A Drop in the Bucket

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 23, 2006
The Second Sunday of Easter

A Drop in the Bucket
Acts 4:32-35
1 John 1:1-2:2

The lesson from Acts sounds so wonderful:
“Now the whole group of those who believed
were of one heart and soul…”
The first group of followers of Jesus came together
in harmony, peace, and love.
They shared everything they had;
no one held anything back:
“there was not a needy person among them….
[for what they had] was distributed
to each as any had need.”

In the mid-19th century a German writer
adapted that phrase to
“from each according to his ability
to each according to his need”
in his effort to create a communal society
with everyone sharing – no one with too much
no one without enough.
The writer was Karl Marx.

This has always been the ideal,
always been God’s hope for us –
that all God’s children would live in peace,
that all God’s children would look after one another.
The Psalmist captured God’s hope with the words,
“How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm 133.1)

But as much as we might aspire
to such a wonderful way of living,
we just don’t seem to be very good at making it work;
we just don’t seem to be able to live the way God hopes for us.
We always start off well, with the best of intentions,
but just when things are going well
something breaks down,
someone tears at the fabric,
and then we disagree, argue, snarl, and eventually fight.

Greed is often at the heart of the breakdown.
Someone wants more;
Perhaps it’s more money,
but it is often something other than money:
Someone feels a need for power, control, authority.

Continue reading in Acts
and we see the sad reality of our nature.
A couple, Ananias and his wife Sapphira,
decided to sell some of their property,
but instead of giving all the money from the sale
to the community the way everyone else was,
they kept a portion for themselves.
We can hear the rationalization:
“We gave most of it to the work of the Lord.
We were just keeping a little for ourselves;
And even if we kept some, we still gave more
than either the Jones or the Smith families.
Why, the community should be grateful for our gift;
After all, it was our property; we worked for it,
it belonged to us;
It was ours and we didn’t have to sell it
or share any of the proceeds with the community.
We should be thanked for what we did.”

The rationalization all sounds well and good,
but something is missing in all those words.
God is missing!
Jesus is missing,
Concern for others is missing,
Love is missing.
Do you remember the end of the story –
what happened to the couple?
When each was confronted by Peter,
they dropped dead.
First Ananias and the Sapphira.

But it was not their greed that brought their death.
It was something more insidious:
They lied.
They pretended that they were giving their all to the group;
They pretended that they were concerned for all;
But they lied to Peter;
They lied to the rest of the group.
They lied to God.
(Acts 5:4)
They were not honest to God,
honest to God’s purpose;
they put their own selfish desires and needs first.
They put their own desires and wants
between themselves and God.
Selfishness is an all too human emotion
We all struggle with it.
Ananias and Sapphira were not the only church members
who struggled with selfishness,
who put their own needs and desires
ahead of those of the larger community.
Paul’s letters are full of both encouragement and rebukes
aimed at selfishness, self-centeredness,
any behavior that did not build up the larger community.

Our lesson is a reminder of what God wants for us
as we live in community:
He wants us to get along.
He wants us to live in a culture of Christ,
and of course the place to begin building that culture
is our homes and our church.
If we are unsuccessful at creating
a culture of Christ in our homes and in our churches,
how can we ever hope to create a culture of Christ
in the larger world?

Doing this takes work, of course,
hard work, consistent, constant.
always aiming up, always looking to build.
It does not take much to break things down.
One person, one comment,
one act and it can taint a community.

Have you ever watched paint being mixed at the paint store?
The clerk takes a gallon of plain ordinary white paint
and then puts it under a machine.
A precise amount of tint goes in the paint;
not much at all - just a few drops.
One drop of the wrong tint and the entire gallon is spoiled.
One drop!
One drop of the wrong tint may literally be
just a drop in the bucket,
but it can ruin the entire gallon.

Community is no different;
a drop too much of selfishness,
a drop of self righteousness,
a drop of temper,
a drop of arrogance,
a drop of maliciousness,
a drop of nastiness,
a drop of anything negative,
and the community is infected,
tainted, the culture turns sour.

No one wants to be the one to the source of the drop,
which means that everyone is called to do the hard work
of looking deep within yourselves and acknowledging
where you have the potential to taint the culture,
taint the community, to be the drop in the bucket.

We are blind to our own sins, blind to our own sinfulness.
The lesson from the first letter of John makes that clear,
those words that are so familiar, perhaps even too familiar:
“if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves.”
Even now as you hear those words,
where is your mind?
Are you thinking of yourself,
or are you thinking of someone else,
someone you think needs to hear those words?
Those words are for you, and you alone.

Building community, building a healthy culture starts
with looking deep within ourselves
deep within ourselves, yourself, myself
and acknowledging our sins.
This is hard work, but vital if we hope
to have a vibrant Christ-filled community.

This very notion of community will take on
even greater importance in the months ahead.
For about 4 to 6 months, you will not have a pastor
here with you each day.
You will have a Supply Pastor on most Sundays to lead worship
and the Presbytery will assign a neighboring minister
to provide pastoral care, just as I did for our friends
at Bethlehem last summer and fall.
It will take about 4 to 6 months to secure the services
of an Interim Pastor.
That period will be critical to this church;
which is why Presbytery does not allow churches
to try to speed up the process.
It is a time when you will be led by the Session,
the Elders God called and you elected to lead.
Will they work together, or will they split into camps, factions?
Will you all work together, or will factions
develop within the congregation?

That time from July through the end of the year
will provide this church with a test, a challenge,
an opportunity to aim for true community,
But that will require everyone working together.

When I served as moderator for the Bethlehem Church,
they asked me repeatedly whether I thought
they were going to make it.
My response was always the same:
as long as you work together, you will be fine;
and they did work together during those six months
I was with them,
they worked exceptionally well together.

As you work together, you will give life to the Risen Christ.
His presence will be palpable, so evident to all.
If, on the other hand, Ananais and Sapphiras
pop up within the congregation,
then you will essentially roll the stone back in place
and Christ will be dead in this church.

Pat and I have a plaque in the hall of the manse that says:
Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus Deus Aderit,
a Latin phrase that means,
“Bidden or unbidden, God is present.”
Whether we call on him or not, God is present.
Christ is present, here in this church
at all times and all places
not just on Sundays during worship
but in everything that happens here.

Our Risen Lord will be with you
watching, listening.
Your words, your actions can
put a smile on the face of our Risen Lord,
or they can furrow his brow.

Anthony Robinson, a pastor in a large Congregational church,
has written, “A congregation…participates in the ongoing work
of God and invites others to share in it.
The congregation invites people to participate in the…
unfolding work of God for change and renewal…”
(Transforming Congregational Culture, 37)

That’s what we do in church:
“participate in the ongoing work of God”
in community, with one another,
everyone participating “in the unfolding work of God
for change and renewal”
change and renewal in your own lives,
through the transforming love of God in the living Christ.

Church is community
and of everything you say,
everything you do,
nothing is ever just a drop in a bucket;
Everything either builds up or tears down.

In the weeks and months ahead
keep the words of the Psalmist on your lips
to guide your every action, your every word:
“How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm 133.1)
This is indeed the word of the Lord.
Amen