Giving All

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 14, 2007

Giving All
Exodus 23:19
Mark 12:41-44

Could God’s expectation be any clearer?
“The choicest of the first fruits of your ground
you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.”
Exodus 23:19
That’s the lesson.
That’s what the Bible teaches us:
the word of the Lord.

The choicest.
The best.
Not what’s left over after you’ve had your fill,
not the remnants,
not even second best.
The choicest.
The best.
The first fruits.

We are to bring them to the house of the Lord our God.
We are bring them because God expects us to:
we SHALL bring them.

God expects us to
because what we bring to God
belonged to God in the first place.
When we bring our firstfruits, our best,
we are not bringing God a gift,
we are returning to God a portion of what is his.

Ah, but that’s not how we tend to look at
what we offer God, is it?
We offer God what we feel we can afford,
what we feel we can afford after we’ve taken care
of the essentials, all those bills that find their way
to our homes each month.
That’s the reality we live with.

After all, if we are a little short,
or if we miss a payment in what we are supposed
to bring the house of the Lord,
it’s not as though we’re going to get a past-due notice,
or a nasty telephone call.

And so God gets something from what we have left
at the end of each month.

And still God stands before us in expectation,
with his direction so clear:
we shall bring the choicest, the best:
we shall return a portion,
a tithe!
A tithe: ten percent!
Not giving to God ten percent,
but returning ten percent.
Returning to God ten percent
of the one hundred percent
we have received from God,
each of us: you and I.

It couldn’t be simpler.
And yet we struggle with this notion.
We’ve struggled with it for three thousand years.
And in the process dismayed God,
frustrated God,
and even angered God.
Speaking through the prophet Malachi,
God vented his anger:
“Will anyone rob God?
Yet you are robbing me!
But you say, ‘How are we robbing you?’
In your tithes and offerings!...
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse…”
(Malachi 3:8ff)

When you each joined the church, you made a promise:
you each promised to be “a faithful member of this congregation,
share in its worship and ministry
through your prayers and gifts,
your study and service,
and so fulfill your calling
to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.”

That’s what you promised.
Do you remember?
You promised to be a faithful member of this congregation,
to participate regularly, faithfully in worship on Sunday.
It is here in worship where our lives as disciples
are grounded, the foundation of faith built.

You promised to be a faithful member of this congregation
by sharing in its ministry:
by being actively involved
in the different ways we are called to serve,
each of us responding to where God calls us to serve,
using the unique gifts God has given each of us.
It could be singing in the choir,
or looking after our buildings and grounds,
or working with our children,
still others assure that our finances are in order.

For the past few weeks we’ve been encouraging you
to fill out a Time and Talent interest sheet
as a way for you to honor the promise you made.
At last count, fewer than 20% of the congregation
have returned their forms.
Why haven’t you returned yours?
Perhaps because you did not get one;
perhaps because you are already very active
and thought you didn’t have to;
Perhaps because you’ve simply forgotten to fill it out.
Whatever, the reason,
fill out a form so we can create a helpful database,
to match interests with needs.
There isn’t a ministry team that could not use help.
Fill out a form in response to the promise you made,
made to the church made to every other member,
made to God.

This week our Stewardship Ministry Team
sent out pledge cards as the third part
of our commitment of Time, Talent, and Treasure
to the work of the Lord.

Presbyterian churches always seem to struggle
with Stewardship campaigns.
We struggle because we think of Stewardship as fund-raising,
and that always seems so unseemly in churches,
as though we were public television stations:
“Isn’t the choir great?
Don’t you want more music like that?
Your pledge of support
will assure more anthems just like that.
Phone now: operators are standing by…”

Stewardship isn’t about fund raising, though.
The money you put in the plate isn’t a gift.
Stewardship is about our faithful response to God,
Stewardship is something that we are engaged in
each of us, every moment of every day.
Our commitment of our Treasure is simply
one way we respond to God
as good and faithful stewards and disciples
returning a portion of what God has given us.

If you sit down with a financial planner
he or she will tell you that the first thing
you should do when you get your paycheck
is put money into retirement savings,
then, next, put aside the money you need for your regular bills:
the mortgage, utilities, car payment, insurance,
food, clothing, children’s education,
something for vacation and entertainment.
Then, with what’s left over,
if there is anything left over,
put a little aside for charity.

That’s good financial planning.
Follow that plan and Suze Orman would give you a top grade.

But that’s not faithful living as a disciple of Christ,
as a child of God.
Make your Stewardship commitment
out of what’s left at the end of the month
and the response you’ll get from God
is right there in Malachi.

No, as sensible as financial planners might be,
we are called first to set aside our best for God.
Our choicest, our first fruits.
God first.

The widow gave her all,
offered her very self in response to God’s blessings.
She held nothing back.
That’s the example our Lord calls us to follow.

We are at a crossroads for our church as we look to 2008.
The past decade had its ups and downs,
especially with turnover in staffing.
But things are stable now,
and we are ready to look to the future
to think and pray about where God is calling us
and what we will need to do to respond.

We are ready for a new vision of the future,
ready to close the book on Vision 2010
and the wonderful things we did as part of that vision plan
so that we can pray about and plan for a new vision.

What has become clear to me over the past 15 months
is that we need to set a goal for ourselves to
restore the position of Associate Pastor.
The congregation very reluctantly gave up that position
a few years ago,
but from everything I’ve heard about that decision,
it was hoped that it was a temporary move.
How temporary?
That’s up to us.

It will be temporary
if we make it a goal to restore the position.
If we commit ourselves to having an Associate in place
in two or three years.

Why do we need an Associate Pastor?
The first answer is simple:
a church of our size needs two ministers.
We are more than 400 members,
and we hope we will continue to grow.
That’s more than one minister can handle,
even with ample amounts of Fair-Trade coffee!

More specifically, we need an Associate
to honor the commitment we have all made
to the young people of our church:
We have had five different Youth Directors
over the past five years.
We have not had even a nibble
in our attempt to fill the position,
which really should not be a surprise:
How attractive is a part-time, 15-hour a week position,
that doesn't pay much?

Aren’t the young people in our church worth more than that?
Can’t we do better for them?
Don’t we speak of them as our future?
The Associate Pastor would have as
his or her principal responsibility the Youth:
and not just Middle and High Schoolers,
but also the growing number of young people
we have in college, and
the singles who are in their 20s and early 30s
who have finished school and have moved back
to this area to start careers.
This past summer a group of a dozen
'"twenty-somethings"
got together and dubbed themselves
the “Not-So-Youth Group."
They are eager to organize outings for fellowship,
as well as growth in discipleship.
They would love to have an Associate Pastor
work with them.

To call an Associate Pastor,
even one straight out of seminary
will require I estimate at least $75,000 per year
by the time we pay salary, housing, taxes, and benefits.
That sounds like a lot of money
but we can do that
if we just increase annual giving by about 15%.
Surely we can do that over the next two years!
Surely we can do that if we make that our goal!

We have other needs as well.
This is a thirty-year old facility,
and just like your homes,
it requires constant upkeep and maintenance.
Just ask Mike Mahoney, the chair of our Property Ministry Team,
about the upkeep and maintenance of this facility.
And it doesn’t come cheap.
We spent more than $30,000 this past year
to replace heating and air conditioning units in one wing, and more than $50,000 to repave the parking lot --
and that only took care of the back lot;
We still need to do the front.

Those are just a few of the major needs we have
here in your church,
our Church,
the house of the Lord our God.

You have your Time and Talent form.
You have your Pledge Card.
You know what God expects,
what our Lord calls you to.

What you do, your response,
is between you and God.
The Stewardship Ministry Team doesn’t know.
The Session doesn’t know.
I don’t know.
Only God knows.

“The point is this,” Paul teaches us,
“the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,
and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.”
(2 Cor. 9:6)

God has given us his all:
in his love, his grace,
his mercy, and his goodness.
God has given us his all
in his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

God stands before us here and now,
looking for our response.
God stands before each of us, you and me,
with his simple command:
“The choicest of the first fruits of your ground
you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.”
Exodus 23:19
He awaits your response.
AMEN

If Only...

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 7, 2007
World Communion Sunday

If Only…
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Luke 17:5-6

You saw the kiosk in the hallway over the past few months,
the kiosk where we were selling coffee and chocolate.
It wasn’t ordinary coffee or chocolate, though.
Do you remember what we called those products?
Fair Trade:
Fair Trade Coffee;
Fair Trade chocolate.

The term “Fair Trade” did not refer to the brand,
like Maxwell House, Folgers, or Starbucks.
It referred to how the products were made.
Farmers who grow coffee beans
have to adhere to strict guidelines
to earn the “Fair Trade” label -
guidelines that limit the kinds and amounts of pesticides
they are allowed to use;
guidelines that encourage recycling of waste;
guidelines that even encourage that their children go to school,
not an insignificant matter in many of the
third-world countries where coffee is grown.

In return, the farmer is assured a fair price for his product.
He is assured a living wage for his work.

The Fair Trade concept has grown significantly
over the past decade
and it now involves many products beyond coffee.
Fair Trade is based on sustainable farming,
and fairness to those who do the hard work
laboring in the fields.

You and I as consumers have it easy:
we have only to go to the grocery store
and buy a pound of Folgers
or stop by Caribou Coffee or Starbucks for a latte.
We may have it too easy,
because in the process we may not think about
where the products we buy came from -
the coffee beans, the chocolate,
the orange juice, the cotton in our clothing,
the sneakers we all wear,
even the diamonds on our fingers.

The awful truth is that too many of the products
we take for granted
are produced under conditions that keep too many
living in poverty.
And substandard wages are not the only problem;
dangerous working conditions,
and forced labor – slavery – still exists in too many places,
and you and I as consumers are often
unwitting participants in creating these conditions.

Fair Trade has helped to lift
more than a million farmers out of poverty;
Fair Trade has also helped assure safer working conditions,
and it has helped to eliminate the abuse
of child labor and forced labor.

Fair Trade is not a government program;
it is a cooperative venture,
a cooperative venture that relies on you and me
as consumers to be aware of what we are buying,
to become “educated consumers”
as one retailer encourages us.

It is hard work.
Learning about the origins of the things we buy
requires some detective work on our part.
Back in the 1990s, Nike was roundly criticized when it was learned
that a very popular line of its sneakers were being produced
under appalling conditions in third-world countries:
where workers routinely were forced to work
60, 70, 80 hour weeks,
in foul, cramped facilities
laden with toxic chemicals and fumes.
The affluent purchasers of these $100 dollar sneakers
may well have been you and me
and we didn’t have a clue at first;
we just wanted our Air Jordans.

Buying Fair Trade goods may cost us a little more money,
but as Christians, as faithful children of God,
aren’t we called to look after the poor,
to reach out and help those who are on the margins of society
in our country and throughout the world?

Aren’t both the Old and New Testaments filled with verses
that remind us of our responsibility to look after the poor?
There in the midst of Hannah’s joyous song of praise to God
after she learned that she was going to have a baby
are words we wouldn’t expect to find:
“The Lord raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap.”
1 Sam. 2:8
More than a thousand years later,
when Mary learned she was going to give birth
to the Son of God, she echoed Hannah’s words
as she sang out in praise,
and she also echoed Hannah’s concern for the poor:
The Lord "lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things.”
(Luke 1:52),
Proverbs tells us
“Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker”
(Proverbs 14:31)

“What does the Lord require of [us]
but to do justice..” (Micah 6:8):
social justice, political justice,
and economic justice.
We are called to seek justice,
work for justice,
do justice.

Seeking economic justice does not require us to be anti-business;
It requires us to do business in a faithful way,
remembering that even before we are business people,
we are disciples of Christ.
We are called to follow Christ in how we make things,
how we sell things, and
how we buy things.
We are called to follow Christ even as we go
up and down the aisle of the grocery store
filling our carts.

We are part of a global economy.
We have been part of a global economy since the days of Solomon:
when he bought cyprus wood from Lebanon,
gold from the region we now call Ethiopia,
and spices from the east.
As disciples of Jesus Christ
if we are going to buy cyprus from Lebanon,
gold from Ethiopia, and spices from the east,
then we have a responsibility to those
who fell the trees, mine the gold,
and produce the spices.
Doesn’t our Lord teach us,
“just as you do to the least of my family, you do to me”?
Matthew 25:40
Doesn’t our Lord teach us
“from everyone to whom much has been given,
much will be required”
Luke 12:48

It was only recently that we learned
that some diamonds sold at stores at shopping Malls
may have been “conflict diamonds”:
diamonds mined by forced labor
and then sold by countries principally in Africa,
to buy guns, grenades, missiles and other weapons
for protracted civil wars.
You may have seen the book,
“A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah –
Starbucks was featuring it earlier this year -
It told the story of a boy orphaned by the violence
in Sierra Leone and then caught up in it as child soldier,
a trained killing machine at age 12,
the murder and mayhem funded by diamonds bought unwittingly
as celebrations of love and commitment.
The powerful movie “Blood Diamond” told a similar story.

A new book entitled “Nobodies” by John Bowe,
tells the chilling tale of how widespread
forced labor is throughout the world,
including here in our own country.
Forced labor: yes, that means slavery:
Men, women, and children working
in the orange groves of Florida,
factories in Tulsa,
and sweat shops in Manhattan.

On this World Communion Sunday,
we come to the Lord’s Table with our brothers
and sisters in Christ from every nation, every community.
We come to this table with men, women and children
who are just like us,
but we also come to this Table
with brothers and sisters who live in poverty,
who live in fear,
who work in dangerous conditions,
who are enslaved.
If only we would open our eyes
to the plight of these brothers and sisters
what a difference we could make.
If only we sought economic justice
in how we buy and sell things,
what a difference we could make.
It was the writer George Orwell
who reminded us that “economic injustices will stop
the moment we want it to stop.”
(As quoted in Bowe, 276)
And then our faith would grow,
the mustard seed blooming and blossoming!

We are going to switch to Fair Trade coffee
for our Coffee Hour beginning next month.,
once we use up our current supply of coffee.
We are going to do justice even as we enjoy fellowship.
Our Mission Ministry Team will have the Fair Trade kiosk
back at Christmas time;
in the meantime, if you want Fair Trade coffee,
just ask Jo Ann Staebler.
But look for Fair Trade products in stores:
Starbucks, Caribou, Sam’s Club, and WalMart
are just some of the places you can find FaIr Trade Coffee.
Helpful websites include “EqualExchange.com”
and “Greatergift.org”
Each site carries an array of Fair Trade products.

Come to this Lord’s Table with eyes open,
hearts open, aware of those throughout the world
who want only what each of us wants:
fairness, equity, justice,
hope, peace, and love.
Come to this Lord’s Table and remember that
to do charity is to provide relief from suffering;
But to do justice is to work for change,
to eliminate the cause of the suffering.
(Wm Sloan Coffin)
If only we’d heed the word of the Lord,
and do justice.

On this World Communion Sunday,
come and be fed
and then go out into the world
seeking justice,
doing justice,
making justice to roll down like the waters,
(Amos 5:24)
justice, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN