Oh, this could get interesting. Somebody here just might get a bit perturbed because this could end up being almost as much fun as sitting in the dentist’s chair, with your mouth stuffed with cotton, gurgling suction things giving a vacuum welt to the inside of your cheek, and despite the bright light nearly blinding you, you manage to catch a glimpse of that evil metal pointy hook in the dentist’s hand and you know that a raw nerve is about to be discovered.

Yes!! Today, I am talking about Church Giving.

Barely a month goes by when I find myself talking with somebody who is all bent out of shape over how much money somebody else is making. The contention usually goes along the lines of, “So and So is making gazillions of dollars, they don’t deserve it, it’s not fair.”  Let’s forget for a minute that fair or unfair stopped being a viable argument right around the time we stopped playing kickball in grade school, and recognize “fair,” in this usage, is only an emotional appeal to an undefined sense of manufactured moral outrage. 

The indictment is primarily made against successful Chief Executive Officers of major corporations. It is also made against pastors, and other leaders of large congregations. Sure, there are some unsavory folks in both these groups who are less than fine upstanding citizens, but these miscreants are a ridiculously small minority. The accusations often go like this: “So and So makes a boatload of money, and I don’t like it.”  My reply is (in the C.E.O. scenario), “Yeah, So and So makes a boat load of money, but he brings in 15 boatloads of money in profits, grows the company, and creates boatloads of jobs, and pays a boatload in taxes. He doesn’t work for you, you didn’t hire him, you don’t own a stake in his company, so it’s not any of your concern how much money the owners of the company want to pay him.” At this point I often receive a torrent of uncomplimentary adjectives.

The case concerning certain pastors is along the same lines. I often point out that the congregation in these huge churches not only give tons of money, but they also pour out tons of money. Maintaining the physical property, paying utilities, all the costs associated with keeping payroll, operating food pantries, soup kitchens, clothing closets, rent relief, and a multitude of other benevolence funds, crisis counseling, addiction programs, battered women’s shelters, and so on and so on and so on. It takes a lot of time, skill, and talent to oversee such an operation, and if the congregation wants to provide a generous salary to someone who oversees so many programs that help so many people, it’s their business, not yours.

One thing that the C.E.O. and pastor have in common is that neither of them got there overnight. They both worked long and hard over many thankless years to get where they are, and they continue to work long and hard to do what they do.

If the C.E.O or the pastor are pulling any shenanigans, it’s between them and Law Enforcement. If it’s outside the realm of Law Enforcement, its between them and God.

Sure, these massive ministries are far and few between when compared to the small and midsized churches, but these smaller churches have much the same problem. There is always some malcontent out there spewing their opinion that any given church isn’t spending their money as the malcontent sees fit. Once again, it is not their concern how other people manage their resources. Additionally, in the case of these smaller churches, the case is much the same at the leadership in the big churches. The pastor and leadership team (if any) have put in countess hours of not only doing the administrative stuff, and the preparation for the Sunday gathering, but ministering to the needs of the community, sleepless nights travailing in prayer, fending off personal attacks and slander against himself and his family, not only from outside agitators, but, I’m sorry to say, from within the flock that he is shepherding. These attacks are more common than you think. I have spent many, many hours, days even, giving counsel, advice, and encouragement to more than one pastor who found themselves betrayed by them that they trusted. Many of these guys are working a second job just to feed their family. If anything, they should be paid more.

Any questions on where I stand on this matter?

Good.

Now let’s talk about money.

Money, in itself, is neutral. It is neither good nor evil, it just is. We didn’t used to have a need for money, but after we got ourselves tossed from the garden, things changed. Money is a tool we use to obtain the goods and services we decide we want or need. Money, in all its permutations, is mentioned countless times in the Bible, sometimes as a metaphor to illustrate some bigger principal, sometimes to describe actual finances.

There is nothing wrong with money, it’s what we do with it that matters. After all, is it not true that we are to “…give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure, you use it, it will be measured to you…” (Luke 6:38, NIV).

In other words, what you are doing is investing in your own personal high interest heavenly bank account where the return on your investment will be like a brigade of Bozo’s billowing out of a Clown Car, right?

WRONG!!

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! You could not be any wronger!

(I get it, this is America, and you got rights, including the right to be wrong, and I will fight for your right to be wrong. If you continue to insist on invoking your right to be wrong, I will persist to fight for your right to be wrong while you sit there in your wrongness being wrong.)

I have seen so many pastors so many times use this verse out of context as a way to persuade folks to give to their ministry. I don’t know why. Perhaps they do this because that’s what they watched everybody else do. It could be that they just looked for a verse that seemed say what they wanted to say. It’s possible they never took the time to study the verse in context, or they could simply be manipulating and misleading their congregation. Maybe the finances of the church are so strapped that they will do whatever seems to work just to keep the lights on, to keep the doors open, to keep the food pantry running. I don’t know.

Here is what Jesus actually said:

“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6: 36-38 NIV)

I strongly encourage you to go and read the full chapter to get a broader scope of the context, but I am sure that you realize by now, that Jesus is NOT talking about money here.

What He is taking about here – mercy, forgiveness, not judging, not condemning – boils down to grace. Yes, He framed it in a transactional, quid pro quo way (“you do this, you get that”); the context, however, is more than a bunch of words surrounding another bunch of words. Context includes who is doing the talking, who they are talking to, where and when the talking is being done, and what social situation these people are living in. It’s difficult enough to describe and teach the grace of God to Spirit-filled born again Christians; now imagine trying to do the same to a culture of transactional law-based religious first-century Jews living under a transactional law-based Imperial Roman occupation.  You gots to meet people where they is at. We also gots to meet us where we is at!

Ponder this for a moment… We profess that at the cross Jesus did it all. There is nothing left to be done. “It is finished!” With that being the case, why then do we need to pay off Papa to get more? Is Papa nothing more than a corrupt politician we need to bribe with ten percent of our stuff in order to have our basic needs met, never mind currying His favor? ABSOLUTY NOT!!

That ten percent tithe we hear so much about is based in the Law, which has been done away with at the cross. If you want to live according to the Old Testament law, have at it, but don’t expect to go well for you, as you gots to keep ALL of the law, and only one person, Jesus Christ, was able to do that.

Give what you can. Ten percent is a suitable number. Twenty and fifty are good numbers also. So are four, seven, and nine. It all depends on what Holy Spirit tells you to give. Listen to Holy Spirit, but don’t be surprised if he stretches your faith and challenges you to give more than what you are comfortable with. Keep in mind that Papa is generous, and we are created in His image and likeness, so we are to be generous as well.

Allright…

I cannot come up with a smooth transition for this next part, so I will abruptly jump right in.

What about all them peoples living in abject poverty? Did Papa forget about them? Are they being punished for not giving? What’s the deal?

No! Papa dose not, cannot, will not, and did not forget about anybody, especially the poor, and He is not punishing the poor for being poor.

Why are there so many poor when we have such a kind and loving God?

I don’t know. (Period)

That is the best, and only answer I can give on the matter.

I do know this. Papa only wants good for His kids. He does not want to see them hurting or lacking in any way. He is not a neglectful parent. There are some people who try to explain away what they don’t understand by inventing a twisted doctrine that poverty is somehow good for the soul, that suffering brings about righteousness, that misery is the gateway to holiness.

And again, I say WRONG! 

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!

Jesus alone is our righteousness. Jesus alone is our holiness.

This nonsense teaching otherwise has cropped up in many ways over the years, ranging from Gnosticism to Stoicism in their many forms, as well as other pagan systems that have wormed their way into the Church and bought us into the delusion that we are somehow less that who Jesus says we are.

Yes, there is much value in stepping away from all the things and stuff that distract us from our immersive identity in Christ. The monastic, or hermetic life could be a benefit, but only for a season. But to get rid of all our stuff, thrust ourselves into material poverty, and to isolate from the rest of the world, just so we can attain a deeper level of being “close to God,” is a baked earthenware container of male bovine excrement.

Thomas Merton (a man well worth listing to) wrote in Run to the Mountain: The Story of a Vocation: “Everything that happens to the poor, the meek, the desolate, the mourners, the despised, happens to Christ.”

If it’s happening to you, it’s happening to him. Seems to me that this incomprehensible union with Christ in all things is about as “close to God” as you can get. This isn’t reserved for the bad times. He is also here, in complete union with us, when we are happy and celebrating the good things. His love for us, His presence, is not limited to just the suffering. He has no limits. He is always totally unseparated from you, at all times, in all circumstances.

If you are considering shutting yourself away from the world for a lifetime, I’m pretty sure that when Jesus said… 

“…You are the light of this world. A town built on a hill can not be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house…” (Matthew 5: 14,15 NIV)

…He was not talking about renouncing the world and hiding yourself away for a lifetime in hermitage.

Yes, Thomas Merton is living a monastic life, but there are two factors in play. 

He is answering a specific calling.  There is a huge difference between obedience to what Holy Spirit is asking, and doing what you think you need to do to get what you already got.  

The very fact that I can quote Merton answers the second matter. He has not hidden his lamp under a bowl, but it is shining before all men, at least them who are wiling to search it out.

The Church drastically needs to break out of the mindset of Dogmatic Poverty. We need to be more generous, as Holy Spirit leads in our giving, not only of money, but time, and prayer and whatever else Holy Spirit guides you to do. We need to be more generous in reaching out and serving the community, not as mere volunteers at a food pantry or the like, but as the Body of Christ, being salt and light, pouring out grace, forgiveness, and favor, to everybody, in all circumstances, all of the time. This is how the Church organically grows, and who knows, perhaps someday you could become an Associate Pastor, or even the Pastor of one of them humongous mega churches that afford you a mansion and a yacht (as if you will actually have the time to enjoy them).

Thanks for letting me take up some of your time.