Did you think that tithing was for Protestants who didn’t know that new covenant abolished old and so did away with the need to give a tenth our income to others? I did until recently. Here is a letter we received from our pastor, Fr Sebastian Carnazzo at St Elias Melkite Catholic Church. He sent this letter out to the parish prior to Lent in order to help us focus on the coming season. This is a challenging letter for me, I admit it!
Dear St. Elias Faithful,
It is that time of year again. Yes, the Great Fast is right around the corner. This is the period in which we try to work a little harder on our spiritual calisthenics: Prayer, Fasting, and Alms-giving. I have spoken to you many times about the value of prayer and fasting, you probably have my sermons on these subjects memorized to the point that you could give them yourselves, but I have not talked much about alms-giving, particularly tithing.
The word "tithe" is old English for "tenth." In the English translations of the Old Testament we read about the commandment by God for the Israelites to tithe, that is, give a tenth, of their first fruits of the land and first born of their livestock. That was an agrarian society. They were all farmers of the fields or shepherds of the flocks. But why would God ask for such a sacrifice?
The first time we hear about anything like this in salvation history is in the story of Cain and Abel (Gen 4). Notice in the story that God does not command them to sacrifice but they do it out of their own volition. It is part of their human nature. We all have this inner feeling as part of our hard-wiring, to use a modern expression. But what happens in this story? Strangely, God rejects Cain's offering and accepts Abel's. Why? Sometimes people will read the story quickly and conclude that it has to do with the fact that Cain offered fruit of the soil, plants, while Abel offered animals. Well, I suppose if you were dealing with a pagan god that might be a possible interpretation. Who wouldn't prefer barbecued beef to barbecued barley? But we are not dealing with a pagan god.
The God who created the universe is immutable. He does not change. So, we can forget any ideas of feeding God, making him happy by offering him the right types of things, etc. The only one who can change in the offering of a sacrifice to the one true God is the one who offers. We are mutable, we can change. Cain offered "an" offering of the soil. Abel offered "the firstlings" of his flock. Cain offered some of his produce, some of what he had. But why? Does God need it? Apparently Cain thought he ought to share a bit with God, to keep him well fed and happy. Abel did something else.
Abel offered from the firstlings. When you have harvested your grain and look at all of it in the barn, then take a scoop and offer it to God as a sacrifice you are doing nothing. You have great abundance What is the point? Do you think you will change God? Cain did. Abel, on the other hand, saw his ewes beginning to lamb and as soon as that happened, offered them, the firstlings, before there were any secondlings, thirdlings, etc.! Get the picture? One of them offered from his abundance the other offered from what little he had. Jesus commented on a similar situation. Many people came to drop big bags of gold and silver into the treasury of the temple. Then a poor woman came and dropped in a few pennies. Jesus told his disciples that she had given more than the rest. How can this be? Because the gift does not change God, it changes the giver. Like Cain, most of these people gave out of their abundance, but she, like Abel, gave out of her need. Those who gave from their abundance were not affected by their giving, but she who gave out of her need was changed more than the rest (Mark 12:41-44, Luke 21:1-4).
Later on in Salvation History, long after the time of Cain and Abel, God get's a bit more specific with his people. He tells them that the basic minimum of a gift that might have a chance to change the giver is 10%. If you have ever read the book of Leviticus you know how detailed God can get in his commandments. Any parents reading what I am writing right now understand quite well how this works. Sometimes, when the kids get extremely difficult, like the hardheaded and stiff-necked Israelites, the parents have to get extremely detailed in what is the bare minimum of what must be done. In the end, it's pretty simple. Giving the first 10% of ones income, the first 10% of ones paycheck, the first 10% of whatever is not easy and that's the point. If it's not easy then we are talking about change, we are talking about exercise, we are talking about spiritual calisthenics, we are talking about growth, growing into what we were created to be, the image and likeness of God, God's children.
What did God do to encourage his children in this regard? He spoke to them like a father encouraging his child to do their very best, like a coach encouraging his team player to do everything he was trained to do. At one point he even says, "Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing" (Mal 3:10).
When we offer to God what we have, our hands are now empty and our arms are open wide to receive what he has. We have now turned toward our Father, oriented ourselves toward our source of light, life, and joy. It is only then that we realize what we have, that our hands are already full, our arms are already weighed down with God's bounty. It is only then that we suddenly realize who God is and who we are and the purpose of our creation, the purpose of our life, the fulfillment of our deepest desires.
But Fr. Sebastian, that was the Old Testament! We are in the New! That stuff doesn't apply to us! Well, you are right. We have a new law, the new covenant in Jesus. But do you know what the difference is? Read Matthew chapter 5, where Jesus make a comparison of the old and the new law. Jesus tells the Jews that while they had heard from Moses that they should not kill, Jesus says they should not even be angry with their brother. Jesus tells the Jews that while they had heard from Moses that they should not commit adultery, Jesus says they should not even lust after a woman. I could go on but I think you get the picture. We are called in the new covenant to something higher than the old. We are asked to take off the training wheels and start riding a race. We are asked to stop being like children who do not know the ways of their Father and grow up into his image and likeness. So I ask you, if they heard from Moses that they should give 10%, the first 10%, what do you think we are called to do? What did Jesus do?
I tell you these things for two reasons. First, as your spiritual father I am obligated to make sure you know the things you should know to grow as God wants you to grow. I will be accountable on judgment day for what I have and haven't done and what I have and have not said, especially in regards to his flock over which he has put me. I also tell you these things because St. Elias needs you. We are a very small parish but we can do great things if all of us are working toward the same goal, to spread the Gospel of the Kingdom in the community where God has planted us. In order to do that we are eventually going to need to buy a church, with a school, and a hall, or we are going to have to build these things on a piece of land. Will you help me do that? Leila and I have been donating well above 10% of our income to St. Elias since I came five years ago. I tell you these things to encourage you. I don't have much to give but if we all give together we will have more than we need to accomplish our goal.
When I was young there was a period in our family in which we did not have much. My mother worked in the packing sheds with illegal alien migrant workers, we lived on food stamps and welfare checks. Things got thin. At the extreme end of the period we lived in a house with no furniture except an old couch from the thrift store, a borrowed dinner table, a old rented refrigerator, and one bed. My father got the bed so he could sleep and go to work. The rest of us slept on the ground in sleeping bags. Around that time my father began to tithe. I didn't understand it at that time. I thought he was crazy. He explained to us kids that if he didn't tithe we would never have enough. So we tithed. We tithed each month on what little we had from the moment that paycheck arrived.
You know what happened? Slowly, very slowly, light the sun beginning to rise at dawn, like the darkness chased away by the light, we had enough. Then we had more than enough. God opened the doors of heaven for us and poured down an overflowing blessing. Why? Well, we had not changed God, we had changed, we had oriented ourselves toward him. We began to become a little less like Cain and a bit more like Abel. It's like standing in the cold of the dawn and turning toward the rising sun. The sun doesn't do anything differently, it is always shining, but the one who turns toward it's light begins to be warmed. I can tell you that God has continued to shine in my life since that day until now in ways that I cannot explain in this email that is already too long.
This Great Fast, don't just fast, don't just pray, but also begin to give alms. Tithe or if you are able, give more than just 10%. Help us at St. Elias become what we were created to be, help St. Elias grow up to become a great conduit through which God will shed his grace, shine his light, and harvest a great bounty for the Kingdom! We'll talk more about this in the next few weeks. For now, please start to pray about it and begin to talk to your family about it. If you remember nothing else from this email remember this. It's for your own good. God doesn't need you. You need God. God doesn't need your sacrifice, you do!
May God bless you.
The only tithes I had associated with Catholic society were those of pre-Reformation England. A serf paid to the lord of the manor one-tenth of his produce in exchange for rights to farm a strip of land. Even barns of that time put the churches of today to shame for their beauty and elegance. I don’t know if they paid a tithe to the Church as well, or if that was the obligation of the lord of the manor. I am guessing that this is a part of the process by which a whole community gathers 10% of its produce in order to make a sacrifice for God. All are contributing and this is is a storehouse that separates produce for personal use, perhaps. Certainly, the beauty and design of the building seem intended to suggest a noble and sacred mission as part of what is going on. No doubt the stewards o this were not always pure as the driven snow, but we can’t assume they were all bad either. I see no reason that there would have been any less waste or corruption that is generally associated with the government taxation system today. And, it seems that wheat and vegetables would have been appropriate for God in this age, as in Cain’s day!
Medieval barn, Great Coxwell, Oxfordshire.
The interior of the same barn.
And the construction of the roof.
