While preparing to teach “A Romp Through the Apocrypha” at The Old Presbyterian Meeting House this fall, I was stopped by Tobit. This short story, written around 190 bce, was used to teach the dimensions of a moral life.
Right off you discover that Tobit really knows his stewardship. In Israel, before the exile, he went often to Jerusalem taking with him the “first fruits of the crops and the firstlings of the flock, the tithes of the cattle, and the first shearing of the sheep” (1:6). More, “for six years I would save up a second tenth in money and go and distribute it in Jerusalem”(1:7). Still more, “A third tenth I would give to the orphans and widows and to the converts who had attached themselves to Israel” (1:8). Wow! Not just a tithe, but a third!
But this successful businessman and pious Jew was taken captive to Nineveh at the time of the 722 bce exile. Even in exile, unlike most of his countrymen, he scrupulously followed the Jewish law and remained kosher in his eating. That impressed the king, Shalmaneser, and he asked Tobit to be one of his purchasing agents. Still Tobit continued to be a religious man, reaching out and caring for others in the exiled Jewish community. The story goes on to tell how he went out one Sabbath evening and rescued a dead Jew, covering him so he could then properly bury him that night. That made him “unclean” and he had to stay outside his house that night. As he lay down by an ivy-covered wall bird droppings fell on his eyes blinding him.
Later he sent his son, Tobias, to Media to find a kinswoman, Sarah, and to marry her. Tobit did not know that Sarah had been married seven times already, and that each husband had died before the marriage could be consummated. Nonetheless, Tobias reached Media and proposed. While Sarah and her mother were upstairs getting ready for the wedding, her father was outside digging the next grave. But it all works out in the end. Tobias safely marries Sarah and comes back home. Tobit receives back his sight. It is a wonderful story that includes at least two “Norman Rockwell”-type illustrations. The scene when Tobias leaves his father and mother at the beginning of his journey: “So the young man left his home and parents, and his dog went with him. So they journeyed along together.” The other is the scene when Tobias comes home with his bride. His mother, Anna, runs out and embraces him, and Tobit “got up and came stumbling out through the courtyard door.” What great word pictures are here to help tell the stewardship story! For as we all know, stewardship is more than money, it is a way of life.
He instructs his son in good stewardship, telling him (4:14,16) “Do not keep over until the next day the wages of those who work for you, but pay them at once. … Give some of your food to the hungry, and some of your clothing to the naked. Give all your surplus as alms, and do not let your eye begrudge your giving of alms.”
There are many other gems in this story, like the negative Golden Rule, “And what you hate, do not do to anyone,” (4:15). I’m not sure though that I could get away with preaching that the couples I marry should do what Tobias and Sarah did, praying for three nights after the wedding service, waiting until the fourth night to consummate the marriage. But this is a great story of a moral man and his family set in an adventure that includes travel, love, conflict, and a happy ending. The story ends with, “Tobit died in peace when he was one hundred twelve years old, and was buried with great honor in Nineveh.”
I think I shall use it for my next stewardship sermon.
William R. Phillippe is an honorably retired pastor and author of A Stewardship Scrapbook published by Geneva Press.
