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 Leviticus 2:

⁴“When you present some kind of baked bread as a grain offering, it must be made of choice flour mixed with olive oil but without any yeast. It may be presented in the form of cakes mixed with olive oil or wafers spread with olive oil. ⁵If your grain offering is cooked on a griddle, it must be made of choice flour and olive oil, and it must contain no yeast. ⁶Break it into pieces and pour oil on it; it is a kind of grain offering. ⁷If your offering is prepared in a pan, it also must be made of choice flour and olive oil…

¹³Season all your grain offerings with salt, to remind you of God’s covenant. Never forget to add salt to your grain offerings.

What impresses me as I read this passage is that the people were involved in a process of preparing their offering for the Lord. It wasn’t an act of simply writing a check and signing it while the offering baskets are being passed, hoping that you finish your check-writing before the basket gets to you. It was something that took some time and required involvement. I can imagine creating the cakes or wafers of grain and olive oil, being careful to not put in any yeast and careful to include salt. I can imagine a child watching his or her mom making the offering, a process which would have been much like making the daily bread yet very different. The child brings the yeast over because, having watched momma make bread all week, he knows the yeast is next.

“Momma, here’s the yeast. It’s next.” He says earnestly, so proud to remember, so eager to show how well he has learned.

“No, child, not today. Today we are making an offering to give to the Lord. It must have no yeast in it. You remember the story we tell on Passover. Our ancestors left the slavery of Egypt in such a hurry that they did not have time to put yeast in their bread. This special bread reminds us of God’s goodness to us by freeing us from slavery. So we make carefully it, but then we give it back to God as a way of saying ‘Thank You.'”

“Child, bring the salt instead. The salt reminds us of the Covenant we have with God. That He is our Lord, that He is first in our lives, that He has delivered us and will deliver us. That He is good to us and that He is our God. We must never forget our covenant with the Lord. The salt in our offering reminds us of all this.”

And so the process of preparing the offering is a time with God and for God. A time of reflection, not just the rushed effort of completing a task.

I am challenged, and I offer the challenge to you…the next time you are preparing your tithe or offering to the Lord, don’t rush through it. Set aside a little time before you give your offering to prepare it (and yourself). Remember God’s goodness to you. Remember His covenant with you. Make it a holy time.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Tithes & Offerings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.