Tithes, Offerings and Alms

Money, money, money—everybody’s interested in the topic. It’s the grease that oils the wheels that keep the machinery of our society turning.

Buried treasure, pirate loot, mattresses stuffed with cash, casino jackpots, multi-state lottery prizes—these are the stuff dreams are made of. We dream about riches innumerable and wealth untold because we believe riches and wealth will not only solve our problems but make us happy.

Many Christians, and other people of good sense, will say that’s not so; they’ll insist money can’t buy happiness. But when we watch what they do, rather than listen to what they say, we discover a disconnect. Our actions betray our words. No surprise. The love of money, against which St Paul warned us, the desire for money, the trust in money, these are ingrained in us by the society in which we live. These entice us from the Gospel.

So the Church applies her remedies. Some of us take vows of poverty, become poor for the Gospel’s sake. Most of us don’t. We have other obligations, some sacred—as to our families—and some secular. But all Christians are called from the love and desire and hankering after money, and each of us—Bishop, Priest, Deacon, little old lady in the pew, big businessman on the Vestry, Sunday School teacher, choirboy and Sunday School student—has to come to terms with that hankering and what that means in our life. We all face the temptation to love and desire and trust money.

Like every other temptation, we have to resist it to grow in the Spirit we’ve been given, to become spiritual adults.

How? What do we do?

Please buckle your seat belt.

Some of us choose complete poverty. Like St Francis of Assisi, they “embrace” poverty as a mistress. That’s not for us all. But embracing some poverty is for us all. I know this is probably as close as it’s possible to come to being a social heretic, but nonetheless, it’s the call of the Gospel of Jesus.

We’re not to put our faith and trust in our money, or power, or connections, or beauty, or knowledge (not even in our books!), but in Jesus, the Son of Mary the Virgin of Galilee.

So what do we do? We give some of our money away. We don’t give it away so we’ll get more—sort of “investing with God”—but so we won’t have so much. What we give needs to be planned, as with so much else in our spiritual lives—receiving the Sacraments regularly, coming to Church on Sunday, saying our daily prayers—if we hope to actually grow in grace.

So the Church has a plan for not having so much. She calls on us to give a selected portion of our incomes away. The old Anglo-Saxon word is “tithe”—a tenth. Yeah, that’s a lot. Especially if you love and trust in what that tenth could buy you. That’s just why we should give it away.

There are other words, too, for what we give away. “Offerings” aren’t tithes but gifts made from our abundance. We offer something in thanksgiving for what we’ve received, a way of sanctifying the blessings God has given us. When we have a windfall, we should make an offering to God. “Alms” are something else, something we give for pity’s sake, to the poor and suffering. Our offerings and alms are not our tithes, but gifts above and beyond them.

Money isn’t evil, anymore than is a flashy car or a new house or that beautiful fifteenth-century hand-copied version of Cicero’s De Amicitia on permanent display at the Huntington Library. But putting any of these things in the center of our heart and mind, trusting in them, is, for the Christian, idolatry. And we are a people, in this world, who are at war with idolatry. In our arsenal, along with charity and mercy, prayer and the Sacraments, are tithes, offerings and alms.—Fr Gregory Wilcox