The Danger of a Little Learning

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 29, 2004

The Danger of A Little Learning
Matthew 11:28-30
Ephesians 4:17-24


It really doesn’t matter how old you are.
It doesn’t matter how successful you are.
It doesn’t matter who or what you are.
Every one of us probably shares the same memory,
the same painful memory.

When someone or something triggers it
your heart starts pounding and
your stomach begins to churn.
You remember all too well how your first reaction was to disappear,
turn completely invisible,
there one moment, and gone without a trace the next.
When you realized that that trick wasn’t going to work,
you raced down the path of sudden catastrophic illness.
Something immediate, all-consuming,
and most important,
something to evoke sympathy from even the hardest heart.
But no matter how hard you concentrated,
you were never able to conjure up an immediate case of bubonic plague.

You remember your final desperate act
the only other path left you:
you began to pray.
Your memory here may be a little fuzzy,
but the reality is that at the time you were probably willing
to make any bargain with God,
including spending the rest of your life in cloisters if need be.

All this, because a teacher stood up in the front of a class you were in
and asked, “Who knows the answer to the question?
There is something terribly frightening about sitting in a classroom
at any age - and hearing the teacher ask, “who knows the answer”.
The teacher may not have been the least bit threatening,
or intimidating,
but it didn’t matter.
It is the simply fact that our intelligence,
or what we feared was our lack of it,
was about to be put on public display.

In elementary and high school,
when you are called on it often means having to walk
to the front of the room and write your answer on the board.
There was nothing worse than showing all your work
then turning to the teacher for a sign of affirmation,
and hearing her say to the rest of the class,
“Who would like to come up and help Skip?”

The classroom can often be an intimidating experience.
I think that is why so many of us breathed a sigh of relief
when we graduated.
We were happy to leave the classroom behind.

Now another September is upon us,
and of course, September is Back-to-School month
as our children go back to classrooms in elementary,
middle and high schools, as well as college.
September is back to school month here at the church as well,
as we begin another year of Sunday School for our children.
Russ Martinson and our wonderful and dedicated group of Sunday School
teachers are ready to welcome our children
with new materials and resources.
We will register our children on Homecoming Sunday, September 12th
and then begin classes on September 19th.
I work with our 9th graders in the Confirmation Class
and we will begin our year together with an Opening Retreat
on October 2nd.

In the church, formal schooling ends with Confirmation in 9th grade.
The secular school system also focuses on young people,
with most finishing their formal education
in their late teens or early twenties.
For those of us who left the classroom more than a few years ago,
we tend to think of September as Back-to-school time for our children.
But September should be back-to-school time for all of us.
We should all be looking for new ways for us to learn
so that we can grow in faith.

Jesus calls us to “learn from him.”
Now that doesn’t mean taking a course,
or even spending a few years in Sunday School.
No, learning from Jesus is something we should be doing
all of our lives.

We learn from Jesus by learning with him.
The yoke metaphor that we heard in our gospel lesson is fitting.
Do you know what a yoke looks like?
In Jesus’ time it was a wooden harness that fit over the heads
of two oxen to allow them to pull a plow or a cart.
When Jesus invites us to take on his yoke,
he is inviting us to become his yokemate,
that we are with him in the yoke, and that he is with us.

We are to learn from him by walking with him,
working with him,
listening to him, and watching him.
We become, in effect, his apprentices,
called to work with the master
that we might learn from the master.
In Jesus Christ we have a teacher who is a partner with us.

In Sunday School we begin the process by learning about Jesus.
We learn about his birth in the stable;
We learn about his baptism, his preaching and teaching;
We learn about his arrest and his death;
We learn about his resurrection.

But then Paul helps us to understand that we, as adults,
are to take it to the next level and “learn Christ”
Not learn about Christ – we have already done that.
No: learn Christ.
Learn to follow him.,
learn what he wants from us.

As adults we are to go beyond the stories about Jesus,
we are to take those stories and incorporate them in our own lives
so that we can become more Christ-like,
more like the one who with whom we are sharing the yoke,
more like the one who is with us, teaching us and guiding us.
That’s the process of transformation that Paul speaks of frequently.

You have probably heard the aphorism,
“a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.
There are lots and lots of faithful who have
a little knowledge about Jesus
a little knowledge about God,
a little knowledge about faith
all because they engaged in only a little learning.
limited to Sunday School as children.

Jesus doesn’t say, “learn about me.”
He is not interested in each of us becoming his biographer.
No, what Jesus says is, “learn from me.”
Working on knowing Christ is what you and I are called to do,
once we know about Christ.
Frederick Buechner helps us to understand that
this kind of knowing is deeper:
“to know is to participate in, to become imbued with,
for better or worse to be affected by.
When you really know something or someone,
the knowledge becomes part of who you are.
It gets into your bloodstream.” (BW, 214)

This is how you and I are to know Christ,
to know the Bible,
to know the history of the church:
it shouldn’t just be a collection of facts
that are there for us to rattle off.
That’s fine for Jeopardy.
No, this knowledge becomes a part of us,
leads us in our every word and every action.

And it is something we should always be working on;
something we never stop working on.
Graduation day is the day when Jesus comes for us
to take us to stand before God
that we might hear the words,
“Well done good and faithful servant.”

Paul uses the phrase, “the constant renewing of our minds”
to remind us that this learning is a process;
that it comes as we take on the yoke
and learn with Christ,
so we can learn Christ.

There are lots of ways you can learn Christ,
Certainly one way is to come to our Bible Study group on Wednesday.
Those who come can testify that we have a great deal
of wonderful conversation as we read and learn together.
If Wednesday is a bad day and you’d like to establish a group
that meets at another time, just let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

Many of you participated in our Year of the Bible program last year.
Did you start and then stop your reading?
Why not pick it up again?
I know many folks found the Old Testament difficult to wade through.
Let me suggest that you start your reading again,
only this time, skip over the Old Testament passages,
and just read the New Testament passages,
along with the psalms and proverbs.
The Old Testament is important and we can’t ignore it,
but save that for the next time and just focus on the life of Jesus
and the creation of the church of Jesus Christ
on your first read through.

Perhaps this is the year for you to join the choir?
Singing hymns and anthems can open your eyes
in entirely new ways as you learn Christ.
Jan has some wonderful new music she is going to be
using with the choir this fall.

Russ Martinson is always looking for additional teachers and helpers
in Sunday School.
Helping our children learn about Christ is a wonderful way to learn Christ.
It is why I love teaching the Confirmation Class:
each year I learn as much, if not more,
than the young people in class.

Our Christian Education Team, under the energetic leadership
of Elder Peggy Wright is turning its attention to Adult Education.
We want to see what we can do to develop new programs
and offerings for adults.
We are looking to the Lenten season next spring,
which begins quite early next year, February 9th,
when we are hoping to offer a weekly program.
We would love your input: if you have ideas or suggestions
for the types of things you would like to learn more about,
talk with Peggy, or speak with me, or send me an e-mail.

As part of my continuing effort to grow in faith and learn Christ,
I am going back to school to work on a Doctorate in Ministry
at Princeton Seminary.
It is a part-time program, which I have already started,
so it won’t affect my responsibilities here.
The program is designed for those who are full-time ministers
to minimize the intrusion on our day-to-day responsibilities
as we seek to find ways to enhance our skills as ministers.
I will be part of a small group, just 10 of us, from a range of denominations,
and we will look to grow not only in our skills,
but more important in our faith as disciples of Jesus Christ.


A little learning,
a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
A little learning, a little knowledge can take you down the same path
as the politician who, back in the 1920s, explained his preference
for the King James Version of the Bible by saying,
“If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus,
it’s good enough for me.”

I want to encourage you to make September back-to-school month for yourself.
Commit yourself to some new way for you to work on learning Christ,
Not learning about Christ,
but learning Christ.

Take on Jesus’ yoke more willingly,
and remember that he is walking with you
teaching you, guiding you,
transforming you, renewing you.
Learn Christ.
I can guarantee you that in his class and with his teaching,
your grade will never be anything less than an A+.

Amen

Souvenirs

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 22, 2004

Souvenirs
Galatians 1:6-9
Luke 12:22-31

At Westminster Presbyterian Church in Buffalo
the stained glass windows along the north side of the Sanctuary
capture scenes from the Old Testament.
There they all are in luminous colors:
Adam and Eve;
Noah, Jacob, Moses,
Jonah, David and Goliath.

In a small part of the window near where I used to sit when I worshipped there,
by pew 148, the pew my grandmother regarded as hers for more than 60 years,
there was a small gold object, about a third of the way up the window.
From a distance it looked like a small chest, a trunk;
the kind of trunk used by a magician:
you know the kind: he steps inside,
closes the lid, seconds later the assistant opens the lid
and the magician is gone!

I never paid much attention to the little gold trunk
until 1981, when I saw the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Do you remember that movie?
Harrison Ford stars as Indiana Jones,
the adventurous archeologist
who goes searching for the Ark of the Covenant
in a race to find it before Hitler’s Nazis can claim it.
I realized after I saw the movie that the gold trunk in the stained glass
was the Ark of the Covenant.

Indiana Jones’s adventures may have been fictitious
but the ark itself was quite real.
Just turn to Exodus, chapter 25 to find God’s
detailed instructions to Moses
as to how he should build the ark of the covenant.
The Hebrew word that we translate as “ark” means “box” or “chest”
and that’s what the ark of the covenant was:
a box, a box covered with gold plating
and a solid gold top.
The two stone tablets on which were written the Ten Commandments,
God’s law, God’s covenant,
were to be placed inside the box.
The top of the ark was to be the seat
where God would sit.
The ark was to be kept in the Holy of Holies,
the room in the very back of the Temple.

It was King Solomon who built the Temple and
who saw to it that the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies.
That was more than 900 years before the birth of Christ.
The Ark remained there for more than 400 years
until the Temple was destroyed
when the Babylonian army of Nebuchadnezzar
routed all of Israel and Judah.

The Ark disappeared. Disappeared without a trace.
The children of Israel were eventually restored to the land
and the great Temple was rebuilt, but the Ark of the Covenant was gone.
It is likely that the Ark was taken back to Babylon,
melted down and the gold turned into gold jewelry for the king’s wife
and other members of the royal household.
In 2d Kings we read that Nebuchadnezzar “carried off all the treasure
of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the kings’ house;
he cut in pieces all the vessels of gold
in the temple of the Lord.” (2K24:13)
The stone tablets were probably considered to be
so much Hebrew gibberish by the conquering army
and tossed in a scrap heap.

Twenty-five hundred years later though,
there is a still an active business in the search for the Ark of the Covenant.
Many are convinced that it still exists
and that someday they will find it.

We’ve turned the Ark of the Covenant into an idol,
something we consider to be precious
and even to have mystical powers.
We have turned the Ark of the Covenant into a souvenir.

Back in my college days I spent one summer traveling around Europe
visiting museums and churches,
and I saw so many slivers of wood that purported to be pieces
of the “true cross” that I suspect that
if they had all been glued together,
the “true cross” would have been at least 50 feet tall!

Of course, the ultimate souvenir, the prize of prizes,is the Holy Grail,
the cup Jesus and his disciples drank from at the Last Supper.
The third installment of the Indiana Jones series focused on the Grail.
Do you remember the scene in the movie
when Jones and his nemesis enter a room in a cave filled with cups?
The cups were guarded by an 800-year-old knight Templar.
It was believed that the cup of Christ, the holy grail,
would give the person immortality.
And so in the scene in the movie, the evil villain looked over the array of cups
wondering which one to choose.
He then took an elaborate gold cup,
saying that it indeed was the cup of the King of Kings.
He dipped the cup into the spring in the corner of the cave,
took a drink….and then aged 50, 60, 70 years in seconds.
Within a minute he was dead, a pile of dust on the floor.
The frail knight turned to our hero and said, “He chose… poorly.”
Then it was Indiana’s turn to make his choice.
He looked at the dozens of cups and then picked up a tarnished bronze one,
a cup that anyone else would have ignored.
It was humble, like our Lord himself.
He dipped the cup into the spring, took a drink,
held his breath…. and was fine.
The knight tells him what we already know:
He chose….wisely.

In a recent edition of Bible Review, Professor Ben Witherington argues
that is highly unlikely that a metal cup,
or any kind of special cup would have been used
by Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper.
After all, they were visitors celebrating the Passover meal
in a borrowed room in Jerusalem;
they would have used whatever utensils would have been
made available.
It is more likely that the cup they all drank from was made of local sandstone,
a material that broke easily.
It probably ended up a pile of shattered dust.

The disciples would have put no special credence in the cup
that was used at that meal;
it was Christ who offered redemption,
not the wine they drank,
or the cup from which they drank.
It was eternal life with Jesus in heaven,
and not immortality on earth,
that Christ offered through faith in him.

We seem so eager to believe the stories and the legends that surround
searches for the Ark of the Covenant, Noah’s Ark,
the Cup of Christ, or pieces of the true cross.
Do you remember the controversy a few years back
about a piece of cloth referred to as the Shroud of Turin?
Many believed it was the burial cloth in which Jesus
was wrapped following his crucifixion.
Tests showed that the cloth was probably less than 1,000 years old,
however. But people still argue over just whose ghostly image
seems to be burned into the fabric.

The controversy this summer is over the various claims
put forward by Dan Brown in his best selling book, The DaVinci Code.
I read the book. It is a great read, a real page turner.
But first and foremost: the book is fiction.
It is a story.
There is no truth to the many different claims he puts forward.

The most controversial claim
is that Jesus Christ might have been married to Mary Magdalene,
and that together they might have had a child.
The Bible doesn’t tell us a great deal about Mary Magdalene.
What we do know is that she followed Jesus faithfully
and had been cured of “seven demons”.
She was the first to go to the empty tomb on that first Easter.
Matthew and John both tell us that Mary
was the first to see the risen Christ.
Over the centuries she has become known as a prostitute,
but there is nothing in the Bible that supports that idea.

Brown bases his fiction on the apocryphal Gospel of Philip,
a book written about 200 years after the death of Christ.
In that book, we find these words, “And the companion of the Savior
is Mary Magdalene. But Christ loved her more than all the disciples
and used to kiss her often on the mouth.”
The book was not included in the Bible because no one thought of it
as the inspired word of God.
It was filled with too many statements and claims that made no sense.
It was also filled with statements that directly contradict our faith.
As just one example, the book states,
“some say, Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit;
they are in error.”
The writer of this gospel rejects the very notion that Mary conceived
by the power of the Holy Spirit, a central tenet of our faith!

In the early years of Christianity, there were many books purporting to be gospels,
stories of the life of Jesus Christ,
stories of his teaching, his healing, his travels.
The vast majority contained all kinds of fanciful stories,
much like the gospel of Philip.
And there were many who claimed to have the “true gospel”,
the only gospel.

People seemed so eager to believe anything they read or heard.
Within 30 years of the death of our Savior,
things had got so out of hand in Galatia
that Paul felt compelled to write the believers an angry letter:
“I am astonished
that you are so quickly deserting the gospel…”

Paul’s words are timeless and could just as easily have been written to us.
We are so eager, so ready, so willing to turn away from
the central messages of the gospel,
from the teachings of our Lord and Savior
We are so eager to believe gossipy accounts,
fanciful accounts,
the more scandalous the better.

We are more like souvenir seekers, looking for little totems
we can put on our shelf:
Better to have a piece of the true cross,
or go looking for the Grail
than to do that hard work of reading the gospels,
listening to Jesus, and then following his word.
As Nancy Bruscino reminded us last week,
we are all looking for “cheap grace”.

Think about the lesson that Jesus teaches us through Luke.
It could not be simpler: Don’t worry….Have faith and don’t worry.

But we are nation of worriers: we are chronic worriers.
We worry about everything.
We get ulcers, we lose sleep
we feel filled with anxiety
We spend billions of dollars on medication and treatment.
We worry.
We don’t trust Jesus
We don’t trust God.
We strive to find souvenirs of faith,
little items we can put on the shelf,
rather than striving – working – for the kingdom of God.

Why are we so ready to believe rumors,
yet so slow to take things on faith?
Why are we so ready to believe that Jesus might have been secretly married,
that he might have even fathered a child,
but so slow to believe him when he tells us
not to worry,
that he will lift our burdens from us
that God is watching over us?

We’ve got just two weeks of summer left till Labor day is upon us.
If you want a good read, a good story,
pick up the DaVinci Code.
But for every page you read in a novel like the DaVinci Code.
why not read a page in the Bible,
especially your One Year Bible.

We all love souvenirs, little mementoes of our journey along the way.
But souvenirs are made of dust, and to dust they will return.
They are things of this earth.
Seek first the treasures of heaven.
Seek first the things of God’s heavenly kingdom.
That’s not fiction, or fable or fancy.
That’s the word of the Lord.

Amen

Anger Management

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 8, 2004

Anger Management
Matthew 5:21-26
Ephesians 4:25-5:2


Summer is supposed to be a time of relaxation, renewal and refreshment.
Our lives are supposed to be quieter, less hectic.
Summer is supposed to be a time of long, languid afternoons
snoozing in a hammock in the shade,
or curled up on the porch, or by a pool, or on the beach
with a good trashy novel.

That is how summer is supposed to be.
But of course that is not how summer is for most of us.
Our lives tend to be even more frantic
as we try to fit in all the different things we want to do.
Our workdays are no easier,
and then when we get home, there are projects around the house
the yard, and the garden, all waiting to be done.
There are vacations to be planned,
visiting relatives and friends to be entertained,
softball games and golf to be played.

We are busier than ever in the summer.
It is no wonder that summer tends to be a stressful time.
We find ourselves as keyed up and stressed out
as if it were the middle of December.

When we get stressed, we find that our fuses are shorter,
we are more likely to find even small things bother us.
We find ourselves getting angry,
losing our temper,
blowing our tops.

The heat and humidity only make matter worse.
Even with air conditioning, a restful night’s sleep
can be hard to come by.
We toss and turn and wake up cranky,
as knotted up as the sheets on our beds.
We begin our days stressed, and then only add to the stress
when we get behind the wheel of our cars.
It is a sad reflection on our times that
the term “road rage” has become a part of our vocabulary
and that there are now signs along highways telling us
to call the state troopers to report aggressive driving.

Anger seems to be all around us:
On the roads,
in stores,
in offices,
on the softball diamond and the golf course,
and even on the playground.

We seem to be living in a more temperamental world,
a world where people are quicker to swear at you
than bless you, and in the most vulgar language;
a world where an obscene hand gesture has replaced a friendly wave.

The church is not immune to this dreadful anger virus.
The annual meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
just wrapped up a few weeks back in Richmond, Virginia
and was notable not so much for its substantive accomplishments,
as it was for the fact that this it was not marred
by the vicious fighting and angry outbursts
that had been so prevalent over the past few years.

Here in our own church in the past few months,
I have received notes about things I have said in sermons,
or things I have suggested we do as a church,
or things I have done,
that have upset the writers.
What has struck me is not that the writers disagreed with me,
that comes with the job;
no, what has struck me has been the
anger underlying the different complaints.

We seem to be living in an rage-filled world,
where our first reaction to anything we don’t like is to vent our anger.

Now anger is as natural as any other emotion.
It is part of our makeup – just like joy, fear, love, sadness
and all the other emotions that God built into each of us.
Anger by itself is not a bad thing.
No, where we get ourselves into trouble is how we handle our anger,
how we manage our anger,
what we do with it.

Psychologists tell us that we tend to deal with anger one of two ways:
At one extreme, we give voice to it and express our anger,
we explode and let our fury fly, venting all our rage.
At the other extreme, we suppress our anger;
we bottle it up, and try to ignore it.

We have a tendency to think that as Christians,
we should never display our anger,
so we try to bottle it, cap it, put it in a lockbox
and try to ignore it.

But suppressing our feelings is not healthy.
If we are feeling something, then those feelings are real
and we have to find a way to let them out.
Anger is real.
We have only to read a few passages of the Old Testament
and we can find more than a few examples of God’s anger
with his children, our ancestors in faith.
And a cursory reading of even one gospel will reveal that Jesus too
lost his temper with his disciples on a number of occasions.
as he went about his ministry.

What we need to do is find the best way to release our pent up emotions.
And with anger, that can often require a great deal of thought and work.
But we can find some help in chapter 29 of Proverbs
where we read,
“A fool gives full vent to his anger,
but the wise quietly holds it back” P29:11

Right there is the key
We are not to give full vent to our anger.
We are not to express everything that we are feeling.
The wise person understand the importance of holding back;
He or she doesn’t bottle it up;
but finds a healthier way for it to come out.

When we get angry at someone and give “full vent” to our rage,
we can risk causing serious harm to our relationship with
the person at whom our anger is directed.
This is especially true with when parents lose their tempers with children.
The mother who screams at a child in the grocery store,
the father who yells at his child to do better on the playing field.
We can do serious damage to another person’s sense of self
a person’s sense of esteem with just a few words.

James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, reminds us
that our tongues can be devastating weapons:
“How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire,
and the tongue is a fire!
The tongue…stains the whole body…
…The tongue is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With it we bless the Lord and Father,
and with it we curse those
who are made in the likeness of God.” (James 3:5-9)

When we vent our rage, we are doing just what James describes:
we are cursing someone who is made in the likeness of God.
We are cursing a child of God.
It doesn’t matter whether the person with whom we are angry
is younger, older, or the same age.
We are cursing a child of God.

Feel the emotion that God gave you,
but be measured, be careful.
Be respectful of the other person.
“Be angry” Paul tells us,
but “don’t let the anger lead you to sin.”

Don’t let anger lead you to say things that are hurtful,
destructive,
nasty,
mean-spirited,
Don’t let your anger lead you to say words
that injure, hurt, and scar.

And when anger does overwhelm you,
“don’t let the sun go down upon your anger.”
Express your feelings to the other person,
but do it constructively,
and then work toward reconciliation,
work toward rebuilding the bridge between you
and the person who had made you angry.

You and I have been called to a ministry of reconciliation
in the name of Jesus Christ.
And we can’t just choose to work on reconciliation with one person,
while we are livid at someone else.
Our ministry of reconciliation begins in the home.
It begins with husband, wife,
mother, father,
son, daughter.
If we aren’t working on reconciliation in our homes.
Then how can we hope to serve Christ faithfully in the world at large?
Reconciliation is about working out the problems,
Sorting through the differences.
Sitting down and talking through the dilemmas.
Getting at the root, the cause, of our anger.

Reconciliation is much harder work than being angry.
Being angry is easy.
Being angry requires no thought of any kind whatsoever
It requires no preparation, no real work.
You give a voice to whatever pops in your mind.

Working on reconciliation, working as a disciple:
that is much harder work.
But that is what Paul tells us to do.

Most of our anger stems from when others
don’t do things our way, the way we think they ought to be done.
Someone says something with which we disagree
or does something that we disapprove of.
Most of our anger is profoundly judgmental
and that makes it sinful.
That’s why we hear Jesus say,
“…if you are angry with a brother or sister,
you will be liable to judgment”


God was often angry with our ancestors in faith.
They were no different from you and me.
They were often too caught up in their own worlds
to listen to God, to follow God’s way.
So God got angry,
and punished them repeatedly.
But God got tired of being angry with his children.
And so he sought to reconcile himself to his children
through his Son Jesus Christ.
God has reconciled himself to you and to me
through Jesus Christ,
so that he will never be angry with us
even when we are disobedient and sinful.
God reconciled himself to you and to me through Jesus Christ
and you and I are called to carry on this work of reconciliation
this ministry of reconciliation with each other,
with all God’s children.

And that means we don’t have time to be angry.
We don’t have time to get ourselves all worked up over
things that other people do and say.
Still, we will.
We are human.
But when it happens, when you feel yourself filled with anger,
your temper about to burst
look to God to help you: help calm you,
and help you find the right words.
Before you vent, ask God for help.
And then always, always,
remember to look at the other person, whoever he or she is,
and remember that he or she bears the image of God
Express your feelings,
but don’t vent your anger,

And then turn immediately to reconciliation,
to the ministry to which you and I have been called,
to the ministry with which you and I have been entrusted.
Be guided by Paul’s teaching to us,
“Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love,
making every effort to maintain the unity in the bond of peace.
…Let no evil talk come out of your mouths,
but only what is useful for building up, as there is need,
so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
Put away all bitterness and wrath and anger
and be kind to one another
forgiving one another
as God in Christ has forgiven you. ” (Eph. 4:1-29)

AMEN

How Much Is Enough?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 1, 2004

How Much Is Enough?
Luke 12:13-21
Col. 3:1-11

Long before there was a Dunkin Donuts on every corner,
and well before Krispy Crème was even an gleam in its founders eyes,
there was a place to go for donuts
a great place, a special place:
Ferg’s Donut Shop.

Of course, you had to be a student at the Nichols School in Buffalo, New York,
for that is where this thriving little business operated.
Each morning, I sold 15 dozen donuts to my hungry classmates,
one for a dime, 3 for a quarter.
Day after day, week after week,
the donuts rolled out
and the money rolled in.
Business was healthy, even if the product I sold wasn’t:
I was pocketing about $5 each day, which for a 16-year-old
boy back in 1970 was serious money.
I had money for my car, money for music
(record albums cost $4 back then!)
and most important: I had money for skiing
which was my favorite sport.

Things hummed along for most of the fall,
until the day the president of the student council
informed me that the school controlled
all money-making activities.
As of that moment any and all money I made
had to be turned over to the school.

Now I didn’t think this was fair.
I explained to him that I had organized the business,
I had put up the original $10 in seed capital,
I was the one who had arrived at school early every morning
to set up my business in the school’s dining room,
I cleaned up afterward:
threw away all the trash and
wiped up the tables.
I had earned every penny I had made.

He countered by arguing that I shouldn’t think of myself;
I should be filled with spirit for The Nichols School,
ready to sing the school’s alma mater
as I gladly worked for the school’s success.
I don’t remember my exact response,
but I am guessing that I phrased it in words
that are not appropriate for a sermon.

I pocketed my profits, and walked away from the business,
telling the student council president he was welcome to take over.
The vast majority of my classmates were outraged
at the school’s ham-handed action.
They stopped patronizing the business.
and within two weeks of my departure,
the business closed down.

My brief tenure as a donut mogul –
gave me an appreciation for business.
I went on to major in Economics in college
and then received a masters degree in business administration
from the Wharton School and a law degree.
I spent 15 years in the business world before I went to Princeton Seminary.
I believe in the capitalist system.
I believe in the free enterprise system.

But I’ve been dismayed at the business world the past few years:
The incredible greed and arrogance displayed by the heads of businesses
The “anything goes” attitude that has been so prevalent.
The attitude that it is only a crime if you get caught.
Over the past ten or so years we have become a society
fixated on money and those things that we can buy with money.
We measure our success by what we have.
The cars, the large screen television.
Even our children have to have the right labels in their clothes
or they will be ostracized.
Donald Trump has become our hero
as everybody tries to outdo everybody else.

In the process we are becoming a society that is, to use the phrase:
aware of the price of everything
and the value of nothing.
As the advertisement reminds us,
there are certain things that money cannot buy,
but for everything else, there is Mastercard.
And we seem to put value only in those things we can
purchase with our mastercards.

We all need money; even ministers.
We all have mortgages and car payments,
We all have to buy food and clothing,
We all struggle to save for vacations and children’s education
And we are all concerned about whether
we will have enough when we retire.

But how much do we need?
How much do you need?
How much is enough?

I remember back in the summer of 1973,
I had just completed my freshman year in college.
I took a job as an electrician’s helper working construction.
The job was through the electrical workers union,
so I was paid union scale of $5.05/hour.
The previous summer I had earned the minimum wage
which was $1.90 hour
I felt rich, with money to burn that summer.
It was like someone had turned on the tap and money roared in.
Of course, I was only working to save money for school.
I had no mortgage, no grocery bills.
I didn’t even have a car, much less a family to support.

$5/hour works out to about $10,000 year.
Can a person live on that amount?
The minimum wage in this country is presently $5.15 hour
and chief executives have been ferocious in their opposition
to any attempt to raise the minimum wage,
crying that it would be detrimental to business.
Of course, most of those who howl,
make in excess of $1 million/year.
which, if you do the math,
works out to about $500 per hour.

It seems clear that $5.15 per hour isn’t enough.
But how much is enough?

Find someone who earns $30,000 per year
and they will tell you that if they only earned $40,000/yr
they would have enough.
Find someone who earns $40,000/year
and they will be tell you that that if they only made $50,000/yr
everything would be alright.
And then find someone who makes $50,000/yr
and they will be convinced if they only had $60,000/yr,
they would never be anxious about money again.
The person who makes $100,000 could fill the gap with just another $25,000.
Find someone who made a million and they will tell you
that they would sleep soundly with a million and half.
It never ends.

Jesus story about the rich man is one of many parables he tells
that deal with money and economic issues.
In fact, more than half of Jesus’ parables focus on money.

And what does Jesus tell us?
He wants us to learn is that life isn’t about our possessions
and what we have in our bank accounts.
Life isn’t about designer labels or the biggest SUV.

Jesus tells us clearly that our lives “do not consist in abundance”
It isn’t about having so much that we have to build a bigger home
to hold it all.
It isn’t about how much we can pile up.

Life is about what is in our hearts.
It is about where our treasure really is.
Do you remember what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven,
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
(Matt. 6:19)

Paul reinforces Jesus’ teaching in his letter to the Colossians:
“seek the things that are above.
Set your minds on things that are above,
not on things that are on earth…”
Paul doesn’t mince words when he tells us to
“Put to death all those things that are of this earth.”
(Col. 3:1ff)

And we can do that, can’t we, as children of God
and disciples of Christ?
because we know – we know –
that God will look after us and take care us
God will see to our needs.

Now of course there is a distinction between
what we need and what we want.
As long as our needs – real needs – are met,
we will have enough.
We may not have what we want.
We may not have what our neighbor has,
but we will have what we need.

This meal is a perfect example of how God takes care of us.
In that small piece of bread and the drop of wine,
we are fed, fed completely, nourished
renewed, refreshed and restored.
In that small piece of bread and that drop of wine
we have a meal that is better for us than
a meal at the finest restaurant in New York City.

As you wait to come to the Lord’s Table,
and after you return to your seat,
I encourage you to turn to Psalm 23, page 435 in your pew Bible
and ponder David’s words:
“The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want.
My cup runs over.”

Our cup does run over;
it runs over with abundance in God’s love.
It runs over in God’s faithfulness to us
even when our own faithfulness to him is weak.

Our cup always runs over.
I may not be a donut mogul,
but that’s enough for me.

How about you?

Amen