Robbing God

Malachi 3:1-12
Sometimes verses of scripture seem to jump right off the page at me, which is when I feel like I need to pay particular attention to what they are saying. That’s what happened with the reading from Malachi for today. “Will anyone rob God?” asks the prophet. “Yet you are robbing me!” (Malachi 3:8). I’ve preached a number of stewardship sermons over my career, and I’ve heard even more, but I can’t remember ever saying or hearing anything about robbing God. Perhaps we preachers find this too aggressive for modern ears. Or perhaps we ourselves resist the metaphor. But there it is.

There’s a difference between robbing and stealing, of course. To steal is simply to take someone else’s property, and frankly that’s the idea I would expect here. But to rob someone normally means using force or the threat of force to take the possessions of another. Robbery is far more aggressive than stealing. So how is it possible to rob God? Malachi’s original audience asked that same question. “But you say, ‘How are we robbing you (God)?’ In your tithes and offerings…’” (Malachi 3:9). In other words, not living up to our commitment to God, not giving God what is due according to the law, is an act of aggression on our part. We might as well hold God at gun point and say, “empty out your pockets!”

It isn’t difficult to establish the fact that all creation belongs to God. Psalm 24 sums it up nicely. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1, KJV). As stewards or caretakers of God’s creation we are asked only to return ten per cent (a tithe) to God. When we fail to do so, when we withhold God’s own creation from it’s rightful owner, we are no better than robbers. That certainly puts things in a different light, doesn’t it?

What I take from this is that God holds us to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. What God calls us to do is to strive for that higher standard and to quit holding back. That’s quite a challenge, I know, but the alternative is far more offensive.

Prayer: Gracious and loving God, you have given us a world in which to live, now help us to live with generosity toward you and one another. Amen.