Oct. 16, 2016 I Cor. 12: 12-27 Season of Generosity I The Secret Life of Bees Do you have any idea how wondrous the honey bee is? Bees are not the most beautiful of God s creatures.. and yet they are a miracle of community and production: Bees are the only insect in the world that make food that humans can eat. Honey has natural preservatives and bacteria can't grow in it. Honey was found in the tombs in Egypt and it was still edible! Bees have been here around 30-100 million years. A honeybee can fly at a speed of 15 mph. Its wings beat 200 times per second. The average worker bee makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. A beehive in summer can have as many as 50,000 to 80,000 bees. A bee must collect nectar from about 2 million flowers to make 1 pound of honey. It requires 556 worker bees to gather a pound of honey. Bees fly a distance of more than once around the world to gather a pound of honey. A single beehive can make more than 100 pounds (45 kg) of extra honey. The average life of a honey bee during the working season is about three to six weeks. Every 3rd mouthful of food is produced by bees pollinating crops. Isn t it amazing that something so small is so important to our lives and our survival? The thing about bees is that so much happens away from our eye sight. They live in a hive. We see them flying around.. hovering over a flower.. hear their buzz. Most of their activity happens away from our eyesight in their hive.. a complex community of a queen, workers and drones creating new life, honey and wax. No one tells them what to do or why.. they just keep on doing it.. for the last (according to a fossil) more than 100 million years! Bees show up as a symbol in many ancient religions, and Christianity is no exception. The 4 th century Bishop Ambose of Milan (who baptized Augustine), often referred to the gathering of pollen and the production of honey as emblems of Christian formation. For Ambrose, bees were a symbol of wisdom and used bees and honeycombs in icons. Is it any wonder he is the patron saint of beekeepers? 1
And indeed the early church drew the analogy between the bee hive and the Christian community as they saw that each individual bee in a hive doesn t work for itself but for the good of the whole community. Saint John Chrysostom wrote in the early 4 th century: The bee is the most honored of all creatures.. not because she labors, but because she labors for others. If a worker bees stings, it is to protect the hive.. because she will die within the day. Bees communicate with each other in a very sophisticated way about where the sources of nectar are.. some call it a bee dance or waggle dance. Actually the scientific community has named this evangelization. They evangelize each other.. they share the good news with each other about where the sources of their very sustenance is: the nectar. Our scripture today is the apostle Paul s metaphor for the Christian community: the BODY. Like the bee metaphor, Paul describes the Christian community of faith as a body of working parts; each part doing its job for the good.. the functioning of the whole. Paul was a master organizer.. he started churches all over the Mediterranean in the first century. He wrote roughly 1/3 of the books in the New Testament. Adam would say that Paul was very left-brained.. a nuts and bolts academic. I would agree.. except for this amazing description of the Body metaphor. As you hear this being read.. do you hear yourself in it? Which part of the body in our church are you? A foot moving us forward? A hand getting things done? The voice box speaking wisdom and truth? The stomach taking in nutrition and giving it out as energy for the rest? John Wesley in the 18 th century was our denomination s founder. He was a Queen Bee in so many ways. He organized his communities of faith for health, growth, and sustenance. He would preach in the fields and factories. Hundreds would on the spot convert. He didn t just take an offering and leave them there; he organized them into groupings of societies, classes and bands to study the Bible, pray for each other, and regularly ask that iconic question: how is it with your soul?john Wesley s genius organized the fabric of the early Methodists, of which we are the proud heirs today. On June 6, of this year we held our firstjoel s Caféwhere 85 of our congregation came together for dinner and intense conversation about what matters in our church. The conclusion was:connection to each other, spiritual growth, families and their children, and mission. In other words what matters to us fundamentally is how we operate as a unit.. a body.. a hive! 2
Today we kick off our Season of Generosity the time of year when we plan for the next year and how to fund it. Some call it a Stewardship campaign.. some raising funds some a pledge campaign. But really, it is a test of our values and commitment to those values. And I like the metaphor of the beehive -- that we -- all the members here are organized for the greater good: of who we are and what we strive to be; that in our giving we are actually voting about how we care for our people, our mission, and our bricks and mortar staff/building. We mainline protestants shy away from talking about the finances of a church. It s worth a pause here to think back to where we learned about giving to church giving back to God. Where did you learn? My parents were not regular givers to church so I didn t learn it there. In college I attended an American Baptist Church that taught about tithing: giving 10% of what you earned to the church. Each week, printed in the bulletin would be the amount that people had given the previous week compared to what was needed each week. I took that very seriously.. and figured out what I had contributed to the total need. But the most significant narrative came when I was the pastor in Albany. There a quiet matriarch named Emogene Ross, who told her story. When she was a pre-teen in the Great Depression, she and her sister ran away from an abusive home. They traveled from the Midwest to the west coast. She eventually met her future husband and they married. He was a postal worker. Life was good; they would have a good income and a secure future. When the first paycheck came in, he said 10% goes to the church. She was shocked. They needed that money, and she had grown up with such scarcity. He explained that the money did not belong to them but to God; they were merely returning it in gratitude. Throughout the years, they continued their 10% giving. They were thrifty and resourceful, and began side ventures. When I met Emogene, she was recently widowed. She kept up their commitment to the church, and blessed the church in so many ways, including a Chapel and a playground. This year in our church we are beginning something very different...very radical. It is a culture change.. from how we ve always done things to something that really says who we are: a church that has MISSION at its core. Instead of a lot of little fund raising events during the year, we are cutting those out! We are rolling all those fund raising events into the budget. We are putting our many missions into our budget. So when you make your pledge to the church, it is not just your pledge to keep this church and staff underwritten. it is to say I am underwriting the entire mission of this church! 3
We had an expert fund raiser come and talk to our leadership about beginning another capital campaign to pay off our debt and do some other needed projects around our church. She spent two days with us. After the first 2 hours she said.. You don t need a capital campaign you need to focus on your Annual Campaign. You need to make your mission giving part of your budget, and you need to tell folks to double their giving! Yikes! How can that be! But she said, Ask, and it moves the needle. People will begin to struggle and wrestle with the idea of exactly what they give and what should they be giving to this entity the church, in which they believe so strongly. So when folks think I can t increase my giving.. think again.. think about: the money you give to backpacks.. and the youth.. and the mission trips.. and the December Shelter.. and the 1 or 2 mission projects each mot that are asking for your attention and giving. That now is part of your financial pledge to our church. Yes, it s a big step of faith to increase your giving. For those of us on fixed incomes, we feel it is a lot to give what we gave last year. But I want to challenge you to rearrange your priorities because you think this church.. our church.. is worth it.. is worth the difference it makes inyour life and the lives of so many in this community. Think of the warm and clean and secure building you walk into each week. Think about the amazing staff that keeps things humming. Think of all that is here when you get here, how worship happens with its planning and music and programs for the children. Think about the many community groups that use our facility like AA and the neighborhood association and parents groups, and climate groups. Who supports all of that? You do. And if you do not.. the church ceases to exist. You all know the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. And that is how many churches operate: we will just keep asking our folks to give what they can and base our ministry on that. But we are saying this year we are doing something different. WE are asking our people to double their pledge to make this church apriority in their budget.. a sacrifice in what they spend their money on. Often we think that we give to the church our disposable income.. what s left at the end of the month. We are asking that you rearrange your priorities to support our church. 4
I will never forget Amanda at a previous church. She was a single working mom with two kids, who really believed in the mission of the church. She didn t have any extra money, and anyone on the outside looking in would have said, Honey.. don t you worry about giving you have enough on your plate. But she believed so fiercely in the church.. she believed so fiercely in wanting to be a part of its strength and direction, that she made the decision to cut out lattes and make them herself.. guess what? That was in 2005, when a latte was $3.. so that was $15 a week $60 a month.. more than $1000 in the year! all from rearranging how she got her lattes. I can also tell you that all these years later.. that that intentional investment in her church was a witness to her children.. and the returns have been priceless.. tangible.. much more than the daily lovely lattes. So as you discern what you will give in this next year (as different from previous years), I want you to take out a dollar bill. Look at that bill and see it in terms of what it does for your church.. your community your hive. 10 cents of it goes to the missions we support; more than most churches you will ever know. 2 cents will go to the new service starting in February of 2017. 13 cents goes to our building and upkeep, utilities and keeping it open for our surrounding neighborhood and groups. 13 cents goes to our children and youth for program and staff. 23 cents goes to your pastors. 25 cents goes to our office staff and our custodians. 10 cents goes to our amazing music program and staff. 12 cents goes to our United Methodist connection the community sharing of all the expenses that help our annual conference and denomination and world missions. All of that contained in a dollar. Think how that multiplies with each dollar! So.. fellow worker bees the audacious.. seemingly impossible goal is before us. As Adam said earlier, your leadership has stepped up and already pledged more than $150,000! That is an incredible step; but we need each of you to go home and pray and calculate and dream and believe in the mission of this church: as much as you believe in the Ducks, as much as you believe in whatever charity you give to. This church 5
-- your church -- our church depends upon your decision. If you give what you gave last year, we cannot go forward. To do this we cannot think in terms of scarcity. To do this we cannot think in terms of the what we did before, but what we can increase. What is really possible? I love the image of Joshua leading the children of Israel into the Promised Land. God didn t hand it to them on a platter. God told Joshua, every step you take I will give to you. We step out in faith this next year but we step with each one of us giving, stretching, believing, dreaming in our mission as a community! Can you see our church not as it is, but as it should be? Amen. Preached by the Rev. Pamela Nelson-Munson at Eugene s First United Methodist Church. 6