Worship and Money

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Error is none the better for being common, nor truth, the worse for having lain neglected. --John Locke.

     Worship is not the mere performance of acts. It is not engaging in a prescribed ritual. Worship is the prostration of the heart, filled with a sense of dependency, before the presence of God. It is tuning the soul to vibrate in harmony with the infinite, the reaching out of the hands of the inner self to draw God close and to draw close to God. We do not worship because we sing; we sing because we worship. We do not worship because we pray; we pray because we worship. Worship is the fountain of the great deep within us. Singing and prayer are two of the vessels which draw the water to the surface. There are many different vessels and the true worshiper reaches for the one which best suits his need of the hour.

     Public praise and community sharing in the expression of worship may be regulated by calendar and clock, but the true worship is always that of the true worshiper. It is constant and consistent. It is the breathing of the spirit of one who is dead and whose life is hid with Christ in God; the palpitation of the inner heart of one in whom Christ dwells as a royal tenant in a frail tenement of clay. To such a person there is no distinction between what is God's and what is his. All artificial distinctions between secular and sacred are broken down and wafted away upon the winds of the Spirit.

     A lack of recognition of this causes men whose vision suffers from spiritual astigmatism to make it seem that differences exist where none appear. We are constantly treated to meticulous arguments, elaborately prepared, dealing with what the church may do and what the individual Christian may do. This is a little like arguing what the arm may do apart from the body, or what fruit may be borne by a branch apart from the vine. In the final analysis all of this comes down to what the congregation of saints may do to further the cause of Christ and the answer will be found in the thinking of those who compose the community, as that thinking has been formulated by study of the word of God, meditation upon it, and mutual exchange of ideas concerning it.

     It is true that those in Christ Jesus may be mistaken about the divine requirements of service as to nature, extent and subject. They may also be mistaken as to the method or mode by which such service should be accomplished. But if they are governed by integrity they will be compelled by conscience and commitment to fulfill that which they believe to be His will for their lives, in that manner which commends itself unto

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them as being best adapted, under His grace, to achieve His ultimate purpose through themselves. Any mistake of such nature, regardless of how grave it may appear to me, does not negate the relationship or responsibilities of brotherhood. I must not destroy or dissolve the family ties simply because my own understanding leads me to question either the extent or the method of such service rendered in an attempt to give recognition to the Lordship of Jesus.

     Those who are my brothers in Christ and who mistake what the Father wants them to do, or how they should do it, made no mistake in becoming children of God, but as children of God they may make mistakes. This is one thing they have in common with all of the other children. If I refuse to have anything to do with them, it is not a perfect, or infallible child refusing recognition to those who are mistaken. Rather it is a case of one who makes mistakes shunting aside those who make different mistakes. None of us have any difficulty with those who make the same mistakes as ourselves. They are "loyal" for loyalty is actually being ignorant to the same degree, when used in a partisan sense. That is why it is so difficult to be a good partisan--one must be so selective about his mistakes, and be certain that he is always mistaken about the "right" things!

     It does not require a philosopher to figure out that, on this basis, the first one to arrive at perfect understanding of God's will would not be in fellowship with any other person. I am certain that most of us will agree that Jesus perfectly understands the Father's will. By such fallacious reasoning as has guided us in the past he should have nothing to do with any of us. Yet he loves us all, mistaken though we are. It seems certain, then, that the more we become like Jesus, the greater number of mistaken brethren we will love and cherish. Our problem is that we have forgotten we are to "grow in grace and knowledge of the truth." Knowledge cannot tolerate ignorance but grace can. When knowledge is extended ignorance is driven out to the degree of extension, but grace can be extended to some fairly ignorant individuals, a fact of which we are all living examples.

     Increasing knowledge, unaccompanied by expanding grace, can transform men into intellectual snobs and insufferable boors. Knowledge puffs up but love builds up. It is a wonderful thing to see a man climb to a higher ledge of understanding but knowledge which only concerns itself with one's present status and forgets those who are still struggling below suffers from memory lapse. Certainly it is a hindrance when one must pause upon each ascending plane to worship himself awhile before going on. Our readers must pardon these preliminary and diversionary observations. I want to devote the remainder of our space to an actual problem which is divisive among the non-instrument Churches of Christ.

     Currently the more orthodox segment of the non-instrument division of the disciple brotherhood of the restoration movement (it is becoming ever more difficult to keep things straight), is being harassed by pressures from a number of brethren about the support of institutional orphan homes. Herald of Truth, etc. In a good many localities brethren who once sat together at the table of the Lord are now separated into warring camps. They castigate each other with the old familiar designations of "Liberal" and "Anti" borrowed from other civil wars of the past.

     I am not attached to either party. For that reason one of the few things left upon which they both agree is that I am "a brother in error." This is good! It makes it possible for me to love them all. I am not the least bit interested in injecting myself into their factional conflict. Of course I am distressed that they have turned the sword of the Spirit against each other and have further shivered and splintered the family to pieces, however, I am practical enough to expect these things to occur until brethren come to be led by the indwelling Spirit. I am interested solely because the spectacle which they present to a startled world grows out of some interpretations which are probably baseless. A good deal of the argument centers around implications drawn from the scriptures which have been woven into a pattern of creedalism. I shall deal with one example. It is a part of modern Church of Christism that there are "five acts of worship" which the congregation must observe on the Lord's Day, and that one of these is "laying by in store," that is, contributing money to the congregational program. The rules, regulations, and legalistic traditions which have sprung out of this are about as ridiculous as they are deemed binding.

     In many places men are taught that they must contribute every Lord's Day if they truly worship God. This is the responsibility of every individual. If one is paid on the first of the month, he divides what he intends to "give to the church" into four or five equal parts, depending on the number of Sundays in the month, so he can perform this little ritual each Sunday. If he is married he may allot his wife a dollar to drop in so she can also "worship." Single women and widows are expected to "worship" in contributing but are forbidden to "worship" in deciding upon expenditures, being barred from "business meetings."

     In some places, regardless of circumstances, no collection is ever taken at any other meeting upon any other day, although brethren have become adept in evading this while making it appear they do not. It is not uncommon to hear men say, "We only take up one contribution, and we do it on the day the Lord commanded, and just as the pattern dictates."

     There are brethren who believe that every charitable act must be done "through the church," which means "out of the treasury," so that "the church will get the glory." The giving of alms has been outlawed in favor of organizational dispensing of funds. A more modern dogma is the exact opposite. It affirms that only a member of the church can be helped out of "the treasury" and "the Lord's money" must be used to feed no one but a saint. A saint is one who is a member of the party! Others must be fed by individuals. One can keep enough out of the plate (it does not become the

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Lord's until you turn loose of it) to feed the children of a non-member who are starving, but once he has dropped it in the basket he cannot get it back and feed that same family. The intricacies involved in the applications and interpretations of these laws have developed some outstanding legal talent which would have been the envy of the scribes and Pharisees with whom Jesus contended. They did a fair job of it but were handicapped because they did not have the advantage of doing it "in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

     1. Paul specifically states it was not a command. "I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love is also genuine" (2 Cor. 8:8).

     2. Although he directed communities in Galatia and Achaia to make contributions he did not direct those in Macedonia who were in extreme poverty to do so. He did rejoice that some of them asked to be included, "of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints."

     3. That it was not a regular practice of the congregations to take up a contribution is evident from the fact that the community at Corinth had been in existence four years before they began to do so. "It is best for you now to complete what a year ago you began not only to do but to desire" (2 Cor. 8:10).

     4. It was simply a matter of congregational discretion and decision. "For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem" (Romans 15:26). This is a far cry from "the law of God on worship" as taught in the average orthodox pulpit.

     5. It was a voluntary gift and not an exaction of law. "So I thought it neces-

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sary to urge the brethren to go on to you before me, and arrange in advance for this gift you have promised, that it may be ready not as an exaction but as a willing gift."

     On the first day of every week let each of you put on one side and store up at his home whatever gain has been granted him; so that whenever I come, there may be no collections going on. (The Modern Speech New Testament, Richard Francis Weymouth).

     The day after the Sabbath let each of you put by savings as he has prospered, so that collections do not have to be made when I come. (The Authentic Version, Hugh J. Schonfield).

     Every Sunday each of you is to put aside and keep by him a sum in proportion to his gains, so that there may be no collecting when I come. (New English Bible New Testament).

     On the first day of the week let each of you put aside and save something from his earnings; so that the money has not all to be collected when I come. (The New Testament in Plain English, Charles Kingsley Williams).

     Dr. Augustus Neander, in his "History of the Training and Planting of the Christian Church," is one voice among many, saying virtually the same thing. He writes:

     But Paul, if we examine his language closely, says no more than this: that every one should lay by in his own house on the first day of the week, whatever he was able to save. This certainly might mean, that every one should bring with him the sum he had saved to the meeting of the church, that thus the individual contributions might be collected together, and be ready for Paul as soon as he came. But this would be making a gratuitous supposition, not at all required by the connexion of the passage. We may fairly understand the whole passage to mean, that every one on the first day of the week should lay aside what he could spare, so that when Paul came, every one might be prepared with the total of the sum laid by, and then by pulling the sums together, the collection of the whole church would be at once made."

     All of the talk about "our money" and "the Lord's money" is without foundation, notwithstanding the interpretation commonly imposed upon the case of Ananias and Sapphira. All I have is the Lord's, and I am Christ's and Christ is God's. The new covenant scriptures know nothing about a "church treasury" or a "church budget." There is not one iota of authority for taking up a collection to erect a meetinghouse, to own real estate, or to promote and advertise an evangelistic campaign. This does not argue that any of these are wrong.

     Probably the best and most efficient way to deal with our financial obligations is to take up a collection when needed. We do not object to a congregation of saints having a bank account, a treasurer, a financial statement, or a weekly (or even daily contribution and distribution) collection. That is probably none of our business. We simply object to quoting scriptures for such arrangements when those scriptures are not remotely connected with our traditional "pattern." We will probably be more honest if we quit trying to quote substantiating (?) scriptures for all we do and admit that we do a lot of things as we do because they work better, or because we have borrowed some ideas from our sectarian neighbors and friends who tried them out and proved their workability.

     Certainly there are things we should do without involving the whole community. We have various relationships in Christ. These are not discarded in the act of be-

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coming disciples, although they are sanctified. A good example is the care of widowed parents or grandparents. "Where a widow has children or grandchildren let those first learn to discharge their filial duty and to make suitable return to the authors of their being, for this is well-pleasing in God's sight." Filial duty is not cancelled or negated by our relationship to Jesus. God smiles upon our continual recognition of it.

     "Should any believers have widows to look after, let them give them assistance and not burden the community, so that lone widows may be provided for."

     There is nothing said here about how widows should be cared for by either the believer or the community. Paul was not intending to lay down a comprehensive rule or law, nor to spell out details. The point is that the community of saints is obligated to see that widows do not suffer from neglect. The community may, or may not, create a common fund or treasury from which to dispense aid. This is up to the community to determine. Different communities will probably approach the problem in various ways.

     But to include "giving each Sunday" as "an act of worship" and as an identifying mark of "the Lord's church," and to make this a criterion of loyalty to Jesus and even a test of fellowship, only shows how creedalistic and legalistic we can become under guise of being scriptural. In doing so we demonstrate a woeful ignorance of worship and the nature of the community consisting of the called-out ones. To divide the brethren into warring factions over such opinions is to do despite to His Spirit of grace. Our brethren need to cease playing God and start loving Him, for this is the real essence of worship!

     Editor's Note. This is one of a series of studies during 1966 which will be bound into a book to be called "Deep Roots." This 192 page, fully-indexed volume will be ready for mailing on March 1, 1967, and advance orders are now being taken at the special price of $2.49 per copy, payable upon delivery.