A Provocative Question or, So...What Is the Proper Tithe on $700 Billion?

This sermon was heard at the First Presbyterian Church in Berryville, Arkansas on Sunday October 19, 2008, the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

Exodus 33:12-23
Psalm 99
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

There is an old saying that religion and politics are two things best not discussed in public. In for a penny, in for a pound I say. We talk about religion all the time. In truth, I hope we talk more about faith than religion, but we do talk about religion. So today as we discuss rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, there is no way we can avoid talking about politics.

This is the time in the service of the worship of God when we read and interpret scripture. Reading and interpreting campaign speeches and debate transcripts will not bring glory to God, at least not in this setting. On the campaign trail there is talk of who is trustworthy with taxes and spending, and who is not. There is talk of who will bring change and who will be the hero of the same-old-same-old. There is talk of who is at fault and who is not. But I think with that one there is more than enough blame for everyone. All in all, it’s completely unnecessary for me to tell you how politically charged this last year has been, and these next two weeks will be.

And I don’t have to tell you that one of the elephants in the poling place will be the national economy, and this is where we return to our reading from Matthew.

The Pharisees and the Herodians meet Jesus in the temple and begin trying to corner him with flattery, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.” In any con game, and this is a con game, this is called “setting the mark.” The Pharisees and the Herodians are setting Jesus up for the kill, literally.

Tripping their snare they ask, “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Jesus knew what they were doing. He knew their malice and their hypocrisy. He even asked why they were testing him. They thought there was no answer that would not trap him and get him into trouble with someone, and the Pharisees and the Herodians wanted Jesus trapped.

Our Lord is fully human and fully divine. I imagine in a fully human response to this challenge, Jesus was not impressed with their snare. Can’t you just see him sigh and oh so slightly shake his head?

Jesus asks for the coin to pay the tax and someone gives him a denarius. He asks, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” On the denarius is the image of the emperor and his full title, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus Pontifex Maximus.”[1] What belongs to the Emperor is to be given to the Emperor… and what belongs to God is to be given to God. The trap is disarmed. The Pharisees and Herodians, knowing they have been bested, went away in amazement.

Folks often quote scripture saying, “Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar.” Scripture affirms the value and need for the political state. The Reformed Confessions, one of the tools used by Presbyterians to interpret scripture, also affirm the value and need for the political state. In the 1930’s Swiss theologian Karl Bart wrote, “The State has by divine appointment the task of providing for justice and peace.”[2] I would only assume that the state would also have the power to assess taxes to provide justice and peace by this divine appointment.

Let us all beware, those of us with political power and those of us without. This paragraph goes on to warn “[This divine appointment] calls to mind the Kingdom of God, God's commandment and righteousness, and thereby the responsibility both of rulers and of the ruled.”[3] So beware, rulers will be judged as the one responsible for the wellbeing of the people. And let everyone else beware too, those who are ruled will be judged as those responsible for the wellbeing of the government.

If you have ever attended any worship service in any October or November, you have heard a message about what it means to render unto God what is God’s. But that is not today’s message. Today I want us to consider this question: Since God ordains and installs governments, what is the state obligated to return to God? How should it be returned? And what are the obligations of those who rule and those who are being ruled? What are the rich and the powerful and the poor and the powerless to do?

Bestselling author Thomas Cahill offers some thought on this question. “For those at the bottom their only ‘obligation’ (if that is not too strong a word) is to trust in God’s mercy. But the obligation of those on top is to exhibit God’s mercy toward those who have nothing.”[4]

Using the example of our Lord as a model, Cahill writes, “Jesus keeps two audiences clearly in view; the poor and the miserable; and those who, because they are neither poor nor miserable, have a religious obligation to stand in solidarity with those at the bottom of the heap.”[5] These are the obligations of the people and of the political state; those who rule and those who are ruled. How this is to be done is another matter entirely.

Last week I put a provocative question on our outdoor sign, “So…What’s the proper tithe on $700 billion?” As you know, the inspiration for this question comes from the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008,”[6] the $700 billion financial market bailout.

According to the act, the Secretary of Treasury is directed to acquire mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate. It also authorizes the Secretary to use loan guarantees and credit enhancements to facilitate loan modifications to prevent avoidable foreclosures.”[7] Under this act, the secretary also “prescribes requirements for purchase and sale of assets using market mechanisms in a manner that will minimize any potential long-term negative impact on the taxpayer.”[8]

Allow me to paraphrase my understanding of this bill: Congress has authorized the Secretary of Treasury to purchase up to $700 billion of bad mortgages, bad mortgage backed securities, and other assets secured by residential real estate. And that number can go up. I have heard some pundits say the final cost of the bailout could end up between $1 and $5 trillion.

So how did our economic system get here? According to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, [9]

“The troubles we now face were caused largely by the combination of deregulation and low interest rates… Low interest rates and easy access to funds encouraged reckless lending, the infamous interest-only, no-down-payment, no-documentation subprime mortgages. It was clear that if the bubble got deflated even a little, many mortgages would end up under water—with the price less than the value of the mortgage. That has happened—12 million so far, and more every hour. Not only are the poor losing their homes, but they are also losing their life savings.”

This is the technical cause with its oh so real effects. But it does not help us grasp the culture that created this answer. In an article answering questions about the bailout, Time.com asked whether the legislation as it stands allows Wall Street executives to keep their bonuses or not.[10] Quoting:

“The Bush Administration says it needs [to allow executive bonuses] to encourage executives to get their cooperation, and that clamping down on their pay would only hurt their willingness to get on board.

What would the Sage of Omaha, Warren Buffett say about this deal? He got more concessions from a $5 billion stake in Bear Sterns than the government got with $700 billion.[11] More importantly, what would Jesus say about this deal? How do executive bonuses measure up to the obligation of those on top to exhibit God’s mercy toward those who have nothing?

Paraphrasing Galatians, Thomas Cahill writes, “Jesus told the Galatians not to go ‘snapping at one another and tearing one another to pieces’ (which some of them must have been doing). Even though ‘you were called to be free, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but be servants to one another in love, since the whole Law [of Moses] is summed up in a single commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.’”[12]

Are these troubled financial institutions exhibiting God’s mercy? Do these leaders love their neighbors as they love themselves? No, this is the powerful and probably rich taking care of the suddenly not quite as rich who are suddenly not quite as powerful either. They have used their freedom for self-indulgence, not for the glory of God.

How does the state respond? It is the state’s vocation by divine appointment to provide for justice and peace. In its dealings with this crisis, the state appears more concerned with profit and loss for big companies than with justice and peace for the poor. Remembering the ancient story of the Maccabees, Cahill could have been talking about this plan when he writes how the temple leaders “had betrayed God and built ‘with blood a city of vanity,’ a city that robbed the poor to fatten the rich.”[13]

Nobel Economist Stiglitz says one of several things that must to happen to stem this economic tide is a forced conversion of this debt to equity. If this is done, the amount of government assistance that will be required will be much reduced.[14] The way this is being handled in the congressional bailout is by the government buying old bad securities pumping new dollars into the banks that made these loans. Then when these loans are worth something again, they will be resold to the banks.

This would increase assets and reduce bad debts for the mortgage lenders that made some very poor decisions in the first place. It would ultimately reward the very people who wrote all of these bad loans. I have another idea about how to reach this same goal.

I ask, at least from an accounting stand point, if it would not be as beneficial to use this money to purchase these bad debts and create equity not for banks, but for individuals. What if these funds paid down actual mortgages instead of paying mortgage backed securities? What if the equity that was gained was for individuals, for people, for citizens, and not for corporations? What if we used these funds to stabilize communities instead of stabilizing companies?

What if these funds not only put money in the banks, but put equity in the hands of individuals, particularly the poor? It would seem to meet Stiglitz’ plan, what it would not do is save those who tried to make money selling and reselling the paper these mortgages were written on.

It seems unrealistic. Forgiving individual debt would be tough. Purchasing mortgages and forgiving debt sounds outrageous. Some would say that it would be impossible, it can’t be done. That’s the point. This is the tithe God requires. The tithe God requires is not simply financial, it has very little to do with dollars, particularly in this circumstance. It has to do with changing our attitudes to invest in communities instead of companies. It has to do with people not things. It has to do with building and rebuilding roads, bridges, and infrastructure, not with paying the almighty dividend.

Cahill says, “[Jesus] was, in the mind of his followers and in his own view, ‘a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,’ the last of the prophets, the direct inheritor of the mantle of Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and the whole long train of terrible figures who demanded the impossible—all of whom were shown to have been, in hindsight, far more realistic than their supposedly saner, more balanced contemporaries.”[15]

As I speak this morning, the polls for the American general election open in sixteen days, and in Arkansas early voting opens tomorrow. So let me say now I am not going to tell you how to vote in the coming election. There are many reasons why. For me, the most important reason is that telling you how to vote is the wrong thing to do as your pastor. Telling you how to vote is not a good pastoral move.

We come from politically different poles, and that’s just fine. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I believe that by our system of government, we are all endowed with the privilege of entering the voting booth and voting our best judgment and our conscience.

Therefore I give you this charge before you enter your poling place, get informed. Make an informed decision. A Time Magazine piece on Karl Barth published in the early Sixties said, “[Barth] recalls that…he advised young theologians ‘to take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.’”[16] Be informed, but let scripture inform your view of the world, not vice versa.

Be prayerful in your consideration of candidates and issues as you vote. Ask yourself “What would Jesus do?” and follow the conviction laid upon you by the Holy Spirit. This is what our Lord expects and this is how our constitution calls us to act in our vocation as citizens.

The Carroll County News says the answer to the tithe question is $70 billion. This is the traditional answer. It goes all the way back to Abram and Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Many people, including some of my seminary friends, have said, “Boy, imagine what the church could do with $70 billion?” But the question I asked was about the proper tithe, not the traditional. The Lord expects this tithe and our tithes to be more than cash.

This morning we confessed “We have been taught that to serve you is to obey you. At times fidelity to others gets in our way…We confess our mixed allegiance. Have mercy upon us as we face obligations, and reclaim us from error when we obey not your will.”[17] We make this confession again; turning away from this attitude is the proper tithe God requires. God commands that all of us, every individual one of us and the political state hear the prophet mighty in deed and word.

Again quoting Cahill, “[The Apostle Paul] is downright rabid on the subject of economic equality. He is not so unrealistic as to expect that all members of the community should have the same income, but he will have no part in treating anyone according to income. ‘In the Lord—that is, within the community of believers—everyone is to be treated equally.’”[18] The proper tithe is a turn from an attitude of self-serving economics toward justice and mercy.

This is the tithe our Lord requires. It is to trust in God’s mercy and be instruments of God’s mercy. It is to realize that we all have obligations to one another, and as we meet these obligations, as persons and as a nation, we render unto God what is God’s.

[1] Hare, Douglas R. A., Matthew: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: John Know Press, 1993, page 253-4.
[2] Barth, Karl, “The Theological Declaration of Barmen” paragraph 22 found in “The Book of Confessions, The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part I.” Louisville, KY: Office of the General Assembly Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2004, section 8.22. “Barman” was written by Karl Barth during a meeting of a group of German church leaders. When introduced it was accepted without amendment.
[3] Ibid
[4] Cahill, Thomas, “Desire of the Everlasting Hills, The World before and after Jesus.” New York: Nan A. Telese/Anchor Books, A Division of Random House, 1999, page 84.
[5] Ibid.
[6] THOMAS, Library of Congress, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR01424:@@@L&summ2=m&#summary, retrieved October 12, 2008. Its full title is: “A bill to provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes.”
[7] Ibid Section 109
[8] Ibid, Section 113
[9] Stiglitz, Joseph, “Nobel Laureate: How to Get Out of the Financial Crisis.” Time.com, http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1851739,00.html?imw=Y, retrieved October 14, 2008.
[10] Thompson, Mark, Time Magazine Online, “7 Questions About the $700 Billion Bailout.”
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1843941,00.html, retrieved October 14, 2008. Italics mine.
[11] Ibid, Stiglitz, http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1851739-2,00.html.
[12] Ibid Cahill, page 135, italics original in text
[13] Ibid page 42
[14] Ibid, Stiglitz, http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1851739-2,00.html.
[15] Ibid Cahill pages 91-92
[16] Time Magazine, May 31, 1963, cited from The Princeton Seminary Library, Center for Barth Studies, http://libweb.ptsem.edu/collections/barth/faq/quotes.aspx?menu=296&subText=468, retrieved October 12, 2008. The quote’s bracketed information is found that way in the website’s text.
[17] Kirk, James G., “When We Gather, A Book of Prayers for Worship, Revised Edition, For Years A, B, and C.” Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2001, page 119
[18] Ibid Cahill page 142, italics original in text