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Living Financial Stewardship — "We Have To Do The Most”
The First Commandment is clear: “I am the Lord your God, and you shall not have other gods before me.” If we consider this commandment from the lens of financial stewardship, we simply cannot serve both God and money.
“Our management of money and possessions is a First Commandment issue,” says Fr. Paul Key. “It is a preliminary principle that we cannot serve both God and money, and money is the number-one idol in our society of conspicuous consumption.”
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If we pause to consider this preliminary principle, that we cannot serve both God and money, we might ask ourselves a few questions. What would it look like to examine our priorities in light of how we spend our money? What would it look like to interrogate these spending habits and make changes?
“In terms of the stewardship of money and possessions, we need to be clear about what the Bible tells us and the Biblical guidelines,” Fr. Paul says.
In the Old Testament, we read that tithing came before the Law, as Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek in Genesis 14:18-20 — “Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. He blessed Abram… Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.”
“Tithing is clearly indicated as a fundamental action in the Old Testament, and Jesus affirms it repeatedly,” Fr. Paul says. “If Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek, which we read in Hebrews 7, and Abraham brought his tithe to Melchizedek, then should we bring our tithe to the King of King and Lord of Lords?”
In the Catholic sense, when we tithe, the basic guideline is that we give five percent to the parish, one percent to the diocese, and four percent to special causes — totaling 10 percent.
While tithing or “first-mile giving” is what is required of us, there is “second-mile giving,” which is going beyond the required or the expected to give. The name for this kind of giving comes from Matthew 5:41 — “Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles.”
“If we want to be right with God, it seems to me we basically have to tithe, and any giving above 10 percent, we can call ‘second-mile giving’ and is to be commended,” Fr. Paul says. “I think it is important for us as Christians to simplify our lives as much as possible to give as much as possible.” continued on page 6
There are many ways for us to be intentional or even creative when it comes to second-mile giving. We can do small things like not spending as much on clothing, food or recreation, and giving that amount to a particular cause. We can read resources on financial stewardship like Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover.
“I think it is really important that we work from a budget and involve Christian financial principles in our ordering of things,” Fr. Paul says. “We become more effective when we plan wisely. My wife and I apply all of these and have found a great deal of joy in doing so.” On occasion we have found ourselves giving away up to 30% of our gross income.
At different phases in our life, we can also discern other ways of giving such as larger sacrifices from our regular budget or even taking on a second job.
“The enemies of God are so great and numerous, we need to be intense and radical about how we organize our lives financially,” Fr. Paul says. “There might be time when, considering the work of the Lord, we take out of our retirement. In a certain phase of our life, we might tithe on our estate.”
There are some extra special areas that our second-mile giving could directly support, such as offering tuition support for children in Catholic school or supporting the building of a new church and a Christian education space.
“The total cost for the Christian education space is $3.5 million, and we already have $1.6 million,” Fr. Paul says. “We’re looking forward to supporting Catholic education in our facility and possibly becoming a satellite school and assisting with homeschool education.”
Fr. Paul is particularly grateful for how the faith community has given generously and grown in their faithful giving since he joined the parish.
“It is my hope that we can be a model for the diocese of being a stewardship parish,” Fr. Paul says. “We have to maximize our giving to enable the ministry of the Lord, especially regarding education. We have to do the most that we can instead of the minimum.”
