Jimbadical

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Tithe and Sabbath

I dropped off students at a Youth Workers Convention recently and then drove around for a while trying to find parking for a large van in downtown Vancouver. So by the time I arrived back at the hotel, all the morning seminars had started. I stood there wondering which direction to go and realized that my-favorite-camp-speaker-of-all-time was the seminar speaker in the room right in front of me. I walked in, took one of many empty seats and as I listened began to wish the room was full, or that Jon Imbeau had the opportunity to be the keynote convention speaker.

When I sat down he was talking about tithing. Really. At a convention where the janitors cleaning our toilets make more money than most of the paid youth workers, and where any volunteers are young and also probably not wealthy, this seemed rather audacious. But that's how Jon usually talks and why we love him so much. After he talked for quite a while, someone brought up the inevitable "ten percent in the Old Testament" question and if it applied today. Uh, uh, uh... replied Jon, and he pointed out that he had never said anything about ten percent. It was the principle of tithing that he was concerned about, not the amount or percentage given.

Then he talked about Sabbath. I think I saw some people looking wildly around to see if they were at the right convention. But really he was talking about the same principle applied to a different issue, the stewardship of time. Time and money, the two things our world chases after more than any other, that in practice most people consider of more value than any other; the things we are most bummed about if we lose them, and most stressed about if we don't have them.

As various people began to speak up, my mind wandered and I realized that the principle Jon was giving us is absolutely critical to people of ministry. Not only do I need to pass this principle on, but I need to think it through some more, and especially I need to start living by it. So here goes.

I have never been a wealthy man, according to Western standards of course. My 23 year old son starts a job in January as a junior draftsman in an engineering firm, and he will make nearly what I do, and I'm making more than I have ever made in my life. I say that not by way of complaint; long ago I took to myself the words of Agur son of Jakeh, in the book of Proverbs:

So that's how we live, and we always have enough to live on, though we generally walk a fine line. And we have usually been able to be generous in our giving, but not so much in the past few years. I think I have justified giving less by the fact that we walk this fine line, which doesn't seem to get any broader. In fact, it has become tighter. But I now think that our current financial difficulty is not about the small amount of money we receive; it has everything to do with the increasingly small amount of money we give.

Before I explain, with the help of my friend Jon, let's talk about time, which I wrote about in my last blog as one of my big frustrations in life. Here too, I walk a very fine line. I never seem to have enough time, and the situation if anything has become worse, not better, in the past few years. I sometimes feel that apart from the very cool time I spend with Kaleo, I don't have much time for a life for myself and my family or my community. But I now think that my current difficulty with time is not about the small amount of time I am given; it has everything to do with the increasingly small amount of time I give.

Some of you who know me will stop me here and say, "Hey Jim, don't be silly. You are always giving! You pour heart and soul into your ministry, your home is always full of people, you always take time to listen to us; everyone thinks of you and Sarah as generous." So I need now to explain Jon's principle and how my apparent current generosity misses the point.

Jon said (and I may embellish here) that God gave us things like tithing and the Sabbath to place us in a position where we would have to trust God in order to live in this world.

By tithing we give to God to the point where we don't have enough money to live on, so that we must trust him and allow him to provide for us.
By keeping the Sabbath, we give to God to the point where we do not have enough time to get everything done, so that we must trust him and allow him to do what we cannot.

Tithe and Sabbath free us from prideful or rebellious independence and allow us to rely on him alone and not on our own means. It is what the poor of this world learn naturally, and what the wealthy of this world must learn by giving to God until it hurts.

This also means that when we don't tithe and don't keep the Sabbath, we are bound to become frustrated with time and money.

Furthermore, I think it proves that the "prosperity gospel" is out to lunch, this idea that if we give enough, God will bless us with material abundance. That too misses the point entirely.

But wow, I really don't know what this will mean for me and my family personally. I know that as a leader in God's kingdom I need to live and model these two disciplines I have misunderstood and neglected. If I thought New Year's resolutions were useful, these would be mine. What I probably need is simply "long obedience in the same direction," to quote Eugene Peterson (who was quoting, of all people, Friedrich Nietzsche). Your suggestions and comments, encouragements and admonishments, are most welcome. I will add to this post as I come to understand this concept better.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Preparing For Warp Speed, Capt'n

This is for all those who, like myself, are frustrated with time. Like the famous rabbit of Alice's tale, I seem to be endlessly running, always late for some very important date. If I'm not late, I am waiting for someone who is, until we are both late. There is never enough time.

Quite on my own, I came up with a theory: Not only does it feel like time is going faster, but it actually is going faster. I later found some scientific backup for my hypothesis. Edwin Hubble, who later had a telescope named after him, discovered by observing galaxies moving away from us that the universe is expanding, and since space is the measuring stick of time, time itself is accelerating. Einstein's theory of relativity included the idea that the expansion of the universe should slow down at a constant rate, though he was unable to account for some factors in his theory. Then in 1998, researchers discovered that the expansion of the universe is actually speeding up, not slowing down.

What does that mean? The fact that the expansion of the universe is accelerating means that time itself is speeding up at a greater rate than previously thought. The problem is that our means of measuring time is also expanding. It's like trying to measure your height with a tape measure that is growing at the same rate as you - it always reads the same, though you have a strong suspicion that you are taller than you were before. Likewise, time is speeding up, and the only way we can tell is that it feels faster every year.

Whether you like my speculation or not, you likely share my frustration with time.

I have wondered what it was like for Jesus, who stepped out of eternity into the thing called Time that his Father created. He had a first breath, and a last. He experienced "waiting," and learned patience. His carpentry jobs had a deadline; he was perhaps often late for lunch. He could not be everywhere at once, nor did he have the time to do everything he wanted. His appointed time had no cars, cell phones or dishwashers; everything he did, from traveling to working, required a good deal of time. After 33 long years, Jesus could finally say, "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you."

In the world that God made,

Yet God placed in our hearts something that tells us that time is not all there is. This morning as Kristie and I prayed with a student, Kristie said something in her prayer that got me thinking about time (again) this evening. She said that our frustration with time points to the fact that we were made for timelessness.

Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3 continues, "I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." C.S. Lewis put it this way: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

So my frustration with time is understandable, yet not excusable. Jesus entered time, yet he seemed to have all the time in the world. Though the world swirled around him, demanding signs, seeking healing, requiring answers, he seemed to march to the beat of a different Drummer. When told that everyone was looking for him, he could say, "Let's go somewhere else." As important people waited on his verdict, he could draw in the sand with his finger. I am told that by faith I can walk in this world as Jesus walked.

And there will be an end to time. Jesus said repeatedly that certain things would take place, and then the end of the age will come. Maybe sooner than science supposes: "If dark energy density rises rather than falls, the universe will eventually undergo a 'hyper speedup' that would tear apart galaxies, solar systems, planets and atomic nuclei, in that order" (Scientific American, September 23, 2008). Or as Peter pictured it,

Hang on a minute! Rewind! "...as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming..." What on earth? We can speed up time? We can make the end of time arrive sooner? How? Peter tells us in this same chapter.

We can live holy and godly lives. The Jewish nation has always understood that repentance - turning from sin and turning to God in their attitudes and actions - would precede the coming of the Messiah.

We can join God in bringing people to repentance. "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." This is what he is waiting for, if it can be said that God waits.

We can anticipate and long for the Day of the Lord. One of the early prayers of the church was "Marana tha," which means, "Our Lord, come!" Jesus' model prayer for his disciples also started this way, "Your kingdom come!" There would be no reason to pray this way if it had no effect on the timing of his coming.

"So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation..." Oh, he knows patience. He knows waiting. He has experienced time, wrestled with it and won. Time is now all on his side. And one final day, we will stand with him and watch Father Time squeeze the sun like an orange.

May you speed his coming. Marana Tha!