God’s Constitution, Pt 19: Giving
Matthew 6:1-4 1“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Psalm 139:7-10 7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
Matthew 19:23-25 23Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you; it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you; it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 25When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
2Corinthians 9:6-8 6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
There is an idiom in US English that says, “Don’t blow your own horn,” which originates right here in this passage. Back in the day, in Second Temple Jewish practices, giving to the needy had developed an absurdly corrupted theology which said that in giving to charity a man would save himself from death and atone for any sin. Arising from that came the practice of announcing to the world through the blowing of a trumpet that a person had just done so. This is why the disciples were so astonished at Jesus’ teaching that it was very difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In their mind a rich man could buy his way in simply by giving to the poor.
Things are not much different in the 21st Century. It seems many people have a need to be approved of by their peers and so while they don’t blow a trumpet, they do announce their giving in other ways; obtaining desired pew-positions or contributing to grand construction projects at their church are all public announcements.
Jesus is telling us that it shouldn’t be this way because after all God is always with us anyway. Since He knows our thoughts and our insecurities who do we think we are fooling? I have even heard of churches who track the member’s giving and eject a member who fails to give the full ten percent. Why do people do such things? There really only two reasons why we should give to the needy and doing so to get affirmation is not one of them. And notice I’m not talking about tithing. This refers to support of the pastors and priests and is an entirely different discussion.
First, it is because God says to. Every single one of us, no matter what our station, has a friend or acquaintance who has less. God wants our hearts to be looking outward; to help one another. And we should give the most we can and as often as we can. But it is not the actually giving that is important to God; it is the heart condition behind the giving that God sees. If we give to a friend out of a sense of obligation, or if we are ostentatious about it then we are giving really to meet our own needs, not those of the needy. God sees that and there is no credit accrued.
Second, we give because it pleases God. Occasionally I hear people say we should give because of God’s reward. That’s kind of the same thing, isn’t it? In such giving aren’t we really meeting our own need for assurance from God? I know this is a fine point, but let’s give for no other reason than that it pleases God. But this is hard to do. Our flesh gets in the way. And this is the reason for Jesus’ use of the two hands metaphor. The clear sense of the passage is that God wants our heart right: Public giving amounts to little, private giving is everything. But the right hand-left hand metaphor seems incongruous until we consider a thing called muscle memory. A batter doesn’t have to think before hitting the ball, nor does the quarter back think, I do this, then that, then throw. No, when a person becomes so practiced at doing a thing, he or she hardly has to think about it anymore. It’s the same with giving. Jesus wants us so practiced at it that we don’t have to think about it anymore. It becomes who we are.
But I want to be careful here. Some people want to “go over the top” and say doing public acts of righteousness denies them of their ultimate reward. Others say doing righteous things for show is of no value. Neither is right: The truth is in the middle. Giving is always efficacious, but maybe only for the receiver. Public righteousness is good if it draws the eye towards God, but not if it draws the eye to the performer. So, let’s ask ourselves, “Are we sharing of our resources?” And more than that, “Is our heart right with God about giving?” Here’s the thing: All of us who profess the Name want our lives to stand for something and to show the glory of God to the best of our abilities. That means people must be able to see a difference in our lives and from that difference to draw the conclusion that following Jesus is a good thing. The trick is to lift Jesus up but minimize ourselves. Yes, this is difficult, but the reward of pleasing God is great, and He promises to reward in public the things we do in secret. That is a good thing all by itself.