Opus Part 1

I recently read a review for the newest show of a one-man playwright that I like. And the both the concept of the play and reviewers perspective on it stuck me as salient to this journey I’ve been on- exploring the meaning of tithing and worship and the role of money in God’s economy.

(read the review here, if you like)

At the beginning of the show, as the audience takes their seats, they are handed cash. Ones, twenties, fivers, ect. The play (more of a monologue really) and circles around the subject of money and particularly America’s “Faith” in it (almost Worship of it, seems to be the implication). At the end of the show, the audience is informed that the cash in their hand is money from the performers bank account. They are left with a choice, pocket the money or leave it in a bowl on the way out. The reviewer notes that “After all, that dollar has been sitting in my pocket for two hours, and when I put it in the bowl it feels, for a fleeting moment, like I am actually giving up something.”

The pang of loss, surrender even, is I am ashamed to say not that far off from the feeling I get when I click the “Submit” (interesting word play, in this sense) button on my tithing day. It’s ridiculous! It’s not the much, and I intellectually believe that all money I have doesn’t belong to me at all! It ALL belongs to God. It is even more clear in my case because He, and He only, orchestrated getting me my job. The whole reason I have a paycheck at all is because of Him and I’m feeling loss with a measly $200 bucks a month? Is my attachment to money so great?

Why? Why do humans hate giving up, unclenching their hands from money? Mike Daisy, the performer (via the reviewer in this case) had an interesting insight “He illustrates the relationship between money and trust this way: “I don’t buy that. That’s what we say in our culture when we don’t believe something.” I don’t know the direction the author will take it, but for me it drives hard at our sense of control. We Americans, control our sense weakness through money. I love the indestructible feeling I get when I know my paycheck is sitting snugly in my bank. I have this sense that any calamity could come, and I could pay for it. Or I could walk in to a store on a whim and buy something useless, TWO even, and not be concerned with the consequences.

In some sense, we ought have that thrilling, come-hell-or-high-water sense ALL the time. Not because the number in our bank account swells twice a month, but because we have the God of the Universe as our generous Father. A father promising to bless us with life abundant. Someone told recently “We should live, in spontaneous generosity and unharrowed spirit, a like our father is a billionaire” I took that to mean that we are missing the point if we are scraping around for pennies, stressing and striving, when God it like “LOOK UP! I’m your provider!” We are too busy painfully sacrificing, to see that God is sending a Ram in the bushes.

So just what am I implying here? Am I saying to throw caution in the wind, stop worrying about budgets because when things get tight a miraculous check will appear in the mail from our Heavenly Billionair Father?

Honestly. At this point I don’t know. Maybe I am. This has happened before. And as I’m reading through the Old Testament scouring for the roots of tithing that’s pretty much God’s M.O. Manna from Heaven. Total reliance. To the Israelites he wasn’t just talking about spiritual blessing. He was talking about silver and gold and beer and farms they did not build and wells they did not dig, and parties and kids and milk and honey. Wealth. He wanted to make them wealthy. That aesthetic, puritanical Christian part of me is starting to panic. Isn’t the root of all evil is money? I’m confused. Why is God trying to make his people wealthy when He knows the path it takes us to.

I guess you could argue there is a difference between money-rich and wealth. Maybe, and feel free to disagree, that wealthy is when the money itself is inconsequential. In the secular world, maybe wealth is what leads to gold toilets. I don’t know, does that make sense?

To avoid becoming (and this is literally a quote for Deuteronomy) “Tub of Lard” off of all the wealth God was planning on giving them, I’m guessing physically and spiritually, He asked them to tithe. To care for the Levites (the church) the orphans, the widows, the foreigners. To give to anyone who asks, as often and as much as they ask for it, to bring their first fruits to God and give thanks with all their Hearts. And to forsake worshiping Idols.

Idols. Those man made things that gave the Canaanites and Moabites a false sense of security- like they had power and control over their future. Hmm…a lot like that feeling I get on paycheck day.