A Sermon by Pastor Tom Lacey . . .

Kingdom Contributions

Romans 12:13, Preached at the Congregational Church of Boca Raton, February 4, 2007

A large company, feeling it was time for a shakeup, hired a new CEO. This new boss was determined to rid the company of all slackers. On a tour of the facilities, the CEO noticed a guy leaning on a wall. The room was full of workers and he wanted to let them know that he meant business! The new CEO walked up to the guy leaning against the wall and asked, "How much money do you make a week?" A little surprised, the young fellow looked at him and replied,"$300 a week. Why?" The CEO then handed the guy $1,200 in cash and screamed, "Here's four weeks' pay. Now GET OUT and don't come back!" Feeling pretty good about himself, the CEO looked around the room and asked, "Does anyone want to tell me what that goof-off did here?" From across the room came a voice, "He was the delivery guy from Domino's Pizza."  You’ve got to be sure you’re giving to the right person.

During the second half of my junior year at the University of Iowa, I went to study in Spain. (A great thing about these types of programs is that they keep the cost the same since you continue to pay the American university where you normally attend. All you’ve got to do is fly over to your country of choice. I guess that’s a little free promotion). Well, as I said, mine was Spain. Yo estudie en La Universidad de Alicante, donde yo aprendi mucho y yo tuve mucho divertido. Back in the mid 1980s, Spain was beginning to grow economically by fully embracing capitalism. But of course a number of people were being left behind. And you could see them, in the streets, begging, on the steps of church stairs, in the little parks, on the sidewalks. You could go through a lot of money giving to these folk, and you know what, I did. I was 21, felt pretty wealthy being an American with the exchange rate in my favor, and never having seen so many needy and struggling people, old people, children, men with a limb missing, asking for help. I guess I believed—and still do—Proverbs 11:24, “Some give freely, yet grow all the richer.”

There has to be something in a religious faith, in our Christianity, at its basic, fundamental level, that says, “This is not all about me.” I know we have found in the last three weeks that we are to love others, have strong faith, and keep hope alive, but these are still at their core about us, about my love, about my belief, about my hope. When do we get to get out of ourselves and see the world from someone else’s perspective? Today. Look, imagine if you were stuck on a desert island all by yourself. Wouldn’t that be boring! But it would be more than just boring, it would be self-centered and self-oriented alone—the whole time. You wouldn’t hear what it is like to be alive from someone else’s point of view. And if you were to stay there too long, you would start talking and listening to—and that’s the important point—a Wilson volleyball, as Tom Hanks did in the movie Cast Away. What is important to us is that someone on that side is authentic and real and communicates to us their world, its wonders and its woes.

What we want to see this morning is that our Christian faith has a new starting point. It’s not about us; it’s about them. Let me give you a story to explain the difference between a faith centered on me and a faith that begins with the other person. In the beginning of his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven R. Covey tells about a memorable personal experience: I remember a mini-paradigm shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly—some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. A man and his children entered the car. The children were soon yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the father sitting next to me did nothing. It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild and do nothing about it. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I said, 'Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?'

The man lifted his gaze as if coming to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, 'Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.'

Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw things differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. 'Your wife just died? Oh, I'm so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?' Everything changed in an instant.

Trust that other people actually need help. Learn to go from here to there. Get out of yourself and listen to what is being said. God’s voice comes in many different voices, in many different languages, asking for help to cover many different needs.

“Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers,” our Scripture tells us. These two directions compose the fourth point in Paul’s masterful and masterfully short treatment of fundamental Christianity. It comes after the trinity of loving, believing, and hoping, the three theological virtues. If I had to name this fourth point in one word, it would be giving. Love, believe, hope and give—these are the four corners of our Christian faith.

Now of course today we look out at a broader swath of humanity than Paul’s “saints and strangers” two-pronged program. But let’s first understand who he is talking about before we move into who and where we are today. When Paul talks about saints, he means fellow Christians and fellow Christians only, those called and chosen to be followers of the Way, as Christians were often called at this time. And more specifically he is referring to those who were in Jerusalem, the Mother Church. They were in a bad way, financially as well as in danger mortally. These are the saints who have needs. The second part of this involves the instruction to act ethically by taking care of strangers who having crossed your path might need a place to stay or some food for their journey. This is ancient Middle Eastern custom and long expected of Jews and others. It was not enforced nor mandated as much in the Greco-Roman world in which Paul had been living for decades, and of which Rome was the Mother City. Even if you add these together, it makes up a narrow field of concern: members of your church or of the Jerusalem church and strangers who needs a place to stay including food and drink. In today’s terms that would leave roughly 6 billion people. And this just isn’t good enough. As scripture makes clear: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” Deut.15:11 Or as it says in Galatians 2:10, “Remember the poor.”

As wealthy Christians living in the most powerful nation on earth, we have rightly gone beyond these two types of people as our circle of concern. Our eyes and ears are open to the entirety of human concerns and needs because God is the God of all and the earth is God’s gift of which we are called to be stewards and caretakers. The United Church of Christ, of which this is one congregation, is in the forefront of this. Did you know that two of the greatest philanthropists of our day, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, are both UCC members? Gates by upbringing in a Congregational Church, though I don’t think he spends much time inside of a church these days; and Oprah by adult choice. She attends Trinity UCC in Chicago, where, by the way, Barak Obama is also a member.

All this leads me to the red and black brochure you found in your bulletin this morning. The point of this insert is to inform us about the 5 for 5 program that the UCC promotes. There are five major giving opportunities that we are asked to place before our congregation. In the past we have done one or two, maybe even three in a single year. But we are going to move forward in our thinking. The Church Council approved the effort to become a 5 for 5 congregation, which means we will offer the opportunity to our members, friends, and guests to give to any or all of these offerings. I would like you to take a look at the description of each one and see where we are headed and who we are helping. Maybe some one or two strikes you personally. Maybe they all sound important. Actually the first one, UCC Basic Support is not one that we give to individually, but one that we give to when by means of your offerings. We budget this giving into our annual expenses. So it is in essence 4 for 4. Remember this isn’t compulsory. It is an opportunity to fulfill the call to give. As Scripture tells us: “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and will be repaid in full.” Prov. 19:17 As you may have already gathered, the Souper Bowl program is not one of the five special offerings. We are also planning on reinstituting our Blanket Sunday drive. Last year, we gave more than $15,000 to a variety of charities, causes, and concerns. The February Vantage, our newsletter, lists the names and amount that we donated. On top of this, the Women’s Fellowship also gives to several programs.

At Congregational Church of Boca Raton, we are serious about what it means to be a fulfilled and fulfilling Christian walking the walk Scripture sets before us as our way of life. So be filled with empathy for others. Make compassion your guide. Give your strength to the weak, your substance to the poor, sympathy to the suffering, and your heart to God. And prove it true that “a generous person will be enriched, and one who gives water will get water.” Prov. 11:25

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