Introduction

Everybody has to make decisions about how we're going to deal with money. There are a couple scholars named who talk about two metaphors for the role money plays in our lives. Money, they say, is a tool and a drug.

For a long time economists thought of money only as a tool. We value money because it's useful. It lets us pay the bills, keep the lights on, stay fed, get work done, and so on. We see this use in Jesus' parable of the talents, in which the master gives his servants a certain amount of money and then says to them, "Put this money to work until I come back."

The tool theory of money left odd questions unanswered like these: Why is it that people who are already rolling in money want to have more? Why will a person with more than enough money make sacrifices that may damage friendships or family life or emotional health just to get more money?

I don't have a deep, emotional attachment to my tools. In fact, I don't have tools. Nancy will tell you. She'll ask me, "Wouldn't you feel better if we had a hammer or a pair of pliers around the house?" I'll explain, "I don't want to run the risk of developing a deep, emotional attachment to a tool."

Money is a tool, but it's also a drug. Money makes us feel things we would not otherwise feel. It gives us a temporary escape from pain or a momentary illusion of wellbeing. We crave money because we want the buzz. The biblical writers knew all about this dimension of money. The apostle Paul wrote, "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction." Just replace "get rich" with the phrase "get artificially relaxed with alcohol or drugs," and the parallel is amazing.

Money is a tool and money is a drug. Or in biblical language, money is a servant and money is an idol. Are you using money as a tool for the owner (God), or are you using money as a drug for yourself? Are you storing up treasures in heaven, or are you storing up treasures on earth as if in a vault? Money is a great tool, but it's a lethal drug. Wouldn't it be great if we could get free from using money as a drug and use it as a tool for God?

God actually created a great vehicle to free people from money as a drug: it's called tithing. A lot of people are very fuzzy on the concept. So to start with, tithe is a word that, in both Hebrew and Greek, means "tenth." It means to give a tenth of something. I say this because sometimes people are a little loose with the definition and may say something like, "I tithe $10 a week." For the math challenged among us, the only way you could tithe $10 a week is if you made $100 a week.

However, tithing in the Old Testament involved more than just 10 percent. For Israel, tithing was only one part of a very rich, fascinating, concrete, practical way of life designed to produce not mechanical obedience, but a community of great generosity.

So in these next few moments we're going to take a crash course on God's way of generosity for Israel, and we're going to ask God to create a way of generosity for our day so we can live with money as a tool and not as a drug.

Tithing generosity

Israel did not have just one tithe; they actually had three different tithes. What came to be called the first tithe is described in the Old Testament book of Numbers. God says, "I give to the Levites all the tithes in Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the tent of meeting."

When Israel occupied the Promised Land, all the tribes of Israel got land except for the tribe of Levi, which would serve in worship. It was a land-based economy, so the other Israelites were to tithe to God, and that would help support the Levites to make worship possible.

Then a second tithe is talked about in the book of Deuteronomy:

Set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.

This tithe was to be used in worship and celebration. If possible, it was to be taken to Jerusalem. That means it would help support the temple.

This second tithe would teach people to celebrate God's goodness. God says in Deuteronomy 14:26, "Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice." That's a passage we never heard in the Baptist church where I grew up.

I know some of you are thinking, So if I buy alcohol, does it count as tithing? The short answer is no, but God wants people to connect giving and generosity with celebration and joy. Paul says later on, "Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

I'll tell you what should not motivate giving. Take a look at this video clip:

Kevin Kim [associate pastor]: Hi. This week we want to talk about generosity. Point one, you better tithe. Any questions?

[End of video]

I'm not necessarily recommending this, but just to connect giving and joy I love to eat. Six days of the week, I eat carefully. But on Sunday I eat for joy. Sunday morning I get up at 5:00. I put a gallon of peanut butter and honey on a bagel. I'll eat a pastry with that. For lunch I go to The Cheesecake Factory, one of the great proofs of the existence of God in the world. I will have a hamburger, often a cheeseburger, and French fries. I eat bread and butter and chocolate chip cheesecake with chocolate ice cream and extra hot fudge. Then I have pizza at night.

Sunday I worship. Sunday I give. Sunday I serve. Sunday I eat. Sunday is my favorite day, a great day of celebration. What do you need to do to connect giving and serving with joy and celebration?

You might want to start by walking around the church campus and looking at children being taught to love Jesus. Go see friends meeting friends who share their lives. Watch people learn about the Bible and apply its teaching. Go online and see stories from Compassion Weekend. There are stories about high school students washing the feet of homeless folks, lives being changed. Think to yourself, My giving to God helps make all that happen.

People sometimes wonder, Should my tithe go to the church or to other not-for-profits? There is no formula about this. Tithing is not mechanical. Nancy and my practice has always been to give the first 10 percent to whatever church we're a part of, and then to give over and above that, some to that church, but also to other places like Fuller Seminary and World Vision.

In Israel there was a third tithe called the poor tithe. It was collected once every three years so that, "The foreigners (or immigrants), the fatherless, and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the works of your hands." So there were three tithes. It's not exactly clear during which years each was collected, but by tithing, Israelites gave somewhere between 20 and 23 percent of their resources to God.

Any time I talk about tithing, the number one question is always, Should I tithe on the net or the gross? I always answer, "It depends on whether you want God to bless the net or the gross in your life." An awful lot of us, like Israel, can give far more than 10 percent. That's a baseline for a lot of us. It's a floor, not a ceiling.

But just to be clear, if you are a follower of Jesus but you are not tithing yet, do it. If your finances are a mess right now, take time. Be wise. Be prudent. Grow one percent in your giving at a time. But decide to obey God with your finances. Israel did this, but tithing was not their only form of generosity.

Firstfruits generosity

God said, "Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil to the house of the LORD your God." In Israel they lived day to day, year to year. If the ground didn't produce crops, they would die. So when they saw the earliest plants with fruit appearing, they were filled with gratitude. It meant a whole crop was going to follow, and that meant life. So in Israel farmers would tie a reed to the best, healthiest, first plants and say, "I'm going to give that to God. God gave it to me, so I'm going to give it back to him."

The celebration of firstfruits brought so much joy that people would have parades to bring them to the temple. They had an ox with a crown of olive leaves and somebody playing the flute to lead the way so they could give. The priest would take the basket in which people brought their firstfruits. The rich would bring a basket of silver or gold; the poor would bring a basket of willow. Then they would set it down before the Lord.

God says,

Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: "My father [Abraham] was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation … and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that you, LORD, have given me." Place the basket before the LORD your God and bow down before him. Then you and the Levites and the foreigners residing among you shall rejoice in all the good things the LORD your God has given to you and your household.

Reciting those words was one of the highlights of life. In fact, rabbis would have big debates about who was allowed to recite those words: "'My father was a wandering Aramean,' but I don't wander. Got has been so good to me."

I'll tell you how deeply this practice of firstfruits giving was ingrained. The apostle Paul was trying to find a way to express the fact that God would give Jesus on our behalf. Paul says, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." Jesus is God's firstfruit. God tied a reed around him. He is the best God had to give. When Jesus came to life in the tomb, when he was crucified for our forgiveness and then resurrected for our hope, it meant a whole crop of humanity was going to follow. This idea of giving as firstfruits can help change money from a drug to a tool.

The opposite way of handling my money might be called lastfruits: when I get my paycheck, I pay for all my bills, all my obligations, all my spending, and then I wait until the end of the month to see how much money I have left to give. How much is that? Usually not much. Israel said, "I'm not going to give God the leftovers. I'm going to give him firstfruits."

Here is what this looks like for us. I still pay bills the old-fashioned way with a checkbook. Anybody remember checkbooks? The first check I write—I did this just this week—is the tithe check. I have a little practice. Every time I write out that check I pause and I thank God for all the resources we have. I thank him for all I get to give.

Maybe you do most of your financial work online. You can do online giving if that will help you cement it. Every few weeks when you review where you are financially and you see that tithe transaction, just stop. Thank God. Tell him you want him to be first in your financial life.

Harvest generosity

In an agricultural economy, harvest time is like pay day. So God filled it with reminders to be generous. God said, "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest …. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner."

All along the borders of your field (the vast majority of people were farmers) you would leave crops on the trees. In that day it was like leaving money outside so the poor could have it. We see this reflected in the New Testament. One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as his disciples walked along they began to pick some heads of grain.

They get in trouble with religious leaders for doing this on the Sabbath, but what don't they get in trouble for? What would you expect if you're in somebody else's field, taking their crop? It's like stealing. But they don't get in trouble for stealing, because in that day the farmer would leave crops near the road, near a pathway, so the poor could eat them. That's what Jesus' disciples were eating. By the way, what does that tell us about the financial status of Jesus and his little band?

The normal prayer for food that rabbis taught was, "Bless to us, Lord our God, this year to our benefit with all kinds of produce." Rabbis would teach what were called 18 benedictions or blessings. Devout Israelites would pray them every day. Disciples would ask their rabbi for their own version of the 18 blessings. This was the standard one for food.

For the farmer, the food cycle was a year long. For the local poor (the Bible writes about poor who live in your town), you would provide a week's worth of food, so they don't have to come asking every day. But for the poorest of the poor, for an itinerant beggar who traveled from one place to another, you would give only enough bread for one day. So most people would have an annual food cycle, local poor would have a weekly food cycle, and the poorest of the poor would ask only for their daily bread.

One day the disciples asked Jesus, "Teach us to pray. What are the blessings you would have us pray for?" So he taught them the Lord's Prayer. It has this odd phrase in it: "Give us this day our daily bread"? Most likely, Jesus is identifying with the poorest of the poor who lived from one day to the next. Part of why the early church honored the poor so strikingly is because of Jesus. Paul says, "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor." So they would honor the poor.

Harvest generosity also meant that you didn't harvest defective crops. Rabbis described what counted as a defective crop. If a cluster of grapes lost a bunch of grapes so it didn't have the shape of a regular bunch, then you didn't harvest it. You left them for the poor. Also, if fruit dropped on the ground during harvesting, you didn't bend over and pick it up. You left it for the poor.

Also, if you forgot to bring your crops in, God says, "When you are harvesting … and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow." Those phrases occur over and over. And the Bible also gives this promise: "so that the LORD your God may bless you."

We see this application in the story of Ruth. Ruth says to Naomi, "Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor." Ruth, one of the poor who had to live on leftovers, the forgotten sheaves, is listed as an ancestor of Jesus who identified with the poor.

Israel, at least when their hearts were working right, didn't complain about these practices. They didn't whine about them. They gloried in them.

The rabbis told one story about a man who realized he had forgotten a sheaf of wheat in his field. When he found out he had forgotten a sheaf of wheat, he told his son to go and sacrifice two young bulls as a burnt offering. One of them was to be a peace offering. That would be enough to feed an entire village. In our day, that would be like a farmer getting rid of two tractors.

The son asked his dad, "Why are you so excited that you forgot a sheaf in the field?" His dad said, "This is the only commandment in all the Torah you can't deliberately fulfill because you cannot forget something on purpose."

What a wonderful thing the dad said: "It's such a good thing to obey God. I didn't know if I'd ever get to do this one, but now I forgot this sheaf and I did it by accident. So let's celebrate. God can turn a bad memory into a spiritual gift." If you make money a tool for God and not a drug for yourself, not only will you give systematically, but sometimes you'll give spontaneously. You'll obey God by accident.

Years ago I was with a friend in Georgia at the Waffle House. We don't have many of those in California, which is really sad because Waffle House is a cool place. You can get breakfast there dirt cheap. I was there with my friend, and I reached into my wallet. Normally, I don't ever carry big bills, but for some reason all I had was a big bill.

I will call the woman who was waiting on us "Shirley." She was probably in her 70s, and it looked like had had a hard life. I was so convicted by how often I don't even notice somebody like that. I just look past them. I just kind of treat them like I'm there to be served. Then this thought came: Just leave the big bill and walk out. I got so much joy out of that that every time I go back to visit my friend in Georgia (and I do that on a regular basis), we'll go to Waffle House, and I will bring a big bill for Shirley.

Every once in a while when you forget a sheaf, just leave it. Every once in a while just leave somebody who needs it a big tip. Every once in a while when somebody standing on a corner asks you for money, just give it to them. Every once in a while when you get a letter from World Vision or International Justice Mission, go ahead and send them a check. Every once in a while when some money comes your way and you weren't expecting it, just pass it along to somebody else. That's harvest generosity.

Offerings generosity

There are long passages in the Old Testament about offerings and sacrifices. In Leviticus the writer, summing up a long, long passage, says, "These, then, are the regulations for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the ordination offering and the fellowship offering."

The passages on the offerings in the Old Testament are incredibly detailed, elaborate, and complex—not at all simple and straightforward like our own tax code. That's a little tax humor. In that culture food was money, so a voluntary peace offering, for instance, might be enough to feed an entire village.

So much joy was attached to it that part of it was called the wave offering. Anybody want to guess what they did with the wave offering? They would literally wave it, just pick it up and wave it before God. It was a way of saying, "I have been blessed. This isn't really mine. God, this is a tool for your work."

So just for the fun of it, let's try it for a moment. If you don't mind, everybody take out a wallet. Right now I want you to reach into your pocket or your purse. Pull out your wallet, your checkbook, some money, or a credit card. Hold it up and wave it around. [Pause while people pull something from their wallet and purse and wave it around.]

Now give it to the person next to you, and let's take an offering. Just kidding. Actually you can go ahead and put it away.

I'll give you an example of a modern-day voluntary offering. A man was giving a large gift to a non-profit organization. He told the non-profit exec, "Do you want to know why I'm doing this?" The exec figured it would be about supporting their cause. Instead, the man said, "I want to buy a nice car. A really nice car. I asked my wife if she was okay with it. She thought about it and said she was okay with it if I made a matching contribution to her favorite charity, and that's you. So that's why I'm doing this."

The guy wrote me later, and said, "What if we all put a 100 percent self-imposed tax on luxury items? We could still buy them, but when we did we also would give the same amount to God's work." Sometimes we might decide we could do with less. Sometimes we might decide to go ahead with the purchase, but then we could also do some good in the world.

Sabbath generosity

Sabbath was a big part of Israel's life. Every seventh day they would voluntarily give up income they could have made by resting and trusting God. Every seventh year was to be a Sabbath year. They would rest the land. Whatever food had been produced got shared. They would free all slaves. Not just that—this is unprecedented in the ancient world—they would give their freed slaves money so they could make a living. They would forgive all debts.

Then, after seven Sabbath years, after 49 years, every 50th year was to be a year of Jubilee. Not only would they free slaves and forgive debts, all the land would go back to its original owners. The year of Jubilee was a year of unbelievable generosity. In fact, when Jesus began his ministry (this is in Luke 4), he said he had come to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee, the year of generosity. Jesus says, "Now in my coming, the Jubilee year, the best gift of all time has been given because the biggest giver in the universe is God. God has given us all we have. He has given us Jesus, the best he has, to die for our sin and to redeem us."

Conclusion

How could I ever do anything with my resources but surrender them to him? Jesus would love it. It would be amazing for the Bay Area and for our church to help get money out of the drug category and into the tool category. God, may it be so.

John Ortberg is pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California.