Hosea 2:8-9
"And did she know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and how lavished on her silver and gold, which they used Baal? Therefore I will take back my grain inits time, and wine in its season, and I will take away my wool and my flax which were to cover her nakedness."
Takor,
First, I confess my deep curiosity of what it means to be a Christian when it comes to money. I have almost visceral reactions to friends and family quantifying their actions by money, and I think less of myself when I do it. Also, with recent looks at Christ and work by Amy Sherman and others, I am curious seeing how God has been relating to our concept of money. I confess that I ended up on this subject, because I struggle with tithing, I needed a word on it I guess.
On to it.
In those two verses, God is in the midst of promising to punish Judah for its sins. Here God is especially angry at their physical worship of other gods because those gods require things, that God gave his beloved people, as payment for their services. It as if they story of the gift of the Maji ends the wife using her hair brushes to buy and sleep with a male prostitute on Christmas day while her (watchless) husband watches in sorrow and pain.
Takor every time you hear a pastor quote "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, 'How have we robbed you? In your tithes and contributions." Micah 3:8, you are hearing the middle of the love story. This story of God redeeming his sickly and dying creation is the story in the midst of which tithes and offering occur. The story always begins with God approaching us in walking through the garden, in a burning bush, in a cloud of smoke in the temple, in the person of Christ, and in the coming Christ. The story always ends in the presence of God.
As you watch the tithes and offering, know that you will never know the whole of what a person gives to God. God requires in return for His love and gifts is steadfast love & knowledge of God (Hosea 6:6), to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). This is what God requires of us.
Tithes and offering fall under a subset of God's desire for justice. This subset is specifically the justice of taking care of those whose labor is to preach the gospel. In Matthew 10:10, Jesus says "for the laborer deserves his food." In context he speaks of those, in 10:7, who go proclaiming, "the kingdom of heaven is at hand." They are to be fed according to their doing that labor. They have a right to that.
Paul sums up that particular cry for justice in 1 Corinthians 9. If one should not muzzle an ox as it works on grain, so one should not make a pastor go hungry who has broken open God's word for God's people. Make no mistake, the offering plate is for the pastor's pocket. If he has labored to proclaim the good news, we as Christians are to feed him accordingly, it is his/her right to receive that.
God requires broken and contrite hearts (Psalm 51:17), steadfast love and knowledge of God (Hosea 6), and to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 3). All of those things will never quite make into accountants ledger. A subset of that justice is to care for those who labor to proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand. We are indebted to his or her needs.
It gives me a little more comfort to know why I might dance to the offering plate on any given Sunday. It gives me great comfort to know what God requires of me. I hope it encourages as you might be called to be a steward over dismal numbers at times. Those numbers were never meant to be a mark of our faith or our faithfulness. They can be proof that we are willing to do justice to the vulnerable in our community.
Amara Chima
