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Rector's Blog
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
I received a great email recently from a very faithful and very articulate parishioner in response to Stewardship stuff I have generated in sermon and web site. He ends his email with a gracious apology for being "strident."
Naaaah. Not strident. Just real.
He gave me permission to post a bit of our dialgoue here. He wrote (in part):
You metioned (once) that is occasionally good to leave church angry. Well, I was mad last Sunday but not because I felt spiritually challenged. Having just read the stewardship (Focus article) again on the Web site, my sentiment is exacerbated.
We can agree to disagree here But I just don't buy the logic creating a seemingly singular link between spiritual growth and applied wisdom and tithing. I find the rationale a bit heavy-handed. While I don't have the benefit of your experience, I'd like to believe that there are plenty of ways to demonstrate meaningful growth and am concerned that you left me and a lot of others feeling guilty that a tithe was one of the only routes of achieving it.
Ouch. Mia culpa. I hate when a sermon I preach generates guilt. Guilt just gets in the way of genuine spiritual formation. It's the reason Jesus died on the cross, to get it out of the way. I must try to do better.
Here is my response to him (in part):
Is their a link between spiritual growth and tithing? I really think so. Is it the only link? Not at all. Others include, prayer and study, Sabbath keeping, covenant group, service, and active witness to personal faith. There are others, but I believe these are the core spiritual disciplines for our contemporary age.
So, I don't think the tithe is the only means to achieving spiritual growth, but it is an important component. You may not have heard me say this yet. You will hear me say this soon. The tithe is not on obligation, it is a challenge. The biblical standard of the tithe is a high bar. It certainly is for me. But once a person embraces the challenge, (that is the principle as a goal) one begins to relate to money in new and surprising ways.
With the financial obligations of two kids, it makes a significant impact on the shape of my life. (My brother tithes with four kids. Ouch!) It is not easy.
Though it is not easy, in my personal experience, I feel genuinely blessed by the discipline. Just to offer one simple example, I have many conversations with God that I wouldn't have otherwise. I also have had some very interesting conversations with my 12 year old daughter Claire, whose life is also impacted by this discipline, especially when she compares her experience to that of her friends at her expensive (at least for us) private school. I am pleased by the maturity and the groundedness of her life. I think our commitment to tithe has something to do with that. (By the way, my wife Holly has also freely embraced this discipline or else I couldn't do it.)
The tithe is a personal choice. It is a personal spiritual discipline a person chooses to embrace. Or not. I do not believe the tithe influences one bit, God's intention to bless. Although, I really do believe it influences my ability to perceive the richness of God's blessing. Otherwise, instead of investing so much money in my spiritual formation, I would probably choose to pay down the debt on my house.
The Stewardship challenge generates tough conversations like this -- once a person finds the courage to really engage the issue. Hard conversations push the boundaries of our perceptions.
If God really is doing something in the midst of people, both people who tithe and people who don't, but among people all of whom make real and genuine sacrifices in their commitment to follow Jesus, isn't it somthing worth talking about?
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