Firstfruits or Leftovers

When I started this endeavor, I said that my hope was for people to raise issues and questions for conversation. Those discussion areas can be faith-related, theological, practical church matters, societal concerns, or any matter that causes us to wonder as we seek to find our way as children of God. This week, a posted comment raised several questions about the matter of tithing in our faith life. This is particularly timely for our congregation as we struggle with the very real financial needs of maintaining and growing in our ministry.

Modern Methodists have a complicated relationship with tithing. Other traditions have made a requirement of the tithe for members of their churches, but we have steered away from legalizing the joyous sharing of our abundance with the One who provides that abundance. While it might make things simpler to require that everyone commit ten percent of their income to the church, that is neither the biblical intent nor a particularly effective way to produce the cheerful givers that Scripture tells us are loved by God. So the challenge for us is to learn what a tithe is and how we best live that response to God's bountiful grace.

For now I want to share my basic understanding of the tithe and hope that this will lead to full and rich conversation. At heart, the scriptural tithe is an acknowledgment of a basic truth of our faith - all things come from God and belong to God. When we are blessed with resources, we are called upon to commit the first tenpercent to God's work in the world, returning to God what is God's to begin with - remembering that we are enjoined to offer the firstfruits not the leftovers. In an agrarian society, that prosperity took the form of farm produce. Wheat and grain offerings brought to the temple or synagogue became an expression of trust and obedience. Animal sacrifices also represented a return to God of that with which God had blessed the people.

Over time, the rules for tithing were developed and codified, becoming the foundation of support for the religious institutions of that time. Christians saw the tithe as a way of supporting the church's ministry and mission. As the world moved from an agriculturally producing society to an industrial and financial society, eventually money became the primary sign of our abundance and the tithe became assocated with support for the church's work. For modern Protestants, the tithe became a pledge to the church each year. For Methodists, the tendency is to ask people to consider what portion of their income they can give to the church.

Pledging is not, however, the tithe. I believe that God has a claim to everything we are and have, that we should employ our time, our energy, our talents and skills, our thoughts and ideas, our work and our advocacy, as well as our financial resources to bear witness to God's love and grace. Nor is it limited to what we give to the church's work. Perhaps we should examine our lives to see how we are employing the abundance in our lives to express the love and the justice of God.

This is, for me, only a start to a response to the questions posed. I will return to the specifics in another post, and invite your reflections and reactions to these thoughts. (You can find the questions in a comment posted to my blog entry "Longevity and Trust.") May everything about us and our living give praise to our God.