Leave Your Offering Behind If...

 Over the past few years, I’ve really dug into historical church responses to racism and it hasn’t been pretty. Just read some works like The Color of Compromise, Jesus and the Disinherited, The Cross and the Lynching Tree...If you’re reading (or listening) with God’s eyes and ears, I’m believing your heart will be broken.

But here’s one of the hard sayings of Christ I don’t hear many sermons about: Matthew 5.23-24 says, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First, be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Who’s responsibility is it to reconcile with the other? The accused or the accuser? Christ says the accused is the one to initiate reconciliation. Doesn’t matter if the accusation is true or false. If you’re being accused, you are told to leave your offering behind and go be reconciled. And what is your offering, your gift? Money, yes. But also post-Pentecost, we also know our gifts are spiritual: preaching, teaching, evangelism, hospitality, etc. Thus we should be putting our gifts on hold until we are reconciled.

How do we do this? In public scenarios, preachers like Bill Hybels and Ravi Zecharias should have been taking a leave of absence from their ministries when accusations came forth. Each of us in our vocations and volunteer efforts should be taking a leave of absence if accusations are made against us.

Now, the challenge is this: we know our minority brothers and sisters have accused us in the majority of systemic bias over the past generations. We in the majority are not doing anything to restore or repair the effects of economic and spiritual disparity. We haven’t changed our attitudes—e.g. we look for justification of police brutality by focusing on any wrongdoing of the victim. We have ignored the “innocent until proven guilty” mantra of our law and order system. We are guilty of poor attitudes towards our brothers, sisters, neighbors. 

We might be accused because we don’t vote a certain way, apply scripture a certain way—head coverings, prosperity gospel, etc—honor public health dictums or execute civil disobedience. We too need to reconcile with our brothers and sisters who believe and live differently from us. Doesn’t mean we come to agreement, but we need to come to a loving position towards one another. “They will know you are my disciples if you love one another.” (John 13.35)

If we live by Christ’s standard, we then should cease making an offering—money and talents—until we have accomplished reconciliation. Right?

I’m not sure yet how I’m going to do this, but I’m going to try. It might mean that my charitable giving is limited to international efforts and reconciliation efforts. It might mean that I need to volunteer in a way that is invited by my brothers and sisters in struggling situations. I don’t know what else it might mean but I’m open to hearing and learning.