Tax Day: Blessing or Curse?

  • Dr. Bruce Humphrey
  • Apr 15, 2007

Luke 19:5-10, Malachi 3:7-12

April 15th is tax day. Let's talk about it.

Many of you know that Kate and I used a portion of our recent sabbatical to write the memoirs of our years in a small Alaskan Indian village where I was a missionary pastor. Writing together became a wonderful time of renewal in our marriage. We laughed together as we recalled some of the funny experiences we had in that village. We were so young and idealistic and naïve. We didn't know what we were doing living in a foreign culture.

For instance, when we arrived at the housing provided by the mission church we found some wood lying in the back yard for our use in the wood stove. What we didn't know was that it was not only wet from sitting out in the snow, but it also was green, unseasoned wood. Since we came from Arizona, we did not know that unseasoned wood doesn't burn very well. We struggled daily that first winter to keep a fire going and try to get the house warmed up into the fifties. The firewood in the wood stove popped and sizzled, crackled and sputtered. One day a Tlingit elder told me that a crackling fire would keep the "Spirit of Money" away.

He told me this story. According to traditional Tlingit culture there is a Spirit of Money. This spirit chooses which houses to bless. One of the things that attracts the Spirit of Money is a quiet fire. Crackling and popping of a fire chases away the Spirit of Money.

I was curious why this would chase the Spirit of Money away since in our culture a crackling fire is considered romantic. Perhaps the spirit of romance and the Spirit of Money can't live together? I can be rich or can have love, but I can't have both?

The Tlingit elder continued the story. "Bruce, the Spirit of Money only goes to homes with quiet fires because that shows that the owners are burning seasoned wood. In order to have a quiet fire you must cut the wood several months before winter. Then you stack it nicely so it can breathe and season in the fall weather. Then when you burn it the fire remains quiet and provides warmth. When the Spirit of Money sees the nicely stacked wood outside the house and then comes inside and sits by the quiet warm fire, it blesses that home. Tlingits believe in prosperity as a result of good preparation.

While Jesus did not teach this approach to money, he made an intriguing statement about Salvation. When he visited the home of Zacchaeus the tax collector, the rest of the community knew of Zach's sinful greed, using his political power to collect extra taxes in order to feather his own nest. But when Zach announced to his guests that he was going to change his lifestyle by helping the poor and repaying any he had defrauded, Jesus declared "salvation has come to this house."

Most of us have associated the term salvation with going to heaven after we die. For Jesus salvation was more than merely going to heaven. When he declared that salvation had come to Zach's house, Jesus meant that Zach's generosity was breaking the curse of selfishness, greed, and jealousy. Zacchaeus was moving from a life under a curse to a life of blessing. What might this mean for us today?

Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, 'How shall we return?'

Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, 'How are we robbing you?' In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me‹the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.

¯ Malachi 3:7-12

In this day of competitive sports and trash talking during games, I appreciated reading Lute Olson's autobiography about his life as a college basketball coach. In contrast to the reputations of other basketball coaches who curse players and referees, Olson has a reputation for a clean mouth. In fact, his players tease him that he once took a trip with his family to visit Lake Powell and enjoyed touring the Hoover DANG.

What comes to mind when you hear the term curse? I suspect few of us reflect on this idea of people being cursed. Yet this idea was common in Jesus' day. Not only could an individual live under a curse, but his entire family and even future generations could suffer without realizing they were cursed. Imagine their struggles thinking how difficult life is without realizing they had inherited a curse. For Jesus, salvation included the idea of breaking the curse.

Malachi announced this his entire generation were living under a curse because they had robbed God. "How have we robbed God?" they asked. The prophet responded that they were thieves because they were keeping the Lord's tithe for themselves. An entire generation had withheld their tithes for fear that there would not be enough for their needs. Not only did they keep God's tithes for themselves, they taught their children to think this same way. Instead of passing on an inheritance of generosity and a desire to bless others, they passed on stolen goods with an attitude of worry.

My mom and grandmother, mom's mother, died within a month of each other. My dad was left to sort out their estates among the grandchildren. As a result Kate and I came into some inheritance in our late thirties. I recall dad making some suggestions about how I should handle the Money when he met with me to give me a check for $50,000. Dad explained that my grandparents and mother had been very generous people. Not only had they already tithed to their church, but they had given significant sums above and beyond the tithe. Dad told me, "You don't need to tithe on this since the tithe has already been given." While Dad was not quoting the prophet Malachi directly, it was his way of saying, "This is not cursed Money."

Guess what was the first thing Kate and I did with that inheritance? You got it. We tithed. In fact, we already had made a faith pledge to our Arizona church's building campaign, so we not only paid our pledge in full, we also donated a stained glass window in honor of my grandmother and mom.

 

Kate and I count ourselves blessed that we grew up with positive role models of giving and blessing others. We learned early in our marriage not just to pray for enough to pay our bills and take care of our own needs, but to ask the Lord to give us enough so that we could bless others. As newlyweds we adopted a child in the Philippines through World Vision. In Arizona every year when we finished our taxes, we celebrated by looking for a needy family to bless. For a few years we adopted Habitat for Humanity families. We enjoyed giving special gifts without their knowing where the gifts were coming from.

 

Kate and I grew up in Christian homes that practiced tithing so we brought into our marriage the joy of giving. Some did not grow up in such homes. They have struggled as adults to break the curse and live joyful blessed lives.

 

A couple years ago I landed in Phoenix. As I was getting off the plane a man walked over to me and introduced himself. We headed toward the terminal together. He explained that he was a fairly new member of our church. His wife had grown up in a devout Christian home and he was growing in his faith as well. He and his wife had recently been talking about something related to faith and he wondered if I could help him understand something. He wanted to ask me a theological question. I'm almost always up for a theological question, so I smiled and invited him to ask. He asked, "Are we supposed to tithe on the net or the gross?" (True story. I am not making this up. My fellow pastors nearly die whenever I share this story. )

 

As we walked together in the Phoenix airport I responded that Kate and I had struggled with this same question. In tight times we try to convince ourselves that tithing on the net is enough. (After all the national average of giving is closer to 3%, so we are giving more than most Americans even if we tithed only on the net.) I explained that I could not quote a Bible verse to answer his question and certainly did not want to be legalistic. What Kate and I had decided was that we wanted God to bless the gross so we tithed on that. A few weeks later he handed me an additional check that was the tithe on a bonus he had received above and beyond his normal salary. I can see Jesus smiling as he whispers: Salvation has come to this house!

 

This year as we signed our tax forms we were counting our blessings. This year we were able to be more generous beyond our regular tithe than ever before. We started our marriage as faithful tithers returning to God what belongs to God. Now we are growing in the joy of generosity to missions and others.

 

I am thinking of a particular AmaXhosa worship service in Africa last fall. I saw Kate begin weeping during one of the songs. Now Kate has never been a particularly emotional person who easily weeps in church. I once saw a tear trickle down her cheek as Joyful Noise sang the Via Dolorosa in worship here. After the service I commented at how moved she was by that song. She explained that she had inhaled some saliva and she was fighting through the rest of the song to keep from coughing while still singing.

 

In that service in Africa I watched her weep. After the service she shared with me and Kelly, our missionary to the AmaXhosa in South Africa, what happened. "Kelly, we have been saving Money to upgrade a few things on our cabin. During that service the Holy Spirit asked me to give up those upgrades and instead donate $5,000 to the Purcifull Childcare Center." We prayed together basking in the joyful smile of Jesus.

 

I once heard that if you want to know what are a person's real priorities, just examine their checking account and their calendar. You can see pretty quickly what they value by how they spend their time and their money.

 

This Tax Day, is a good time to review what we really consider important. Thinking about what Jesus said to Zacchaeus, I have a question: If Jesus studied last year's charitable donations as well as your calendar of activities, would he say salvation has come to your house? If not last year, what about this year?

 

Tax Day: Blessing or Curse?
April 15, 2007
Luke 19:5-10, Malachi 3:7-12



April 15th is tax day. Let's talk about it.

Many of you know that Kate and I used a portion of our recent sabbatical to write the memoirs of our years in a small Alaskan Indian village where I was a missionary pastor. Writing together became a wonderful time of renewal in our marriage. We laughed together as we recalled some of the funny experiences we had in that village. We were so young and idealistic and naïve. We didn't know what we were doing living in a foreign culture.

For instance, when we arrived at the housing provided by the mission church we found some wood lying in the back yard for our use in the wood stove. What we didn't know was that it was not only wet from sitting out in the snow, but it also was green, unseasoned wood. Since we came from Arizona, we did not know that unseasoned wood doesn't burn very well. We struggled daily that first winter to keep a fire going and try to get the house warmed up into the fifties. The firewood in the wood stove popped and sizzled, crackled and sputtered. One day a Tlingit elder told me that a crackling fire would keep the "Spirit of Money" away.

He told me this story. According to traditional Tlingit culture there is a Spirit of Money. This spirit chooses which houses to bless. One of the things that attracts the Spirit of Money is a quiet fire. Crackling and popping of a fire chases away the Spirit of Money.

I was curious why this would chase the Spirit of Money away since in our culture a crackling fire is considered romantic. Perhaps the spirit of romance and the Spirit of Money can't live together? I can be rich or can have love, but I can't have both?

The Tlingit elder continued the story. "Bruce, the Spirit of Money only goes to homes with quiet fires because that shows that the owners are burning seasoned wood. In order to have a quiet fire you must cut the wood several months before winter. Then you stack it nicely so it can breathe and season in the fall weather. Then when you burn it the fire remains quiet and provides warmth. When the Spirit of Money sees the nicely stacked wood outside the house and then comes inside and sits by the quiet warm fire, it blesses that home. Tlingits believe in prosperity as a result of good preparation.

While Jesus did not teach this approach to money, he made an intriguing statement about Salvation. When he visited the home of Zacchaeus the tax collector, the rest of the community knew of Zach's sinful greed, using his political power to collect extra taxes in order to feather his own nest. But when Zach announced to his guests that he was going to change his lifestyle by helping the poor and repaying any he had defrauded, Jesus declared "salvation has come to this house."

Most of us have associated the term salvation with going to heaven after we die. For Jesus salvation was more than merely going to heaven. When he declared that salvation had come to Zach's house, Jesus meant that Zach's generosity was breaking the curse of selfishness, greed, and jealousy. Zacchaeus was moving from a life under a curse to a life of blessing. What might this mean for us today?

Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, 'How shall we return?'

Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me! But you say, 'How are we robbing you?' In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me‹the whole nation of you! Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. I will rebuke the locust for you, so that it will not destroy the produce of your soil; and your vine in the field shall not be barren, says the Lord of hosts. Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.
¯ Malachi 3:7-12

In this day of competitive sports and trash talking during games, I appreciated reading Lute Olson's autobiography about his life as a college basketball coach. In contrast to the reputations of other basketball coaches who curse players and referees, Olson has a reputation for a clean mouth. In fact, his players tease him that he once took a trip with his family to visit Lake Powell and enjoyed touring the Hoover DANG.

What comes to mind when you hear the term curse? I suspect few of us reflect on this idea of people being cursed. Yet this idea was common in Jesus' day. Not only could an individual live under a curse, but his entire family and even future generations could suffer without realizing they were cursed. Imagine their struggles thinking how difficult life is without realizing they had inherited a curse. For Jesus, salvation included the idea of breaking the curse.

Malachi announced this his entire generation were living under a curse because they had robbed God. "How have we robbed God?" they asked. The prophet responded that they were thieves because they were keeping the Lord's tithe for themselves. An entire generation had withheld their tithes for fear that there would not be enough for their needs. Not only did they keep God's tithes for themselves, they taught their children to think this same way. Instead of passing on an inheritance of generosity and a desire to bless others, they passed on stolen goods with an attitude of worry.

My mom and grandmother, mom's mother, died within a month of each other. My dad was left to sort out their estates among the grandchildren. As a result Kate and I came into some inheritance in our late thirties. I recall dad making some suggestions about how I should handle the Money when he met with me to give me a check for $50,000. Dad explained that my grandparents and mother had been very generous people. Not only had they already tithed to their church, but they had given significant sums above and beyond the tithe. Dad told me, "You don't need to tithe on this since the tithe has already been given." While Dad was not quoting the prophet Malachi directly, it was his way of saying, "This is not cursed Money."

Guess what was the first thing Kate and I did with that inheritance? You got it. We tithed. In fact, we already had made a faith pledge to our Arizona church's building campaign, so we not only paid our pledge in full, we also donated a stained glass window in honor of my grandmother and mom.

Kate and I count ourselves blessed that we grew up with positive role models of giving and blessing others. We learned early in our marriage not just to pray for enough to pay our bills and take care of our own needs, but to ask the Lord to give us enough so that we could bless others. As newlyweds we adopted a child in the Philippines through World Vision. In Arizona every year when we finished our taxes, we celebrated by looking for a needy family to bless. For a few years we adopted Habitat for Humanity families. We enjoyed giving special gifts without their knowing where the gifts were coming from.

Kate and I grew up in Christian homes that practiced tithing so we brought into our marriage the joy of giving. Some did not grow up in such homes. They have struggled as adults to break the curse and live joyful blessed lives.

A couple years ago I landed in Phoenix. As I was getting off the plane a man walked over to me and introduced himself. We headed toward the terminal together. He explained that he was a fairly new member of our church. His wife had grown up in a devout Christian home and he was growing in his faith as well. He and his wife had recently been talking about something related to faith and he wondered if I could help him understand something. He wanted to ask me a theological question. I'm almost always up for a theological question, so I smiled and invited him to ask. He asked, "Are we supposed to tithe on the net or the gross?" (True story. I am not making this up. My fellow pastors nearly die whenever I share this story. )

As we walked together in the Phoenix airport I responded that Kate and I had struggled with this same question. In tight times we try to convince ourselves that tithing on the net is enough. (After all the national average of giving is closer to 3%, so we are giving more than most Americans even if we tithed only on the net.) I explained that I could not quote a Bible verse to answer his question and certainly did not want to be legalistic. What Kate and I had decided was that we wanted God to bless the gross so we tithed on that. A few weeks later he handed me an additional check that was the tithe on a bonus he had received above and beyond his normal salary. I can see Jesus smiling as he whispers: Salvation has come to this house!

This year as we signed our tax forms we were counting our blessings. This year we were able to be more generous beyond our regular tithe than ever before. We started our marriage as faithful tithers returning to God what belongs to God. Now we are growing in the joy of generosity to missions and others.

I am thinking of a particular AmaXhosa worship service in Africa last fall. I saw Kate begin weeping during one of the songs. Now Kate has never been a particularly emotional person who easily weeps in church. I once saw a tear trickle down her cheek as Joyful Noise sang the Via Dolorosa in worship here. After the service I commented at how moved she was by that song. She explained that she had inhaled some saliva and she was fighting through the rest of the song to keep from coughing while still singing.

In that service in Africa I watched her weep. After the service she shared with me and Kelly, our missionary to the AmaXhosa in South Africa, what happened. "Kelly, we have been saving Money to upgrade a few things on our cabin. During that service the Holy Spirit asked me to give up those upgrades and instead donate $5,000 to the Purcifull Childcare Center." We prayed together basking in the joyful smile of Jesus.

I once heard that if you want to know what are a person's real priorities, just examine their checking account and their calendar. You can see pretty quickly what they value by how they spend their time and their money.

This Tax Day, is a good time to review what we really consider important. Thinking about what Jesus said to Zacchaeus, I have a question: If Jesus studied last year's charitable donations as well as your calendar of activities, would he say salvation has come to your house? If not last year, what about this year?

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