Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Mt 11.28

His Eminence Metropolitan SABA Archbishop of New York and Metropolitan of All North America         His Grace Bishop Alexander

Pastor: Fr John Vazquez| fatherjohnvazquez@gmail.com | stgeorgealbany.org | 1 St George's Pl Albany

Office Hours: Mon/Fri 10am-5pm/Confessions: After weekly services or by appointment

Parish Council Leadership: Chair—Michella Rizk, Treasurer—Ranya Palmer, Secretary—Daniel Palmer, Vice Chair—Linda Grady

Beloved,

This Sunday we have our All-Parish Meeting. It is a time for us to gather reorient ourselves to the mission of the Church—which is to function as Christ's body in the world. In order for each particular parish to function we rely on the support of our parishioners—and not just the parishioners that are current members but those who will come. This practice of the people supporting the work of God has been the practice since the beginning of God’s working with His people, which we see in the book of Exodus. In fact, assessing this aspect of our lives—our offerings to God—help us to gauge our spiritual health. 

In the New Testament Scriptures we are told by Christ to go, sell all that you have, give to the poor and come follow me (Mt 19.21). The Lord possess all that is upon the earth—the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof (ps 24.1)—and He has entrusted His possessions to us to keep watch over like in the parables of the of the talents (Mt 25.14–29) and the Vineyard (Mt 21.33–42). With this understanding, the Scriptures teach us to begin our giving to the Lord at 1/10 of our income as a way to give thanks for his provision and as a way to provide for the work of God’s Church. This is what "tithe" means—1/10. Most often for us in today’s world this giving happens with our money but there are other ways that we can give—we can give goods and time. People here at St George give: oil, wine, candles, bread, incense and many other things along with their precious time and for this I am very grateful. Most of us are not in a position to take a 10% hit to our income, it is too big of a jump—like working out with a body builder when you have never lifted weights. However, what we can do is just a little bit more than what we have done in the past. This little bit of a stretch for us is a way to show God with our actions that we love Him and His Church.

Tithing is a practice that can be found in the Scriptures. 

• We find that Abraham (at the time still called Abram) gave a tithe of all he had to Melchisadec—King of Salem (Gen 14.20)
• We see that the Israelites after Abraham were to tithe from their possessions Thou shalt truly tithe all the increase of thy seed, that the field bringeth forth year by year. (Deut 14.22). This tithe functioned as a provision for the Priests and Levites who ministered in the tabernacle. (Numbers 18.21 and Deut 12.19)
• God even speaks about when we do not tithe how we are robbing him  (Malachi 3.8)
• In the gospels our Lord speaks about tithing as a given to the pharisees (Mt 23.23 and Lk 11.42.
• The Apostle Paul speaks about the work of ministry being done without hindrance (1 Cor 9.1–12). In other words, the provision of the community allows the clergy to focus on the work of ministry.

Why percentages? 

Well, think about it like this: if we have someone who makes 1 million dollars a year and someone who makes 40,000 dollars a year it is an insult to both people to ask them to contribute the same amount. Each person will not be judged in the same way by God because He has provided for them differently—why would God expect the same amount from each of them? No one expects anyone to give 10% of their income right off the bat. It takes time to strengthen this spiritual muscle but moving towards thinking about giving in proportion to how we have been blessed is an important part of our spiritual journeys.

It is important to understand that if we do these things we are going to face challenges. Why? Because we are making an effort to draw closer to Christ. This is a law of the Spiritual Life. When we try to draw closer to Christ the Devil increases his attacks on us but as we move on we learn how to fight in these attacks. We are in the midst of a great spiritual struggle in our lives in the Church and there is no weapon that the enemy has that can withstand the Grace found in the Church. So when you are attacked as you are trying to make these efforts do not be surprised but rather pray and ask for God’s Grace and help. We are in this work together. This parish is God’s parish and we are working together for God’s glory to share Him with others because this is what He wants. May our Lord give us strength.

The main reason to establish the habit of tithing is to keep our possessions and our money from getting in the way of our relationship with the Lord (Mt 13.22) and because giving is transformative—like the sacrifice that would burn on the altar—our gifts get transformed into a pleasing smell and something that we receive back that sustains us. In addition to this we find that the habit of giving transforms us into a certain kind of person—a person who gives rather than takes, a person who think of the other rather than themselves, a person who is like Christ. 

With love in Christ,

Fr John