The Orthodox Christian Network Blog

  At every Divine Liturgy, the Priest (or the Deacon when there is one) elevates the chalice, and the celebrant exclaims, "Thine own of thine own, we offer unto thee, in behalf of all, and for all!"  These are remarkably powerful words which sum up the whole liturgy--indeed our whole life as it was designed to be.  In this moment we are offering to God not only the bread (including the hands that made it and the laborers who afforded us the ingredients) and the wine (including the sun, the rain, and the grape-stompers), we also offer the silver chalice and diskos--the finest we can offer--as well as "ourselves, each other, and all our life.  This is the divine reversal of the Fall--we are giving our Lord thanks and praise.

 But when we are away from the liturgy, often we are quick to forget that everything in the world is God's, including what is in my bank account, my wallet, my garage, etc.  For some reason, we often revert to a sinful stinginess that betrays an young-childlike possessiveness about these 'things' which actually aren't "Mine!".

 It was precisely for this reason that God could call the Israelites "God-robbers".  They had forgotten that God is the source of every good and perfect gift (see James 1:17 as we pray in the Liturgy).  Instead, they had kept their possessions selfishly, not re-offering them to God for his blessing.  Have we done the same?  Recall the passage in Malachi 3:

From the days of your fathers 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 man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How are we robbing thee?' In your tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me; the whole nation of you. Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing.

We can grow agitated and offended by what we perceive as a constant barage of requests for "my money" in the church precisely because we have set up this "it is mine" attitude, and we have turned away from our obligations as voluntary slaves of Christ--which we became by our baptism.  So we give 'a little something' to the church, as if to appease God (God doesn't need our offerings--we need to give to change our hearts)--see Genesis 4, the story of Cain and Abel, to see the disastrous results of this line of thinking. 

If, rather, we would come to our senses to see that we are actually trustees, stewards (literally "economists"), of an inheritance left to us by the King of Glory Himself, we would use our wallets, our checkbooks, our homes, our kitchens, our pantries, our cars, our boats, and our minds, bodies, and souls much differently.  Then we would be of generous heart (See Exodus 25 and Exodus 35) and we would be cheerful givers (See 2 Corinthians 9:7).  Then, we would be able to say in our whole lives, and not just during the anaphora at the elevation of the chalice "thine own of thine own..." echoing the words of King David in 1 Chronicles 29:14 "All thing come from thee, and of thy own have we given thee."

 Finally, we would offer our tithes--the first and best ten percent of our income--and our alms (literally "works of mercy")--that 'over and above' the tithe offered to help those with immediate needs--with full hearts and joy.  With the attitude once described to me like this:  "Fr John, it is not so difficult to know what to give away--the challenge is to know how little to keep."

 So I must ask myself:  Whose stuff is it?  Realizing that it is God's and He entrusts it to me, then I must take action to give freely, for I have received freely (Mt. 10:8).