The Healer

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 7, 2012

Trinity Episcopal Church Lenten Series

The Healer

Luke 5:12-16

The lights burn bright on the stage.

The preacher stands there expectantly,

the congregation buzzing with excitement and anticipation.

One-by-one they move forward,

lining up by the stairs that lead to the chancel,

that lead up to the lights,

that lead up to the preacher,

…that lead to hope.

One-by-one they are brought forward to the preacher,

who asks them,

“What is it that you want to be healed of sister?”

What is it that ails you brother?”

And then the preacher looks up

as he places his hand on the forehead of the afflicted,

and with a mighty shout

that rivals the hosannas of the heavenly host

the preacher cries out,

“IN THE NAME OF JESUS HEAL!”

And in one explosive second,

the afflicted man, the ailing woman,

falls back into the waiting arms of attendants,

who then turn the person to the crowd:

LOOK: the sinner has been healed,

the affliction gone!

Let all God’s children shout, “Praise the Lord!”

That’s how we often picture a healing service;

as straight out of “Elmer Gantry”,

or more recently, “Leap of Faith”,

a service that is more about theatrics than faith,

more about the preacher than about God.

It is easy to be skeptical of such services,

but still there is that question that lurks:

Could there be something to it?

Is there a possibility that a person could be healed:

healed of blindness, of deafness,

of crippling arthritis,

even of cancer by nothing more than a touch,

a prayer?

It’s what Jesus did in our lesson.

He healed a leper of his horrible disease,

just as he had healed Peter’s mother-in-law of fever;

just as he would go on to restore sight to the blind,

hearing to the deaf,

give the crippled the ability to get up and walk.

Jesus healed.

Jesus healed -

not because he wanted to be the center of attention;

but because he knew that his Father in Heaven,

our Father in Heaven,

wants us to know healing,

wants us to be healed.

An apocryphal book –

a book that is found in the Bibles

of some denominations

but not most Protestant denominations -

tells us that God gave us medicine and medical practitioners

so that we would know healing.

In a book entitled Sirach,

written almost 200 years before the birth of Christ

we read:

“Honor physicians for their services,

…for the Lord created them;
for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,
 …The Lord created medicines out of the earth,
 …By them the physician heals and takes away pain;

 the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.

… from [God] health spreads over all the earth.”

(Sirach 38:1-8)

We may not consider Sirach canonical,

but we probably would not disagree with this passage.

God wants us to know healing and wholeness,

not pain and infirmity,

and God uses any and all routes to our healing.

You and I turn to the medical profession 
for healing of our physical maladies, our illnesses.

And certainly miracles abound

in what the medical profession can do these days:

artificial joints, heart bypasses,

organ transplants,

more and more effective treatments for cancer.

Leprosy, the scourge in Jesus’ day,

is all but nonexistent in this country

and where it does still appear in other parts of the world

there are drugs to treat it,

to effect a cure as complete as our Lord’s touch.

But there are afflictions that affect us,

wounds that abound in almost all of us,

wounds that are present,

but which the eye cannot see, 

which even the most complete physical exam

might not reveal;

Wounds that fester;

wounds that resist healing;

wounds that may have been inflicted upon us,

or which we may have inflicted upon ourselves.

Wounds that weaken us,

wounds that can drain the very life from us.

These are spiritual wounds,

spiritual affliction and illness

that come from hopelessness,

frustration,

guilt,

loneliness,

anger,

depression,

grief,

fear,

failure:

wounds that can have their root

in any of a thousand different sources,

a thousand different causes,

and which eat away us

as surely as leprosy attacked the body.

These are wounds which the medical profession

may try to heal in us,

but the promise is sure:

for these kinds of afflictions, these kinds of wounds,

no one can heal us more effectively,

more completely

than our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus will heal us with “gospel medicine,”

to use Barbara Brown Taylor’s term.

Gospel medicine:  the Word of God in Jesus Christ

The Word of God in Jesus Christ that can

“mend broken lives, and revive faint hearts.”

Think of the healing power in the words:

“fear not.”

Think of the healing power in the words:

“your sins are forgiven.”

Think of the healing power in the words:

“I have redeemed you; you are mine,

precious and honored in my sight.”

        

There is healing power in the words:

“I am the bread of life.”

        

There is healing power in the words:

“whoever follows me will never walk in darkness

but will have the gift of life.”

    

There is healing power in the words:

“I am the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in me,

even though they die, will live, and

everyone who lives and believes in me

will never die.”

These words are gospel medicine,

words that can bind up our brokenness,

words that can heal even the deepest spiritual wound,

for they are words of grace and love.

                 

The prophet reminds us

that our Lord was “a man of suffering,

and acquainted with infirmity.”

(Isaiah 53:3)

And so he comes to each of us

with empathy,

with understanding

with compassion;

He comes to you and me ready, willing,

eager to heal.

He comes to the “the disappointed,

the doubtful,

the disconsolate,

to those who have given up,”

to help them find hope,

to help them find healing

to help them know wholeness.

Where do you hurt?

Where is the pain?

Where is your wound – what is it?

Is it an injury that someone else inflicted upon you?

Something someone said or did to you?

Jesus can heal you.

Is it pain you have inflicted upon yourself?

Something you said or did?

Or perhaps it is something you know

you should have said or done, but did not.

Jesus can heal you.

Our Lord Jesus Christ can and will heal you

with Gospel medicine,

words of assurance,

of comfort,

of hope,

words of grace, words of love.

For ultimately, it is love that heals,

love that is ours,

love given us by God,

not through a bottle of pills,

but through the one who invites you to come to him

for healing,

for wholeness:

our Lord Jesus Christ.

AMEN

How Much?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 4, 2012

The Second Sunday in Lent

How Much?

Mark 8:31-38

Are you truly a follower?

A follower of Jesus Christ?

Or are you really more of an admirer,

a fan,

an avid student of his teaching?

There is a difference,

a profound difference,

between being a follower

and being even the most ardent of admirers.

You and I: we are called by Christ to be his followers;

Followers, following him,

living our lives as he teaches us to live them,

walking in his very footsteps,

following him wherever he might lead us.

        

His call to his disciples 2000 years ago

is also his call to you and me:

“If you want to become my follower,

then you must deny yourself,

take up your cross, and follow.”

We can profess our faith;

We can join a church;

We can worship on Sunday;

We can say to others, “I am a Christian.”

But doing any or even all of those things

doesn’t necessarily mean we are followers,

truly following our Lord Jesus Christ.

                 

To follow Christ is to go all in,

nothing held back.

Utter and complete surrender of our lives

to God through Christ.

Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat what this means:

he lays it right out:

“if you want to be my follower,

then you too will have to take up your cross.”

Two thousand years later

it’s almost impossible for us to grasp fully

just what Jesus meant by that.

For the disciples, a cross wasn’t the

sign of salvation as it is for us now;

the cross was the executioner’s cruel tool.

In his call to take up your cross Jesus was saying,

“If you want to follow me,

you’d better be ready for a path that may well include

pain, privation,

ridicule, scorn,

loss of friends,

even the loss of family.

If you want to follow me,

you’d better be ready for a path

that may even cost you your life.”

Jesus’ stinging rebuke to Peter

reinforces the point Jesus was making,

that if we want to follow, truly follow Jesus,

then our minds must be on divine things,

and not on human things –

things like our comfort, our success, our possessions.

This is a difficult passage,

but so appropriate for Lent.

We tend to get stuck on Jesus’ words to Peter,

“Get behind me Satan.”

But if we want to understand this passage in its entirety,

we need to set aside that outburst,

and focus on what Jesus is saying to all,

what Jesus is saying to you and me.

How fully committed each of us is,

is up to each of us;

Jesus leaves that to us.

We can each create our own definition of “follower”:

A Sunday follower;

A follower-as-long-as-it doesn’t-otherwise-interfere-

with-more-important-things-in-my-life;

A follower as long as it isn’t too difficult or demanding;

A follower as long as you don’t ask too much of me,

too much of my time,

too much of my treasure.

Do you remember the parable of the sower?

We can find the parable in Matthew’s, Mark’s,

and Luke’s gospels.

“A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed,

some fell on the path and was trampled on,

and the birds of the air ate it up.

Some fell on the rock;

and as it grew up,

it withered for lack of moisture.

Some fell among thorns,

and the thorns grew with it and choked it.

Some fell into good soil,

and when it grew,

it produced a hundredfold.”

(Luke 8:5)

Aren’t we all, if we are honest about it,

a combination of the second and the third types of soil?

The second, where the seed fell on rock

and withered for lack of moisture:

God’s words, Christ’s teachings,

falling on our hard hearts,

not nurtured,

withering,

faded,

lost.

The third, the word choked off

by all the other things that fill our lives,

the cares, the concerns, the distractions.

It’s the fourth kind of soil that should be our goal, though;

the fourth kind of soil nurtures

the receptive hearts and minds

of true followers.

“A follower is one who strives to be like the one he follows”,

This doesn’t mean you and I are called to copy Christ;

We are to emulate him.

We are to be ourselves,

the individuals God created each of us to be,

but we are to model our lives on Christ’s life.

In this Lenten season of repentance,

who among us can say that we do this well?

Lent is the time for us to acknowledge

that we fall short,

that if we model our lives on Christ’s

it is selective modeling

a bit here, a bit there,

a little more on Sunday,

a little less on Monday.

Soren Kierkegaard was right when he said

Christ’s life is a demand on our own lives.

We are being asked to step up and step out

from the comfort of our own lives

and live as Jesus calls us to live,

without asking how much it might cost us,

living fully as God’s word in both Old and New Testament

teaches us to live.

    

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’,

and do not do what I tell you?”

(Luke 6:46)

Jesus asks this of his disciples and

Jesus asks the same thing of you and me.

Put another way, Jesus asks us,

“Why do you say you are my followers,

but not follow?”

Jesus knows how hard what he is asking of us is,

but Jesus also knows we have help,

help every step along the way throughout our lives,

help from God through the Holy Spirit.

As we said in our Affirmation of Faith

at the beginning of the service,

the Spirit binds us together,

feeds us,

and gives us courage and strength

so we can more readily and faithfully

deny ourselves,

pick up our crosses,

and follow our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Do not be conformed to this world”

Paul tells us,

but be transformed.

(Romans 12:3)

Be transformed into a follower.

It is the work of a lifetime,

but as the first letter of Peter reminds us,

“to this you have been called, ….

that you should follow in Christ’s footsteps”

(1 Peter 2:21)

Even the original disciples struggled to be faithful followers.

We all know what happened when Jesus was arrested:

the disciples scattered with the wind,

filled with fear for their own lives,

Peter so notoriously denying he even knew Jesus.

But they all repented of their weakness,

and with the power of the Holy Spirit helping them,

they all later picked up their crosses

and followed,

followed faithfully,

fully.

fearlessly.

Lent calls us to look within ourselves

to see where we have fallen short as followers.

And the Lord’s Table is the place for us to come

to be fed and nourished by the Spirit,

to be strengthened and renewed

so that we can pick up our crosses and follow.  

As you come to the Table,

I invite you to ponder in your hearts and minds

the words Joshua said to the children of Israel

before they crossed the Jordan

and entered the Promised Land:

“Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Just change the words slightly:

“choose this day whom you will you follow”:

whom you will follow with all your strength,

all your mind,

all you heart,

all your soul.

And then respond with your renewed commitment:

“As for me, I will follow Christ.”

AMEN

A Pleasant Scent

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

February 26, 2012

The First Sunday in Lent

A Pleasant Scent

Mark 1:9-15

“Return to me with all your heart;

rend your hearts and not your clothing.

Return to the Lord, your God…”

(Joel 2:12)

These are the words with which we always begin Lent,

words that are the opening lesson

of our Ash Wednesday service.

All over the world, the faithful of every denomination

hear the same words,

“Return, return to God;

where you have turned away, turn back to God.”

These are our guiding words for the next 40 days,

the 40 days of Lent that lead us to Easter.

These are our guiding words as we are invited,

encouraged,

urged by God to use the 40 days of Lent

as a time for introspection,

a time for us each to look within ourselves

to see where we have gone astray,

where we have turned from God,

so we can turn back,

return to God.

Did you notice that I said nothing about using the time

to look within yourselves to see where you have sinned?

The very word “sin” has become so freighted,

so loaded,

so barnacled over the centuries

that it has all but lost its meaning.

We hear the word “sin” and most of us think

it means something bad,

truly evil.

    

Now, while none of us is perfect,

surely none of us is that bad.   

Standing here this morning I don’t see a murderer,

a bank robber,

or a burglar among us.

The word “sin” isn’t about doing something bad,

doing something evil.

The word “sin” is about turning:

turning from God.

Both the Hebrew word we find in the Old Testament,

and the Greek word we find in the New Testament,

mean the same thing:

“to turn,

to miss the mark,

to go astray.”

Professor Daniel Migliore of Princeton Theological Seminary

has written,

“We misunderstand sin

if we see it only as a violation of a moral code;

it is, instead, primarily

the disruption of our relationship with God.”

It is a disruption because through our sin

we turn away from God,

turn our backs to God,

turn our hearts and minds from God.

It is, as we heard just a few minutes ago,

when we substitute our own will for God’s will,

our own way for God’s way.

It is why our Prayer of Confession each Sunday

is often preceded by the reminder

that we sin in ways both large and small,

in the things we say and do

and in the things we fail to say and do.

One of the Affirmations of Belief that we find in our

Book of Confessions puts it this way:

“In sin, men and women claim mastery of their own lives,

turn against God and their fellow men and women,

and become exploiters and despoilers of the world.

They lose their humanity in futile striving…”

(Confession of 1967, 9.12)

These are strong words, but they are accurate;

they are words that apply to every one of us.

No one can say,

“I’m glad those words aren’t directed at me.”

Frederick Buechner puts the same thought in softer words:

“The power of sin is centrifugal.

When at work in a human life,

it tends to push everything out toward the periphery.

In the process, it pushes God away.

So sin is whatever you do or fail to do

that pushes God away,

that widens the gap between you and God.”

Widens the gap.

Anything, small or large,

anything you say or do,

anything you fail to say or do that pushes God away.

That’s sin, defined simply, accurately.

Defined in a way that reminds us that we all sin

because we all do things, countless times each day

that turn us from God,

that pushes God away,

that increase the distance between us and God.

It doesn’t mean we are bad, much less evil.

But it does mean we are on the wrong path,

a path of our own choosing,

rather than the path God wants us on.

Lent invites us to acknowledge our sinfulness,

not so we can spend the 40 days feeling guilty,

feeling unworthy,

feeling bad,

but so that we can do something about it.

It’s why we begin Lent with a call to action:

to turn back to the Lord.

It is such a profoundly loving invitation.

It is God saying to you and me,

“Yes, I know you are sinners,

but still I love you and I want you closer to me,

not farther.

So return to me.

I stand ready to forgive you all your sins.

Return to me, with penitent hearts

that you might know more fully

my grace, my mercy, my love.”

Why would we not race to embrace this invitation?

Take full advantage of it?

To use the next 40 days

to look at those parts of our lives

where we know we do things,

say things that we know are not godly,

that don’t lead us deeper into holiness?

If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us,

and we deceive ourselves.

That is what Scripture teaches us.

(1 John 1:7)

We cannot run from that reality.

And God calls us to acknowledge that reality,

especially during Lent

so we can learn how to turn from sin and repent.

Imagine for a moment, the sweet fragrance of lavender

blowing softly in a summer breeze;

imagine you can smell the alluring  scent of lilac,

so calming and soothing;

Smell the steaming aroma rising from a hot cup of coffee.

These are such sweet pleasant scents,

scents that make us feel good.

Barbara Brown Taylor very creatively suggests

that we heighten our sense of smell during Lent

attaching scents to sin and repentance:

pleasant smells to repentance,

acrid, alarming, irritating scents to sinful actions,

things that turn us from God.

Attaching scents to sin and repentance,

thinking of sinful acts as having an unpleasant odor,

while penitent actions release a fragrant perfume

is just another way to approach how we think

of sin and repentance.

Once we sensitize ourselves, heighten our awareness,

we can more easily smell the sin that fills our lives,

and then turn from it,

in search of the sweet scent of repentance,

confident in the promise that,

“If we confess our sins,

he who is faithful and just

will forgive us our sins

and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

(1 John 1:9)

Lent is a time to re-commit ourselves to God,

to remind ourselves that God doesn’t want a part of us,

God wants all of us,

utter and complete surrender.

Now of course, none of us has 40 days to go on Retreat,

to spend time in the desert away from jobs, family

and other responsibilities.

So we each need to figure out

what will work for each of us each day

between now and Easter.

As a minimum set aside 15 minutes each day;

surely you can give God that much time.

Fifteen minutes for prayer, for reflection,

for thinking about where you’ve gone astray.

                                   

Paul has lots of helpful lists scattered among his letters

in which he calls us to refrain from sinful actions like

strife, enmity,

jealousy, anger, quarreling,

dissension, factions, envy

(Galatians 5:20)

Another list that might be helpful

is one that isn’t to be found in the Bible,

but is probably familiar to you: the Seven Deadly Sins.

This is a list a sixth century pope put together,

and while certainly not authoritative,

it can be a helpful resource.

With whom have you quarreled and exchanged angry words?

That’s wrath and

that turns you from the godly path of reconciliation.

What are you hanging onto too tightly:

money, possessions, time, a relationship?

That is avarice, greed.

In our greed we forget that all we have

comes from God in the first place.

Sloth is the next word on the list,

and we think of someone who is slothful as lazy.

But the word has a broader meaning,

a meaning that well may include you,

for it means filling your life

with the wrong kind of activities,

things that may keep you busy from dawn till dusk,

but are not activities that will help you grow

in godliness and holiness,

that will not draw you closer to God.  

Who among us hasn’t had moments of excessive pride,

forgetting that God calls us to live humble lives?

We can still walk tall, shoulders back, confident,

even as we walk in humility,

humble before the Lord our God.  

Who doesn’t envy someone else something?

And gluttony isn’t limited to eating too much;

it is taking too much of anything.

We are gluttons of our earth’s natural resources,

wasting much too much of what God created,

of what God calls good,

and in which God delights.

And lust isn’t limited to sex.

It can reflect any kind of behavior.

These are simply some starting places

for how you might approach your Lenten practice,

for how you might heighten your sense of smell

for sin and for repentance.

There are certainly other ways things you can do.

including, of course, coming to the

Thursday evening Lenten series we’ll start this week.

We’ll look in more detail at sin,

repentance, and forgiveness.

One of the key questions we will ask

is why we find it so hard to forgive others,

when we ourselves have been forgiven by God in Jesus Christ,

remembering that when we fail to forgive, we sin.

        

Lent is not a time to give up French fries or ice cream;

it is not even a time to give up Downton Abbey.

It is time to give up sin,

to starve sin,

to root sin out of your life.

Lent is a time to rend your heart,

as you look deep within yourself,

so that you can turn back to God,

our Loving God,

the one who stands eager,

waiting to say to you, to me,

“Know my mercy,

know my forgiveness,

that you will know more completely my love,

that you will know more fully

the love I give you through my Son,

Jesus the Christ.”

AMEN