Oops!
If you take what doesn’t belong to you, it’s said that you have “sticky fingers.” However, those who do the taking say they’re merely taking advantage of the “five-finger discount.”
Whatever spin you put on it, morally, it’s wrong to steal, and I think we all know that. When you steal from God, it’s even worse.
After God freed His people from Egypt, He not only gave them instructions for life—what we often call the Law—but also established a fully functioning society, complete with a priesthood so that the people could regularly give thanks to God.
As part of their ongoing thanksgiving, the people were required to give offerings and make sacrifices. The priests, drawn from one specific tribe, assisted with these sacrifices. But, unlike the other tribes, this tribe hadn’t received any land, so they were permitted to take a portion of the sacrifices for their sustenance. However, the best portions were always reserved for God.
In the time just after the people had entered the Promised Land, all was going well until Hophni and Phinehas. These two brothers were sons of the high priest, Eli, and priests themselves. But they were also scoundrels.
When sacrifices were boiling, they would instruct their servants to take a fork to steal the meat from the boiling water. If a sacrifice was going to be burned, they would instruct their servants to take the meat before it was put on the fire, and thus get the better portion (1 Samuel 2:11-17).
To put it bluntly, Hophni and Phinehas were stealing from God!
Ugh!
As you can imagine, this didn’t end well for them.
A man of God eventually came to Eli with a prophecy of judgment. He condemned Eli for honoring his sons more than God by allowing their sinful behavior to continue. The prophecy declared that both Hophni and Phinehas would die on the same day and that Eli’s family line would no longer serve as priests (1 Samuel 2:27-36).
The prophecy was fulfilled when the Israelites went to war against the Philistines. Hophni and Phinehas were killed in battle, and the Ark of the Covenant was captured (1 Samuel 4:11).
On the surface, we can misread this story. It may look like a story about a petty God, complaining about not getting his sacrifices. However, I don’t think this story is about God being offended. God doesn’t need our offerings … he has no use for them!
Instead, I think it’s a story about two priests with dark souls—priests who were willing to rip people off by stealing people’s gifts, and priests who were ungrateful and stingy, wanting only the best for themselves.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we all have moments like Hophni and Phinehas. Moments of greed where we don’t want to share—we don’t want to offer what we have to help others or use what’s ours in service of others.
We turn inwards, and like the man in Jesus’s parables, we end up building barns to store our grain. What we don’t realize is that this will do us no good—this life is only temporary.
Aha!
The remedy to this stinginess is a life that’s lived as an offering. A life that’s spent in service to others. A life spent with an open hand, giving to others as God has given to us. This is why offering is an integral part of the Divine Liturgy.
Over the past few Sundays, we’ve seen how the Divine Liturgy is a remembrance of what God has done for us—freed us from slavery to death and given us everlasting life—and we’ve seen how the Liturgy is our thanksgiving to God for this saving act.
Today, we see how our thanksgiving is played out. In other words, our thanksgiving for all that God has done for us is to make an offering to God, and this is done primary through the Divine Liturgy.
Whee!
Early, before any of you got here—even before the chanters—the deacon and I performed a short service called Proskomide. This is where I prepare the bread and wine that we’ll offer as a part of our Divine Liturgy. During this preparation, I pray for all of you, by name. I also pray for all the departed members of our parish. After I’ve done that, I pray one of the most beautiful prayers connected with our worship. That prayer is:
“O God, our God, you sent the heavenly bread, the food of the whole world, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ … now bless this offering, and accept it on your altar above the heavens. Remember … those who offer it and those for whom it was offered; and keep us blameless in the celebration of your divine mysteries.”
Notice the language used in this prayer, how we offer and God accepts. Those offering the gifts are us, of course. And those for whom it was offered are all those remembered, living and departed.
Of course, this prayer is completed at the Great Entrance, that moment, after the Gospel reading, when the clergy make a procession around the church and place the bread and wine on the altar, offering them to God.
As Orthodox Christians, aren’t just offering bread and wine. These things are symbolic, but they truly represent us: our hopes, our dreams, our very lives. Through the bread and wine we are offering all that we have to God.
All this, of course, is also connected to stewardship. Stewardship isn’t just about giving money so that we can pay our bills. It’s about offering what we have to give … offering it to God.
We know the ancient Israelites took this seriously. In the book Maximize we get a glimpse of how seriously they took it. Here’s a passage:
“‘The Israelites’ tithes [often] amounted to 23% of their income—in contrast to the average 2.5% giving of American Christians. Even using 10% as a measure, the Israelites were four times more responsive to the Law of Moses than the average American Christian is to the grace of Christ.’ Let that sink in. Do you think that’s what Jesus intended when he said he didn’t come to abolish the law but to accomplish it? He calls us to go deeper and higher in our pursuit of God’s desires—not to use his presence as an excuse to fall beneath the bar set by the law.”
The Divine Liturgy is celebrated weekly, and, so, we give weekly. This is why I encourage regular, weekly stewardship rather than giving one big check. By giving an offering weekly, it reminds us of God’s grace. Of how he redeems our lives from corruption.
Yeah!
But, what do we get out it?
When we set our offering on the altar, God doesn’t reject them. He receives them, transforms them, and gives them back to us as the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. I can’t think of anything more intimate than God offering himself back to us. We, of course, receive them and are transformed ourselves. We are transformed into the Body of Christ.
Even before Christ, the Israelites knew the benefit of making an offering to God. We hear God say through the prophet Malachi:
“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse— the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.’” (3:8-10)
The flood gates of heaven our opened for those who make an offering to God. That sounds like pretty powerful stuff.
And this is why we come, every Sunday to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, to offer bread and wine. Not just bread and wine, but our whole selves … whether it’s in the form of a check, a song, a smile to brother or sister in Christ, a ride for someone who couldn’t come otherwise, coffee or refreshments after the service … whatever it is, we offer ourselves to Christ as thanksgiving because God offers himself to us.
Amen.