Party Time

As we move toward the end of the spiritual year and the start of a new, we come into some important holidays. 

Of these are Rosh Hashana, followed by Yom Kippur, then Sukkot.  Between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is a time period called the 10 days of awe and a time of prayer and contemplation.  After Sukkot is Simchat Torah which is when the Torah scroll is wound back to the beginning.

These are the most widely recognized times of the “High Holy Days”.  Not included in this list is something very important and it is something that I have come to believe is a necessary aspect of really understanding what binds all these special times together and gives them continuity. 

Going back to Deuteronomy 26:1-15 we see the last of the commands Moses charges the people with prior to outlining the "blessing and the curse".  This particular set of commandments really caught my attention this year and I really didn’t understand why.  Now that we have entered into the High Holy Days, I am beginning to believe that I am starting to understand why I believe the Holy Spirit led me to so much prayer and meditation on this aspect of the law. 

What this section of scripture focuses on is the tithe.  Why is the tithe so important that Moses would save it for the very last thing to charge the people with before telling them about the blessing and curse?  Why would God want the tithe to be the last commandment that Moses would share with the people prior to having Moses tell them how He would interact if they did/did not honor what He was asking them to do? 

As we read Deuteronomy 26:1-15 there are a few things that stand out:

• The tithe is the first of the produce that comes from the ground and is to be carried in a basket,
• The tithe is given once a year,
• There is a 3-year cycle,
• Two years the tithe is to be taken to “the place where the Lord chooses” (Later God chose Jerusalem to establish the temple) and given to the priest,
• The third year the tithe is to be distributed in the town where the person lives,
• In each of the three years the person giving the tithe is to recite a particular prayer before God. 

To gain a full understanding of the tithe we have to go back and read Deuteronomy 14:22-29.  When we read this section of scripture, we gain a little bit of a different picture of the tithe than presented in Deuteronomy 26. 

In Deuteronomy 14 we see:

• That the tithe is to include a portion of what comes out of the field, grain, wine, oil, and the firstborn of the herd and flock,
• The tithe is to be used for a party that the person is to be a part of while not neglecting the Levites, the priest, the aliens who live amongst them, the orphans, or the widows.

A few weeks ago, when I read about the tithe in Deuteronomy 14, I was really moved by the commandment to use the tithe to throw a party that the tither would indulge in.  This is so far from our modern concept of tithing!!  The next thing that hit me was that the tithe is only to be given once a year.  WOW…this too is such a foreign concept to our traditional understanding of the tithe.  This is what led me to my prayer time and seeking heavenly understanding.

As I continued to read, pray, and open up to what I believe God was attempting to show me, I began to see the tithe as all about moving our hearts into a place of thankfulness, our minds into a place of faith, our walk into a place of growth, and our communities into a place of provision and outreach. 

My continued prayer and meditation through the next reading cycles helped the picture become more clear and more beautiful.  Ultimately the prayers the tither is to recite and the image of the High Holy Day festival brings everything into clarity.  The prayers can be found in Deuteronomy 26:5-10 for the two years in Jerusalem and 26:13-15 for the third year when remaining in the home town.

The prayer in verses 5-10, when the people return to Jerusalem, is all about re-confirming our personal connection to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  It is all about acknowledging that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, and that God is with us.  It is all about acknowledging that He has chosen us, blessed us, and that there are promises that He has given us that are in the process of unfolding before us.  In short, it is a GIANT family reunion, in the land of promise, acknowledging that He is our God, that He is our provider, and that we are His people.  At the same time, a small portion of the tithe is to be taken to the priest (a basket full), and the excess from the party is to be shared with the less fortunate and those that have not joined themselves to the people of God through covenant.

The prayer in verses 13-15, when the people remain in their own home town, is all about the person’s personal commitment to remain true to God, true to His commandments, and true to the purpose for which He chose us.  The prayer takes into consideration that times will be hard and that we will not walk perfectly in His ways.  At the same time, the person is acknowledging before God that in spite of life’s circumstances, they have treated the tithe with the highest level of integrity and have again used what God has provided for the purposes He provided it.  This time the party will be in their own home town and the focus will be on taking care of the less fortunate, the ones who have not attached themselves to the people of God through covenant, and the Levites of that town.  In the end, this is a GIANT outreach party where the people of God share the provision He has provided, see the vastness of the land He has provided, and see the potential increase of His flock as they see the impact of the outreach within their own communities.

So, how does this all relate to the High Holy Days?  Well, as it is, Sukkot is the “once a year” referenced in the commandment over the tithe.  Because it is a time of living outside in booths it is a time of remembering the exodus from Egypt and the time when our ancestors spent 40 years in the desert with the presence of God never leaving them.  It is also a time for us to move out of the comfort of our luxurious lives to live outside.  Through the years I have always thought of this time of being outside as a time of thanking God for all that He has provided and a renewed appreciation for so many of the things I take for granted.  I have not dedicated myself to living outside during this time, but have tried to move my heart to comprehend the “spirit” of the holiday.

Over the past four years I have spent more and more time outside and this year will be my first year that I set up a make-shift sukkot on my patio.  I am inviting friends and family to join me for the 7-day festival and look forward to what God might do during this most special season.

As I am writing these words my heart is moving to something I have never before seen.  In addition to remaining thankful for all that He has provided, this year when I move outside, I will look around, see that there is no pillar of fire by night, and no God-cloud by day.  I will look around and take note that I am in a foreign land and that I am not in the land of promise.  This year I will consider my part in what has come, and what my part is in bringing about a shift in the heavens that will quicken the end of this dispensation and transition us into His return.  This year, I will remember that I am a part of a people and I will long for my GIANT family reunion.  I will long to be with them in the land that He promised us.  And I will long for that day when He will return to live with us.  I will long for my family to come into harmony with Him and His ways; to be His people His way, so He can be our God in the way in which He always intended.

This year I will remember that in all reality, this land of plenty is really a land of bondage.  It is my Egypt.  He has blessed me in this land, but it is not the land of promise.  I will remember that He has surrounded me with people I love and various congregations that I can attend and feel welcomed.  I will remember that He has blessed me with beautiful children, a loving mother and father, a brother who truly cares about me, extended family who love one another, and friends that I consider family.

But within all this thankfulness, as I come through Rosh Hashana this year, I will acknowledge that another year has passed.  I will acknowledge that we are living the last of the curses, and that we have not been who He has called us to be.  I will gather my tithe and start making plans for Sukkot and how I will honor the spirit of what God has called me to be.  Because I am looking at my tithe and considering the prayers that He gave us to pray, I am forced to look at how I have walked out the last year of my live.  Did I join God in His story or did I ask Him to join me I mine?  Did I focus on what I thought was important only to be aggravated with everything that seemed to hinder me in my pursuits of happiness?  Or did I see that maybe those very things, and those very people that were such an inconvenience and a delay were really the most important part of what my last year was all about? 

As I move toward Sukkot, I can’t help but realize that I have come again to the end of our reading cycle.  After the party is over and everything is cleaned up it will be time to get back to business.  The Torah will be rewound and I will begin the annual study cycle again back at the beginning.  During the ten days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur I will have the time to consider how I approached His Word and all that He has blessed me with.  I will consider if I made the most of the Word and if I dedicated the time to allow it to speak to me.  I will consider if I allowed it to bring me new understandings about who He is, who I am, and where I must grow so that He can use me for all that He has called me to be.  I will consider if I have used what He has given me for His glory or if I have used it for my own.  I will consider my outreach and how I have made the most of all of the blessings of my life.  I will consider that another year has gone by and "His people" are still spread out across the world awaiting the fullness of the promises made to our fathers.

I believe bringing the tithe into the High Holy Day cycle provides the foundation to remembering that all of our time, all of our talents, and all of our resources come from Him.  He has given them to us because He has chosen us for a purpose.  The purpose is about being a people He will use to lead the rest of the world to Him while remembering that someday He will gather us to Himself.  This is what the High Holy Days are really all about and the tithe, along with the prayers He has given us surrounding them, force us to acknowledge these truths.

I pray this has been a blessing to you.  Amen.