Preliminary draft for a sermon on Sabbath, September 14, 2013
At Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists
There was a little box on the front
page of Tuesday's Seattle Times:
1 percent's share of household income: [Need data]
1 percent's increase in household
income 2012 over 2011: [Need data]
The top of the economic pyramid here in
the U.S. Is doing pretty good. If they have trouble knowing what to
do with their money, Porsche is ready to help them out.
On Thursday a Seattle Times article
carried this title: $845,000 Porsche hybrid gets better gas
mileage than Prius.
Porsche’s
$845,000 918 Spyder hybrid, unveiled at the International Auto Show
in Frankfurt, can reach 62 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds and gets the
equivalent of about 72 miles per gallon, based on European
fuel-economy data. That tops the 50 mpg of the basic Prius hybrid.
http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2021795781_porschehybridxml.html?cmpid=2628
Apparently, if you have enough money,
you can pretend you care about the environment by spending most of a
million dollars on a car that gets better gas mileage than a Prius.
It also just happens to be able to reach 62 miles an hour in 2.8
seconds.
At the other end of the spectrum there
is Hawo Abdi Farah. She came to Seattle 17 years ago from Somalia.
She works as hard as she can and saves all she can so she can send
money back to her family in Somalia. Her best efforts allow her to
send between 100 and 200 dollars a month. Somalis all around the
world are doing the same thing. Working hard. Scrimping and saving
and sending money back home. Their money is absolutely essential for
life to continue in Somalia.
Oxfam estimates these “remittances”
total $1.3 billion a year. That's more than Somalia receives from
foreign aid and foreign direct investment combined.
The newspaper reporter asked Farah what
her relatives back in Somalia do with the money she sends
them. Farah's answer: “Food. They
spend it on food. That's all”
Money is central to our lives.
Everything we do is intertwined with
money. Our cars, our houses, our food, our clothes . . . Our
romances and vacations . . . Our wars and lawsuits . . . .
Everything. Every aspect of our lives is inseparable from money.
If our religion does not speak about
money, it's irrelevant. If our spiritual practices fail to connect
with our personal finances and our views of economics, then our kids
may rightly judge our religion to be merely a quaint decoration, a
nostalgic relic.
Money is life. If religion is going to
engage life, our lives, inevitably it will speak of money and shape
our actual practice of money management.
Of course, thinking about money quickly
gets complicated. In the political realm, this complexity leaps into
any conversation around the income disparity highlighted by the facts
I mentioned about the income of the One Percent. Is this disparity a
good thing or a bad thing? Is it a sign that the system is working or
the system is broken? Is it an important fact or is it merely trivia?
What does justice look like when you examine the play of
intelligence, diligence, luck, families of origin, and tax code?
Get three people in a room to talk
about it and you'll hear at least four opinions. Including the Bible
in the conversation does not make it simpler. Reflecting the reality
of real-life economics, the Bible's teachings about money are
profoundly complicated. Is wealth a mark of ruthless, Darwinian
triumph or a sign of the blessing of God? Is poverty a call for
compassion or a mark of irresponsibility?
Did you catch the contrast in our
scripture readings? The first passage, the one from Deuteronomy,
celebrates prosperity. All through the book of the Bible, we read
different versions of “Obey God and he will make you prosperous.”
“Do the right thing and God will give you bountiful harvests and
large flocks and herds. Life will be good.” The second passage, the
one from James, imagines wealthy people as parasites and predators.
Rich people get that way through deceit and violence. They are rich
because of their skill in impoverishing others.
In Deuteronomy wealth is what God
desires for his people. In James wealth is suspect. Its potential for
seduction is far more prominent than its potential for good.
For today's sermon, I'm going to focus
on the positive view of money and wealth presented in Deuteronomy.
We'll deal with the cautions about wealth found in Amos and James
another time.
Let's look again at the passage from
Deuteronomy that was read earlier in our service: (Use one of the
Bible's in the pew or call up one on your phone or tablet. I'm using
the New Living Translation.)
You must set aside
a tithe of your crops--one-tenth of all the crops you harvest each
year. Bring this tithe to the designated place of worship--the place
the LORD your God chooses for his name to be honored--and eat it
there in his presence. Deuteronomy 14.
The Jewish people were expected to
regard ten percent of their harvest as sacred. It belonged to God.
They were not free to do with it just whatever they wanted. It could
only be used for purposes specifically delineated by God.
The tithe belonged to God. What did
that mean? What would God do with bushels of wheat, baskets of apples
and jars of wine? According to this passage, God intended to use “his
share” of the harvest as the foundation for a festival, a party for
his children. The Jews were to take their tithe, the sacred ten
percent of their harvest, to the special holy place and there they
were to feast in the presence of God and in company with God's
people.
Most of what they produced—ninety
percent, in fact—was theirs to manage according to the ordinary
demands and ambitions of life. They were responsible to make sure
they produced enough food to supply daily meals through the entire
year. They were free to produce surplus and sell it at market. It
would make sense to turn some of their harvest into silver. If they
were smart and hard-working and blessed with good luck, they could
build wealth that included a larger house, increased acreage,
servants, nice clothes.
The image of a successful, prosperous
farmer lies behind the call in this passage for the practice of
tithing—that is the devotion of ten percent of their harvest, ten
percent of their increase or harvest to God.
The notion of tithe presumes financial
success. God wants his people to do well. He expects that the normal
human experience will be comfortable prosperity.
With that expectation in the
background, God called for those Jewish farmers to devote ten percent
of their harvest to God. Which raises the obvious question: What is
God going to do with all that grain and produce?
The first purpose mentioned in this
passage is a sacred party. The Jewish people were to take their
tithe, go to the sacred place and eat their tithe together in a grand
festival.
The passage goes on to broaden the
purpose of the tithe.
At the end of
every third year, bring the entire tithe of that year's harvest and
store it in the nearest town. Give it to the Levites, who will
receive no allotment of land among you, as well as to the foreigners
living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so they
can eat and be satisfied. Then the LORD your God will bless you in
all your work.
Here we see that God's portion of the
harvest, the tithe, is to be given to “the Levites.” I like that!
The Levites were the clergy. They were specifically excluded from
land ownership which in that society was the foundation of wealth.
Since they were excluded from commerce, the society was to provide an
alternative source of support for them. This much makes sense in the
usual religious way. The clergy are specially linked to worship and
other religious practices, so it makes sense that they would
participate in the sacred money of the tithe.
The Adventist Church has built a very
specific doctrine of tithing on this concept. When people give to the
“Tithe Fund” in our denomination, their donation supports the
work of the clergy.
In this passage, the appropriate use of
God's portion is broader than just the support of the clergy class.
Tithe is also to be given to
the foreigners
living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so they
can eat and be satisfied. Then the LORD your God will bless you in
all your work.
One of the most emphatic teachings of
the Bible regarding money is this: we ought to recognize Somali
immigrants as part of the people we are to provide for from God's
portion. And Mexicans and Eritreans and Russians. Deuteronomy
declares that foreigners are to be served from the Tithe that is
God's portion.
Widows—people who is Moses society
would have had a status like single working moms in our society—were
to be served from God's portion.
Orphans—kids whose parents for
whatever reason were unable to provide for them—orphans were to be
served from God's portion.
It seems to me that we could summarize
the ideas in this passage this way: the highest purpose of money is
to build a happy, equitable community. A bountiful harvest is a call
for a bountiful feast. A feast that is shared in the presence of God.
Wealth should express itself in community festivity. And our feasts
should include the outsiders and the losers and those with bad luck
and those with disabilities.
To put it another way: a bountiful
harvest, i.e. wealth, confers a heightened obligation.
This passage and the repeated
affirmation of hard work and wealth all through the book of
Deuteronomy implies special honor is due to those responsible for the
harvest. The bountiful harvest is evidence of God's blessing, God's
favor. God is pleased with those who provide the feast.
In Deuteronomy, there is a wonderful,
blended vision of wealth as a basis for honor and obligation.
Those who are successful are partners
with God. The feast depends on the skill and diligence that produce
the harvest. God depends on us to grow the food, to do the harvest,
to preserve what is produced. God blesses us with physical strength,
intelligence, social skills, drive and initiative. We did not create
those things. They are gifts.
We cultivate our awareness of how
utterly dependent we are on the gifts by practicing tithing—devoting
ten percent of our income to God.
Did you produce your wealth by working
hard? Good. Did you create the mental strength which you have
employed in your pursuit success? How much credit do you deserve for
choosing to be born in Seattle instead of in Haiti? Did you earn an
MBA or an MD or a PhD? Good. That is to be commended. You deserve
honor for that achievement. But if you get a big head about it, we
can justly ask what teachers encouraged you along the way? How much
tax money has gone into building the university where you studied?
None of us is self-made.
Practicing tithing is a concrete,
spiritual practice that connects us with the wisdom of
interdependence.
Recently a young friend who is a
teacher posted something on Facebook about the median incomes of
people ten years out of college. What degrees gave the most bang for
the buck? At the top of the list: petroleum mining engineers. Near
the bottom of the list: counselors, social workers, ministers.
I read the comments responding to the
initial article. They quickly degenerated into snarky attacks.
“Petroleum engineers don't care about the environment or about
people.” “Counselors don't understand that the cars they drive to
work run on gasoline made available through the work of the petroleum
engineers.” “Petroleum engineers are smart. Psychologists are
wouldn't recognize a solution to an equation if they saw one.”
“Petroleum engineers will produce the children who will need the
services of the counselors to counteract the lousy parenting skills
of the engineers.”
It was a stupid fight.
Engineering, manufacturing, finance
create the wealth in our society that allows people to specialize in
counseling, theology or music. The producers of wealth deserve
respect for the foundational role they play in making a good society.
On the other hand, would anyone want to live in a society that was
flush with money and stuff and had no musicians, no art, no
articulate preachers or writers? In a good society money moves
around and links people with all sorts of gifts and skills and
aptitudes. Money makes us all richer, not just by putting dollars in
our pockets but by enabling this rich cultural development.
Understanding the power of money to
enable this kind of goodness is a profound spiritual insight. One of
the most powerful spiritual disciplines that supports this
understanding is the practice of tithing—devoting ten percent of
our income to God. When we tithe, we are deliberately using our money
to cultivate our spiritual life.
Adventists have taken this ten percent
principle and developed a particular doctrine around it. Some
Christians have criticized Adventists for being so strict. They
imagine themselves as more evolved. They are not legalistic, Old
Testament believers. They are “New Testament Christians.”
I laugh when I hear this. It is true
the New Testament does not explicitly teach the obligation to devote
ten percent of our income to God. Instead, it tells us to sell
everything we have and give it to the poor.
I have never met a critic of tithing
who has come even close to this NT teaching.
I once knew a baronness who was rich.
Compared to me, she was very rich. She explained to me the reason she
did not practice tithing: “For ordinary, middle class people, tithe
is a small amount of money. So they can afford to give it. But for me
ten percent would be a lot of money. So I can't afford to do it.”
I realized then that I was richer than
she was. Her income might have ten or a hundred times my income. But
she had barely enough money. In fact, as I got to know her, I learned
she was constantly worried about the fact that she was barely getting
by. On the other hand, I was so rich I could give away 20 percent of
my income and not worry about my financial survival.
One of the curious side effects of
tithing is it's reflexive effect on those who practice it. When you
devote ten percent (or twenty or thirty percent) of your income to
God, over time you develop a deep sense of adequacy and wealth.
This week I made my monthly
contribution to the church. I didn't agonize over how much to give.
Since we are rich, we can do more than ten percent. Or maybe I should
say the other way around. The fact that we give more than ten percent
is proof that we are rich.
Part of our religion is giving. We
teach people to give ten percent, because it is the only amount ever
mentioned in the Bible besides selling everything. We give because we
have been blessed. Then we are blessed because we give. Our handling
of money becomes a rich spiritual practice and a source of pure joy.
This is part of what our religion
teaches us about money.
If we are serious about cultivating
spiritual life, we will give habitually. Occasional, spontaneous
giving is okay. I'm sure it does good. But it has very little of the
transformative power of regular, habitual, systematic giving.
We all understand that part of ordinary
life is regularly paying utility bills, buying groceries, paying our
mortgage or rent. If we are students or the parents of students, we
pay tuition. These payments are an indispensable part of our life in
a civil society.
Regular giving is similarly an
indispensable part of fully participating in a spiritual society. As
a church we welcome visitors. There is no expectation that people
need to buy space in a pew or that any particular person buy the
privilege of experiencing worship. All are welcome here. On the other
hand, until you are practicing habitual giving, your spirituality
will remain stunted. Since money flows through every aspect of our
life, a fully developed spirituality necessarily includes the
practice, the habit, of giving. Tithing is most form of giving with
longest tradition in Jewish and Christian history.
Those who have practiced it nearly
universally speak of its benefit. It is a practice that will provide
a theoretical and experiential foundation for wise thinking about
money. It makes us happy partners with God.
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