Coins in the Offering Tray
I’m a bit ashamed to say there have been times when the offering tray has been passed through the church pews and thoughts have crept into my mind about the people dropping coins.
It’s an unfortunate part of human nature that starts assuming the reason a person is giving coins instead of paper money.
Maybe they aren’t as wealthy as me. My gift is more valuable.
Maybe they forgot about the offering, like they do every week, and had to scrounge for loose change.
Maybe they don’t really care about the work going on in this church.
Maybe they are selfish.
We can assume a lot about a person based on the sounds we hear as the collection tray passes them. Are they silently dropping 20-dollar bills or trying to subtly lay a handful of nickels and quarters in without anyone noticing.
But while these assumptions flow freely and naturally from human nature, they are not from God’s nature.
In the Old Testament, God allowed His people to offer different sacrifices for their sins. The well-off were to offer a lamb, those with less could bring pigeons, and the poorest of the community were allowed to bring a portion of grain. God forgave the people who brought grain as thoroughly as those who brought lambs.
Jesus once observed a woman putting two copper coins into the Temple offering box and He commended her above those who brought more. The monetary value of the gift was irrelevant, the heart of the giver was everything.
Seeing as we can only see the monetary value of the gift and not the heart of the giver, we should not allow our assumptions to materialize in our brain. A judgement about someone else’s contribution is more a condemnation of our own heart than theirs. In looking for faults in others, we expose them in ourselves.
