Contemplative Offering

Offering:  An act of offering; That which has been offered; a sacrifice

I’ve been noticing that the time for offering at our church is sometimes seeming a bit chaotic.  It’s not supposed to be, but somehow, this time of sacrifice has become a little social.  Not that social is bad, but I’m wondering, shouldn’t this be a time of contemplation?

In the old testament, the types of sacrifices that God required of His people are spelled out;  Not only what the offering was to be, but how it was to be prepared, or how it was to be offered.  There were all kinds of offerings from those to reconcile with God over sin, to those of praise and worship of Him.  But those offerings were not what God wanted.  He doesn’t want the bull or the lamb.  Those days of sacrifice ended with the perfect sacrifice of His son, Jesus, on the cross.  Once for all.  So then, what is offering today?

The act of tithe is one of obedience to God.  It is a moment in time when each of us can pray or meditate on how the offering we bring each week can be best used to further the Kingdom of God here on earth.  Now, I’m not trying to get into a deliberation of whether one should tithe or not…that’s not what this is about.  It’s about HOW you bring your offering to God each week.  Do you simply toss it in the basket and forget it?  Do you pray about how it will be used?  Do you prayerfully thank God for the blessings He’s given you that allow you to put anything in that basket?

Luke 21:¹As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ²He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³“I tell you the truth,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

I don’t think she did this without thought, or without reverence to the act of offering.  I don’t think I will do it without thought or reverence to the offering either.

Bottle of Wine

There is a bottle of wine in my fridge.  It doesn’t quite fit, and frankly, I don’t want it there.  It annoys me.  Honestly, I hate it.  I despise it.  I resent it.

Yeah, I know, I’m talking about a bottle of wine. But it’s what it represents to me.  There are alcoholics in my family.  I’m not one of them.  As a matter of fact, I don’t drink.  (And it has NOTHING to do with my feelings about alcohol, it’s simply because I don’t like it.)  But seriously, to me it represents dysfunction.  It represents sadness. It represents the demolition of a family.  It represents horror.  These are the things it represents to ME.

Disclaimer:  I do not believe that alcohol should be banned or that it is the cause of every bad thing that happens.  This is just MY view.  End Disclaimer.

Every time I open the fridge, this awkward bottle stored in the door wobbles to one side or the other and makes it’s presence known.  I sneer at it, threaten to toss it out and then slam the fridge door closed behind me.  It’s not mine.  I can’t just toss it out.  I have to continue to store it.

So, like the bottle of wine, there are things in my life that I just don’t want to store anymore.  Things I despise and resent.  Things that represent dysfunction, sadness and horror.  Difference is, they are mine, and I can just toss them out.  But I don’t.  They wobble around in my life because they just don’t fit anymore.  I sneer at them and then slam the door closed behind me, leaving them right where they are.  In some ways, it seems like if I get rid of them, there will be something missing from my life.  There is a bizarre sense of comfort that comes from having them there.

For a long time, I didn’t know that I could get rid of them.  I thought that since they were a part of my past, that I had to carry them around with me forever.  But I don’t.  I know that I can, at any point, simply put them down and walk away.  I don’t have to look back.  I don’t have to worry that I have “illegally dumped” them because in the Kingdom of heaven, there is no wrong place to dump things.  You just do it.  And mysteriously, God makes the trash disappear.  But then He does something even more profound.  He replaces them with things that I need; love, compassion, mercy, acceptance.  Things that fit perfectly into my life.  Beautiful things that I want to look at over and over; things that I would NEVER slam a door on!

Every day is trash day.  One by one I’m going to take things out and dump them.  I’ve done a lot of that already, but I have more to do.  Anyone care to join me in de-cluttering?