Why give to RMMO? Larry Greenfield explains.

I have four minutes to persuade you to give to the Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering of the American Baptist Churches.

A central and simple proposition: Everything is relative.

I mean that in two senses.

First: nothing is absolute and unchanging.

In my own theology – which I’m allowed to have because I’m a Baptist with soul and intellectual freedom – even God, the divine reality, is relative and changing. If, that is, the primary attribute of God is love – that God IS love – that must mean that God is related, relational, and, yes, relative.

So is the created world relative and changing, including the human world: think relativity physics, and evolutionary biology, and evolutionary psychology.

I was reminded this week that public policy also is relative and changing when I heard Newt Gingrich recommend that we suspend child labor laws and put young poor children and youth to work with physical labor.

Clearly, not all change is good.

It is partially up to us, in our freedom, to direct inevitable change toward the good.

Exactly one hundred years ago old ministers and missionaries, most of them poorly paid throughout their careers in ministry, had no way to retire since there was no pension fund in our denomination. Exactly one hundred years ago that changed – the Ministers and Missionaries Board was created – and today old ministers and missionaries and their spouses retire with dignity and support.

We can nudge change for the good.

Second: If everything is relative and related, then everything is a relative.

And, in our freedom, we can choose to honor and help our relatives, whether in our biological families, our families of friendship, or our spiritual families.

We can choose to honor and help the elders in our families – biological, associational, spiritual.

The Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering is a primary way, in our freedom, to help our spiritual elders.

Gifts to this offering are used in two ways: just under half of the total is used to help our elders in times of immediate emergencies and special financial need. A little over half is distributed to every elder in the program as a “thank you” for their lifetime of service. Last year the average check was $217.61—and deeply appreciated.

I’m asking you to make a gift to our spiritual elders – to the like of Bob Thompson, to Pat Ashbrook, and to Bob Zearfoss of this congregation

Size of gift? the highest giving church in the denomination gave $355.50 per member. The 50th gave $27.97 per member.

Here’s my suggested guideline: what would you spend on a Christmas gift to your parents or grandparents? Make your RMMO gift in that range.

And remember: everything is relative and everyone is a relative. If the divine reality IS love, then we who are created in that reality’s image, become truest to our nature, truest to our own selves, when we love our relatives. Let that also be your guide.