Understanding The Parish Tithe And Good Stewardship Of Our Treasure

Have you ever heard this humorous but poignant story? A $100 bill, a $50 bill, a $20 bill, and a $1 bill were hanging out at the bank sharing stories about all the places they had been. The $100 bill began by talking about the places in Europe and Asia he had visited. Then, the $50 bill shared about the operas and best restaurants he had visited and what he had seen there. The two looked at the $20 bill and asked where he had been. He shared that he had been to grocery stores to feed families, and to museums and art galleries to feed the minds of people. Finally, they asked the $1 bill, who hung his head and said he had been to church, and to church, and to church. We hear Jesus say, “Where your treasure is, there also will your heart be” (Mt 6:21).

This story has more to do with us than it does the monetary bills. It begs the question — are we ordering our finances responsibly and is the stewardship of our treasure Christian?

For the majority of Americans, Christian stewardship of finances is virtually non-existent. Consider the following statistics:

• 49 percent of Americans don’t pay their bills on time.

• 65 percent of Americans don’t do a good job of staying out of debt.

• 82 percent of Americans don’t save adequately for the future.

• On average, Americans give less than 2 percent of their income to charity, and Catholics give about 1 percent of their income toward charitable causes.

• A majority of those getting divorces point to finances as one of the primary causes of their breakup.

All of us have to be conscious of these realities. Even our stewardship committee recently talked about whether giving to the church or tithing had been part of the discussions as they were growing up. One said that his parents had tithed, but they belonged to a Baptist Church. The others, who were all raised Catholic, said that they knew their parents gave to the Church regularly but they didn’t know how much, and it wasn’t talked about in the family. Why is it we can’t talk about how we give to the Church with our children? Are we uncomfortable, embarrassed, humbled? The truth is that we need to be honest with ourselves and our family about what we currently give and what we would like to give.

What we really need to realize is that there cannot be a separation between our personal finance and our spiritual finance — and yes, Jesus can even be the answer to our financial woe by letting our gift to Him be a part of who we are becoming.

Too often we don’t pay attention to our spiritual giving so we don’t even think about changing that amount.

There is another story of a woman who learned to bake bread when she was first married. As her family grew she first doubled, then tripled, and quadrupled the ingredients, all except the yeast. She was still using one package of yeast for eight loaves of bread when one ordinarily uses a package of yeast for two loaves. She didn’t understand why it was taking all day for the bread to rise when she was making eight loaves when it only took about an hour when she had been making two.

If you take an honest look at your spiritual giving, are you still using the same amount of yeast to get God’s work done?