Introduction God Before Starbucks: Thoughts on Priorities
What God desires perhaps above all else is that we put Him first in our lives.
Deuteronomy 6:5 – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
The central text on the primacy of God in our lives. This is it. The second portion of the shema which begins “Hear O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One”. The words that were so important to the Israelites – and which continue to be so important to Jews that some branches actually write down these words on pieces of paper and tie them to their heads. That’s pretty serious.
Examples of how this played out in the Old and New Testament:
There are a lot of examples of how to make God a priority in your life in the Old Testament. They’re called commandments. And the 10 biggies we all know were really just the beginning. Altogether, there are some 613 biblical commandments spelled out in the Old Testament, all with the purpose of helping (forcing?) the Israelites to focus all of their collective energy on being God’s chosen people.
While many of these commandments are fascinating and really worthy of discussion – prohibition against combining fabric types, anyone? – for today’s purposes, I’m interested in the concept of “first fruits.” At various points in the Old Testament, the Israelites were commanded to give one tenth of the fruits of their labor to God – specifically, the first tenth.
The first of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. ~ Exodus 23:19
This commandment was not just about effective fundraising. It was about the relationship that the Israelites had with God, and about affirming the centrality of God in their lives.
In the New Testament, Jesus also goes to great lengths to remind his followers (and us) that God had to be central in their lives. His very presence demanded a complete reordering of the lives of his followers. Those first disciples dropped their nets and walked away from their livelihood to follow Jesus. Talk about realigning your priorities!
And when asked about the greatest commandment? Jesus reiterates the Shema – love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength. Put God First.
How does this play out today?
This demand of God – that he be at the center of our lives – is no less true today than it was several thousand years ago when the words of Deuteronomy were handed down to the people of Israel.
Now, I will be the first to acknowledge that there are a lot of ways that we demonstrate the primacy of God in our lives. You’re all doing it now by being here in church.
But here’s the kicker for today. You may have heard this said before, and I firmly believe it to be true. You can tell more about what is truly important to a person by examining their checkbook than from any other single identifier. That’s right. How we spend our money says more about what we value in life than just about anything else we do. Thus, today I am going to focus specifically on making God a financial priority in our lives.
Oooh. And now it’s awkward. Talking about money is awkward. We’re taught, practically from birth, that this is a taboo topic. Sex lives of the rich and famous? Now that’s appropriate dinnertime conversation. Our financial resources? No no no no.
But just ask my husband. Inappropriate topics do not phase me. So here we go.
If we sat down today after church and looked through six months of receipts and bank statements, what kind of a picture would it paint about your priorities in life? Speaking personally, if you mined my checkbook, you’d see that most of my spending revolves around my daughter – from day care to clothes to trips to the zoo – Eliah is a financial priority in my life. And that’s a good thing. It would be pretty alarming if I wasn’t spending any money on her at all – it would suggest that I’m not caring for her.
Unfortunately, it appears that Starbucks is also a high priority in my life. The proof is right there in black and white. I hit the local Starbucks at least once a week – perhaps more if it’s stressful at work – to the tune of about $5 each time. My checkbook says that chai tea lattes are something I value.
Now, I don’t want to tell secrets on your minister, but if you were to look at my husband’s receipts, you will see that he values books. He values them a lot. He values them each and every month. Maybe more. I gave up long ago trying to count how many books we have in our house.
Okay, so far, the Snyder family’s priorities include Ellie, Starbucks, and Borders. We’re starting to get a picture of who we are, as a family.
And if you keep going through those receipts, you’ll see another recurring item. Weekly checks to Mt. Lebanon Christian Church. Each and every week, Josh sits down and writes out a check to the church. And what’s more, if you look back at those receipts over time, you’ll se that they’ve increased. We give more now than we did two years ago when we came here.
Faithful giving is not an easy thing. And I have to confess that to me, it was a completely foreign thing. I grew up in a very charitable household. My parents have always given a lot of money to non-profit organizations around the country and the world, and they continue to do so. But giving to the church? Not so much. We weren’t regular church-goers. More like sporadic Methodists. When we went to church, my dad wrote a check. But it wasn’t particularly intentional and it certainly didn’t approach tithing.
So when I married Josh, this was one of the adjustments that I had to make. When we made up our first household budget, I took one look at the line item for “contributions to church” and said – “um, what?” And, to be perfectly honest, there are times when I still struggle with giving. Days when I look at that line item and think to myself – Dang, that’s a lot of trips to the zoo, to say nothing of how many iced chai lattes I could buy with that.
But my other half stands completely firm on this point. Our offering check is not going to be impacted by the beautiful the pair of shoes in the window.
That is exactly what it means to make God a financial priority. It means that, when you weigh your options of how you’re going to spend your money, you make a conscious effort to “spend it” on God.
And this is hard concept. As a society, we like stuff. We like to spend our money on good food and entertainment and landscaping our yard. And when the economy is tough, it gets even harder because we’re watching every dollar that much more closely.
Jesus knew it was hard. He feels our pain. Just look at the parable of the rich young man that crops up throughout the Gospels. In Matthew’s version, the young man approaches Jesus to ask what he must do to be saved. Jesus tells him to follow the commandments. The young man claims to be doing so (we’ll leave aside for the moment the likelihood of that being true). Jesus follows up with a command to get rid of all of his possessions – sell them and benefit the poor. And then we’re left with a poignant image – the young man goes away sad, because he had many fine things.
I happen to have an unconventional take on this parable. Pretty much everybody – my husband included – assumes this is the last we ever hear of this guy. Wealth wins out over Jesus. But it doesn’t say that. All it says it that the kid is sorrowful. And you know what? I’d be sorrowful too if someone told me to sell all my possessions. But I think it’s possible that the rich young man followed those instructions. That it hurt – and hurt a lot – but he did it. Call me an optimist.
My point in all of this is that it’s hard to make financial sacrifices for God. They wouldn’t be sacrifices if it was easy. But it is important. It is utterly important to make God a priority in your life. And until God is a financial priority in your life, you’re holding out on him. So while Jesus may feel our pain and appreciate how difficult his demands are, he makes all the same.
How much should you give? I have no idea. It’s not my job to define faithful giving in absolute terms. Maybe for you it’s tithing. Maybe it’s not. There’s actually nothing magical about the whole 10% thing. It’s an Old Testament concept and no set number is found in the New Testament. The closest we get to a clear cut statement on giving levels is in 1 Corinthians 16:2 which suggests that you should set aside a portion of money, based on your income.
The short answer is, it’s all relative. For someone, giving five dollars a week would be a sacrifice and a true statement of the importance of the church in their lives. For someone else, giving five dollars a week would be the exact opposite – sort of like leaving a 15 cent tip, more insulting than anything else.
At the non-profit I work with, we have a guiding principal for our board of directors to use when it comes to their giving. We don’t give them a specific number for the very reason I just mentioned. What we say is “Your gift to EECM should be as large or larger than your gift to any other organization.” We want EECM to be a priority in their giving, however much that is.
Same thing applies to faithful giving in a church context. It’s all relative, but you know in your heart what level you should be at.
In case I haven’t mentioned it yet. This is hard stuff. Giving is hard. It’s supposed to be. It always has been – I don’t think it was ever easy for the Israelites to hand over their first fruits, be it harvest or offspring. But the reward – the sense of knowing that they put God first, transforms that act from a thing of hardship to a thing of beauty.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God, you know our hearts and you also know our checkbooks. You know that we long to put you first in our lives, but that we often struggle with how to do so in real and meaningful ways. Help us to discern your will for us and help us to feel clearly your desire for how we are to spend our finances. Help us to spend them wisely and in a way that brings you glory.
