We know that Jesus’ grand entrance into Jerusalem was followed by the events of holy week, leading ultimately to his crucifixion, his execution on the cross. The cross, the Roman method of execution for those who were a threat to the crown of Caesar, has become central to the Christian faith.
In the early years of Christianity, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “I resolve to preach nothing among you except Christ crucified.” The story of Jesus’ final week takes up a major portion of the gospels, and it is anticipated early in each gospel. The point is that you won’t understand the story of Jesus unless you see that it ends in crucifixion by the Roman authorities.
Last weekend, at Chapman University, Marcus Borg talked some about the crucifixion. He mentioned that there are different ways that the crucifixion has been interpreted over the years.
One way it has been interpreted is to say that the crucifixion discloses the moral bankruptcy of those who held power: they killed Jesus.
Another way it has been interpreted is to say that the crucifixion reveals or embodies “the Way,” the path of transformation. “The Way” is a path of dying and rising.
A third interpretation says that the crucifixion reveals the depth of God’s love for the world.
And the fourth way to interpret it is as a sacrifice.
Marcus Borg pointed out that most Christians, when they hear the word “sacrifice,” they think of it as a substitutionary sacrifice. Jesus is the “substitute” for us, dying to pay the price of our sins. However, this idea, that Jesus is the substitute, does not appear in scripture. Forgiveness of sins is mentioned in scripture so many times without there being a connection between that forgiveness and the cross.
No, this idea developed much later: in the year 1097, to be precise, when it was introduced by an archbishop of Canterbury named Anselm. For the first thousand years of Christianity, the idea that Jesus died in our place, as a substitute to appease God, did not exist.
If this idea is new or surprising or shocking to you, please keep that in mind: it was not a part of Christian belief for the first 1,000 years of Christianity.
When you stop and think about it, the idea that Jesus had to die for our sins, that this was necessary in order to “pay the price,” says something quite horrible about God. What kind of a god requires death as a payment?
Scripture does speak of Jesus’ death as a sacrifice. But “sacrifice” does not necessarily mean substitutionary sacrifice. The word sacrifice more often means to make something sacred by offering it to God. God did not require Jesus to die for anyone’s sins; however, Jesus was willing to die, Jesus was willing to make a gift of his life to God, because of his love for the world.
Marcus Borg compared this to the deaths of Oscar Romero, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Martin Luther King, Jr. These men were killed because of their passion and their love for their people; but they did not die “in their place.” They gave their lives in love. God did not require them to die for the sins of others.
What Borg was saying – the ideas he presented – were not new to me. I’ve studied enough church history and read enough by Borg and other scholars to be familiar with different ways of understanding the cross. And this new way of understanding the cross – which really is the ancient way of understanding the cross – makes sense to me. It makes sense, because I never have been comfortable with a God who insists that someone has to die. I’ve never been comfortable with what evangelical author Dallas Willard refers to as “vampire Christians,” Christians who are interested in Jesus for his blood but little else.
But a Jesus who gives his life out of love for his people, that makes sense. A faith that calls me to follow Jesus on the path of discipleship, to give my life in service to God and others, to love others, to make a sacred offering of my life by the way I live – that makes sense.
And as Borg continued lecturing, I thought of tithing. Tithing as a sacred offering. Tithing as an act of love. Tithing as a sacrifice that honors the sacrifice of love Jesus made on the cross.
Most Christians know that tithing is giving ten percent of one’s income to God. It is a standard that is set several places in scripture. It is a part of the torah, the teachings of God that tradition says was given through Moses. It is mentioned by the prophets, including Malachai. For Jesus, it was a given, although he did criticize those who gave their tithes in an effort to justify themselves, rather than as a sacrifice of love.
I recognize that it is bold, presumptuous, and perhaps even misleading for me to preach about tithing. To preach on tithing requires, I think, a disclaimer of sorts, a confession, really, because my life does not present a very good record of tithing. I think I’ve told some of you before that I feel like the man who went to his pastor to complain about how hard it is for him to tithe.
He said: “Pastor, when I was making $50 every week, I faithfully gave 5 of it to the church. And when that went up to $500 a week, I faithfully gave $50 every week. But now I’m doing really well, earning $5000 dollars every week, and I just can’t bring myself to put $500 in the offering plate every Sunday. Will you pray for me?”
The pastor then bows his head and says, “Lord, please bring this man’s income back down to $50 a week so that he can tithe.”
However, the more I learn about tithing, the more I learn that it is not merely a way to support the work of the church, but a spiritual discipline – one of the ancient practices – that draws one closer to God. Tithing is, as author Randy Alcorn says, a set of training wheels for Christians who want to become serious about their giving. It provides training for learning how to live fully in the kingdom.
I used to think of giving as something that was painful to do. The more I gave, the more it would hurt. Sometimes that was even part of the spiel: “give until it hurts.” For some reason, that spiel never really motivated me much. I didn’t want to give until it hurt. I wanted to give, but I didn’t want to hurt. So I gave a little.
And sometimes, part of the spiel would use the word sacrifice. Giving to God is a sacrifice. Presenting your tithe is a sacrifice. And sacrifices are painful, but that’s what God calls you to.
And I’d think: wait a minute. God calls me to pain?
And they’d say: think of the sacrifice Jesus made. Think of the pain he endured. Think of how much more pain you would be in if he hadn’t taken your place upon the cross.
Ah! I’d think. And I’d put an extra dollar in the plate. And I would feel, well, maybe not pain, but disappointment certainly. Disappointment that the sacrifice I’d made meant less money for me; but even more so, disappointment that it really did hurt a little to give.
I felt as if I was missing something. I heard people talk about the joy of giving. I learned in seminary how important it is to include the offering as an act of worship, that it was, in fact, a holy act. But giving to God never felt holy to me.
Then I started meeting and reading about people who were joyful givers. I started meeting and reading about real people who were committed to tithing. Yes, they really did give a full ten percent to God, and they did it without quibbling over whether it was ten percent of their gross income or net income, whether that ten percent should include the money that Uncle Sam claimed. These are people who believed that that ten percent wasn’t even theirs to begin with; it was God’s. They gave their ten percent to God, and didn’t even consider it an offering. The offering was what they gave on top of that ten percent. It’s not an offering if you give to God what belongs to God.
The most amazing thing, though, is that these people were happy people. Their lives were filled with joy, and they had a sense of God’s blessings that came to them as a result of tithing.
Then one day, someone pointed out to me that, in Malachai, we are invited to test God in regards to tithing. What? Test God? Isn’t that wrong?
No; look what God says in Malachai: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.”
Having not ever been one to jump into something new with both feet, I decided to gradually work toward giving more, and maybe even one day be someone who does tithe a full ten percent. I did not want to be one who gave until it hurt; I wanted to give until it felt good. I wanted to give until I was no longer left disappointed.
I’m still working on it. God is still working with me on it. As the saying goes, “God ain’t done with me yet!” But I have now discovered that I can give and feel good about it. Giving feels good! It feels good because it is no longer a sacrifice that hurts; now it is a sacrifice, a sacred offering, borne out of my love for God and my church. It is a sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise for what God has done for me.
And here’s the weirdest thing: the more I give, the less I worry about money in my own life. When it comes to money, I am a worrier. To be honest, worrying about money is, for me, a bigger problem than money itself. And there have been times when I’ve held back or limited the amount I gave because I was worried about money. But – strange though it may seem – I just ended up worrying more.
But when I did not withhold the money that I had pledged to God, when I increased my giving, when I gave a little extra, the worry seemed to go away. I can explain a lot about scripture and the Bible and the Christian faith, but that I cannot explain. It seems counter-intuitive to what I would expect.
When I read this week about someone who decided to increase the amount they gave to the church for one year to 20 percent, I thought, “How can they do that?” And they thought the same thing, but they tried it anyway, with a bit of nervousness; and in the end they reported that it turned out great. Even more blessings came to them as they gave more to God. Their conclusion? You can’t outgive God.
I’m learning to feel better about tithing and giving to God. I’m learning to think of it less and less as a sacrifice of pain and more and more as a sacrifice of love, a sacred offering – just as I’m learning to think of the crucifixion less and less as a substitutionary sacrifice to appease an angry God, and more and more as a sacrifice of love, a sacred offering. There are still times when I find myself giving until it hurts, but the hurt comes from recognizing how little faith I have in the God of abundance. More often, though, as my faith grows day by day, I am learning to accept the blessings that come from giving until it feels good.
1 comment:
Thank you.
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