This Sunday, October 30, members and friends of St. John’s will be invited to make a pledge to support the mission and ministries of the parish in 2017. As in the past, those who pledge are encouraged to move toward offering God a tithe of their income. What do we mean by this word tithe?

The word has its roots in the practices of ancient Israel, and of some other cultures of the Near East. We hear references in the Hebrew scriptures to the offering of one tenth of one’s income or of one’s produce as an act of gratitude. We are told in Leviticus, for example, that “All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s; they are holy to the Lord.” (Lev. 27:30)

By the time of Jesus, a tithe was considered an appropriate offering to the temple (and like every other act of devotion, it could be offered in way that led to arrogance and self justification – as we heard in last Sunday’s gospel lesson about the Pharisee and the tax collector).

Over the centuries individual Christians and communities of faith have embraced the tithe as a spiritual discipline – offering one tenth of what one receives to God before establishing any other priorities for spending.

Here at St. John’s, we have encouraged people to move towards a tithe in their giving. Two questions I often hear as people consider this kind of commitment are:

Does a tithe mean giving one tenth of gross income or net income?

Does a tithe represent what I offer through the church or is it a sum of all my charitable giving, in and beyond the church?

When I hear those those questions my answer is simply, “Yes.”  If you are even asking questions like that you are moving in a direction toward sacrificial giving. There is no hard and fast rule – indeed, another way to think about tithing is to consider what it means to give a tenth of your time, and of your talent, intentionally, to God.

Tithing may be a long term goal. One way to look at your own giving is to see what proportion of your income you are able to give away, and consider whether you might take a step toward a one percent increase. There is a chart on the back of this year’s pledge card that can help guide you.

And – an important note – the cards as printed do have one mistake – they designated 12% giving as a tithe, rather than 10%.  But wherever you are in your giving – at 1%, 3% or 12%, I hope you will see your gift to God not as a burden or as an obligation.  Rather, my prayer is that you will make that offering as an act of gratitude, and as an opportunity to deepen your faith and your commitment to act in love.

Tom