Bleak and colorless.  November calendar photos are invariably the blandest of the entire year.  October boasts vivid fall colors.  December is trimmed in bright red and green.  But November is muted grey and brown with somber landscapes and usually fog.   You might expect January to be the least interesting, but November always takes last place.  

As a child something else characterized November.  It was “Stewardship Month.”  To avoid the unpleasantness of preaching on ‘giving,’ our church confined the topic to the month of November.  The rest of the year preachers and hearers were off the hook and could rest easy.   No one invited friends to church during November.  And we all girded up the loins of our minds for the deep dive into ‘stewardship.’ 

‘Stewardship’ was our euphemism for the giving of tithes and offerings.  The November series resembled a spiritualized fundraising campaign preparing us for the new year’s budget.  Stewardship month jaded us that the topic of ‘giving’ was an unpleasant but necessary part of the Christian life.  And so, we missed out on one of the most joyful aspects of covenant life and treated ‘giving’ as an embarrassment to our apologetic for a life well lived.

Along with “all Christians are hypocrites” the other darling mantra of skeptics is “all they want is your money.”  Without a proper view of the grace of giving, we cower apologetically at these slogans.  Thrown back on our heels, we treat the topic of giving as anathema and only refer to it tangentially, quick to translate giving into convenient service not sacrificial gratitude.  

But the Bible is very clear that giving tithes and offerings is an indispensable part of our Christian life.  Indeed, “God loves a cheerful giver.”  By cheerful giving, we celebrate all the attributes of a giving God, his grace, his provision, his faithfulness and his goodness.   Our practice of giving is a powerful barometer of our delight in our God and faith in what we profess to believe about him.

As God brings Israel out of Egypt, the most important part of their deliverance is preparing them to abide in him.   Only slightly less than half the entire story of the Exodus is focused on the Tabernacle and the priesthood.  God gives the ethos of covenant life in the moral and civil law.  In the ‘Book of the Covenant’ the people are taught to live with one another.  But the Tabernacle teaches the people how to live with their God. 

In Exodus 25 instructions for the Tabernacle begin with ‘giving.’   It was the first sermon in the series.  Not tucked away in November. Giving is the starting point.  The abiding life in Christ begins and consists in a recurring pattern of grace and gratitude.  Gratitude expressed through giving and worship.   Giving that is voluntary, joyful, and Christ-centered.  Are you giving? Is your giving voluntary, joyful, Christ-centered?

Join us this week as we examine Exodus 25:1-9 and consider voluntary, joyful, and Christ-centered giving.   We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.