Special thanks to S.G. with whom I discussed this topic at length.  The following is based on that discussion.

PARISHIONER: Father, I would like your spiritual advice on how much I should donate of my income.

PRIEST: You can begin by donating a minimum of 10%.

PARISHIONER: Sure, that is common knowledge Father.  But my question is whether that 10% should come before taxes, after taxes, or after taxes plus expenses.

PRIEST: I’m not here to tell you what is haram and halal, but to help you think through what you should honestly give to God as a matter of conscience, not just as a command.  What do you think you should do?

PARISHIONER: I personally think I should donate 10% of what remains after taxes and expenses.

PRIEST: How much do you make a year, just so I can have a reference?

PARISHIONER: Our household income is $120,000 a year.

PRIEST: Okay, continue with you reasoning.  Remember, you are asking for my advice, so I will be honest and open with you.  What is your income after taxes?

PARISHIONER: We make a little over $102,000 after taxes (including tax deductions for the kids and the house) or $8500 per month.

PRIEST: What are your expenses?

PARISHIONER: So we pay $2500 a month for our mortgage and property tax.

Then we have a $1000 a month car payment for my wife’s car and my car.

We also pay $200 a month to insure our cars.

Then our monthly credit card payment is $1000 a month (we partially paid for our European vacation using a credit card.  It cost us $20,000).

            Then we have a monthly allowance of $2000 for restaurants.

Then we also pay $500 a month for our son’s car.

It also costs $300 to insure his car since he is a teenager.

PRIEST: So how much do you donate a month?

PARISHIONER: We donate exactly $100 a month from what we have left after taxes and all these expenses we mentioned.

PRIEST: So let me just sum up your practice of almsgiving: You make $8500 a month after taxes, and you spend all of it except $1000, and from that measly $1000 left, you donate a grand total of $100 a month to the Church.  Do you feel good giving exactly 1% of your total income to the children of God?

PARISHIONER: It’s not 1%; I give 10% after taxes and expenses.

PRIEST Call it whatever you want, but $1200 out of $120,000 is a total of 1% of your income.  You make six figures; people would think you were rich, but you sound like a poor man counting his quarters rather than someone well off.  I’ve never met a poor man as rich as you.

PARISHIONER: Huh?

PRIEST: I would suggest you donate 10% of the amount you make per month after taxes only.

PARISHIONER: Out of the $8500?!

PRIEST: Yes.

PARISHIONER: That’s $850 a month!  That’s a total of $10,200 a year!

PRIEST: Yes, I know how to count.

PARISHIONER: But that will mean cutting back on everything we spend, possibly getting rid of some of the expenses.

PRIEST: Exactly.

PARISHIONER: But, but…

PRIEST: But what?

PARISHIONER: I was coming to you for your advice.

PRIEST: And I gave it to you.  I told you I would help you think the matter through, not just tell you what’s haram and halal.

PARISHIONER …

PRIEST: You seem sad.

PARISHIONER: I’m more frustrated.

PRIEST: I would be too if I were in your place.  You spend nearly $10,000 a year for your teenage son’s car.  If I were to take a guess, it’s a higher end car than entry level.  Why?

PARISHIONER: So, people don’t think he’s poor and the girls can know that he comes from a family of means.

PRIEST: But that’s not true.  The fact that you gave him that car has made you poor, and if you didn’t have that payment, then you would have more money every month and at the end of the year.  Does he work?

PARISHIONER: No, I want him to focus on his schoolwork.

PRIEST: I didn’t know that high schoolers required every waking minute of the day to do their schoolwork.  He’s not in medical school; he’s in high school.  Teach him how to cook.

PARISHIONER: Why?  He’s not a girl.

PRIEST: It has nothing to do with gender, but it has all to do with self-sufficiency and being a good steward of the money that your family has.  It will also teach him how to be a good steward of the money he will earn when he begins his career.  If he and your daughter both learn how to cook, and they do so a few times a week then you can cut your so called “restaurant allowance” by close to half of what you are currently spending per year.  That’s another $12,000 dollars that you can put aside for your family and from which you can donate.

PARISHIONER …

PRIEST: There’s that look on your face again.  You seem sad AND frustrated.

PARISHIONER: I always thought when I grew up that I would be rich if I had a six-figure income.

PRIEST: You are right.  But you have a deep spiritual problem that is affecting your wealth.  You and your family are materialistic, and you consume for yourself and for your family way more than you need and you spend on things that are losing their value by the day.

You clearly believe in our Lord and in the mission of His Church, otherwise you would not be coming here today to get my advice, at least if you were sincere and not coming for show as you have your son driving a very expensive car.  You are spending 99% of your income on your family and give only 1% to the Church whose mission you appear to believe in.  But we put money in the things we value.  The amount you are donating per month is not even enough to pay for the church’s utility bills for a week nor is it enough to even help a poor family in another country for a monthly grocery bill.

If you had donated money to help those who are poor, you would have raised them up, and they would have become healthier, had less anxiety about the present, and could continue with their day to day lives building up their families.  That creates value for that family and for the community over time.  Your money that you donated to them creates more returns than in any investment you could possibly have.  It also does way more than any type of base pleasure you might have from eating at restaurants every day or what cars you and your wife and your son drive.

People will look at those cars in five years, or ten years, or fifteen years and they’ll laugh at them and they’ll be a piece of junk in their eyes much like they laugh at those who still have flip phones today, in the age of smart phones.  The difference is that you will have lost a lot of money in the process.

But giving alms works more returns for other families and the community than any spending or investing can do.  This is why our Lord Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Almsgiving is about those who have means to lift others up who have no means.  In a way it is a very dim image of the Son of God becoming Man so he could lift us up back to the Father in an overflowing spiritual life.  $100 a month does not lift anyone up.

But if that was truly 10% of your total income, then that is accepted before God because you also acknowledge that even in your simple means that the ability that you have to help someone else.  It is a sign of gratitude.

I think of the Widow and the Two Mites.  When our Lord Jesus saw her walking into the temple, the temple was the place of prayer.  She was coming to the Temple to pray.  She must have recognized the glory of God, His grace, and the beauty of the Temple that lifts our minds up to the Beauty that is God Himself.  I think that she might have been walking out and put her hands in her pockets and found whatever she had and put it in because she too realized that no matter how poor she was she could participate in supporting the work of God and His people.  She must have realized that even though that all she had were two mites, she should put both in because one alone would not have done much in the long run, but that she should also try to do her best to support the people of God and participate in that work.

That is a heart that is gratitude and has perspective.

And that heart caught the attention of our Lord Jesus Himself so that He stopped and pointed out what He saw, and in so doing, she is remembered for all ages.

On the other hand, I don’t sense gratitude in you, but only frustration and anxiety.  It’s kind of ironic that the poor widow did not have frustration or anxiety, but you do.

Do you feel God has blessed you with money?

PARISHIONER: Yes.

PRIEST: Then you should reciprocate that.

PARISHIONER: What do you mean reciprocate that?

PRIEST: I mean it is a type of dialogue between you and God.  When God blesses you and you are aware of it, then just like in a conversation you should respond in some fashion and be engaged in it, the way you respond and engage in the dialogue with God is partially through almsgiving.  Almsgiving is a way to embody the spiritual life in your actions, to really live it out.  Think about it, your money comes from the work you have done.  And the work you have done is a sacrifice of time and training and effort.  When you take what was traded for that time, training, and effort, you are offering a portion of that part of your life, and not just money.  That is a dialogue of love between you, God, and the one who will benefit from your gift.

You should also teach your children to donate.

PARISHIONER: I give each of my kids a dollar to donate on Sundays.

PRIEST: To do what?!

PARISHIONER: To put in the basket for donations?

PRIEST: Why?

PARISHIONER: Why?  What do you mean why?  So, I can teach them to donate?

PRIEST: To donate what?  A dollar?  You are teaching them to donate a dollar, nothing else.  You can’t even buy a small cup of coffee at Starbucks with that amount.

PARISHIONER: But my dad used to give me a dollar to put into the basket every Sunday.

PRIEST: Yeah when you were 5 years old in the early 1980s, one dollar could buy between 5-6 cups of coffee.  There is something called inflation, soon a dollar will buy what cost 50 cents in the past, and so on.

It would be good for them to get jobs and they donate from what they actually earn, not just the dollar daddy gives them on Sunday while they are pulling out of the church parking lot driving a $65,000 car.

PARISHIONER: But…

PRIEST: I just explained that your money comes from the work you have done.  And the work you have done is a sacrifice of time and training and effort.  When you take what was traded for that time, training, and effort, you are offering a portion of that part of your life, and not just money.  That is a dialogue of love between you, God, and the one who will benefit from your gift.

When you give them money whether it is a dollar or a hundred dollars to donate, you have not actually taught them to have that dialogue of love.  They’d learn more on the meaning of giving alms by watching you give honestly and joyfully.  You will become a model for them to imitate.

PARISHIONER was moping.

PRIEST: In the Apostle Paul’s epistle to Titus, he says, “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.  They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work” (Titus 1:15-16).

A lot of people come up with a bunch of excuses about whether they should donate, or whether they should send their donations to another impoverished country because we here in the United States don’t need money in our churches (which is nonsense, because if we don’t get donations we can’t keep the lights on in church or help those who need help here), or that they pay enough in taxes to the government, and that is quite enough for giving.  This last argument makes no sense, but I have heard it from parishioners who don’t want to donate.  Because of their hard hearts and the materialism which underlies their extravagant lifestyles, they have come to see giving alms as something bad.  Their disposition is defiled.

Yet, the Apostle Paul says in his first epistle to Timothy, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.  Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life” (1 Timothy 6:17-19).

PARISHIONER: Where do I go from here?

PRIEST: Cut back on your restaurant spending by half, and you’ll be pull out the true 10% from your income to give as alms.  It’s that simple.

And if you get your children to get part time jobs, you can have them pay for some of their expenses like some of their car payment and some of the restaurant bills.

If you teach them how to cook, then you can cut even more from your restaurant spending.

In the end, you will be a good steward of what you have, and you will learn to live simply and to share a little in the humility that characterizes those who don’t have as much.  In a way, this shares in what our Lord Jesus did, who also shared our humility even to the point of sorrow, suffering, and death.  When He rose from the dead, He showed us that this life is passing, and it is not the end and greater riches await.  It does not make much sense to gorge and splurge if you truly believe in a life to come that is greater than now.  And if you do, then you will realize that cutting restaurant eating by half, and driving less expensive cars, and giving alms (even beyond 10% as your heart moves you), are all little matters, but more importantly they are a sign of your faith in the riches to be found in our Lord Jesus Christ and what He has shown us of the life that was, that is, and that is to come.

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