The
Marks of a Steward
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the February 10, 2017 Sabbath School Lesson
“Anyone
who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own
household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 1 Timothy
5:8, NIV
Several decades ago, I learned of a case where an east-coast
child welfare agency had intervened on behalf of neglected children who were
poorly nourished and ill clothed. Deeming that the parents did not have the
means to support the children, the state removed the children from the home and
placed them in foster care where they soon thrived and began to lead normal
lives. The welfare workers, who reviewed the family’s situation to determine what
interventions the parents would need to be able to once again resume parenting,
were surprised to discover that they had adequate means at their disposal to
provide for their children. When asked about it, both father and mother replied
that the money they had was not theirs. Asked if it belonged to a relative,
they replied “No, it belongs to God.” They had a large sum of money set aside
as tithe for their church. When asked why they didn’t use the money to care for
their family, they quoted Malachi 3:10: “Bring
the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test
me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the
floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room
enough to store it.”
Even though they could barely pay the rent and buy a few
groceries, they had been storing up tithe from the father’s paycheck each week
and presenting it to the church once per month, believing that God would “pour
out” an overflowing blessing that would feed and clothe their children. When
that didn’t happen, and they questioned whether or not they should continue,
they were told they did not have enough faith and that if they would only remain
faithful the blessing would come. They were also reminded of Luke 14:26 by
well-meaning church members: “If anyone
comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers
and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” Caught
between a church that presented them with a harsh and demanding God on the one
hand and the needs of their family on the other, they struggled with guilt and
suffered until finally the state intervened when a neighbor filed a child neglect
complaint.
The church often takes the position that everything we
own comes from God and should be returned to God at His demand with the church
being the voice of that demanding God. The tithe, or tenth, being one of those
things that God demands. It is not considered a free-will offering, but something
mandated with any free-will offerings being paid above and beyond that. The concept
comes from the Old Testament where the tithe was paid in order to support the Aaronic
priesthood in their service in the wilderness sanctuary and later, in the
temple. Once the temple was destroyed in 70, C.E., there was no longer a need
for that priesthood. The sacrificial system was to cease when type met antitype
with Jesus death and resurrection. It is not entirely clear how the concept of
tithing entered into the Christian church. Perhaps the idea was brought over by
priests who converted from Judaism, possibly in the same way that they pushed
for circumcision to be a requirement. Paul dealt with the issue of circumcision
in his epistles and with an appeal to the church in Jerusalem to remove that
onerous requirement. However, tithing is not mentioned in Paul’s epistles or
anywhere in the New Testament after the cross. This argues perhaps for it being
a later accretion. A study of the matter would maybe be good fodder for a
doctoral thesis.
How does all of this relate to stewardship? It relates because
church dogma is based on the idea that a steward must be faithful and then too
often proceeds to define faithfulness as placing the church’s demands for
resources above the needs of family. Ostensibly the tithe is to support the
pastoral staff of the church, but this begs the question, at what level? If the
pastor is to be provided financial support at the average level of income for
the congregation, then this means that the expectation is for half of the
congregation to pay for the pastor to live a lifestyle that they themselves
cannot afford. I doubt this was God’s intent. Even in the Old Testament the
demands for resources from the poor was reduced and even Jesus’ parents, when
brought to the temple as a baby, were only required to present the offering of
the poor. This was a system that attempted to introduce some compassion into
the faithfulness asked of the Jews. Unfortunately, it still had its
shortcomings. When the wealthy were the primary supporters of the work, they would
often become arrogant and believe that they therefore owned the work and could
dictate how the congregation should function for their convenience. We see this
even today when members refuse to financially support the church if the voted agenda
does not meet with their approval.
The apostolic church was a more egalitarian organization
with property held in common and distributed according to need.[i] We might call that
socialism today. Some may see in the members’ willingness to surrender
everything an echo of Malachi’s words, but it was not only the sacrifice of the
faithful members that made this system work. It was also the faithfulness of
the church in making sure none were neglected in their needs. For this reason
the church even appointed special leaders to oversee the distributions to those
in need.[ii] This implies that these
men were intimately aware of the needs of the members. Sadly, today, unless the
members are wealthy or influential in the church, it is easy to attend church
for years without anyone from the congregation ever knowing what each member’s
situation might be, other members having never set foot in their homes. Even in
church, if the pastor is talking with a poorer member and a wealthy member
comes up with a request, the pastor will too often leave the poorer member,
perhaps without even so much as “by your leave,” and follow after the wealthy
member who might withhold funds if their whims are not catered to. For all the demands
of faithful stewardship, it would be hard to imagine that wealthy member ever
placing their wealth at the disposal of the common good. Perhaps they would even
consider their poorer brothers and sisters as lazy leeches who failed at life.
But Christ identifies with those “failures.” In “The
Parable of the Sheep and the Goats,”[iii] Jesus reveals that
whatever action we take toward those less fortunate is an action taken toward
Him, and those actions will not be forgotten. Rather, they will receive their appropriate
reward and wealth will not purchase an exemption. Isaiah, chapter 58, echoes a
similar sentiment.[iv]
In spite of what we may have been taught all of our lives, faithful stewardship
is not about how much you sacrifice to feed the coffers of the church. It is
about how you care for the needy, beginning with those of your own household.
It makes no sense to feed every starving orphan around the world, if your own
children are suffering as a result. Every right action, every act of compassion
is a pebble tossed into a pond with ripples that drift far away to every shore.
The compassion we send out into our world close at hand starts a wave of
compassion that can circle the globe and even come back to us. But it is even
better than that, because God can work with that compassion. He can take it and
multiply it many fold. It is like corn planted in the ground. A single corn
kernel is not much to look at. Tiny, dry and shriveled, it doesn’t reveal its
potential at first, but if planted in the ground and nurtured, it will return
more kernels of corn than you can pile into both of your hands.
When God talks about pouring out a blessing perhaps that
is what He means. He isn’t talking about magnificent buildings with padded pews,
wall-to-wall carpets and high-fidelity sound systems. Those things will all be
destroyed one day, perhaps sooner than we think. If we have obtained those
things, and even one member is neglected in their hour of need, those buildings
and the things they contain will cry out against us on the day when we stand
before the throne of judgement, seeking the grace and compassion we could not
be bothered to show others when it mattered. Faithful stewardship is not a
smile, a hug or a handshake on Sabbath morning, although those should not be
neglected. Faithful stewardship is not about how much tithe and offerings we
paid to the church. It is about how we spoke into the lives of the needy,
beginning with our own families and extending that grace to others.
