God is not in the Mafia.
Adapted from the sermon discussion on Sunday, June 21, 2026
Going to the district campground was tough, because it is surrounded by chicken farms. You can’t escape the smell. I was on a panel interviewing ministry candidates coming through the process to be pastors. So, everybody took a couple days off, drove up to the campground, and spent an intensive couple days interviewing and learning. I was surprised when I recognized a candidate’s name on the list. Back in the day, we had gone to school for ministry together. He had dropped out back then, but since then had gotten his life together, married, and had a daughter. But his daughter had serious health issues. His life has been eclipsed by her medical care, often requiring spur of the moment trips hours away to the best closest children's hospital. Seizures. Seven years ago, as I sat across from my old friend, sharing the holy ground of sharing about life and the life of his daughter, the older retired minister who was paired with me took the lead and asked the first formal question:
“Do you tithe a full tithe?”
My friend answered him, with a lot fewer expletives than I would use.
He said, “Yeah, I have definitely committed to getting back to that, and we know it’s important to give, we’ve been really preoccupied with our daughter’s care and out of the church a bit, but are making sure we’re doing that.”
All the old minister had to say to that, with a twinkle in his eye, was, “That’s good. Because one thing I’ve learned is, one way or another, God’s gonna get that tithe.”
He seemed really sure of that.
“One way or another, God’s gonna get that tithe.”
But I didn’t know if we were talking about Jesus, or a mob boss.
I thought then that if God did manage to get some money, God would have been rushing it to the children’s hospital the first chance they got. What else would God be doing with it?
MARK 12: GIVE ME YOUR TWO CENTS
38 As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces 39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! 40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
41 He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
13 As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” 2 Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
I’ll be honest, you can stop reading now and just decide not to rock the boat. We can stay quiet and nod, lest someone think we’re not a real or generous Christian. We can applaud the widow as a patron saint of good moral sacrifice, and take the voice of Jesus as moralising,
“Yes, pastor,
We should be more generous, god knows we should!
And we can continue raising our money, god knows we need it!”
And we can continue placing the burden on people to meet quotas, to continue the status quo of polite religion, and we can simply “preach on tithing” and remind us all how we need to do our part, without ever asking anything of the church or the institutions to which we give.
I’d rather explore how God might be different from a mobster we pay “protection” money to.
Let’s get out of our framework, and into the gospel’s.
WHAT’S THE CATCH?
This story is cute at first glance. Sit with it more than a second, though, and it’s horrendous.
Does the wondrous temple bureaucracy need to rob this widow of her money?
Is Jesus really ok with her putting in everything with abandon?
Why is the widow at the Temple anyhow?
There was a social contract that the Temple was to provide for the widow, surely.
Who’s looking out for her?
The fact is that we are all too familiar with systems that work on the basis of exploiting those they purport to help:
We see too many people saddled with obscene payday loans that present themselves as lifelines, while really they bleed people dry.
Banks send credit cards freely in the mail, enticing us to spend more than we have.
Contracts routinely hide hidden fees and terms, locking people into unfair deals.
Loans carry exorbitant rates.
Healthcare costs ask just how much your life is worth, and make sick people sicker with worry as claims are denied.
The obvious question is, are churches always different?
Preachers often cast tithing as a “good investment,” saying things like, “you can’t outgive God!”
or we bill it as the low low cost of eternal fire insurance, putting on the heat with fear of divine reprisal. Mob boss.
The widow’s temple could very well be a religious institution that, like some today, “just wants your money.”
I ran across a minister online who mused,
“Today I came across a statement that I used to say myself some years ago, something to the effect of: "If every American Christian tithed to their local church, there wouldn't be a hungry, homeless, or needy person in America, because the church would be able to meet the needs of broken people in need of help."
This is the dream we want to tell ourselves: It’s all a noble endeavor. We’re just around the corner from our Jesusland utopia, for the low cost of 10%, and it’s other people’s stingyness that’s keeping us from getting there! But he couldn’t be lulled by that dream any more:
“After re-considering that statement, I told myself that if the tithing scenario became true, instead what we'd see are giant churches everywhere with coffee shops and gyms and fountains, churches with multiple-multiple-multiple staff ministries and accompanying substantially larger salaries, and basically everything for the rest of the outside world would be mostly identical to how it is now.”
Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t.
Regardless, why do you think he says that?
People in my congregation were brave enough to name the realities we see with our own eyes: a lot of times, the Church is really good at finding ways to spend money on ourselves.
We become possessed by our things and keeping up the appearance, and grandeur. Bigger becomes better, and soon enough, we believe in things, but we only kind of believe in Christ.
This sad state of affairs is largely true. We get off-mission. Feeding the hungry, and caring for the widows, can become a bonus. An afterthought.
But it is also true that we are a people who give as part of our service, as an act of worship.
The why, and the how, and the what, matters.
This is part of the gift of The Way! We are not yet trapped by what we have. Our building could be taken apart tomorrow, and we would not mourn it. We use it, but we are not trapped by it. Here’s what’s non-negotiable: If people give a little, and in a few years we find ourselves saying, “Friends, it was a good run, but we don’t have the funds to keep this going as an organization,” the poor will have been helped. The hungry will have been fed. If people give a lot, and we find ourselves established financially, the poor will be helped. The hungry will be fed. And we will need voices of faith to call us back from the temptation to be more awed by what we are building than we are the needs of our neighbors God has called us to.
So let’s talk a minute about church giving, but we’re going to then talk much bigger than that- the gospel is about something fundamentally more grand!
Local churches that exist, need money. The Way is no different. Personally, I tithe.
We give sacrificially, because we believe in this place and body of people, because:
I want people to have a safe church to attend.
I want people who have been harmed in Christ’s name to hear a better story.
I want LGBTQIA+ people to know they are dearly created and deeply loved.
I want children to be raised without religious trauma.
I want the gospel of Jesus to be good for something on earth as it is in heaven.
I want people in my community to know that followers of Jesus can amount to more than all the disappointments.
So I give, and I will invite you to join me. Guilt-free.
No hell insurance premium.
No investment plan.
TEN PERCENT?
I bet some of us want to ask, because we have heard it so many times:
“Pastor, does God command everyone to give 10% of my income to the church?”
No.
It is not a divine commandment that everyone is to give 10%.
And if you don’t, God is not a mob boss who will chase it down.
I am tired of the church robbing people in the name of God (You are not a failure if you can not give like the scribes, out of their abundance).
You can give 10%.
I think it is admirable.
I think the world is better because of the generosity of people who do so.
And also:
God commands you to give more than 10%.
The Church doesn’t want to take away your money. But! The church absolutely wants to take away your greed, your selfishness, and your pride.
Where there is any measure of withholding from God or neighbor that is born of these things, the offering becomes a practice in laying them down.
That’s the real problem with asking for 10%:
It’s not that it’s asking too much.
It’s asking for far too little.
It’s the religion of the biblical Pharisees! They’re paid up!
They were so good at giving 10%!
But the call of God isn’t “give 10%.”
The call of God is, “give yourself away.”
G. K. Chesterton put it this way,
“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
I don’t know when, but the church has been brainwashed when it comes to money and success. We think wealth is a virtue for some reason. We think hoarding is an accomplishment. We have forgotten the words of Jesus about how big a risk to our souls riches really are.
God’s economy completely upends our framework! God was never about the money. Somehow we reverted to the pharisaical formula without irony. 10%! We’ll pay God off! What more can God want from us, if we pay our premiums. What more could God ask? But God refuses our terms, in love.
We are called to give more than out of our abundance (of time, energy, or gifting, to name a few categories).
It is when you give out of your lack that God really works wonders.
It’s when you show up even when you feel like you don’t have the time, you can’t spend the energy… When we are weak, God is strong.
GIVE IT ALL AWAY.
I had a professor in school who said he would never preach a sermon on tithing that wasn’t “give it all away!”
The thing is, after all the social critique, are we to be like the widow?
Yes.
God does not waste her offering.
God’s image of abundance is that his grace and goodness is enough that we are able to live with radical generosity with the knowledge that our money and lives shall not be wasted. Is this a promise of riches or comfort, or even enough?
No. We follow Christ. And Christ journeys to the cross.
But in being crucified with Christ, we share in the resurrection, where the scribes will get what’s theirs. But the widows will, too. And the things we give in love, echo, in eternity.
Whatever you are giving to others, God sees.
When you have given all you can give, hear the voice of God, calling:
