This action of offering our first fruits sounds simple but it has been twisted and tortured all these many years into so many different variations that some time we cannot put our finger on the real message of Scripture regarding what we give back to God. What and how much do we put in that basket?

As a child I, like many in this room, went to Church with my parents. At a certain age I was given an allowance. I was to set aside 25 cents each week to put in the offering plate as it passed. Giving up that quarter – which was 25% of my allowance – was very hard. I could go to a movie and have popcorn for that amount. 3 hours of escapist pleasure could be had for that amount. And yet each week I had to watch it disappear in a plate that whizzed by so fast and went heaven knows where.

That became the subject of my Sunday School discussions; no not with the teacher but with the other boys out of the teacher’s hearing. One of my classmates taught me a clever way to keep that almighty quarter in my possession. You take this small piece of paper and fold so many times in a way that would make it as thick as a quarter and about the same size. In the chaos of getting into the pew at the beginning of the service you take one of those many envelopes that litter the pew rack and you put the folded paper in it and rapidly seal it. Plop it goes into the fast passing plate and you’re home free.

I managed to get away with that for some time when one Sunday my mother asked me why I was putting my offering in the envelope and I told her I didn’t want it to make any noise as it hit the plate. (I was tipped off to that quick response by another classmate!) She looked convinced but then threw the curve ball at me. She said, "There is a place for your name on those envelopes. Why don’t you fill it out?" And wouldn’t you know it, for once there was a pencil where it was supposed to be and she said, "Here, here’s a pencil." So I did. What could it hurt? Someone would only think that envelope was stuffed by some poor kid who wished he had something to put in the plate. After an earlier service someone suggested that I might have used a phony name. I didn’t count on the fact that my Mother was one of the collection counters that day!

(Aside to the young people in the choir: don’t do what I described. If you do you will have to stand up here like me and apologize to God!)

One of the ironies of my life is that I would spend the later decades of it actually begging for money to fund the church and its ministries. And I would experience many variations on the scheme I employed to avoid giving God anything – much less any first fruits. Now that I am not in possession of a pulpit, do not lead any Church, nor am I on any Vestry or Committee, I can tell you what I really might have said if I had been more brave about this subject of giving – and yes stewardship.

We enter Scripture this morning finding Moses and the Israelites at the end of their wandering in the wilderness. God had been good to them and had kept His promise to deliver them to a place of great wealth and prosperity. The soil is ideal for planting and harvesting, the hills are rich with minerals, water flows like milk and the foliage tastes like honey. The sky is blue, the grass is green and unlike the wilderness out of which they finally came, the earth is good. Sort of like the Coachella Valley! The land Got brought his people to is warm and full of promise of new life.

So to Moses it was time to thank God for His bounty and steadfastness in their lives. The people were to bring the first fruits of the harvest to God’s altar. They were not to stop and taste, have a feast or store up the produce before they had done this ritual. Along with the practice of bringing the first fruits to the altar and, I add, giving it to a nearby priest, one was to recite a verse. Now if there any other Virginia Theological graduates of a certain age in this room, they remember that they we had to commit this phrase to memory and be able to recite or write it down when asked. Foolishness we thought, a theological hazing, but over time we began to realize what it all meant. Moses knew that the generation that experienced this delivery and the benefits of God’s action would die out. There would come a time when the event was told many hands removed. So this phrase became the precise summary of thanksgiving for the Jews. It set out a spiritual priority. It is a reminder of God’s promise.

It told of their journey into Egypt and then their struggle. They cried to God and they were heard and God saw their affliction and oppression. With mighty acts and deeds He brought them out of Egypt and their subjugation and set them down in a bountiful land. It is a creedal statement of faith and thanksgiving. Hear it again, but this time from the Revised Standard Version, the translation I used the most in Seminary.

It is hard to recite that verse from Deuteronomy without reflecting on how God has acted in my life and in our world. God was with me on my journeys and God has brought me to a land of milk and honey. God still walks with me and you on our journeys. This quote reminds that when time was ripe, God saw our sin and our separation from God and then sent his only Son, fully man and fully God, to walk amongst us, live like us, feel our joys and pains and then be sacrificed so that we might be delivered from our sins and have reconciliation with God. All this too was done in acts of terror, wonder and might. I suspect most Christians are awe struck when they stop to think about their relationship with God. What are the first fruits we have to offer today?

First we must give God more than our leftovers in thought and mind. After many years of expanding human talent and invention; after the years of Renaissance thinking and humanism, it takes those occasional huge moments, like 9/11, to think of God. But often it is only in terms of what God can do for us now. We seldom ask ourselves what we can do for God now. God must be honored first. God is not, what Preacher Emerson Fosdick once wrote "a cosmic bellhop." We push the button and call his name out only when we need him. We rarely think of him or give him our first thought of the day.

God is not prioritized in our thinking. He is left over after all other thoughts including shopping, amusement, needing and wanting. Too often we fail to thank God for such things as peaceful rest, fresh air, the food we eat, our health, our loved ones, the smiles and voices of children, and the laughter of the people around us. Our thinking may be too horizontal. We need to orient ourselves vertically in the things of God. If we prioritize our thinking of God then God will become more than a leftover thought and we would then be giving the first fruits of our minds and out thinking. A great tragedy in our time, said one sage is not to ignore, deny or negate God, but to live as though God never existed.

Second we must give god more than our leftover time. God gives each of us 168 hours every week. How much of that week do we spend in Church, Bible study, prayer, service to others, fasting and spiritual discipline? We give God the leftover time after everything else is done. God gives us precious time but we can find little time for God.

We seem to spend a lifetime serving the gods and idols of the culture that surrounds us. We worship our material possessions, bow down to the emperors in new clothes, believe that money is God, and only give condescending reference to the possibilities of God. Rather than give first fruit of our time to God we spend most of it in malls, concert halls, coffee shops, ballparks, theme parks, golf courses and a host of other distractions and attractions.

Not that we should not have a good time; not that we should not enjoy ourselves; but what about the God who provides all this to us? Because God may be an afterthought we might give God only left over time after everything else in our lives. I read an article in which the author said "we spend as much time with God as the national anthem before a sports event and our reference to God is like the national anthem. It gets things started but is never referred to again in the event. We may acknowledge God in the morning but make no reference to him throughout the day."

Giving God our first fruits means giving him our time in devotion all the day long. It means setting time aside in service to others in God’s name. It means disciplining ourselves to see God in all things and to devote ourselves to studying his word and strengthening the body of Christ in ways that will empower others to give God their first fruits. We must give God more than the leftovers of our time.

Finally, we must give God more than our leftover money and resources for the building up the Kingdom of God. I was a paper boy who delivered the morning paper. It was in Ohio and the weather definitely had four seasons. My delivery route was long and hard. I gave my customers good service every day, first thing, but I was the last to be paid. Even if I collected every two weeks it was an inconvenience to some that I came seeking money. Everybody else seems to get paid first but I, the paper boy, was paid last. I was up bright and early every morning in all kind of weather so that someone could read their morning paper over a cup if coffee, warm and dry, in front of a warm fire. But I was the last one paid.

Some people treat God the same way. They pay everyone else first. They give their money to the mortgage company, auto repairman, and retail outlets. They pay 25% interest on credit cards to banks and fifteen percent tips for lousy service and bad tasting food at restaurants. They give enormous amounts of money to lotteries, casinos, liquor and tobacco companies, and hair dressers. A fortune is spent on false fingernails, sports tickets, and hobbies. And the people who are spending this way more than often complain when they are asked to tithe to God’s Church.

They enjoy their lives and pay everyone else and just give God and his Church credit for all the good things God has done for them. God wants more than our credit. God wants our first fruits. God wants the first fruits in our stewardship.

Why is it, in the midst of unsurpassed prosperity and a growing economy should God’s church go wanting and begging just to subsist and survive? Because the people have not offered God the first fruits of their earnings but their leftovers after everyone else has been paid.

I have been involved in many stewardship and capital campaigns over the years. In most of campaigns there was always at least one person who complains that the Church was always asking for money. But everyone else wants money. The world charges you for goods and services and you pay the bill. Yet you come to church and you eat free. You go to the psychiatrist for counseling and pay a hearty sum for an hour of therapy. But you come to the church and receive pastoral counseling for nothing. You pay for cable or satellite TV to access the televangelists and feel-good talk shows and then come to the church for a free sermon or message. You send money to the charities that touch your heart on TV, or to your school, or to an animal shelter; but when you want your loved one buried you come to the church where it costs you nothing. The world always has its hand out for money and wanting you to pay for what you get. The church seldom asks you to pay for anything you get.

I remember one of the many couples I helped get married. The church asked for no fees except for the organist and custodial services. No set fees for the clergy or for church use. None was expected but contributions were accepted. When one woman asked me what she should give to the church I suggested she match what she is spending on flowers. She said, "No, that’s too much!"

Why should God’s church go wanting and begging? Why should clergy and leaders even have to ask members to give to the church? If every member gave a proportionate share in giving his or her first fruits to the Church, no begging in the name of Christ would be necessary. If God is truly first in our lives, why are so many ministries often suffering from lack of finances?

Moses understood the value of challenging the people of God to remember from where comes their bread and butter. He was very direct in urging the people to bring their first fruits and not their leftovers for God. Now is our time, here ion this place and time, to consider in the Lenten period what God has done for us. Time for us to gladly bring our first fruits forward to God’s church in this place. We bring the first fruits of our thoughts, the first fruits of our time and the first fruits of our income. For if it were not for the mercy, grace, love, and sustenance of God we would have nothing. AMEN