there are 2 of us on the job—God & me. We split the proceeds 50/50!”
Miguel is a freer & richer person than most of us! He has a clear understanding of God & his stewardship of the Lord’s blessings. Do we?