Overwhelmed

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 29, 2008

Overwhelmed
Galatians 5:13-15
Luke 16:19-31

Your maibox is probably like mine:
filled with bills,
catalogues,
and of course, junk mail.
The bills go into one pile,
the junk mail goes into the recycling bin,
and the catalogues are sorted, some to keep,
and others, those in which we have no interest,
we now enter into the website at catalogchoice.org to stop them.
If you have not tried this, it does work;
we are now receiving far fewer catalogues,
and in the process saving at least a few branches,
if not a whole tree.

There is probably something else in your mailbox,
another pile of unsolicited letters,
letters you would not call junk mail -
one, two, perhaps even three or four a week,
the numbers reaching a peak in December,
each envelope in its own plaintive way
trying to draw your attention:
“open me, look inside!”

They are solicitations and requests from nonprofit organizations,
charities of every shape and size:
groups that feed the hungry;
that provide shelter for the homeless;
that provide medical care here and abroad;
that clean up the environment;
that look after animals;
that protect our national parks and wild lands.

UNICEF,
Doctors Without Borders,
The Red Cross,
Hospice,
the Humane Society,
the ASPCA,
the Nature Conservancy,
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation --
the list is endless.

Every piece of mail tells a compelling story;
every piece of mail asks the reader to respond to an urgent need,
a need we know is real.
But what do we do with all these requests,
what can we do with all these requests?
We are overwhelmed with them!
Life is overwhelming enough for all of us:
we put in long hours in jobs,
we’ve got traffic to fight,
family to look after,
escalating prices of everything.
We hardly have time to look after ourselves,
much less think about others.

There are times when life seems to throw more at us
than we can handle;
and then on top of everything else
come these relentless reminders
that the world is filled with
the hungry, the homeless, the hopeless;
that there are abused and abandoned animals
desperate for a safe home and a bit of food;
that our oceans, lakes and rivers,
along with the skies above us groan
with the poison and garbage we pump into them.

There is no respite, no letup,
these groups are relentless,
so effective at finding our guilt buttons
and then pushing, pushing, pushing.
There is no charityoptout.org website
where we can take cover and hide.

We can almost sympathize with the rich man
in our second Lesson.
There are times when we feel like we almost
have to turn a blind eye, a deaf ear
to the overwhelming needs,
even if they are just outside our doors.
For all we know, the rich man might well have
been faithful and generous with his tithe at the temple.
He may have thought he was doing all he needed to do.
He might have thought that living in the purple,
and eating his fill every day was a sign
that God was favoring him for his faithfulness.
It was only just a few years ago that the Prayer of Jabez
was on everyone’s lips,
and more than a few coffee cups:
“Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border”
(1 Chronicles 4:10)
“Oh that you would bless me with riches, Lord.”

We all do our part,
such as we can, right?
What else can we do?
But there is always more we can do,
more we should do,
because God calls us, Jesus calls us:
Outreach, inreach,
mission, ministry,
caring, compassion, looking after others,
nurturing, tending,
helping, healing:
this is the life of discipleship to which we are called
and to which we are expected to respond.

We’ve all been given different gifts by the Holy Spirit,
and we are all called to different missions and ministries
by the Spirit.
Some are called to serve at YouthWorks projects,
others are called to work on Habitat projects,
still others to serve at SERVE.
Every leader, teacher and helper
who was here this past week
with our Vacation Bible School
was part of our mission and ministry outreach
as we fed more than 100 children –
fed them with with love, laughter
and the Bread of Life.

We serve within the church,
as well as outside the church;
we serve as we work on a church-sponsored projects,
and we serve in other ways, through other groups,
groups that may not be faith-based, but are
grounded in God’s love and Christ’s teachings.

Paul’s writings are timeless,
and the counsel he gave to the new Christians
scattered throughout Galatia is
just as appropriate for us today:
that we have been given freedom,
but not freedom to indulge ourselves
and our every whim,
but, “to become slaves to one another,”
as Paul puts it so bluntly:
to look after our neighbor,
to live as Christ calls us to live,
loving neighbor as ourselves,
and showing our love through our selfless service,
self-giving service,
and yes, at times even sacrificial service.

This is hard to do in a world where we seem
every day to become more selfish and self-centered,
where we demand instant gratification,
where self-help is grounded in “retail therapy”,
where even our federal government is telling us
to take our tax rebate checks
and go out and buy something for ourselves –
“indulge yourself and your whims!”

The sad reality is that there will always be
more needs than we can respond to.
But that’s not a new development.
Go back more than 3,000 years
and listen to Moses speaking to the children of Israel
as they prepared to enter the promised land:
“…there will never cease to be some in need on the earth…”
(Deuteronomy 15:7)
And Jesus reiterated that when he reminded us
that the poor we will always have with us.
(Matthew 26:11)

But that’s not a green light for complacency,
for indifference,
for drawing the blinds as the rich man did,
or not paying attention to God’s teachings,
as the rich man’s brothers did.
We should be outraged that there are hungry people;
we should be outraged that there are children dying of illnesses
that we know we can cure;
we should be outraged that the elderly worry about
food, shelter, and medicine
especially in this country,
where the wealthiest 1% continue to grow wealthier
by the minute and the poor grow poorer,
the chasm between rich and poor growing ever wider.

Find your mission, your ministry,
what it is that God has called you to,
what will stir you,
and fill you with passion.
No mission and ministry is more important than another
none is less important.

Save a month’s worth of solicitations that come in the mail,
and then go through them and see if
you discern God speaking to you, calling you to respond.
There in that pile may well be an invitation --
an invitation from God to a new kind of service,
a new ministry, new mission.

Find a new ministry team here within the church.
Our Senior High Youth Group needs another couple
to work with Ann and Spence Curtis;
Our Middle School Youth still need leadership.

Would you like a relatively simple ministry to be part of,
a mission that is lying right at our doorstep as visibly as Lazarus?
We need volunteers to help out in our ETC,
our Extended Time with Children program on Sunday morning.
We are in danger of having to close the ETC program
for the summer for lack of volunteer helpers.
And if we close it,
that will probably lead some young families to decide
not to come to church.
Every member of this church made a promise
to every child in this church
to nurture and look after them.
One time a year, for 30 minutes would be a wonderful way
for you to honor the promise you made,
and at the same time reach out to the parents,
the young moms and dads who long for
the occasional Sunday
when they can immerse themselves in the Word
without interruption.

Even as we respond to new needs,
new services,
new missions and ministries,
we need never worry about feeling overwhelmed.
Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that
God always matches our gifts,
measure for measure,
so we can look at 5,000 people waiting to be fed,
and trust that God will help us do that
even as we stand there with just five loaves
and two fish.
With God, the crowd is never too big,
the odds are never too poor,
the work never too hard,
the situation never too hopeless.
(“Local Miracles”, from Mixed Blessings)
The promise is sure:
“Those who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
they shall run and not be weary…”
(Isaiah 40:31)

The ministry you are called to is there,
right before you.
It may be here in the church,
or it could be in a pile of unsolicited letters
sitting on the kitchen counter.

Open your heart,
and open your mind,
and be prepared to be overwhelmed:
not by exhaustion or frustration,
but by the powerful presence of God,
by the palpable presence of Christ at your side,
and by the Spirit filling you as you serve.
Be prepared to be overwhelmed by a sense of joy
in serving others.
Be prepared to be overwhelmed by love
pouring through you --
love that comes from God through
the one who came not to be served,
but to serve, our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN