Where is God?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
July 3, 2005

Where Is God?
Nehemiah 8:1-8
Mark 6:2-6

The most heavily used book in my study at the Manse is my Bible.
No surprise there.
I have more than half-a-dozen different Bibles I use regularly,
but my favorite is now held together literally by duct tape.

The second most heavily used book in my study is my dictionary.
It sits on a stand directly next to my desk.
I turn to my dictionary not only for new words
but also for words I think I know, when I want to check to be sure
I am using the word properly, precisely.

A couple of months ago, when I was working on one of my papers
for Princeton,I looked up the words “preach” and “sermon”.
Among the definitions I found for the word “preach” was:
“to give religious instruction….”
Sounded good to me;
but unhappily the definition continued:
“…especially in a tedious manner”
I did not have much better luck when I turned to the word “sermon”:
“a religious discourse, delivered as part of a church service;
Once again, so far, so good, but the next line read:
…an often lengthy and tedious speech of reproof and exhortation.”
After reading those definitions I felt like I was 6 runs down
with two outs at the bottom of the 9th.


I’ve been thinking about preaching a lot over the past few months,
and was grateful to have had the opportunity
to take a fresh look at preaching while I was on my study leave.
Even with all the other demands on my time that have come with
our growth over the past five years,
the focus of my effort week in and week out
is on our worship service and especially on the sermon.
I begin my week reading for the sermon
and I think about it and work on the sermon all week long.

Why do we have a sermon?
The simple answer sounds very Presbyterian: because we always have.
But the fact is that we have had sermons in our worship services
for more than 2500 years.
We have sermons in our worship to help us understand the word of God
as it comes to us through scripture.

That’s exactly what was happening in our first lesson:
in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah,
more than 400 years before the birth of Christ.
Ezra the chief priest called the people together
to hear the word of the Lord as it came through Scripture;
He read from a “wooden platform that had been made
for that purpose”: the first pulpit. (Nehemiah 8:4)

The word was first proclaimed,
and then the word was interpreted.
Ezra and the other priests “gave the sense
so that the people understood the reading”
Jesus was doing much the same thing in our second lesson:
he shared Scripture with people
the word of the Lord as it came through the Pentateuch,
the Psalms, and the prophets,
and then after he read the lesson, he taught.
The practice in Jesus’ day was to have someone read from the Scriptures,
in the synagogue on the Sabbath,
and then after reading, teach, interpret and explain
to help the people understand.

We continue the practice to this day,
Over the centuries we lengthened the sermon so much
that it did become a long, often tedious, discourse;
It was not that long after Jesus’ death on the cross
when the apostle Paul went on at such length,
that a young man who was listening to Paul
fell asleep and tumbled backwards out the window.
(Acts 20:7ff)

Two centuries ago I would have preached for two hours;
a century ago I would have preached “only” for an hour or so,
but of course that was just the morning service;
I would have preached for an additional hour in the evening service.
Not that long ago sermons went on for at least 30 minutes.
Over the past decade there has been a movement to shorten sermons
to respond to an era in which we are bombarded with
rapidly changing images and situations.
Most of my colleagues now preach for about 15 minutes,more or less.
Some are experimenting with different methods
including PowerPoint presentations,
with computer graphic and music.
But whether a sermon lasts 5 minutes or 50,
whether it is accompanied by music and computer images,
a sermon is always about interpreting the Word of God,
explaining the word of God,
teaching the word of God,
the word as it comes to us from the Bible
the word as it comes to us through the life of Jesus Christ.

A sermon is always about the love of God,
the gift of God’s grace through Jesus Christ.
But that doesn’t mean that a sermon will always be gentle, warm
soothing, and comforting.
We all come to church on Sunday looking for a lift,
a bit of inspiration after a long week,
but there are times when the word of God is difficult to hear.
There are lots of places in the Bible where God says:
“I am not happy with you:
You are my children but you are judgmental, vicious,
covetous, lying,
deceitful, cold,
uncaring, heartless.
You think you are living according to my laws
and my son’s teachings,
but you are just going through the motions."
Speaking through the prophet Amos,
God was hardly delicate in excoriating his children,
“Hear this you cows of Bashan….
who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,
who say …, ‘bring me something to drink!’
… the time is surely coming upon you
when they shall take you away with hooks,
even the last of you with fishhooks.”

These are hard words for us to hear,
and preachers know this.
Many preachers stay clear of some of the more difficult texts
because they know that preaching them
will only anger their congregations
and most of us in the clergy prefer to start each week
without a lot of angry e-mails sitting in our in-boxes.

But we have to be faithful to God’s word to us,
all God’s words to us:
the delight and the disappointment
the approval and the anger,
the kind and the critical,
the love and the lament.

When Jesus preached in his hometown in Nazareth,
The people didn’t like what he said at all.
In fact they were so upset by his words
that they tried to run him out of town
and push him over a cliff.
(Luke 4:28ff)

When I prepare a sermon it is not about what I think you need to hear,
it is always – ALWAYS – about what God wants all of us to hear,
Sermons are for me, too.
When I preach, I am the vessel through which God pours
his teaching, his instructions,
his hopes and his desires for all of us.
My own prayer as I prepare a sermon is that
I am attentive to God’s lead through the Spirit,
that my words that I type on the page are God’s words.

Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that sermon is a communal act.
It is not something I do at you;
It is something we all do together.
Every sermon is an act of God,
something that God creates through my words
and your response.
The end result should be nothing less than transformation:
yours and mine.

In the weeks ahead, I am going to work through the Lectionary texts,
the suggested texts for each Sunday.
We print the next week’s texts in the bulletin each Sunday,
so I encourage you to take time during the week to read the texts,
think about them, and listen for God’s voice to you.
Then as you listen to the sermon, listen again God’s voice,
for God is there in every sermon, active through his Holy Spirit
working in the same way he works through this meal
we are about to share:to renew us, refresh us, ………
restore us to his path,

God is everywhere in our worship service,
but especially in the sermon, seeking to help each of us,
myself included, grow in faithfulness, obedience, and love.
God is in every word of every sermon
working for what he wants for each of us:
transforming every one of us into more faithful disciples
of his Son, our Lord Jesus the Christ.
Amen.