Pledging Our Troth

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 31, 2004

Pledging Our Troth
2 Corinthians 8:1-15
Luke 19:1-8

A man walked into the church not so long ago.
He was a stranger to me, his face not at all familiar.
He introduced himself and
told me that he was a member of another church in the community.
Then he told me how much he admired our church;
how he admired all the things we do.
He had helped out from time to time with the Food Pantry;
He had seen the dedication of the Women’s Association and the Men’s Council
as they held their Auction and White Elephant sales
in the midst of torrential rain.
And he had seen the full parking lot Sunday after Sunday.

He could feel the discipleship of this congregation,
the commitment of this Body of Christ.
He wanted to respond to what he was seeing.
He wanted to respond by making a contribution to the church.
And with that he handed me an envelope with a check inside.
I thanked him for his gift.
I didn’t know the amount, but it didn’t matter.
As Jesus reminds us in the story of the widow’s mite,
even a contribution of a few dollars is a wonderful gift
when it is made in love and given from the heart.

The man turned to go, and I went into my office and opened the envelope.
I was stunned when I saw the amount.
It was extraordinarily generous.
The man did not make this contribution because he was wealthy,
or because he needed a tax write-off;
He gave in response to the blessings that he had received in his own life;
he gave in response to what he sees us doing here,
as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his second letter to the church at Corinth,
Paul reminds the new converts to Christ
of the importance of responding,
responding to God’s gifts of grace and blessings;
the importance of responding to God’s presence in their lives.
He challenges the Corinthian Christians, and he challenges us,
“it is appropriate for you…not only to do something,
but even to desire to do something…
for if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable.” (2Cor8.8ff)

Do you hear what Paul is saying?
Do you hear how he is encouraging us,
even challenging us?
Yes, it is appropriate for us to do something.
Duty, guilt, a sense of obligation all motivate us to do something.
But that’s not what Paul is looking for.
He is looking for more, much more.
He is trying to inspire the Corinthians to more, much more:
What he wants from the Corinthians, and from you and me,
is a desire to do something,an eagerness.

Paul wants us to be motivated by a sense of joyful restlessness,
a restlessness that compels us, prods us, moves us,
so that we want to do something.
Our giving of our time,
our giving of talent,
and our giving of money,
should always be filled with a sense of eagerness,
a sense of excitement,
a sense of desire.

Our giving is a way for us to respond to the extraordinary gift
we’ve been given from God in the life of Jesus Christ.
We’ve been given God’s love, unconditionally.
We have been given God’s grace and mercy.
God has given us salvation for one reason
and one reason only: because of his love for us.
We have received a gift we can never possibly repay.

We can respond to God’s overwhelming goodness,
and his overflowing love in one of two ways.
We can respond from a sense of obligation:
“I’m doing this because I know I have to.”
Or we can respond with a sense of desire and eagerness:
“I’m doing this because I want to,
I want to respond to God’s love and God’s grace.
and I know that whatever I do
will pale in comparison to God’s gift to me.”

Paul says later in his letter that God loves a cheerful giver.
The person who gives cheerfully and joyfully,
understands this need to respond.
The person understands that everything he or she has
has been given to them by God.
That’s just what Zacchaeus does at the end of dinner,
when he stands before Jesus and his other guests
and announces he is going to give away half of everything he has.
Zacchaeus was a corrupt tax official.
His life had been devoted to earning money, adding to his wealth,
so he could have a bigger home, more things.
Zacchaeus’ life was all about accumulating treasure on earth.
As a result, Zacchaeus was a lost man.

But then he was found,
found by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Salvation came to Zacchaeus that day.
Not because of anything he had done.
On the contrary, his life had been a litany of
corruption and selfishness.
But Jesus chose him,
chose him because of God’s love.
And Zacchaeus could feel that love;
It was so strong that he needed to respond.
When Zacchaeus told Jesus and his guests that he was going to give away
half his wealth, he wasn’t saying it to impress the group gathered,
and he was not saying it to buy his way to salvation.
He was saying it in joyful response
to the feeling that had overwhelmed him
as Jesus brought salvation to him that day.

The Bible tells us nothing more about Zacchaeus
but I have no doubt that he spent the rest of his days
filled with a desire to respond,
filled with an eagerness to respond,
filled with a longing to respond to the blessings
he learned through Jesus.

Our Annual Stewardship Campaign provides each of us with an opportunity to respond, respond with eagerness to God’s blessings in our lives.
The unhappy reality is that when we hear those three words,
Annual Stewardship Campaign,
we have a tendency to react in much the same way we do
when the local public television or radio station does their
annual fund drive:
We heave a sigh, accept it,
and hope that it will be over quickly.
But don’t you see: that’s exactly what Paul is telling us not to do!
Paul is telling us to embrace the opportunity to respond to God’s blessings,
to be filled with a sense of eagerness and desire.
Paul is telling us that we should be waiting by our mailboxes
for our pledge cards, so we can fill then out and return them.

Think back over the years as you have thought about your pledge of financial support to this church, or any other church you might have been a part of.
Were you filled with breathless enthusiasm, eagerness, joy
Compelled, filled with a desire to respond?
Paul would look you squarely in the eye and ask, “why not?”

This year we are trying a new approach to Stewardship.
There will be no Saddlebags, no FPC Express,
no route or trail bosses, nothing you’ve got to get to another person.
This year we are going to keep it simple.

In about ten days you’ll each receive a letter from the Elders of the church,
a short, simple letter inviting your joyful response.
Your pledge card will be enclosed, along with a return envelope.
When you get your pledge card,
the first thing you should do is reflect on your blessings.
all your blessings, blessings small and large.
Then offer up a prayer of thanksgiving to God
for all the gifts God has given you in your life.
Then look to God for guidance as you consider your pledge of support
for the work we do here in this body of Christ.

After you fill out the card, put it in the return envelope,
seal it up, but don’t mail it.
No, we are asking everyone to bring their cards to church
on Sunday, November 21st, which we are calling
Consecration Sunday.
We will provide an opportunity for everyone
to bring their envelopes up to the Lord’s Table
where we will ask a blessing upon them.
And that is all there is to it.
Simple, joyful.

When you make a pledge of support,
you are not entering into a contract.
Rather you are pledging your troth.
Troth is an old-fashioned word that simply means faithfulness,
fidelity. We used to hear that phrase in wedding ceremonies.
Your pledge of support is part of your pledge of faithfulness and fidelity
in support of the mission and ministry of this church.

We have grown considerably over the past five years, almost doubling in size.
Our giving has grown,
but it is still short of what we need to cover our expenses,
and a look at the budget will confirm that ours is a very lean operation,
in many ways, too lean:


-We have not had enough money in the budget to buy
new Sunday School curriculum we have needed:
the Women’s Association has underwritten the cost.
-We didn’t have the money to complete the replacement of windows
downstairs in the Overfield Room: the Men’s Council paid for them.
-We have not had the money in the budget to pay for the care packages
we send to our college students each year,
care packages our students love,
The money has come from different sources.
-A church our size needs a part-time sexton,
but we don’t have money in the budget for that.
-Cynthia, our church secretary, works just 22 hours a week,
which is not enough. As the church has grown, the administrative demands
on her have grown, plus she is now doing the bookkeeping work.
We need to add hours to her schedule, but we don’t have the money.
-The $4,000 we allocate to Mission giving each year is among the lowest mission
budgets of all the churches in the Hudson River Presbytery.

As you think about your support of this church,
think about why a complete stranger was so taken with this faith community
Think about what he saw and why he felt such a strong desire to respond.
Then think about your own desire to respond,
and respond joyfully.
Be filled with desire to respond, an eagerness
Respond with a sense of purpose,
for what God calls us to do in this congregation,
but also respond with a sense of joyfulness.

In the wonderful book the Gentle Reader’s Book Club have been reading,
Home to Harmony, author Philip Gulley, a Quaker pastor writes,
“It isn’t skill and pluck and hard work that gets us where we are.
It is grace, nothing else.
It’s God, pointing the divine finger our way, saying,
‘You there, with the squinty eyes, digging your toes in the dirt,
it’s you I want.’
Through Jesus Christ, God has said that to everyone of us.
How can we respond to such love with anything other than desire,
eagerness,
and joy.
Gulley adds to the picture,
“Sometimes I feel like I’m sitting at God’s table
and I’ve just finished one piece of blessing,
and God smiles and say, ‘Here, have another.’” (95-6)
Grace abounds,
for God’s love has no limit
His goodness, his mercy,
and his love are indeed from everlasting to everlasting.

Amen.

Hearing Healing

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 24, 2004

Hearing Healing
Psalm 34:1-7, 17-18
Luke 18:35-43

A man is healed by Jesus as if by magic.
In Mark’s rendition of this story
we learn the man’s name is Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.
In Matthew’s version of the story,
Jesus doesn’t heal one man; he heals two.
Sight is restored.
The one who was once blind now sees;
The one who once sat by the roadside,
who let the world pass him by, now follows.
Follows without question.
Follows the healer, the miracle man.
And all the people who witnessed the healing, all praised God.

As with all of Jesus’ parables,
there is a lot going on in a short, simple story.
A blind man is reduced to begging by the side of the road
as his only means of eking out a few shekels to buy food.
He hears about Jesus,
hears about the man people think might be the Savior.
He cannot see this man, but he is aware of him.
Through his sense of listening he knows.
And he waits, and waits, each day, sitting by the side of the road,
as he calls out to all who pass,
“spare a few coins for a blind man.”
The sympathetic place a coin or two in the cup;
the more hard-hearted walk by the filthy beggar,
offended by his smell, offended by his very presence.
The mean-spirited mock the man,
perhaps even kick him around a little.

But he does not lose heart.
He keeps his faith,….and he hopes.
for he has heard, heard about the man who heals,
heard about the man who performs miracles.

And the day finally comes when the healer, the miracle man walks through town.
walks through Jericho, one of the oldest cities in all of Judah.
The city’s roots trace back to long before that day when
Joshua and his army walked around its walls and blew their shofars,
ram’s horn trumpets, to knock down the walls,
the walls that kept the Israelites out,
and the Canaanites safely in.
The walls came a-tumbling down
the city was sacked, and the Israelites killed every person and every animal.
No one was spared.
But after the city was destroyed,
Joshua uttered a curse against anyone who tried to rebuild the city.
(Joshua 6:26)
It was to be left for all time as a sign of God’s power.
But we’ve never been very good at listening to God,
and so the curse was quickly forgotten,
and the city was rebuilt and re-settled.

More than a thousand years later Jericho was a prosperous town
in the Jordan river valley just northeast of Jerusalem,
a town that was on the road that led to Jerusalem,
where Jesus was headed to the fate he knew awaited him.
Bartimaeus may have been blind, but he saw in ways that others could not.
He knew that Jesus was the Messiah and came bringing healing.
He knew because of his hearing, because he had listened.

And so on that day he cried out to Jesus in faith,
cried out even as other around him tried to shut him up;
cried out because of what he had heard:
what he had learned from all those days, day after day,
week after week of sitting by the side of the road.
Roadways were the communication links in Jesus’ day.
To sit on the side of the road was to sit quite literally
on the information highway.
As travelers walked or road past,
they’d share news as well as a coin or two.
And Bartimaeus would listen.

There is something about us that makes us not want to listen;
we don’t like to listen.
We hear something and we are skeptical.
But if we see something with our eyes we are quick to believe.
Magicians count on this to perform their illusions.
The mind will accept what it sees even if it defies logic.
Only when Thomas saw the scars on Jesus’ hands and feet did he believe.
But Bartimaeus didn’t have that luxury.
He lived in a world of darkness.
His world was defined by sounds and smells;
Neither light, nor images, nor color entered his world.
Still, he knew about Jesus;
And he waited;
waited patiently, waited in hope,
listening for the day when he might hear that the Messiah
was coming through town.
And then one day Jesus did come through.
Healing was in his hands, his touch, and even in the hem of his garment,
but Bartimaeus knew that there was even more healing in his words.
Healing of all kinds,
healing for all kinds of afflictions.
Healing for the maladies that are even worse than not being able to see,
Illnesses that can drain us of our very lives,
things like worry, anxiety, fear,
hopelessness, loneliness, despair.
Jesus came with healing in his touch,
but Bartimaeus knew that Jesus came with healing
in his every word.

Jesus traveled through the countryside preaching and teaching,
using words to tell of God’s kingdom and God’s glory.
As he spoke, many would listen but and some would follow.
But when he performed a miracle, especially a miraculous healing -
that got people’s attention.
Restore sight to a blind beggar along the side of the road,
and glory alleluia: Praise the Lord!

We hear the words of Jesus Christ preached on Sunday,
and we respond leadenly, stiffly, even sluggishly.
But if we were to bring in a faith healer some Sunday morning,
one of those Benny Hinn or Peter Popoff types,
and let them work their sleight of hand,
we’d have to park the cars on the front lawn.

Do you believe in the healing power of Jesus Christ?
If you are like most Christians, your answer is probably,
“well….I want to…
but I need to see some evidence first.”
The dilemma that leaves for the preacher – any preacher -
is that in order to convince you of the healing power of Jesus Christ,
I ought to stand up here and perform some miraculous cure.
“As seen on TV: the limp body that falls back in the waiting arms
of burly assistants as the preacher says
‘sister you are cured’
and all the people respond with arms raised
and voices crying out, ‘Glory! Praise the Lord!’”

If I were to do that, I would start with my own mother
who has been struggling for years with rheumatoid arthritis.
Her illness last year seemed to trigger a flare-up
of the arthritis in her knees
and she has been in constant pain for months.
She has prayed for relief from the pain,
She wasn’t looking for an answer, looking with her eyes.
Like Bartimaeus, she was listening
listening for answer, an answer from God.
And God heard and God answered her prayers.
Answered her prayers by guiding her to a wonderful orthopaedic surgeon
who will replace her knee tomorrow with an artificial knee:
a healing that is truly miraculous when you think about it.
This is a miracle, a miracle that we can do something like that.
Through science and medicine and engineering,
we’ve developed incredible artificial joints
that can replace those that time and disease wear out.
God is at the foundation of the miracle:
God has called men and women into medicine and science and engineering;
God has given men and women skills and gifts in metals and math
and health care.
God has answered my mother’s prayers for healing
just as surely as God answered Bartimaeus’ prayer.

In last week’s lesson, Jesus reminded us of the importance of
praying constantly, and not giving up hope.
Jesus reminded us that God hears our every prayer
and answers our every prayer.
Our task is to listen, listen for the answer,
listen for the answer that can bring healing.

The Psalmist reinforces our faith:
“When the righteous cry for help,
the Lord hears and rescues them from all their troubles…….
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the Lord rescues them all.” (Psalm 34)

We all have our afflictions.
And we all seek healing.
But in these times of instant gratification,
what we look for is an instant miracle.
Something quick, effortless, painless.
There is healing that takes place in this building every week.
In fact twice each week, on Wednesday and Sunday evenings,
when a large group of men and women gather in the Overfield Room.
They are members of Alcoholics Anonymous.
These are folks who have realized that alcohol is running their lives
and alcohol is ruining their lives.
They know they need to do something
each person knows he or she needs healing;
and through AA they find it.
There is no one dramatic miracle of healing:
“be cured of the demon of alcoholism!”
No, the healing comes through countless small miracles:
the voice of a friend or loved one who says, “Go to a meeting.”
the inner voice that says to the frightened alcoholic,
“I will be with you.”
the welcome a stranger hears when he or she walks in
for the first time.
The miracle occurs in the support the alcoholic hears from others in the group
at every meeting as he or she works to get through each day without alcohol.
The healing is real.
The healing is truly miraculous.
And every member of this congregation helps that healing,
helps make those miracles occur
by the simple act of providing space for the group.

We each have our afflictions,
our pains, things that get in the way of our growth and faith.
We look for healing,
we look for miraculous cures.
But as we busy ourselves looking,
we may well miss the words that lead us to healing.
We may well miss the words of assurance, the words of guidance,
the words of encouragement,
the words of instruction that will lead us to the path of healing.
Jesus’ ministry was not based on miraculous cures,
it was based on words.
He was a healer, yes; but more important,
He was the Word of God,
the Word revealed,
The living Word who came to bring the word of God
to all who would hear.
How often did he say,
“let anyone with ears to hear, listen.”?

Our very faith lives are built on words,
words in texts, words in sermons, words in prayers, words in hymns,
words of welcome, words of support, encouragement,
words of teaching, words of guidance,
words of mercy, words of forgiveness,
words of love.

Where do you want healing in your life?
What is your pain, what are you struggling with?
What is weighing you down?
What makes your world as dark and colorless as Bartimaeus’?
The words of the psalmist instruct us:
“I sought the Lord and he answered me,
and delivered me from my fears.
Look to him and be radiant.
The poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord.” (Psalm 34)

Jesus asks Bartimaeus, “what do you want me to do for you?”
Our Lord Jesus Christ asks each of us the same question.
He will deliver you,
he will take your pain,
and he will lead you to healing.
Not instantly, not through some miraculous cure.
No, the path may be long and arduous.
But it will be a path to healing.

Paul reminds us that we are to walk by faith, and not by sight
Bartimaeus knew this even before Paul did.
The man whose eyes saw nothing
may well have seen more than you or I.
Amen.

Not the Bully Pulpit

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 17, 2004

Not the Bully Pulpit
Jeremiah 31:31-34
Luke 18:1-8

I’ve have preached from this pulpit for almost five years now.
That’s more than 200 sermons.
Some have worked well, others have not.
Quite often it is the sermon that I have the least confidence in that works best,
while the sermon that I feel good about falls flat.

I have found that preparing and preaching a sermon
is one of the most difficult tasks I’ve ever done in my life.
It isn’t the public speaking aspect that I find intimidating.
It isn’t the labor that goes into writing effectively for the ear,
or the research that goes into unpacking a verse or text.

No, what is daunting is that each week God sends me
to stand before this pulpit to proclaim his word.
Let me say that again:
God sends me to stand before this pulpit
to proclaim his word.

When I stand here, I do not give you a personal opinion.
This is not a “bully pulpit” where I can stand up
and say whatever I feel like saying.
This is God’s pulpit, a sacred desk.

When I stand here, I do so with one thought, one mission, one goal, one aim:
to proclaim as faithfully and effectively as I can
the word that God has poured through me
as I have prepared the sermon.
I stand before this sacred desk to give witness and testimony
to the Word of the Lord;
to give life to the Gospel of Jesus Christ;
to help us all – myself included –
weave the living Word of God
into the very fabric of our lives.

Every minister who labors during the week to prepare a sermon
might look like he or she is working alone
sitting before a computer screen or scratching away on yellow pad.
But none of us is ever alone;
sermon preparation is always done in partnership with God.
And God is the senior partner.

Barbara Brown Taylor has written, “Every sermon is God’s creation.” (PL77)
God is with me from the moment I first sit down
to read through the texts assigned for a given Sunday.
God is with me as I read through different histories
and the commentaries that help me understand the texts.
He is with me as I sit at my computer
and my fingers begin to type,
words beginning to appear on the screen.
If I find myself writing easily, fluidly, the words flowing,
I have learned that I am probably not doing a good job discerning God’s word
or his will.
If it all comes too easily,
I’ve learned that I am probably not being attentive.
God’s word takes wrestling, it takes prayer, it takes discernment.
Writing the sermon takes me at least 10 hours, and usually more.
That’s just the writing alone.
That doesn’t include time spent reading, researching a point,
scraping the rust off my knowledge of Hebrew and Greek.
It doesn’t include time for prayer,
time for quiet, time for listening.

A sermon is not something I write to deliver at you.
It is something that God writes through me,
for all of us, including me.
A sermon is a way for us to encounter God,
a way for us to hear God’s voice to us,
a way for us to hear God’s praise and love for us;
a way for us to hear God’s concern for us;
It is also a way for us to hear of God’s distress with our waywardness
and his disappointment with our disobedience.

In a frenetic and cacophonous world,
a sermon may be the only quiet time some of us might have during the week
to listen for God’s word, and feel God’s presence.

God knows we all learn in different ways,
so God speaks to all of us in different ways.
It is why my sermons are as varied as they are.
Some of my sermons are historical,
others are narratives,
others are more prophetic.
Some focus inward, while others focus outward.
Some are caring, nurturing, and loving,
while others are more exhorting, insistent,
even demanding.

All my sermons are grounded in the biblical text.
The text shapes what kind of sermon I’ll preach.
A sermon based on God’s angry, prophetic words in Amos
will have a very different feeling to it
than a sermon based on God’s gentle words in the first letter of John.

God has a purpose with every sermon,
It is nothing less than transformation:
your transformation, and my transformation.
God expects a response to every sermon,
a positive response,
a response that moves each of us closer to Christ,
and a response that moves this unique congregation,
this Body of Christ, to more faithful discipleship as a group.

From time to time, some parishioners have reacted strongly to a sermon.
I have received angry comments, curt responses;
I’ve noticed that someone has walked out the back door in a huff
at the end of the service.
I find these reactions troubling for two very different reasons.
First, they are personally hurtful to me.
I work very hard to be a faithful pastor to every person in this congregation.
I work very hard to be faithful to God,
to be a good disciple in all that I do.
In everything I do, I try my best.
More important, however, than my feelings
is the fact that when a person reacts that way
it tells me that he or she profoundly misunderstands what a sermon is.

If, as we believe, a sermon is the word of God proclaimed,
If a sermon is truly a creation inspired and guided by God,
then a rejection of the sermon or any point in the sermon
is a rejection of God’s word.

Some sermons are designed to shake us up,
to stir us out of our complacency,
to open our minds,
to open our eyes and our hearts
to a new way of thinking,
a new way of seeing and hearing.

Sermons that do nothing more than reinforce our own views, our own feelings,
don’t lead to transformation in Christ.
No, we need at times to hear sermons that rattle us,
that shake us up, that leave us feeling uncomfortable.
Not all the time, perhaps not even most of the time,
but certainly from time to time.
Some sermons will be inspirational,
uplifting, soothing, and comforting messages.
We hear them and we float out the door feeling good.
But if every sermon followed that mould
I wouldn’t be a faithful minister;
I would be nothing more than a motivational speaker.

You know from your own Bible reading
that much of what God has to say to us
is often troubling, perplexing, and discomfiting.
So it stands to reason that faithful interpretations
have to be equally troubling, perplexing, and discomfiting.

It would be infinitely easier for me to write a simple inspirational homily,
a 15-minute message that conveys
“I’m okay and you’re okay.”
But the message of the gospel is,
as one preacher put it so beautifully,
“I am not okay and you are not okay,
but through the grace of Jesus Christ, that’s okay”.

I am not okay and you are not okay -
because none of us is perfect.
But God has said to us as eloquently and as lovingly as possible
through his son Jesus Christ, that it is okay.
But we cannot stop there.
No, God’s love for us is absolute and unconditional,
but he has told us clearly what he wants for us and want he wants from us:
he wants our complete transformation through discipleship.

None of us is perfect,
but we are called to seek perfection as we follow Jesus Christ.
None of us, not me, not you, none of us will achieve it.
but we must never stop striving,
never stop learning,
never stop growing.

Every Sunday, God sends me and 11,000 other preachers in Presbyterian Churches,
along with tens of thousands of preachers in churches of other denominations,
into pulpits to wrestle with God’s word to us.
I wrestle with it during the week,
so that we can then wrestle with it together
for 15 to 20 minutes on Sunday morning.
as we try to discern what God wants us to learn and
where God wants us to go.
So let’s wrestle with the text from Jeremiah,
let’s wrestle with it together and see what God is saying to you and to me.

First, we need some background:
Six hundred years before the birth of our Lord,
God had grown exasperated with his children.
The people of Israel had grown fat and happy,
they were successful, well to do,
and they were more concerned with material comforts
and goods than they were in being faithful children of God.
God called Jeremiah to be his prophet to warn the people
that they had better change their ways.
The people of Israel did not like Jeremiah’s message at all.
They initially dismissed Jeremiah as a troublemaker.
And then they did what we humans so often do
when we don’t like the message we are hearing,
they tried to kill the messenger.
Jeremiah’s words fell on closed ears, uninterested ears,
even hostile ears.
And so God led King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army
into the land of Judah and Israel to lay waste the countryside.
The army destroyed the Temple, God’s home
and took the people into captivity in Babylon.

But God loved his children so much, that he wanted to forgive them,
wanted to re-establish his relationship with them,
even if they had not repented,
even if they had not learned anything from their 40-year “timeout”.

And so God established a new covenant with each of his children,
a covenant written not on stone,
but on the heart,
the law written on each person’s heart.
And God restored the children of Israel to their land
and then God did what God always does with us: he hoped.
He hoped we would respond to him, obey him, follow him.

But we humans have made a history of turning from God,
and so God sent his Son Jesus to walk the earth,
to teach, and heal, and to preach.
And Jesus taught and preached through parables,
through stories that seem to say one thing on the surface,
but quite often say something different when we dig into them.
The gospel lesson provides us with one of those parables.
This one seems easy to understand:
We should always keep praying, even when we get discouraged.
As Paul puts it in his letter to the church at Thessalonica:
we are to pray without ceasing.
The dilemma, of course, is that quite often when we pray
there is a long period of silence before we hear God’s response.
In fact, sometimes we don’t hear God’s response at all.

The parable suggests that if we just pray,
and perhaps even whine long enough,
we will wear God down and God will answer our prayer,
answer it just to scratch us of his list,
answer it in just the way we are asking.

But we know, don’t we, that while God always answers prayers,
he always answers prayers in his time,
and he always answers prayers in the way that is best for us
even if the answer is quite different from what we prayed for.
Fred Craddock suggests that God may be using the silence
to re-shape us into the vessel that will contain the response
that God has in mind.
We are the clay that God shapes and God is the potter.
But we resist God’s attempts to shape us.
We have decided that we like the shape we are,
we have decided that we’re okay.
In the silence, God reminds us that we are not okay,
that our shape is never perfect
and even more important, our shaping is never done.
In the silence, God reminds us that he is the one
to whom we should look for our shaping and re-shaping.
Only when we acknowledge that can we give Jesus any confidence
when he asks his question,
“when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Now, we made a slight change in the order of worship today
which you probably noticed:
We moved the Anthem to the Offertory.
We did this to give us more time in the service to focus on the word of the Lord:
the word of the Lord read through the biblical texts
and the word of the Lord preached,
the word proclaimed,
the word that God pours through me,
or any other preacher who stands here at this pulpit.

As you listen to sermons in the Sundays to come,
remember that you are listening to the word of God,
and that somewhere in every sermon is a call to you,
a call to me, a call to us:
a call to respond,
a call to act,
a call to be transformed.
As you listen to sermons that are proclaimed from this pulpit,
by me, or anyone else, listen for what God is saying to you,
and you alone, for every sermon is the word of the Lord.

Amen

The Chief's Endorsement

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 10, 2004

The Chief’s Endorsement
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Luke 17:11-19

I’m going to tell you how to vote.
But first, even before I do that,
I’m going to tell you how not to vote.
Now I need you all to listen very carefully,
because I know this is highly controversial subject.
So I will say this just once.
Don’t vote Republican….
Now before any of you decides to get up and walk out
let me finish:
Don’t vote Democratic;
Don’t vote Independent;
Don’t vote Green;
Don’t vote Socialist, Libertarian, or Conservative.
Don’t vote a party.

No: vote Christian.
I am not saying vote for a Christian.
No: Vote for candidates from any party
who you believe represent the best of Christian ideals,
In each contest, from president on down,
vote for the candidate who you think
is most faithful to God’s will and way.

This is not easy to do, because most candidates claim
that they are good God-fearing souls.
Our task as voters is to dig past the rhetoric,
dig past the spin,
dig past all the public relations.
Dig past the untruths and the smears from the opposition.
Our task as voters is to listen carefully,
and learn about the person.
We have to do our homework.
Being an informed voter is hard work.

Every candidate running for every office on every ticket
wants us to think of him or her as God’s anointed.
The lesson from First Samuel helps us to understand what characteristics
God looked at before he anointed a king over Israel.
Height, stature, good looks,
where he or she went to school…
None of that matters to God.
The only thing that matters to God is what is in the person’s heart.
The person’s heart.
“For the Lord does not see as mortals see;
[mortals] look on outward appearance,
but the Lord looks to the heart.”
The Lord looks within the heart.
(1 Sam. 16:7)

David was the eighth and youngest of Jesse’s sons.
He was a boy, a shepherd.
But God knew that he had a good heart,
and so God guided Samuel right past the older brothers
to lay his hands on the youngest boy, David.
David was the one who merited God’s endorsement,
or the endorsement of the “Chief” as
the great Scottish preacher Peter Marshall used to refer to God.
It isn’t that hard to determine what is in a person’s heart.
As the phrase goes, “actions truly do speak louder than words.”
Look at what the person has done with his life or her life.
Has he or she looked after the needs of the outcasts in society:
The poor, the elderly, and the frail?
Speaking through the prophet Zechariah, God says to us:
“show kindness and mercy to one another,
do not oppress the widow, the orphan,
the stranger/foreigner, or the poor.” Zechariah 7:10
Right there is language that provides us with a lens
through which we can look at a person’s heart.

Matthew 25, verses 31 through 46 provide perhaps the best lens
through which we can look at a candidate for any office.
How does the candidate treat those who hunger,
those who thirst,
those who are strangers, aliens, and foreigners
those who are poor and lack clothing and housing.
Those who are sick,
those who are imprisoned both figuratively, as well as literally.

The National Council of Churches, an ecumenical group
has put together a helpful guide called
“Christian Principles for an Election Year.”
The NCC has listed 10 principles, 10 factors for us to think about
as we are considering candidates for office.
The list does not purport to be exhaustive,
but it provides an excellent starting point.

Principle Number One comes as no surprise:
“War is contrary to the will of God.”
Now immediately some may think this is a purely political statement
but the fact is, this has been a principle since 1948.
It is not about pure pacifism.
What it states is, “while violent force may at times be a
necessity of last resort,
Christ pronounces his blessing on the peacemakers.
We look for political leaders who will make peace with justice a top priority and who will actively seek
nonviolent solutions to conflict.”
You have heard me preach this message on a number of occasions,
most recently just last Sunday.
We Christians are called to work for peace.
Jesus Christ pronounces his blessings on peacemakers.
It is as simple as that.
War should always, always be a last resort,
when every other option has been tried and
been exhausted; when no other path is remains.

The Second Principle states, “God calls us to live in communities
shaped by peace and cooperation.
We reject policies that abandon large segments of our inner city
and rural population to hopelessness.
We look for political leaders who will rebuild our communities
and bring an end to the cycle of violence and killing.”
The inner cities of Newburgh and Middletown, each in our own backyards,
struggle with crime and violence.
Washingtonville is not immune.
Poverty, poor education, and lack of opportunities
are the chief causes of hopeless that leads to crime.
Ending the cycle of poverty, ignorance, and hopelessness
is the road that will eliminate violence in our own communities
as well as with other nations.

Principle Number Three: “God created us for each other,
and thus our security depends on the wellbeing of our global neighbors.
We look for political leaders for whom a foreign policy based on
cooperation and global justice is an urgent concern.”
When God led the children of Israel to the promised land,
he called it a land flowing with milk and honey.
And indeed it was: milk, honey, olives, and not much else.
The nation of Israel has few natural resources.
King Solomon recognized that the path to peace and prosperity
was built on cross border cooperation.
Solomon reigned over an era of peace that was marked
by what we refer to today as global trade:
spices from south Asia, silks from the far east,
Solomon’s palace was built with gold from Egypt
and cedar wood from Lebanon.
He and his nation were admired and respected by other nations,
and as result, they lived in peace.
His son wasn’t interested in cooperation with other nations,
and as result, shortly after Solomon’s death.
the nation was back at war.

Principle Number Four, “God calls us to be advocates for those who are
most vulnerable in our society.
We look for political leaders who yearn for economic justice
and who will seek to reduce the growing disparity
between rich and poor.”
Back in the spring of 1978 I was preparing to graduate
from the Wharton school with my MBA.
My classmates and I talked about how wonderful it would be
to join an investment bank on Wall Street
where the firms were paying the fat salary of $22,000 year to start.
We were giddy with excitement.
And we all dreamed that someday we would reach the pinnacle
and become partners, where the salaries hovered at $100,000/year
a handful earned as much as $200,000.
The difference between the salaries of the lowest paid worker
and the highest was a factor of about 20:
a secretary might be paid $10,000
and the most senior partner might earn $200,000.
The math has changed radically over the past two decades.
The typical CEO in this country earns a salary that is more than
500 times that of the lowest paid employee.
Salaries in the bottom of the pay scale have stagnated,
while salaries of top executives have skyrocketed
to absurd levels.
I am a proud alumnus of the Wharton School, but I don’t know anyone
from any class who is worth $10 million/year, $20 million, or more.
More than half of the parables Jesus uses to teach us
focus on economic matters, with special attention on the wealthy. Jesus reminds us that a camel will have an easier time
passing through the eye of a needle
than a wealthy man will getting into kingdom of God.

Principle Five, “Each human being is created in the image of God
and is of infinite worth.
We look for political leaders who actively promote racial justice
and equal opportunity for everyone.”
Could this one be any simpler?
And yet, we still distinguish others based on sex
or sexual orientation, or the color of their skin,
their religious practices, or their country of origin.

Principle Six, “the earth belongs to God and is intrinsically good.
We look for political leaders who recognize the earth’s goodness,
champion environmental justice
and uphold our responsibilities to be stewards of God’s creation.”
We are stewards of God’s creation.
God has entrusted this planet to us to look after it for future generations.
That’s what the Hebrew word “dominion” means,
when we read that God gave us dominion over all the earth.
It doesn’t mean power and ownership
It means responsibility and accountability
It seems fitting that an African environmentalist
won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Principle Seven: “Christians have a biblical mandate to welcome strangers.
We look for political leaders who will pursue fair immigration policies
and speak out against xenophobia.”
Xenophobia is the fear of anyone or anything foreign.
Our gospel lesson is a vivid reminder that our Lord Jesus Christ
could not have cared less where a person came from.
He healed the ten without asking whether they were
good citizens of Israel.
In Jesus’ eyes, they were all children of God.
He was not the least bit surprised that at least one
was a Samaritan, a race that many Israelites
considered inferior to themselves.
There isn’t a person in this congregation whose ancestors
didn’t come from another country.
My ancestors came from Scotland
We are all descended from immigrants,
people who came to this country as foreigners, strangers.

Principle Eight, “Those who follow Christ are called to heal the sick.
We look for political leaders who will support adequate,
affordable, and accessible health care for all.”
No one can argue that our health care system is a mess.
Go to a hospital emergency room and you will wait for hours
for someone to see you, you’ll spend a few days in the hospital
and you will run up a bill of $10,000.
We’ve got 45 million Americans who don’t have any health insurance,
five million more than just a few years ago.
Every year the Presbyterian Church announces increases
in premiums for insurance even as they scale back benefits.
And speaking as a lawyer, I am no fan of nuisance lawsuits,
but medical malpractice lawsuits play only a minor role
in the rising cost of healthcare.
We need to look at the health providers themselves:
the doctors, the hospitals, and the insurance companies.
The malpractice lawyers are not the villains.

Principle Nine: “Because of the transforming power of God’s grace,
all humans are called to be in right relationship with one another.
We look for political leaders who seek a restorative, not retributive,
approach to the criminal justice system and the individuals within it.”
A restorative approach, not retributive.
Isn’t that what we would expect from a follower of Jesus Christ?
To have hope for the redemption of any of God’s children.

Last, Principle Ten: “Providing enriched learning environments
for all God’s children is a moral imperative.
We look for political leaders who will advocate for equal educational
opportunity and abundant funding for children’s services.”
Education is the door to peace, the door to hope,
the door that leads out of poverty.
There is no better investment we make in the future of this country
than educating our children.
And we all have a stake in the education of every child, not just our own.
The children who are in schools in Newburgh and Middletown
are just as important to us as our own children here in Washingtonville.

Now this list is not exhaustive.
There are other things to think about.
But it is a start.
A way for us to begin thinking about candidates.
I’ve left copies of these Principles
on the Table in the Denniston Room,
Take a copy home and think about it.
If you’d like to organize a discussion group, I would be happy to do that
so we can talk in depth about these and other thoughts.

As you get ready to vote in a few weeks,
make a commitment not to vote as staunch Republican,
or a staunch Democrat.
Make a decision to vote instead as a Christian.
for that is what we are before we are anything else.
You don’t have to vote for a Christian.
No, the person could be some other faith.
But look for the man or woman
whose heart is clearly filled with the spirit of God.
When you step into the voting booth,
go in not as partisan for a political party;
Go in as faithful disciple of Jesus Christ,
as a faithful, loving child of God,
Go in and with your votes,
do your part to build the Kingdom of God.
Amen

War or Peace?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 3, 2004

War or Peace?
Isaiah 11:6-9
John 13:34-35


Pontius Pilate.
That’s a name we generally hear only during the Easter season.
You remember him, don’t you:
The man who so famously washed his hands
to seal both Jesus’ fate and his own.
He was the Roman Governor in Judea for 10 years, from 26 to 36 AD.
He was the one to whom Jesus was brought following his arrest.

If you read carefully through the four Gospel accounts,
you would probably conclude
that there was nothing particularly sinister about Pilate.
In fact Pilate almost comes across as someone for whom you’d feel sorry.
He seems to struggle with the Judeans
who are literally howling for blood.
Pilate finds nothing criminal in the charges against Jesus
and suggests that Jesus be flogged for wasting his time,
and then set free.
But even 2000 years later, we can hear the angry mob below him shouting,
“Crucify him, Crucify him!”

The mob prevails;
Pilate concedes,
and reaches for the notorious bowl of water.

But as with everything we read in the Bible,
indeed everything in life,
there is always more to the story.
We always need to dig deeper and read more carefully.

In the 13th chapter of Luke, a full ten chapters before Jesus
stands at trial before Pilate, we find a cryptic sentence:
“At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”
(Luke 13.1)
That’s the only other reference to Pilate we find.
But it is suggestive.
Jews from Galilee, the region from which Jesus hailed,
had apparently been killed, killed for their faith in God,
and their blood mingled with the blood the Romans
used in their pagan rituals.

The plot thickens, as the saying goes;
we need to dig deeper still.
Wouldn’t it be handy if we had a history book from that time?
A contemporaneous account of the times?
Something that recorded the historical events?
Happily we, do, a book written by a man named Josephus.
He lived in Judea during the time of Paul’s ministry,
about 30 years after the death of Christ.
He wrote a history of the era entitled “Antiquities of the Jews”.

Josephus was a good historian: he was comprehensive, thorough, complete.
And what Josephus tells us is this: Pilate was not a sympathetic character.
No, as that cryptic verse from Luke 13 suggests,
Pontius Pilate was a cruel, sadistic, vicious, man.
Few things in life gave him more pleasure
than inflicting pain on his enemies.
The Roman system may have been built on laws,
but Pilate could not have cared less.
If he wanted someone eliminated,
his security guards knew that they had better dispatch the individual;
failure or even hesitation would lead to their own death.

Pilate once sent a group of soldiers disguised as Jews
to infiltrate a meeting of Jewish leaders.
The soldiers all had daggers hidden under their robes,
and at an agreed upon signal, they brandished their daggers
and dispatched every single Jewish leader.
No trial, no concern for a person’s rights,
no worry about a person’s possible innocence.
Pilate had determined in his own mind that they were radicals,
each man a threat to the state,
a threat to the security of his governance.
Pilate was a madman,
bloodthirsty…….as cruel and sadistic as a person could be.

The Jewish leaders prayed for a Messiah, a savior, a warrior king,
who would lead them against Pilate and the Romans.
Their Messiah would be a worthy successor to King David,
a man who would see that the Pilate was more than a grave
and gathering danger to the Jewish nation, the people of God.
He would see Pilate for what he was:
a threat to their very existence.
And this Messiah would wield a razor-sharp sword,
a sword of righteousness,
and with it, in one powerful swing,
make the world safer for the children of God.

And God answered the prayers of his children,
as God always does.
God sent the people a Messiah, a Savior.
Only this Messiah came carrying no sword, no spear, no shield.
This Messiah didn’t come into Jerusalem astride a white steed,
a noble beast snorting his own contempt
for the enemies of the chosen people.
No this Messiah came riding on the back of a borrowed donkey.

And he came preaching not words of war,
not words designed to mobilize the people
to eliminate this oppressive, sadistic, cruel tyrant,
and make the world safer for God’s children.

No, this Messiah came preaching a message of peace,
of love, and of mercy.
Where the Scriptures taught of God’s law of an eye for and eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
this Messiah rejected that message and said,
turn the other cheek,
forgive,
pray for your enemies.

This Messiah spoke of the day that his father in heaven hoped for,
a day when, “the wolf would lie down with the lamb,
the leopard with the kid,
the calf with the lion,”
a day “when the earth would be full
of the knowledge of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:9).

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ calls all who follow him to be peacemakers,
calls all his disciples to carry on his ministry of reconciliation in this world,
calls you and me to turn the other cheek,
calls you and me, as difficult as it may be, to pray for our enemies.

Our Lord was as clear as he could be when he said,
it is by our love that we will be known as his disciples.
By our love.
Not by our military might.
But by our love, our love for all humanity,
and our trust in God.
A love that is strong enough to allow us to do just what
Jesus did with Pontius Pilate:
he turned him over to God.

On this World Communion Sunday,
a day in which we focus on peace,
we reflect on a world in which armies fight
not only in Iraq, but in Chechnya, in Darfur,
a newspaper article this morning reported about a skirmish
in India;
China still threatens to invade Taiwan if Taiwan should ever try to
declare itself independent.
More tin-pot dictators than anyone would ever want to count,
many trying their best to emulate Pilate for cruelty.

We do not live in a peaceful, peace-filled world.
We cannot hope to live in a peaceful, peace-filled world
until we eliminate the causes of war.
And we can’t hope to eliminate the causes with bigger weapons,
bigger armies, more force.
No, we learned that in the arms race with the former Soviet Union.
The only place that path leads us is M.A.D.:
Mutually Assured Destruction.

Eliminate the causes of war.
That’s what you and I are called to do
as followers of Jesus Christ.
And before you and I are anything else,
you and I are disciples of Jesus Christ.
That must always come first.
Creating peace means eliminating the conditions that cause warfare.
Causes such as poverty, ignorance, ill health,
racism, hopelessness, poor housing, poor nutrition.

Do you know the main reason why young men join violent gangs
in cities like Los Angeles and New York City?
They don’t join for money or prestige.
They join because the gang culture provides them with a sense of family,
a sense of belonging,
a communal sense that they don’t have in broken homes.
Eliminate poverty, provide good schools, provide jobs,
and we’ve gone a long way to eliminating the culture of gangs.
That’s peacemaking at its best.
That’s peacemaking that Christ calls us to.

Chris knew Pilate was a bloodthirsty monster.
He could have destroyed Pilate with a wave of his hand,
Our Lord did not even need a sword.
But history shows that when you kill one madman,
another springs up somewhere else.
We have had tyrants, despots, cruel dictators throughout history.

No, our only hope is to work for peace, work for reconciliation.
Work to reach out not with rifles and tanks
but with food and education and mercy and understanding.
St. Augustine once wrote,
“it is a higher glory still to stay war itself with a word,
than to slay men with the sword,
and to procure or maintain peace by peace,
and not by war......”

Here’s something I’d like everyone to do:
Pick one nation, one region, one culture,
one you are not familiar with,
and learn about it.
Make that your goal, that somehow someway you will learn
about a group that you consider to be foreign, different,
even strange, a danger, a threat,
even an enemy.
And then work, not to destroy, but to reconcile
to build a bridge between yourself and them.
Start by learning, by becoming familiar,
by seeking understanding.
You do that, and you will go a long way to eliminating the causes of war.

As you come to this table, remember how many different people
are also coming to this table on this Lord’s Day:
men and women, old and young, white and black,
Asian and Latino, pan-Arabian and North American,
everyone a child of God.

Come to this table, but even more important,
leave this table and go out into the world
with the words of our Lord on your lips,
“by your love for one another,
shall you be known as my disciples.”
Amen