I Pay my Tithes to the Homeless I used to routinely challenge Rev. Hill. I didn’t want to seem impudent or like a rebel rouser (after all, I was a child), but there was something inside of me that just YEARNED to let him know that I had his number - and I did. I was only 14, but by that time I had already been highly political for 4 years. I’d become fixated on politics by watching the campaign between JFK and Nixon when I was 10 years old. So for me it was just a political debate, and in order not to be disrespectful, I’d used the Socratic method (although I didn’t even know at that time that it was a method) of just asking him questions that he’d have to dig to try to answer. One time I asked him the following: Does God know all? And he said, “Of course he does.” I then asked him, can God be wrong? And he told me, “No he can’t.” I then reminded him that in his last sermon he said that all a person had to do to get into Heaven was to repent his sins and be Baptized. And he said, “That’s right.” Then I dropped the bomb. I asked him, well, if God knows all, and he knows a billion years before Billy is even born that Billy is going to be born, live his life, and then end up in Hell, is there ANYTHING that Billy can do to make God wrong? After considering the question for a moment he ran to the preacher’s refuge - “There are some things that are so complex that it is only for God to know.” Hmmmm . . . Well, here’s something that’s not complex. A loving father would never allow one of his children to agonize in “the burning pits of Hell” for refusing to blindly accepting the assertions of another man, because it was God himself who made us critical thinkers, wasn’t it? So as I see it, we have a choice, we can either trust in what man SAYS, or trust in what God has DONE. I also confronted him about his practice of publishing the names of everybody who tithed and what they paid in the church bulletin every month. I considered it extortion. It placed pressure on the members to not only tithe, but pay two and three times what they were “suppose” to pay so the rest of the church couldn’t calculate how little money they made. But no, I didn’t have any problem with confronting him at all, because I had been exposed to a REAL man of God. When my grandmother was ill, she used to send me to a little storefront church until she was back on her feet and could take me to join “THE BIG CHURCH.” That entire little church wasn’t even as large as Mt. Zion’s choir section. It was presided over by a little un-ordained minister that we used to call Elder Hampton. But that little man had an impact on me that has remained with me to this day, because he was humble, and he didn’t just preach his sermons - he lived them. If Jesus came back to Earth, I would expect him to be just like him. No big cars, social climbing, expensive suits, or pushing meaningless rituals for this little man. He had only one mission - LIVING the SPIRIT of the Gospel. He’s who I’ve patterned my life after, so I don’t feel the need to get on Sunday morning and pay to be screamed at for two hours, or buy some preacher a mansion in the suburbs, because it doesn’t matter how rich you make your preacher, you cannot bribe God. While I have no way of actually knowing this for sure, but it seems to me that it is much more likely that life itself is Hell. We continue to suffer through the cycle of birth, life, and the agony of death until we’ve been around enough times to obtain the wisdom to become one with God. So I pay my tithes to the homeless. That way and I don’t have to wait until I die to be rewarded. I can instantly see God’s smile reflected in their eyes. Try it some time. The next time a homeless person ask for some change, give them 10 or $20 and then look into their eyes. I guarantee you, the look in their eyes will make it the best $20 you’ll ever spend, and the feeling will stay with you all week. It’ll make you want to go broke doing it. . About Elder Hampton: KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE wattree.blogspot/2011/07/know-truth-and-truth-shall-set-you-free.html
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 14:30:10 +0000
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