"TIthing is More Than the Number 10"
A Sermon by Albert C. Winn

"Tithing Is More Than the Number Ten."

My first point is a brief holding action: Let us admit that in the consideration of tithing the number then is inescapable. The very word "tithe" means one-tenth. Long ago Abraham returned from battle laden with booty and met that mysterious figure, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God. In a fit of awe and reverence Abraham gave him one-tenth. Later in the Book of Genesis, when Jacob was striking his bargain with God at the foot of the ladder that led up to heaven, he promised God that if God would take him to Haran and bring him back safely he would give God a tenth of all that he possessed. There is evidence that the notion of God's tenth is found in Egypt, and was indeed widespread over all of the ancient Near East. It is incorporated into law and Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. In the Middle Ages it became the law of the church, and if you did not willingly give your tenth the sheriff would call for it. This is all true, and we will have to deal with it before we are done. But right now I want to put brackets around the number ten and talk with you about certain deep principles that seem to be imbedded in the very idea of tithing. There is more to tithing than the number ten.

The Principle of Regularity

My second point concerns precisely those principles, and I believe there are four of them. First, deeply imbedded in the idea of tithing is the principle of regularity. To tithe is to give regularly, preferably once a week, week in and week out. This takes giving out of the realm of mood. We don't just give when we feel like it, or just when our heartstrings have been plucked by come dramatic and sentimental appeal. We give when the time comes, regardless of our mood. Regularity takes a lot of pain out of giving.

I think we have to be honest about people's pain in giving, about our pain in giving. People who do counseling tell us that we ought to deal with grief. Money is part of your life. Money represents days and hours of sweat and tears. Money is a very part of you, and to part with it is a grief process. It's pain. But a decision to give regularly takes a lot of that pain away. John McMullen, in his very interesting little book, Stewardship Unlimited, says that when we tell people to give until they hurt, we discover that the pain threshold of many people is very low. But by giving regularly you don't have to make a number of painful decisions during the year. As the saying goes, you don't have to cut the dog's tail off an inch at a time. You make one basic decision, and then it's simply a matter of carrying out that decision regularly and systemically.

Regularity also saves us from self-deception. If we give nothing for a time, and then for a heartstring appeal we give a hundred dollars, we deceive ourselves that we are very generous. But if that's divided into two dollars a week, not many of us can claim great generosity from such a gift.

The Principle of Proportionality

Secondly, deeply imbedded in the act of tithing is the principle of proportionality. To tithe is to give in proportion as you have received. And suddenly giving ceases to be a transaction between you and the church treasurer and becomes a transaction between you and God, who gave it all to you in the first place. You start totaling up a church budget and dividing it by the number of giving units in the church to determine "what's my share." That spells bankruptcy for the church and spiritual malnutrition for you. No, you total up your income, your resources, your blessings, in order to determine what share God would have you give. The question is, "What proportion can I return for God's work in order to signify and symbolize and confess before everyone that all I am and all I have comes from God?"

The Principle of Priority

The third principle of tithing is that of priority, for to tithe is to set aside God's share first. God's share comes off the top, not off the bottom. It may seem prudent to take care of all our necessities and then to look around to see if something is left for God; but the tither takes care of Gods share and then looks around to see if something is left for his or her necessities. When you do that it reorganizes your life. All that beautiful language about "God is first, other are second, and I'm third" becomes concrete and actual for the first time.

The Principle of Risk

Regularity, proportionality, priority, and fourthly, deeply imbedded in tithing is the principle of risk. If we actually give God the priority, take God's share off the top, then we begin to life adventurously. Most of us cannot see, in a time of inflation, how we are going to life off 100 percent of our income. If you give five percent away, can you really make it on 95 percent? If you give 15 percent away, can you really make it on 85 percent? That's to begin to life on trust, and it brings a great deal of thrill and excitement into life. The unanimous testimony of all tithers I know is that it's fun.

A couple of summers ago my wife and I took our canoe up to the canadian border and spent two days on 35 miles of almost continuous rapids. We were scared a great many times, and we were exhausted when it was over, but it was so much more fun than paddling 35 miles of calm, flat water.

Sometimes people will tell you that if you give 10 percent, you will get back, plus interest, every time. I don't believe that. It may happen almost everything happens I do not think that tithing is a simple, gilt-edged investment with a 100 percent guarantee. That would take all the risk and fun out of it. You and trust that God will not let you go absolutely bankrupt or starve, but you may have to simplify life, you may have to do without. But a gift that does not reorganize you life and make you step out on faith is hardly a gift at all.

Now, for the Number Ten

Now, the third part of the sermon: I want to come back to what was bracketed out in the first part and talk about the number ten. If you are going to give regularly and proportionately, if you are going to give first and life adventurously on what is left, then what about the number ten? Is 10 percent a floor so that no one who gives less is a Christian? To is 10 percent a ceiling, so that if we make that ceiling we need never give anymore? I'm very interested that the New Testament nowhere lays this 10 percent on us. Jesus talked incessantly about money, but only twice does He mention the tithe. One was to condemn the Pharisees who tithed their herb gardens and neglected justice and mercy and the weightier matters of the law, and the other was to hold up as a horrible example the Pharisee who stood and prayed thus within himself, "God, I thank thee that I am not like other men....I give tithes of all that I get" (Lk. 18:11-12). The publican nearby beat upon his breast and cried, "God, be merciful to me a sinner" (vs. 13). And Jesus said that this man, rather than the other, went down to his house justified. Jesus seems to say that if we take 10 percent as both a floor and a ceiling, if we say no one is righteous who does not give 10 percent and everyone who gives 10 percent is automatically righteous, we breed the worst kind of moral blindness and self-righteousness.

We would expect Paul, that great fund raiser and stewardship preacher, to ring the changes on 10 percent, and he never mentions it even once. What he does mention are precisely the principles that we havefound imbedded in the practice of tithing. He is our text: "On the first day of every week, [give regularly] each one of you is to put something aside and store it up, [God's part comes first] as he may prosper [give proportionately]" (1 Cor. 16:2). And elsewhere he says, "My God will supply every need of yours" [so give with risk] (Phil. 4:19).

In the freedom that Christ gives us we are responsible for fixing our own percentage. God knows that some of us have heavy obligations, children in college, aging parents, or that we may be deeply in debt from a medical catastrophe. And others of us may be relatively freechildren grown and on their own, only ourselves and our retirement to think of. It would be evidently unfair to impose a uniform percentage upon all of us. There are some who can tithe in the sense of giving regularly, proportionately, with priority on God, and at great risk, with a proportion of less than 10 percent. And there are others who will not be tithing in the sense until they give 20 percent, 30 percent, or even more.

Did you ever see a ship launched? There she sits on the dry land, shored up by beams, perfectly safe, looking altogether out of place and utterly useless. Then the beams are removed and the champagne is broken across her bow. And, very slowly at first, but gathering speed and momentum she slides down the ways until she splashers into the water. And there is a sort of a shudder, and she rights herself. The she's afloat. She is where she belongs. She's beautiful and useful, and terribly exciting. That is what happens when a christian, including a minister or a presbytery stewardship chairperson, or synod stewardship chairperson, or staff personwhen a Christian decides to launch our and begin to live by what we have called the deeply imbedded principles of tithing. Of course, I hope we raise the budget next year, the general assembly's budget, the synod's budget, the presbytery's budget, and the local church budget from which all the others come. But that is not a matter of eternal importance. What is eternally important is how many of our people, how many of you this year, will take the risk and move down the ways of their lives untilsplashthey are afloat where they belong, on the broad adventurous ocean of the love and mercy of God.