Week #25: Tithe

Simplicity is both an internal and external discipline.  It speaks to the very way we perceive the matters of faith and life and has dramatic effectIn on the manner in which we live in this world. There is perhaps no deeper realm to this, or perhaps none more uncomfortable, that the manner in which we understand, use, and relate to money.

Money is deeply ingrained in the very manner in which we live; there is simply no way around it.  We use money, we spend money, we save money.   Yet too often we fail to see our relation to money in any sort of spiritual context.  It is simply that which is used as we go through the functions of our every day lives.  Yet peel back the layers and we find that too often the money we have, or long to have, exerts a dominating force upon us.  It controls us.  It drives our action, establishes our focus, and calls our attention. We dream of 'striking it rich', 'hitting it big', or moving from 'rags-to-riches.'  These lies communicate to us that accumulation of money is that which solves all our problems.  We dream about what we will do when we win the lottery thinking that a massive influx of cash will set our life in order.  Yet too often those who win the lottery find quickly find themselves in financial, moral, emotional, and spiritual bankruptcy.

Money promises freedom and happiness yet delivers slavery and depression. It keeps us in anxiety and fear.  It tells us to be fearful of never having enough, despite the fact that too often that which it calls us to is far from necessary.  It keeps us always focused on the riches we do not have, rather than highlighting the riches we do.  Jesus knew that money too easily becomes a rival God demanding servitude.  "You cannot serve both God and money (mammon)."  Jesus knew that the money is able to exert an intoxicating pull over us. Like a rival deity it demands an emotional attachment. We become identified with how much we have and find ourselves unable to part with the smallest of units.  Is it any wonder that our modern world, so full of abundance, has produced such a soul-crippling problem as hoarding?

This is why the discipline of tithing can be so powerful.  Tithing dethrones the rival power.  It frees from the emotional enslavement that money too often holds over our lives.  In tithing we reclaim our proper place.  This is because tithing, ultimately, is not just actually about money.  Tithing is about worship.  It is about divine allegiance.  In tithing we strip money of the sacredness that this world wrongly gives to it, and again submit ourselves in humble faith to the Lord of heaven and earth. In this we enter into the joy and freedom found in a posture of dependance.  Ours is not to strive and fret - ours is to humbly receive and give thanks.  Consider the lilies and the birds, Jesus says.

Through tithing we truly uncover the beauty and goodness of all that surrounds us.  The goodness seen in that which we own occurs truly as  we see these things as expressions of God's care and providence for us.  This frees us from the burden of having to protect or hoard that which we own.  For if the goodness of money is found, not in the ownership of it, but in its kingdom use, then we are able to uncover the blessedness of giving.  "We would be hard pressed," writes Richard Foster, "to find a teaching on money [in the Bible] that does not somehow mention giving."  (From 'The Challenge of the Disciplined Life').

There are many ways that we can enter into the discipline of tithing.  While it does not have to be the typical 10%, we must resist the attempt to minimize its force.  To do this is to value our ownership of money over our life with God.  If tithing is seen only as an obligation, or worse yet - a bill, then we will never see it as an act of  thanksgiving.  The tithe should be significant enough that we notice the gift for it is in noticing that we express our thanks to God for all of God's blessings in life.  It is an act of praise and thanksgiving.  We do not retain a sense of deserve or ownership of our money - we release it all into the hands of God and in doing so render our confidence and trust.

It should also be mentioned that we are also able tithe our time and/or service. Tithing does not have to be a gift of money.  It can also be a gift of our time and our effort.  Too often our life with God is relegated to 90 minutes on Sunday mornings while the rest of our lives are spent living unto ourselves.  When we tithe our time or effort, we recognize the possible incongruity between our that which we say we believe, and how we actually live it out.  What would it be like to increase my time with God each day?  Can we spend more time in prayer, in worship, in study? Are my faithful expressions done out of duty or out of an internal desire to be with our Lord in intimate relationship?

The mathematics of tithing, whether it is in time/service or money, is not about 10% here and 10% there.  Tithing is  about our life with God; about our focus, our worship.  And to that end it should always equal 100%.

Week # 24: Do not take part in Gossip.

'Sticks and stones may break our bones but names will never hurt us.'  It sounds good doesn't it? It suggests that as long as we feed continually on this mantra then the taunts and insults of haters will simply roll off of our backs.  The rhyme makes it sound as if our words lack the the power to inflict deep and lasting wounds.  It promises to keep us inwardly strong and stalwart.  Too bad it's a lie.  Names hurt.  Words scar.  We have seen this time and time again.

Long before this rhyme was thought up, James wrote 'The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.'  (James 3:6) It is a truth testified to far too often. Gossip destroys people and communities.

The root of gossip is selfish pride.  It is selfishness which says that we need to be the center of information, and it is arrogant pride that reduces someone's identity to the sole product of the stories we hear and tell.  The sly whispers in the parking lot, the casual utterances of 'well that's not what I heard', the willful re-telling of events in someone else's life, all play on the idolatrous notion that we are more important than others.  We speak about matters which we have no right to speak to.  We tell stories that are not ours to tell.

Sometimes this seems innocent enough.  We tell of another's medical diagnosis under the rhetoric of 'people should know.'  Or, as often is the case in the church, we aggressively plumb for deeply personal information, often referencing why it is important that we know such information. 'Why are they on the prayer list?' we ask.  "Have you heard about so and so?" "I need to know how to pray for them.'  In this we reduce the other to the sole product of the stories we hear or the tales we tell.  We fundamentally deny their personhood through the insistence that we know what is best for them. Shirley Hughson writes "One of the most frequent and hurtful occasions of pride is the readiness with which most of us give our opinion or instruct others, on any subject that might be introduced into conversation.'  It is 'enslavement to talking' writes Johnson.

It used to be that gossip was reserved for shadowed conversations occurring in the background.  Social media has changed all that.  In a world that is so laden with text - from Internet forums to text messages to social media posts - the manner in which we speak to each other is of utmost importance.  Just like face-to-face gossip, we need to see the words we write as coming from the deep centres of our being.  Our words, whether typed on a keyboard or spoken in private, bare our souls and they declare what is in our hearts.  When our gossip or bullying destroys the personhood of another, we should feel deeply ashamed.

The tongue is a restless evil precisely because through it we are able to hurt someone more deeply than sticks and stones could ever do. "With the tongue we bless The Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God" (vs 9). Our words cut to the heart and are able to destroy the soul.  How can this not be seen as hellish behaviour?

Here is an interesting thought experiment: What would happen in the world if we gave up gossip?  What effect would there be if we embraced the refusal to speak out of turn, to whisper behind another's back, to keep our disparaging remarks to ourselves?  How would the world be different?

For those of us in the church, this shouldn't really be a thought experiment;  it should be the very manner in which we live out our faith lives.  The matter of how we speak to each other is not merely a matter of politeness or social nicety.  It goes to the heart of faith.  Our holiness, or lack thereof, is displayed for the world in how we speak to each other.    James concludes his discussion on the tongue by stating that 'out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.' (vs.10)

What if we simply decided not to tell other people's stories - good or bad.  What if the phrases  'guess what I heard' or 'Did you hear about ..' were viewed to be as offensive as the worst four-lettered swear.  Doing so would release us from the enslavement to talking, and the prideful wielding of others' stories. It would focus us away from self interest, and the building up of our own image, and ground us in the call to bless and edify others.

With celebrity expose's around every corner, we need to be reminded that it is not our job to have all the information in people's lives - or to tell events that are not ours to tell.   Refraining from gossip-filled conversations is a simple act by which we free ourselves from the 'information is power' way of thinking.  No longer are we concerned with the management of our image - which too often is seen as related to another.  In refraining from gossip we strive to be content with not knowing the ins and outs, the latest scoop, or the rest of the story, as we release such matters into the gracious keeping of God.

May the words of our mouths, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable to God, our rock and our redeemer.

Week #23: Make your confession

It is said that confession is good or the soul, but how many of us actually take this to heart?  Unless we come from a religious tradition that makes confession a liturgical necessity this discipline too often get's pushed to the side.  Even then, confession can become a dry and lifeless liturgical hoop to go through.  We make our confession without any real desire for spiritual or moral change.  Similar is the case of corporate confession.  The moment when congregation says together 'we confess our sins to Almighty God . .' simply becomes nothing more than a prayer we rattle off giving no thoughts to matters such as repentance or the amendment of life.  In each case true confession is fundamentally rejected.

From where did we get the curious notion that the call to confession was somehow contrary to the love and grace of God?  Why is it that we see confession as an exercise akin to guilt-mongering instead of one that ushers in spiritual freedom and closeness with Christ?

When we refuse to confess our sins to God, we choose to keep parts of ourselves hidden.  We mask the state of our heart and souls, and we thus we live in a self-deceiving lie. It is not that we are hiding these things from God, but we fail to engage ourselves in true and humble honesty. We put up a front.  Instead of engaging those deep places of our soul, the longings, the hurts, the wounds, the sins, we plaster them over with a schtick of 'I'm Ok, You're Ok.'  All the while, internally, we are crying for a depth of spiritual freedom that somehow, amid our best efforts, remains forever elusive.

How can we find the freedom that we so desperately crave if we do not seek in the fullness of who we are?

Confession is good for the soul precisely because it frees it from the toxic self-deception and festering negative forces that can too often eat away at us.  Just listen to David: "For when I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all the day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer."  (Psalm 32:3-4)  Living self-deception exhausts us.  It drains our spiritual livelihood. Slowly, the reality of our Lord's love and mercy becomes replaced by things such as fear, guilt, and shame.  Our spirits are left feeling wasted and dried up.

Confession can be hard and challenging, but ultimately God leads us into so that we can be free from the sins, hurts, and wrongs that shackle our spiritual lives.  This is why God's hand is sometimes 'heavy upon us', not because God delights in seeing us writhe in guilt-ridden agony, but because God desperately wants us to the experience the full force of liberating love.  After uncovering how the silence about his true spiritual condition is inwardly destructive, David continues: 'Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not cover my iniquity;  I said "I will confess my transgressions to The Lord," and you forgave the iniquity of my sin' (vs. 5).

Confession is important for a life of simplicity because it causes us to look at our spiritual life as it truly is.  After all, how can we live a life of single-hearted focus on God if we are not honest about our struggles or needs.  We cannot have a singleness of heart and hold onto spiritual duplicity.   If we deny the struggles of faith, or the frailty of our lived-out relationship with God, we only deceive ourselves and the truth - the truth of God's full redemption, the truth of who we are before our Lord - is not in us.  Confession does not make God love us, God loves us in every instance and moment, but confession does produce an inner vulnerability that opens us to divine love unhindered by all that we try to hide.

There are several ways that we can incorporate confession into our spiritual lives.  Confession is really is not that hard.  All it takes is a humble honesty about ourselves.  You may choose to obtain a 'confessor,' someone whom you will be honest with, and whom you will accept their words of absolution as divine truth.  This person doesn't have to be a pastor or priest, but it is helpful if they are.  Confessing to someone can be difficult and scary, and you will want to pray about the person you choose as a confessor.  Such a relationship must be mutually established and agreed upon. This is why a priest or pastor is a good option, for they will already be accustomed to things such as accountability, confidentiality, and prayerfulness.  

Of course, you don't have to confess to another human individual.  We can confess directly to our Lord.  In many ways this is a 'safer option',  but therein lies the challenge.  We must work hard at full disclosure.  A good suggestion would be to write your confession down on paper.  There is something deeply moving about writing down 'I judged x' or 'I yelled at y'.  Somehow, seeing it written down helps us understand the reality of these things in our lives. Once you have written down all that you choose to confess, sit with that reality. Don't rush past this too quickly.  Experience the discomfort, the sorrow, the desire for forgiveness.  Pray a simple, uncomplicated prayer, one that asks God forgive you of these matters.  After a certain amount of time you may experience these sins slowly melt away.  In manners which are unique to you, you will feel the truth of forgiveness.  When this happens, it is good to write 'Forgiven' over everything you wrote.  Again, there is something about seeing the word 'Forgiven' stamped over your particular sins that helps us understand the reality of the freedom and redemption that you have been lead into.

Confession, ultimately, is not about our sins.  It is about the love of God and God's desire to forgive.  In confession, this is what we are left with - and this is the experience that surrounds this discipline.