It's a party

the start of my stewardship series, First Fruits, from Deuteronomy 14:22-29

For those of you who know me, you may find this hard to believe, but I am not a party animal (laughter).  I am usually not the center of attention.  I will be the one going around the room visiting with people one on one.  How about you?  Do you like to party?  When you think of going to a party, what comes to your 5 senses?  Do you smell perfume?  Do you taste good food and drink?  Do you hear music?  Do you feel the touch of another in dancing?  Do you see balloons?

I am going to tell you a story about a 16 year old young man who partied hearty.  You are not going to like this story.  I do not like telling it.  It happened this past summer in north Texas.  I don't mean to beat up on young men, but the setting was as follows:  he got 7 of his friends into his F-350 pickup.  I sure hope it was a crew cab, because that's a lot of people in one pickup.  He and they went drinking and driving.  That's all that they intended to do in partying.  What he didn't count on was hitting 4 pedestrians, killing them.  He was arrested, charged, put in jail, and went to trial.  At his trial, his lawyer offered a unique defense.  His lawyer said that this young man suffered from Affluenza.  There is a book and several articles about this condition which is described as "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more."  The judge gave a punishment of 10 years of probation and counseling.  The family is currently paying $450,000/yr for treatment at a facility.  Four civil court cases are pending.  It seems that the rich and privileged expect to be treated differently.  Do you know something about Affluenza?  Have you seen examples of this condition around here?

Now I have a funny story about this desire for more.  You are going to laugh at this story from Erma Bombeck.  It just shows that Affluenza has been going on for a long time across genders and ages.  It is a Jewish grandmother story.  So this Jewish grandmother takes her grandson to the beach to play, to have a party, to have fun.  She slathers him with sun screen, puts on his sun hat, gives him his sand bucket and sand shovel.  He is there by the shore building his sand castles.  She sits down in her chair reading a book nearby.  With the sound of the waves and wind, she nods off.  She wakes to hear a huge wave come upon shore, which sweeps her grandson out to sea.  She is bereft.  She falls to her knees in prayer.  Dear God, why did you take my grandson?  Please bring him back.  I will do anything.  I will go to temple.  I will volunteer at the hospital.  I will give to the poor.  Please give him back.  Just then another wave washes her grandson back at her feet.  She hugs him.  His cheeks are ruddy.  His eyes are clear.  Then she puts her hands on her hips with a look of displeasure.  She looks up at heaven and says, "He had a hat, you know."

When is it ever enough?  How is it that we always desire more?  I believe in America, especially in our neighborhood, there is a lot of Affluenza going around.

I have a cure for this disease.  It comes from the Bible and our faith tradition.  It is called First Fruits.  For the next 4 weeks we will be looking at this ancient practice.  Our key verse for this series is Proverbs 3:9, "Honor the LORD with your substance and with the first fruits of all your produce."  We are called to give the first in time and the first in quality to God who has first given everything we have to us.  It helps us to keep our priorities straight.

Our worship team pushed me on defining some of these terms, so I got out my Hebrew lexicon. Honor could be translated as revere, worship, or glorify.  It has a quality of weightiness about it. It is not something taken lightly.  Substance could be translated as wealth, sufficiency, enough.  Produce is a form of a verb for coming in, or harvest, or gathering, so literally, one's income.  So the verse could be translated as "Glorify the LORD from your wealth and from all the first fruits of all your income."

Around here, we make our stewardship emphasis not at the end of the year to make a budget, but at the beginning of the year in order to make a faith statement that all we have comes from God.  You may think it is my job as pastor to talk you out of your money.  But my job is to preach good news about gratitude and generosity so that your souls might be saved.  So that you can party with God.

This party is well illustrated in the Deuteronomy passage.  When you read it, you find we are to bring our gifts to the place of worship so that the poor can have a party with God.  We are to buy food and drink, even wine and strong drink....my worship team said, "if we must."  But you see it is not drinking and driving.  It is a party in the worship center with the priests, the widows, the orphans, the sojourners in the land.  Wouldn't you give, if you knew that your gifts were going so that the most vulnerable ones around could have a party with God?

My worship team reminded me that one doesn't buy a party.  Oh, we buy things for a party.  But we don't possess a party, we give a party, we throw a party.

I think we do that around here.  This past week, we hosted 3 families at our church as part of Interfaith Hospitality Network.  These families lived here for one week as transitional housing as they move towards more stable housing.  We ate with them.  We became community.  How many of you helped with IHN this past week or some other time?  We were giving so that we could have a party with the poor and with God.

Also this past week, we celebrated another build of a Habitat for Humanity house.  See this picture of the family who is to live in the house with the faith family who helped to build it around them.  There is one in the picture in the back row who has now led the building of 30 homes for Habitat.  He shall remain nameless, but his initials are Gerard VanderWerken.  How many of you here have helped to built Habitat homes?  You have given so that we could have a party with the poor and with God.

Then, we have a long history with Mobile Loaves and Fishes.  We house their offices in our Building M.  Many of you prepare the meals and go out on the truck runs to feed those living on the streets.  I heard a story in Sunday School last week from one of our members.  He regularly goes out on the runs.  He has learned to call many of those coming to get a meal by their names.  One day, a "newbie," a first timer came up to him.  This man who lives on the streets said, "What do I have to do to get a meal?  Go ahead, do I have to listen to a sermon?"  "No....here's your food."  "Who are you guys?"  Our church member said, "Tell me your name."  The man did.  After several more trips and meals, our church member had learned his name.  The man kept asking, "Who are you guys...you don't make me listen to a sermon like other places."  Finally our church member had the opportunity to say, "I am a Christian.  My church is Westlake UMC.  Let me tell you my story."  You see, we don't treat people like objects.  We treat people like people, like they are our brothers and sisters, like they are God's family.  How many of you here have helped with Mobile Loaves and Fishes?  You have given so that we could have a party with the poor and with God.

I know tomorrow is Martin Luther King day.  I looked through many websites trying to come up with the perfect example of Dr. King sitting down to have a party with the poor and with God.  Then it hit me....this is what he was doing every day ...in his life and in his ministry.   I did come across  a good quote from him about this party with God and with the poor.   Before he was assassinated in 1968, he was starting to move his emphasis off of the inequality between blacks and whites to stress the inequality between the wealthy and the poor.  He said that "materialistic hedonism"  was the biggest spiritual crisis facing America.  It sounds like Affluenza to me.  The cure is first fruits, to give our best, our first in time and first in quality to God, so that the poor can have a party with God.

I was trying to come up with an example from my ministry too.  Then it came to me that month after month I lead worship here and invite people to this table.  And in our United Methodist tradition, who is welcome at this table?  That's right, everybody!  We want to have a party with the whole family of God.  When we come to this table, we remember that God gave his first fruits to us.  He gave his only Son, Jesus.  Out of gratitude for this gift, we make our gifts, so that the vulnerable ones around us can have a party with God.

That's the good news I have to share.