A Room Called December

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
November 28, 2004

A Room Called December
Matthew 24:36-44
2 Peter 3:1-10

We are standing on the threshold: the threshold of Advent.
We stand with both feet still firmly planted in November,
yet we peer over the threshold through the door
that separates November and December.
The room we are in is still November,
but our eyes are fixed firmly on the room called December.

The room we’re in is filled with the leftovers of Thanksgiving:
a turkey carcass ready to become stock for soup,
a few spoonfuls of cold gravy,
a pie plate littered with crumbs.
As we turn and take a last look at the room called November
we see the remnants of the month gone by:
piles of old newspapers and magazines
with articles about election results;
even a bag of leftover Halloween candy.

It is the room on the other side of the threshold that now draws our interest.
We know the room well.
It is a room filled with joy and laughter,
food and festivities,
families and friends,
gifts given and gifts received.

We know that it is also a room filled with stress,
as we try to juggle all the activities we pack into a few short weeks:
Too many things to do, too many things to buy;
too much money spent,
too much food eaten, too many people to be with.

We look into the room and we see:
laughing children playing with gifts delivered direct from the North Pole,
teens and young adults in front of computer screens and on cell phones
as they enjoy their vacation from school;
newly married couples putting ornaments on their first trees together;
middle-aged women and men anticipating the return of
grown children scattered the rest of the year,
older adults quietly taking in all the sights and sounds,
as thoughts of Christmases past fill memories.

Scattered throughout the room are unpleasant, stressful places:
The crowded stores,
the angry outbursts over parking spaces,
the shock when the man holding the fragrant
beautiful Scotch pine reveals the price,
the disappointment when the catalog operator
tells you the item is out of stock until January.
And everywhere the clock ticking and the days passing,
reminding us how much we have to do
and how little time there is to get it all done.

It is all a heady mix that simultaneously beckons us,
and causes us to drop back.
As we struggle, a step forward and then a step backward,
we become aware of another image in the room,
an image off to the left, over in the near corner.

We have to peer across the threshold to get a good look.
At first the image is dim and clouded,
overwhelmed by the commotion that fills the rest of the room,
but as we train our eyes in that direction the scene becomes clearer:
a father, a mother, and a baby.
They are there in quiet repose,
the happy father beaming at his newborn son.
The tender mother holding her infant, gently rocking him.
We can see the child’s face:
a face that glows, a face that is radiant, content, filled with peace,

Neither child, nor mother, nor father seem at all aware of the cacophony
that fills the rest of the room.
None of them makes a sound;
they are completely focused on one another.
All is calm. All is bright.
Indeed, as we continue to look on them we notice that that corner
of the room grows brighter and the rest of the room grows dim.
The scenes which had been so clear before now seem fuzzy, unclear.
The scenes which has seemed so bright grow dim.
The din which had been so loud is now barely audible.

We cannot take our eyes off the three.
It is all we see, and as we look upon them,
we find ourselves filled with a sense of calm,
a sense of wonder, a sense of peace.
The bright lights and the music,
the fragrant perfume of pine mixed with freshly baked
cookies and pies cannot even distract us.
We don’t even want to turn our eyes back to the rest of the room.

But something to compels us to turn away from the corner,
and look to another part of the room,
the other corner we had at first ignored,
the other corner we had assumed been filled with the excesses
of Christmas.
It is the corner over the right, on the near side.
Again we have to step partly into the room, across the threshold,
to get a good look.
And as we do a different scene comes into view.
Like the scene over on the left side, it is quiet, calm, peaceful;
It is just a man: a man sitting there on a chair.
He looks so ordinary, dressed in casual clothes, jeans, sneakers,
and a sweater that looks like it was a present from last year,
given to him by an eccentric but beloved aunt.

He sits in front of a laptop computer and the screen is in view for us.
Our first thought is that this is a man who does not know how to relax
and enjoy the holiday season. We want to tell him to forget about work,
even just for a few hours, and have a glass of mulled wine
or some hot spiced cider.
We can see the screen quite clearly as he types something on his
Instant Messaging program.
He types with one finger: first an “n”, then an “o”,
then a “w”, followed by a question mark.
He hits the send button and the question, “Now?” flashes off
into the ether to the man’s correspondent.
The response is immediate.
Just two words: “Not Yet”
The two words multiply until they fill the screen.
“Not Yet”, “Not Yet”, “Not Yet”, “Not Yet”.

The man closes his laptop and looks at the chaotic scene that fills the room.
Everything has come back into view:
the sounds and the sights now distinct, vibrant:
people, food, music, lights,
and all those scents that come with Christmas.
He stands up and says quietly but firmly, “Back to work”
and with that the scene changes.

We are now in a church.
It could be any church, of any denomination, in any location.
The pews are filled with young and old,
the familiar and strangers,
those there with others and those who are there by themselves,
the well-to-do, and those who clearly are struggling.
The man is there.
At first he seems to be everywhere we look:
sitting next to a young child, sitting next to an elderly woman,
sitting next to a man who seems to know no one there,
a woman whom everyone else seems to be trying hard to avoid.
As we look more carefully, we notice that he doesn’t seem to be
sitting next to some people, some men, some women,
those who otherwise look successful, affluent, proud.

Then the man is sitting in the chancel;
he says nothing, leaving the proceedings to others.
He just takes it all in.
Mostly he smiles, but occasionally as he looks around the room,
a pained look, a worried look, a concerned look fills his face.
He knows why the response on his computer was: Not Yet, Not Yet.
There is too much work to do, too much to be done.
The message will be “Not Yet” as long as there is even one person
in that room who is alone,
who is without love, without joy, without hope.
who is hungry, afraid, or sick.
The message will be “Not Yet” as long as there is no peace,
as long as there are those who still think that
warfare is a way to settle differences
and who are unwilling to beat swords into plowshares

Someday the response will change,
someday the response will be “Now!”:
Capital N, Capital O, Capital W, exclamation point.
NOW!
And that will be a glorious day,
when a new heaven and a new earth will be created.
and God will live with his people,
and they will know him and love him.

But for now there is no rush; the day will come soon enough.
The man knows that his father’s love for his children is so strong,
that his father doesn’t want to lose even a one.
His fumbling, fuming, fisherman friend Peter
may have made lots of mistakes two thousand years ago in Jerusalem,
but that idea he got just right:
“The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness,
but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish,
but all to come to repentance. …
But in accordance with his promise,
we wait for new heavens and a new earth,
where righteousness is at home.” (2P3:9,13)

He knows that the message will not be “Now!”
until all people in that room look into the Room called December
and look first for the scene over in the near corner on the left.
Only when we look at that scene first,
and make that scene the lens through which we take in
every other scene in that room,
every joyful scene and every stress-filled scene.
The message will not be “NOW!”
until the scene over in the left corner becomes the lens through which
we look not only into the room called December,
but the room called January, the room called February,
the room called Monday, the room called Thursday,
the room called work, the room called home,
the room called marriage, the room called illness,
the room called life.

It is Advent,
the season of joy, the season of expectation and anticipation
as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior,
and look forward to the day when he will come again,
come again in glory,
It is Advent, and we are about to enter the room called December.
Step over the threshold with eagerness,
step over the threshold with a sense of joy
step over the threshold with a sense of expectation.
Not because of the presents, the parties, the food, the fun.
But because of the one who is in the room,
the one in the corner to the left,
the baby born so long ago,
and the one who is in the other corner, to the right;
the man who is present here and now in our lives,
the one who knows there is still work to do,
the one who is waiting to come again in glory.

Christ’s birth in that stable was only the beginning of the story.
His coming again is what we are waiting for, what we are hoping for.
When that day will be no one knows, not even the Son.
But we should always be ready,
because it could be any day.
It could even be a day in the room called December.

AMEN

Tithing Mint and Cumin

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
November 21, 2004

Tithing Mint and Cumin
Ephesians 1:15-23
Matthew 23:1-15

Jesus lets the Pharisees have it.
He doesn’t mince words in this passage in Matthew.
In fact, Matthew devotes almost the entire chapter
to Jesus’ contempt for the religious leaders.
In the verses that follow the passage we heard,
Jesus utters seven prophetic messages against them,
warning them, “woe to you…”,
as he vilifies them for their hypocrisy.

Here they are, men whom the people hold in respect,
the leaders of the religious community of the people of God.
the teachers, the elders, the priests;
Those who spend their day immersed in Scripture,
learning the laws, interpreting the laws, teaching the people;
those whom ordinary men and women think
must have a very special relationship with God.

And then along comes the carpenter from Nazareth,
the itinerant prophet,
the dusty, wandering preacher and teacher,
accompanied by his rough-looking crowd.
And this carpenter has the nerve to confront these pious men;
he has the temerity to call them hypocrites,
blind guides, white-washed tombs.
He savages them right to their faces,
mocks them and tries his best to tear them down
as arrogant, puffed-up fools;
Men who were quick to tithe mint and cumin at the Temple,
but who ignore the more important tasks of
“seeking justice and mercy and faith.” (Matt 23:23)

Every era has its Pharisees,
its puffed-up leaders of religious communities
who are only too eager to tell us
exactly what is wrong with society and what is wrong with each of us.
Jesus would have no trouble finding Pharisees here and now.
The Falwells, the Robertsons, the Dobsons, and others like them,
men who want their places of honor,
and are quick to tell us of our vices
even as they are blind to their own.

In an essay I read the other day, the author,
one of the great preachers in the Presbyterian church, lamented that,
“much of contemporary Christianity … accentuates bitterness,
brings out meanness,
sanctions ignorance and bigotry,
divides those who [would otherwise] be brotherly,
and leads us from high possibilities to spiritual deterioration.” (276)
These contemporary Pharisees preach messages of judgment
mixed with divisiveness, setting themselves and those who follow them
on a loftier level those who are not part of their select group.

The fascinating thing about this particular essay
was that it was written in 1920s,
some 80 years ago, by Harry Emerson Fosdick.
The current times resemble the 1920s,
with fundamentalism strong and growing.
Mainline denominations like Presbyterianism,
Episcopalianism, Methodism, and Lutheranism
are accused of weak faith, inadequate faith,
and worse yet, liberal faith.

Fosdick’s most famous sermon was entitled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”,
which he preached from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church
in New York City back in 1922.
In it he condemned the practice of faith by the fundamentalists
that he saw as illiberal and intolerant,
closed-minded, and self-righteous.
One of the most divisive issues at that time was
the struggle over the teaching of evolution.
Do you remember from your high school history class
the famous Scopes Trial down in Tennessee, back in 1925,
when a high school teacher was accused of teaching scientific evolution? The state of Tennessee had on its books a law that said,
“it shall be unlawful for any teacher … to teach any theory
that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man
as taught in the Bible,
and to teach instead that man has descended
from a lower order of animals.”
Apparently the state legislators had never heard about the
importance of separating church and state!
The nation’s two finest lawyers, Clarence Darrow and
William Jennings Bryan battled over this issue in a small town courtroom
in the hazy heat of summer.
The Fundamentalists, represented by Bryan,
believed that nothing less than the fate of humanity was on the line.

The Bible of course does not purport to be a science book,
and the creationists overlooked the fact that there are two
rather different stories in chapters one and two of Genesis.
The lesson we are to take from the creation story is simple:
it is that God is the author of Creation,
The creation story is one attempt to try to understand
how this earth came to be, and how it was filled with water
and animals and fish and birds and humans,
and why the sky is filled with stars.
Over the past three thousand years, scientists, relying on their
God-given skills, have developed other theories about
the creation and development of life on this earth.
Whether God scooped up some clay to form the first human,
or we evolved from tiny one-cell creatures over hundreds of millions of years,
God is still the author, still the one who created humankind
and in God’s wisdom, he created humankind in his image.
Exactly how may ultimately be known only to God.

Back in the 1920s, Fundamentalists were quick to shout out
that it was more important to know “the Rock of Ages than the ages of rock.”
No faithful person would dispute that.
But I find my own understanding of the Rock of Ages increases
as I know more about the ages of rock.
When I gaze on the vastness of the universe,
and learn more about gluons, bosons,
quarks and black holes,
I am in awe of God’s creativeness, God’s majesty.
I find no difficulty in balancing science and evolution with faith.
Evolution is remarkable in its elegance, intricacy, and its beauty.
It is remarkable in how it ties all species together,
ties everything together as all coming from God’s hand.
And yet today there are still angry, even militant Fundamentalists
who lobby aggressively to remove science books from school rooms
as they demand that we teach that God created the world in 6 days.

For 500 years our denomination has been part of the Reformed tradition.
A central tenet of our faith is that we are part of a church reformed,
yet always reforming.
We are all learning, always seeking to add to our knowledge,
always seeking to add to our understanding.
And always at the feet of the only one who possesses truth:
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus said as much to the Pharisee leaders in our lesson
“you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher;
…nor are you to be called instructors,
for you have one instructor…” (Matt 23:10)

We are to come to our faith with open minds,
broad minds, accepting minds;
not closed or fixed on a set of rules and ways of thinking
given us by religious leaders.
Jesus provides us with the model of an open mind:
He uses a Roman soldier, a Samaritan woman, lepers,
and even a vile tax collector as examples of faith.
Yet, he never once praises the religious establishment;
On the contrary, he condemns them,
condemns them as misguided hypocrites,
scolds and nags,
men eager to point out the speck in another’s eye,
while ignoring the logs in their own eyes.

William Sloane Coffin, another great Presbyterian preacher,
reminds us that after Jesus cured Bartimaeus of his blindness,
Jesus didn’t tell him, “Now, don’t go ogling attractive young women.”
Nor did Jesus tell the man whose withered hand he restored
“Don’t use that hand to steal.”
When Jesus finally looks up at the adulterous woman,
the woman who had been caught in the act,
the woman who had without question broken the Levitical code,
the code which called for her death,
he simply said, “Neither do I condemn you.
Go your way and sin no more.” (John 8:11)

Writing 80 years ago, Fosdick condemned the
“fundamentalist passion to enforce orthodox unanimity in the churches –
… this general and widespread distaste for intellectual individuality
and independence, and this eager desire
to make up other peoples’ minds for them.”
Fosdick wondered, “When will the churches learn that intolerance…
is evidence of weakness.”

The church that Kelly and Alex joined today in their baptisms
is the church of Jesus Christ,
the church universal, the holy catholic,
catholic with a small “c”, church.
It is the church of all believers in Jesus Christ.
It is a church without dogma, without institutions
It is church with one head, and only one head: our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is a church grounded in love,
a church founded on acceptance,
a church in which all are welcome,
a church in which judgment belongs to no one but our Lord.

This church has to be tolerant,
it has to be accepting,
it cannot be judgmental, if it is to be the church that reflects our Lord,
reflects, as Paul put it, “the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
For we know that Jesus stand at the door of this church
with his “big carpenter hands” stretched out wide, welcoming all.
He imposes no test;
He simply says, “follow me.”

Every era has its Pharisees and we have ours.
They seemed to have turned up the volume on their diatribes lately,
Our task as thoughtful people is to recognize them and turn away from them,
so that we can focus on learning the lessons of Jesus Christ,
so we can live the gospel.

Fosdick reminds us that it was not lack of religion
that caused Jesus’ death on the cross,
it was simply bad religion, a bad approach to faith in God.
It was a focus on tithing mint and cumin,
while justice and mercy and faith were overlooked.
When you stand before the judgment seat,
do you think God will ask you whether you worked diligently
to put prayer back into school,
or will he simply ask you why you weren’t more diligent
about prayer in your own life?

Another great preacher once said that the true church of Jesus Christ
is the one where all recognize that we humans are at our worst
“when we are persuaded of our superior virtue
and crusade against the vice of others.
And we are at our best when we claim kinship with all humanity,
glad and thankful that there is more mercy in God
than there is sin in us.” (WSCoffin, 58)
In this season of thanksgiving,
let us be thankful that God has given us this wonderful creation,
and has filled our lives with blessings,
Let us be thankful that he has called us to faith
and given us the church as the body of Christ.
Let us be thankful that he has given us forgiveness for our sins
in his Son Jesus the Christ.
Let us be thankful for all our blessings,
and let us be ever thankful indeed that “there is more mercy in God
through Jesus Christ than there is sin in us.”
Amen.

Tomorrow is Not Today

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
November 14, 2004

Tomorrow is Not Today
Isaiah 65:17-25
Luke 21:5-19

Then he said, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;
there will be great earthquakes, and in various places, famines and plagues;
and there will be dreadful portents and
great signs from heaven.”

It hardly seems fair, does it,
that the Lectionary assigns an apocalyptical text
ten days before Thanksgiving,
two weeks before we begin Advent.
Our stress levels are already on the rise,
and now we have to deal with the idea of the Apocalypse?

Apocalypse.
You know the word:
Images of thunder and lightning,
earthquakes, famine, pestilence, war….death.
The world literally going to hell;
only a select few saved,
the rest left to die horrific deaths.

For two thousand years, authors and artists have found
in the mere mention of the word fertile soil
for pictures, paintings, and books.
The Left Behind series has only been the latest
in dozens and dozens of books
that purport to pull back the curtain on what is to come.
Three years ago after the horrible tragedy of 9/11,
some people wondered whether we might be witnessing
the beginning of the end times:
Whether we were about to enter an era of nation against nation.
Incredibly there is a growing group of conservative Christians
who are all for war in the Middle East.
They are hoping, even praying, for nuclear warfare in that region
because they believe that a cataclysmic conflict
will spark the beginning of the end.
These evangelicals display a grotesque misunderstanding
of what apocalyptic writing was and is all about,
and what Jesus was trying to teach us in this lesson
and its counterparts in the other gospels.

The purpose of apocalyptic writing wasn’t to shake people up,
although it did and does do that.
It wasn’t to scare people; although it did and does do that.
And it certainly was not to pass along some secret code
to a handful of self-anointed prophets.
No, the purpose of apocalyptic writing was to give hope to the faithful:
hope in troublesome times.
The foundational message in all apocalyptic writing
including the Revelation to John, is the same:
that no matter how bad things may get,
not matter how bad things may seem,
God’s will always prevails
and God’s love always triumphs.
God’s will always prevails
and God’s love always triumphs.
That’s it.
That’s the message in all apocryphal writing.

Turn the clock back 2000 years back to the days when Jesus
walked the dusty roads of Israel and Judah with his disciples.
Apocalyptic writing was very popular.
There are many pseudepigraphal and apocryphal pieces
that can be found in books outside the Bible.
Those who wrote apocalyptic pieces were the
the Danielle Steels and the Mary Higgins Clarks of their day.
The writings gave hope to the faithful in Jerusalem,
hope that some day a deliverer would come,
hope that some day the descendant of David
would overthrow the oppressors
and restore the people of Israel to full possession of the land.

The 500 years prior to Jesus’ birth had not been happy times
for the children of Israel.
First the Babylonians invaded their nation,
destroyed the Temple and then exiled the people.
Then the Babylonians were routed by the Persians;
The Persians were overthrown by the Greeks,
and the Greeks were vanquished by the Romans.

The children of Israel lived in a nation that was constantly invaded,
constantly occupied……never their own.
Things of course went from bad to worse following Christ’s crucifixion on the cross.
The faithful could not worship freely or openly.
Even a suggestion that you were a follower of Christ would lead to arrest.
Crucifixion was only one way you might die;
the sport of throwing Christians to the lions grew popular
and if there was no Coliseum nearby,
the Romans were not hesitant to burn the faithful alive.
In this kind of environment is it any wonder that authors would
write of warfare, destruction, annihilation,
the elimination of oppression, and final victory?

When Jesus shared this apocalyptical message with his followers
he knew his own death was only days away.
And he knew his death on the cross
was going to make matters even worse for the faithful.
The echoes of “Hosanna, Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”
had only just faded away, carried off by the winds,
but Jesus wanted to reassure his followers,
encourage them to have faith,
encourage them not give in or give up.
He did not want to sugar-coat his message.
Jesus never told his followers that faithful discipleship would be easy.
He told them things were going to get tough,
indeed, he told them that if they thought things
seemed bad then and there, just wait.
Things were going to get worse, much worse.

But…..
But, no matter how bad things might seem.
no matter how bad things might get,
Don’t lose heart, don’t lose faith.
Trust in God.
Believe always in the everlasting arms of God.

Jesus builds on the message God spoke to the people of Israel
through the prophet Isaiah: with their country overrun,
the people enslaved, and the Temple destroyed:
“be glad and rejoice forever in what I am about to create,
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy.”
This hope-filled statement is the message we should hear
in all these apocalyptic passages:
Have faith in God’s constant presence,
be confident in God’s love,
God will be with us, even unto the end of the age.
Don’t waste time looking for signs;
don’t waste time listening to false prophets.
Stay focused. Share the good news of the Kingdom
Share the good news of the gospel
Share God’s love.
Stay focused on discipleship.

But we wobble, waffle and waver,
especially when things get hard for us.
When we are anxious about things in our own lives,
when we are worried.
Doesn’t Jesus tell us, don’t fret, don’t worry,
Doesn’t Jesus tell us that we are saved,
saved by the grace of God?
What in this world does any of us have to worry about?

The only thing we can do is the only thing we should do: respond.
Respond to the love, the grace, the goodness
respond to the constant presence, the assurance.
We have countless ways to respond.
In acts of simple kindness and goodness in our families,
reaching out to a stranger.
And of course, in things we do here in this church.

Now you hopefully received your pledge card for Stewardship 2005
in yesterday’s mail.
If you didn’t get it, you will probably receive it on Monday.
When we pledge, we respond, respond to God’s goodness and grace,
respond with a commitment, respond with enthusiastic faith.
Our pledge cards provide each of us with a way
to respond to our Saviour’s message of hope.
It’s certainly not the only way.
But it is a vital way, both for each of us and for this community of faith.

I’ve been thinking about my own response.
Like you, I have lots of demands on my budget.
I’ve got other worthy causes knocking at my door.
I’ve got tuition bills to pay to Princeton for my doctoral program.
Pat and I both worry about whether we will have enough saved
when retirement rolls around.
Each of you has your list of things:
repairs to the house or the car,
children’s college fund,
your own retirement account.

When I sit down with my pledge card,
I am going to try my best not to be thinking about any of those other things.
I am going to try to remember God’s call to each of us to bring our first
fruits, our tithes, to God.
I will pray and I will respond faithfully.
I will respond joyfully,
I will respond by acknowledging that everything I have,
comes from God.
I will respond by acknowledging that when I reach the end
of my journey here in earth, I won’t be able to take
my books, my doctorate, or my Ipod with me.

I will respond by acknowledging that this church is only what
we collectively make it to be.
I don’t shape the vision for this church: we do working together
This church is and will be only what we make it to be.

I love coming in on Thursday nights to work in my office while the choir rehearses.
Not only do I get to hear the beautiful music the choir is working on,
but I also get to hear the banter and the laughter
that goes on among the choir.
I love watching us work well together.
Conversely, one of my least favorite things is listening to someone complain
about a group or an individual: why isn’t this person or this group doing more,
doing what they said they would do.
Two months ago men and women, young and old
worked in torrential rain to make the Auction and White Elephant successful.
It is never how much money we raise that marks a successful venture
in my mind. It’s great that we raise the money, but that is secondary.
What is always the most important thing is that we work well together,
we work faithfully together.
If we raised twice as much money,
but our efforts were marked by fighting and rancor,
I’d consider the venture a complete failure.

Your pledge card awaits your response.
More important, God is awaiting your response.
Make time this week to pray and then respond:
fill out your card, seal it in the envelope
and then bring the card to church next Sunday.
We will invite everyone to bring their completed cards up
and put them in basket here on the Lords’ Table
We will give everyone the opportunity to respond
to God’s goodness.

Someday there will be an end of time as we know it.
And that time may come tomorrow.
Our Lord calls us to be ready for that day.
And the best way we can prepare for that day
is by remembering that tomorrow is not today,
and today we are called to be faithful disciples
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we are called to remember that each of us has been
born again in Christ,
given life, given hope
called to service in the name of our Lord.

We can spend our days worrying, complaining,
grumbling, unhappy with this or that.
We can spend our days looking for signs and portents;
We can spend our days listening to false prophets;
We can spend our days judging others;
We can spend our days criticizing others;
We can spend our days filled with anxiety.
Or we can spend our days looking forward with hope and confidence.
We can plan boldly, confidently, joyfully
We can commit ourselves completely,
not holding back any of our gifts.
neither in our own personal lives,
nor our lives as faithful members of this congregation.
We can create, to build, to strive.

We can immerse ourselves more completely in doing God’s work.
understanding the words of Barbara Brown Taylor
who writes, “the reward of doing God’s work
is....doing God’s work.”
Serving the One who was,
the One who is,
and the One who always will be.

AMEN

Life BG, Life AG

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
November 7, 2004

Life BG, Life AG
Romans 6:1-4
John 3:1-10

Nicodemus was confused enough when he heard Jesus explain baptism to him.
Can you imagine if Paul had tried to explain things to him?
Poor Nicodemus would probably have just given up
and gone back to the Temple.
“Born again of spirit and water” sounds muddled enough,
but “Baptized into death.”

Paul’s writings are often difficult to understand.
They were letters, and they were meant to be read aloud;
read aloud and read in their entirety.
They were to be read to the gathered congregation
and then explained and discussed.
We can’t do them justice when we read a verse or two on Sunday morning

Paul’s letter to the Romans is his longest letter and his most confusing.
It is his most deeply theological.
Other letters have more practical advice,
but in this letter Paul explains his beliefs.
Paul’s writing is never all that clear or concise,
yet there is an overriding theme that runs through the letter,
a theme that is easy to miss in the minutiae of the letter.
It is easy to get hung up on a verse or two
It is easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Listen again to the four verses that were our first lesson:
“What then are we to say?
Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?
By no means!
How can we who died to sin go on living in it?
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death?
Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death,
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
by the glory of the Father,
so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Paul is picking up on Jesus’ lesson to Nicodemus.
We have been baptized into Christ Jesus.
Ours is a baptism that is more than John’s baptism of repentance.
When John baptized a person,
the newly baptized was washed clean, sins forgiven,
But our baptism involves more than water.
It involves the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ.
We are washed clean, but even more,
we are filled with the Spirit.

In our baptism, we figuratively go under the water one person,
and come out of the water a different person, a new person,
a disciple of Jesus Christ.
In our baptism we die to the old life we lived,
and are raised to new life in Jesus Christ.

But it begs the very question of why.
Why isn’t a baptism of repentance good enough?
And the answer to that question is the overarching theme
of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome.

This letter isn’t about baptism,
and it isn’t about repentance.
It is about our election.
You and I have been elected.
Elected by God’s grace in Jesus Christ.
Elected, called through God’s love.

Our election did not come about because we campaigned.
It didn’t come about because we had better public relations,
or better advertisements, or more volunteers.
Our election came as a gift.
a gift given to us for no reason other than God’s love for us.
God made that point very clear when he chose the children of Israel.
It wasn’t because God thought them better than others.
It was just because God chose them.
God chose them so that others would know of God’s love
and mercy through them.
God has chosen you and me so that others will know of God’s love
and mercy through you and me.

Do you remember Paul’s story before he became a follower of Jesus Christ?
He was known as Saul.
Like Nicodemus, Saul was a Pharisee,
he was a leader in the religious community,
He was a leader of those who persecuted the followers of Jesus Christ.
He was also a man who prayed to God,
a man who believed he possessed the truth.
If ever a man fancied himself a faithful man of God, it was Saul.
If ever a man was far removed from God, it was Saul
But through grace Paul was saved,
saved by the love of God.
Saul BG, before grace,
became Paul AG, after grace.

Our election is a manifestation of God’s goodness.
Our election is a manifestation of God’s grace.
Because of God’s grace, we have been chosen
even though we are sinners,
even though we have not done anything to earn our election.

But we have been elected for a reason.
We have been given this gift for a reason.
We have been elected and graced with God’s love
that we might then take that love out into the world
as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
We have been graced with a gift from God
and we must respond to that gift.

We have been born into a new life in Christ,
born from above through water and the Spirit
as Jesus teaches Nicodemus;
or baptized into a new life through Christ,
as Paul tells the Romans.
As you hear every Sunday,
“the old ways have passed
and a new life has begun.”

We have been given new life in Christ,
new life through Christ,
new life because of Christ.
We have got to respond to that gift!
We can keep going along in our BG, before grace, lives.
Or we can live AG, after grace lives.
The choice is ours.
But Paul puts the question to us squarely:
“how can we who died to sin go on living in it?”
Paul is asking you and me, each of us that question
right here and right now.
What is your answer?
You had better have an answer.
Paul’s answer was to become a servant in Christ.
a servant of Christ.
Paul traveled constantly,
was beaten, jailed, mocked, spat on.
and finally killed.

We’ve been given a gift,
but we will also be called to account for what we did with the gift.
when we stand before our Lord in judgment.
And the questions that will be asked of us will not be,
as some of the more strident Christians wail,
Did you bring prayer back to the schools?
Did you put plaques with the Ten Commandments on the wall?
Did you sit in judgment of the sins of my children,
your brothers and sisters in Christ?
No, the questions will be:
Did you live your own life in prayer?
Did you follow the Ten Commandments?
Did you reach out the children in our society,
those whom Jesus found so precious?
Did you reach out to the sick and the poor and the lonely?
Did you love, love not only those who loved you,
but did you love those who hated you
those you thought of as enemies?
Did you share the good news of the gospel with others?
And that question is not, how many people did you convert?
After all, God is the one who does the converting, not us.
Did you simply share the good news of God’s love with others
and then pray for them?

You and I have been called for a reason,
we have been called to serve,
called to do our part to build the Kingdom on Earth,
called to carry on with Christ’s work.
We’ve been given new life in Christ through water and spirit,
born anew, to life in the Spirit,
Theologian Karl Barth sums up this new life well
“My new life is the ‘ought’ and ‘can’,
the ‘must’ and ‘will’, … (Karl Barth, Romans, 195)

You and I have been chosen,
and now the one who chose us invites us.
Invites us to come to his table,
Invites us to drink deeply and eat richly
Invites us to refresh our spirits.
Invites us to remember that we have been gifted with grace
that we have been given new life through him
and because of him.
Come to this table to renew yourself
The one who chose you,
The one who now invites you, awaits your grateful response.
Amen