Stewardship

I got to talk in church today! Here's what I said.

I was a little surprised I was asked to speak about stewardship. This late in life grad school thing has forced me to cut back on a lot of the things I used to do around here. Honestly, I wish I could be more help. Turns out, I wasn’t really asked. Kate volunteered me. As she does a ton of stuff for this church, I’ll let you talk to her about the many ways you might lend a hand. I’ll restrict my comments to the area we hate to talk about: money.

I’m probably risking losing my audience in the first 30 seconds by quoting a judgmental scripture from the Old Testament, but here’s one from Malachi:

Will a man rob God? But you ask “How do we rob you?” In tithes and offerings. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this and see if I don’t throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Now, I believe that Christ has redeemed all my sins: past, present, and future. But, I’m still not going to go so far out on that limb to lie to you from the pulpit and say that I have been 100% faithful in this. But I have been faithful enough to Malachi speaks the truth.

You might think that I am preaching a prosperity gospel: Give to God and get back more! I am not. One of the better uses of my younger years was some missionary work. I saw people, who I would describe as destitute, bringing their tithe to the Lord. They were not blessed with prosperity, and they never would be. But every Sunday they would arrive at 8 and not leave until well into the afternoon. They would sing, shout, and even scream witness to the abundance of their spirit (it was quite exciting). Like Jeremiah, they could not choose to be silent. It was a fire in their bones.

Last week, a co-worker who knew that I was an independent contractor asked me about the tax code for S-Corporations. Apparently, there had been a news story about some rich guy who bragged he hadn’t paid taxes because he was smart. (That joke was better a few days ago; now it’s a little sad.) I told him that if my company lost 900 million dollars, paying my taxes would be the least of my problems, but we did talk about some of the legitimate things you can do through an S-corp to lower your exposure. We also talked about some of the more questionable practices. He asked how far into the grey area of the tax code I was willing to go and I said, “not very.”

This is as much pragmatism as it is virtue; I just don’t need the hassle. By sticking to standard accounting practices, I reduce the chance of a long and costly audit.

God’s “tax code” is a lot simpler than the IRS’s. You can find the complete instructions in the 27^th chapter of the third book of the Law. Really. Furthermore, unless you plan on dedicating one of your barnyard animals to the Lord or want to buy back your offering (even Leviticus has loopholes), the code comes down to a single verse; a sub-paragraph in the IRS parlance. One tenth. Period. The ultimate flat tax.

Perhaps it’s the simplicity that leads us to not take it so seriously. If God really meant this, there’d be forms and tables and paid preparers to make sure you got your best possible refund.

But, no. Apparently, this one was sufficiently important that God ditched the usual allegory and vague symbolic references. If you have ten fingers, you can figure it out. 1040 for Dummies.

Unlike so many Old Testament teachings, Christ didn’t seem to think this one needed a lot of elaboration. I leave you with the entirety of his commentary on it: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”