The Tithe: A Statement of Trust (Malachi
3:8-18)
Rob Tennant, HillSong Church,
Chapel Hill, NC
Sunday, October 27, 2013
In 2008,
Hurricane Ike traveled up the Gulf of Mexico and slammed the Texas coast. Hundreds had to evacuate, many to the city of
Austin. The Austin Baptist Association
called Brandon Hatmaker, pastor of Austin New Church. The association learned of a pastor from
Houston who had lost everything. He and
his family needed a place to stay.
Brandon and his wife agreed this displaced pastor could come and stay
with them.
When Brandon, who is Caucasian, says
“family,” he is referring to his wife and five kids. The Houston pastor, a Hispanic man, showed up
at the Hatmakers home with 82 “family” members in need of food and shelter. Hatmaker writes:
It was the best thing that ever
happened to [us]. Instantly the church
became “the church.” Without prompting,
people from Austin New Church and the community began to call and email to
offer their homes as refuge. People
cleaned out Wal-Mart of sleeping bags and dropped them off. Food was every-where, grill-outs were
planned, events for the kids fell into place … it was beautiful.
And it was fun. Not once did I feel personally put out. Not once that week did anyone complain about
their plans being canceled to serve those in need. No one sent an email about Bible study not
being “deep enough.” No one worried
about the children’s ministry sign-in process.
No one complained that they had to give money to help. They just gave. All they could. They gave without coercion or guilt. Smiles everywhere. Joy everywhere. … Everyone was thankful for
what they had been able to give.
In a world where we are
constantly asking what went wrong, I couldn’t help but ask: what went
right? What made [it] so sweet?[i]
I felt the same as this pastor when
our church responded to the earthquake in Haiti. We collected offerings. We sent doctors and nurses there on mission
trips. We brought doctors from there to
here, to show our love and support. Our church
enthusiastically gave – gave money and time, but while practical needs, the
money and time represented something more.
Our hearts were stirred to help people in Haiti just as the people of
Brandon Hatmaker’s church wanted to help their fellow Texans after Hurricane
Ike.
Money and time reveal what we
value. In the case the horror of the
situation in Haiti after the earthquake, our money and time revealed our love
and compassion.
Pastor Hatmaker said he never heard
the complaints that sometimes find a home in a pastor’s in-box. There are gripes about the children’s
ministry or this small group or that work project. There are complaints about a sermon or the
pastor failed to visit so-and-so or the music was too loud or too long. Each grievance feels important to the
individual person who brings it to the pastor’s attention. But in the big picture, these things seem
small. As these small things pile up,
they feel petty. In the face of crisis,
like an earthquake or hurricane, we forget our pettiness. We commit ourselves to something bigger – the
work of God.
Pastor Hatmaker’s remembrance of his
church responding to Hurricane Ike and my own recollection of our church’s
heart in the light of the Haiti earthquake reveals something else. We trust that God will do something with what
we give. We trust that God is real and
God is there and God hears our prayer.
We trust God to multiply our offerings according to God’s purposes. The money we give is a sure sign of how much
we trust God.
In the 5th century BC,
trust in God was waning. The people of
God had returned from exile to a shattered country. Israel was ruined by Assyria and then Babylon
and from the West, ill-fated alliances with the new Egypt. The country was increasingly becoming a door
mat for ancient imperial powers. After
Babylon came Persia and then Alexander the Great and Greece. He was followed by Antiochus and Ptolemy, and
then Rome. The great Exodus in which God
mightily humbled Pharaoh and split open the Red Sea faded into distant memory. The greatness of David and wealth of Solomon
was gone.
Some in Israel fiercely held on to
faith, but others fell into half-hearted religious practice. A tithe, 10% of the farm’s produce, along
with the fatted calf was expected as offering at the temple. When people tithed, they stated their belief
that God was the all-powerful Lord and only true God and they were his. But in the 5th century the meager
tithes coming into the temple communicated something else. People no longer trusted in the power of God.
A prophet called ‘Messenger,’ the
meaning of the title ‘Malachi,’ came to remind the people that though they saw
themselves and their God as small and not worth complete loyalty, their God was
still awake, still in Heaven and simultaneously still with Israel. To short shrift God was to rob God.
God does not “fit into our
lives.” God is our life. God does not have a part of us. God gets all of us. Anything less turns our faith into a
farce. God is an all-or-nothing
God. When we try to follow God half-way,
God makes life uncomfortable. There are
no part-time Christians. We ask “How are
we robbing God?” God responds, in your half-hearted
giving of tithes and offerings.
When we gave of ourselves after the Haiti
earthquake, no one was robbing God. With
what we gave, including money, we joined with God on behalf of suffering
people. God blessed our offerings as God
always does. HillSong is a compassionate
church. In our work in Ethiopia, we have
given money, prayer energy, talents, time, and the willingness to go. More examples could be named. I am not on the topic of money today because
we in danger of robbing God as the Israelites did in the days of Malachi.
The topic matters because most of
our lives, we live between huge disasters and inspiring mission trips. Normal time involves uneventful days and dry
weeks. Individuals within the church
family experience crisis or joy, devastation or triumph. But as a whole, as a body, it appears not
much is happening. If you didn’t
participate in the project to build a ramp last weekend or the neighborhood
clean-up this weekend, can you get excited about it? You didn’t give your time, and even if you
tithed to the church, there are several steps from when your tithe goes in the offering
plate to when money is spent on materials needed to carry out the local
mission. It is not as immediately
obvious to see how you are part of God at work in the community. We as a community can feel too relaxed, like
nothing is at stake.
Malachi accused Israel of robbing
God by failing to tithe. He accused the
community of speaking harsh words against God when they envied the prosperity
of the wicked. We rob God when we don’t
think our tithes are worth the effort, especially in normal times. We speak evil against God when we fall into
ignorance of His work through His church, and in our ignorance, we don’t
participate. We hold back our tithe or
give only a part of it.
Questions naturally arise.
What
if the church does something I oppose or supports a group I don’t support?
What
if I am having a rough month financially and giving my tithe leaves me short?
What
does the church do with the money I give?
I am sure
you could think of a dozen equally important questions. The last one, what does the church do with my
tithe, is easiest for to summarize. We
pay the light and water bill; we give money to on-going mission works and fund
mission projects led members of our own body later in the year; we pay our
ministry and support staff; we fund ministries in our church – small group
ministry, youth ministry, children’s ministry.
Anyone who wants to can sit down go through the budget line-by-line and
track every penny.
The other questions are more
complicated. The church is the body of
Christ, but sometimes we make mistakes.
We fail to carry out the mission God sets for us. We overlook someone. We fail to visit someone. We support an organization you oppose. That will happen from time to time until the
final inauguration of the Kingdom of God.
Until Jesus returns, the Kingdom is emerging but not fully
realized. Until then, the Kingdom is
lived out in well-intentioned, but imperfect institutions. We are imperfect as the temple was in
Malachi’s day.
From Malachi for 400 years, faith eroded
and failed, so that in the days of Jesus, the religious leaders seemed to be
dedicated to self-preservation instead of the proclamation of the word of
God. And yet, when Jesus and his
disciples visited the temple, corrupt as it was, they witnessed someone who
held nothing back. She was not one of
those who robbed God.
Mark
12:41-44:
41 He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting
money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A
poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a
penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to
them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are
contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them
have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in
everything she had, all she had to live on.”
The widow did not make a decision
upon how much to give to the temple based upon her trust in the temple as an
institution. She did not decide to drop
in those two coins because of her confidence in the priests. She gave because she trusted God. God would use her offering for God’s
glory. By giving, she was participating
with God. She may not have known what
God was doing, but it did not matter. She was part of it.
She also did not make her decision
based on how much she could afford to give.
She gave it all. She trusted
God. She believed to the point that her
actions revealed her heart. She believed
God would take care of her. She gave God
what is God’s. She gave God all she had.
When we fail to do that, we rob
God. Malachi’s stinging prophecy might
tempt us to search for a way to soften the blow but such an effort would be an
affront to scripture. To give less than
all, we say to the Houston pastor, ‘we’ll handle you and four of your family
members. The other 77 are on their
own.’ It is to say, ‘we’ll turn on the
church’s lights and pay for the children’s ministry. But staff salaries, water bill, and other
ministries aren’t worth the effort.’ It
is Malachi watching as the people cowed by the empires around them tithed sometimes,
but just held back or only gave a partial tithe. It is the difference between robbing God and
living in His joy.
Jesus did not say every follower had
to drop every last cent into the temple treasury. Turn to the end of the Gospels and read about
Joseph of Arimathea. He was a man of
means who generously gave his own money so Jesus would have decent burial. He gave much, but he was still affluent. Turn to the opening of Luke 8. There we learn that the disciples, fishermen
by trade, along with Jesus, a professional carpenter, had given up their incomes
completely so they could travel announcing that in Jesus, the kingdom had come. They were financially supported by women who
followed them and gave a lot. These
women did not give up all their money, but what they gave was enough. They gave it because they trusted God to
accomplish His purposes and take care of them.
Where does it leave us? I suggest church members give 10% of their
income to the church. Additionally I
suggest that church members find other ways to participate in the announcement
of the Kingdom of God by giving their time and their resources. One can sponsor a child. One can contribute to a Christian organization
like Children’s Hope Chest or the Navigators.
One can go on mission trips or set aside time each month for local
missions. I could go on and on, but the
key is to do both. Make a regular,
weekly or monthly gift trusting that God will work through the church, even
through the church’s imperfections. And, find special projects like mission
trips or relief efforts. Regular and
special – give time and money generously to both because doing so puts you in
the heart of God’s work.
Malachi speaks of those who revered
the Lord. After the prophet confronted
the people, some took note and thought about things. They weren’t defensive. They did not attack the prophet or try to
justify themselves. They meditated upon
the word and the Lord noticed them.
“17 They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day
when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve
them. 18 Then once more you shall see the
difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and
one who does not serve him.”
When Brandon Hatmaker thinks on the
time his church helped 82 members of the Houston pastor’s family who had been
displaced by the hurricane, he remembers amazing worship and joy that can’t be
measured. I have the same feeling when I
think about the times I have been part of this church as this church has
demonstrated Christlike generosity through giving. “Test me,” God says in Malachi. He says it because they did not trust
him. Do we? I urge the church this morning to demonstrate
radical trust in God through a sustained commitment to the tithe and a
prayerful belief that God will work in and through this church in His ongoing
pronouncement that in Christ the Kingdom has come.
AMEN
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