Why Don’t We Do That?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 30, 2005

Why Don’t We Do That?
Matthew 23:1-12
Leviticus 23:26:32

“Discipline”: that’s one of those words we use all the time,
especially as we get older.
It generally comes out in sentences like:
“That child needs some discipline”;
“When I was younger, we knew what discipline meant.”
I have been thinking about the word for the past couple of weeks,
ever since a colleague remarked
that my morning routine was disciplined.
I spend the first three hours of most morning exercising:
first, I do physical exercises on our treadmill,
our exercise bicycle,and our weight machine.
Then I turn my attention to exercising my mind as I read through
two newspapers, and various articles and journals.
Then I exercise my faith with my daily devotional
readings and prayer.

I had never thought of my routine as discipline;
to me, the word “discipline” suggests punishment,
something unpleasant for having done wrong.
While I will admit that some mornings I find myself wanting
to skip the treadmill and go directly to the coffee and newspaper,
I find that my morning routine gives me a great deal of pleasure.
My routine helps me to prepare for the day ahead,
helps me to prepare physically, mentally, and spiritually.

My dictionary defines discipline as:
“training expected to produce a specific character
or pattern of behavior,
especially training that produces moral or mental improvement.”
(Am. Heritage, 4th ed, p. 515)
So what I consider a routine is a discipline:
it is how I stay somewhat fit,
keep up to date on the world,
and most important, stay focused as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

We need discipline in our faith lives if we hope to grow in faith.
Coming to church on Sunday is a good start,
but we need to do more.
Over this past month we have been witness
to wonderful examples of disciplines in two other faiths.
Our Jewish brothers and sisters,
observed Rosh Hashanah earlier this month.
We think of Rosh Hashanah as the Jewish New Year,
but it is most definitely not the raucous rave
that we think of when we hear the term “New Year”.
Rather, it is a solemn ten-day period,
when one’s thoughts turn to mortality,
sin, and repentance.

The ten days of Rosh Hashanah come to an end with Yom Kippur,
The word Yom is Hebrew for “day”,
and the word Kippur is Hebrew for “atonement”.
This Day of Atonement is the most solemn day of the year
for faithful Jews.
It is the day we heard about in our first lesson.
It is day of fasting, of worship, of prayer: a day of discipline.
It isn’t about dashing into house of worship
for a one-hour, you’re in, you’re out service;
it is about being prayerful and worshipful for the entire day.
On this holy day, the faithful sit down in reconciliation
with family and friends.
They seek forgiveness,
and they offer forgiveness.
In Leviticus we read,
“For on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you;
from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord.” (Lev. 16:30)

Fasting is an important part of the discipline.
It is a “display of self-discipline,
a sign that [one] can control [one’s] appetite
[not just for food and water] but for all things.
[In fasting] the focus is on the spiritual rather than the material.”
(Robinson, Essential Judaism, p. 97)

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
are unlike any days we have in our liturgical year.
As I reflected on these holy days in the Jewish year,
I found myself wondering, “why don’t we do that?”
Yes, we have our holy days,
but we have turned them into holidays,
days for celebration,
days of relaxation from work or school;
Days for revelry rather than repentance,
for feasting rather than fasting,
for playing rather than praying.

The text from our first lesson gives us a clue
as to why we don’t have holy days like that:
In the text we hear the instructions,
“you shall deny yourselves.”
That is not something we do well.
We rarely deny ourselves anything.
We are a society that is “me first”,
“immediate gratification” is our mantra.
We take what we want, and we do what we want.
whenever we want.

This past month was also a holy time for the more than one billion
followers of Islam who live throughout the world.
Islam has been unfairly vilified over the past few years;
When it is practiced according to the Quran,
Islam’s holy book, it is a faith of peacefulness,
mercy, righteousness and discipline.
Each year the faithful mark the month of Ramadan,
which this year happened to fall in October.
It will come to an end this week.
The faithful fast each day from sunup till sundown,
and then in the evening have a simple meal with family.
As with Rosh Hashanah, fasting is a spiritual discipline
to help the faithful focus on God.
The Quran tells us,
“God desires you to fast the whole month
so that you magnify God and render thanks to him
for giving you his guidance.” (Surah 2:185)

Muslims will end their holy month
with the festival of Eid al-Fitr,
which means the breaking of the fast.
This festival is second in importance
only to the spiritual pilgrimage each Muslim
is called to make to Mecca in one’s lifetime.
In addition to fasting, Muslims are called to pay
special attention to their charitable giving.
Charitable giving is one of the “Five Pillars”
or five disciplines Muslims practice,
but it takes on even greater importance during Ramadan.
Once again, as I read through the Quran and other texts
in my attempt to learn more about Ramadan,
I found myself asking, “why don’t we do that?”

We are only a month away from the beginning of one of our holiest
and most joyful times of our liturgical year: Advent.
Yes, believe it or not, the First Sunday in Advent
is just five weeks away.
Advent is supposed to be a time of preparation,
preparation not for the festivities of Christmas;
but preparation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The coming of our Lord not as a baby in a manger,
but the coming of our Lord in glory.
We don’t know when that will happen;
it is as likely to happen in any of the other 48 weeks of the year
as it is to happen during the four weeks of Advent.
Our Lord tells us in the gospel of Mark,
“about that day or hour no one knows,
neither angels in heaven nor the Son,
but only the Father
[so] beware, keep alert!”
(Mark 13:32ff)
In other words, be disciplined: prepare.
And that is what we are called to do during Advent.
But what do we do?
We have turned the time into preparing for Christmas parties.
Now there is nothing wrong with the joyful activities
we all look forward to during the Christmas season,
but the foundation for those four weeks
should be our discipline of preparation
for the coming of our Lord.

Our other significant holy time on our liturgical calendar
is Lent, the 40-days that run from Ash Wednesday till Easter.
It too should be a time of reflection, of preparation,
as we walk with our Lord to the cross.
But instead it has become a time of shopping for new outfits,
for stocking up on peanut butter eggs,
Discipline is not giving up ice cream or French fries
for those 40 days!

It was misguided discipline,
a lack of discipline, a lack of focus
that caused Jesus to be upset with the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were learned, knowledgeable men,
but their focus was on doctrine, orthodoxy,
judgment, rules and regulations
They were more concerned with pointing out the ways
in which others were not following the laws,
than they were in growing in spirit and faith in their own lives.
For the Pharisees, the word discipline was what they did
to others who didn’t abide by their rules,
rather than something they each applied to themselves.

We cannot hope to grow in faith
unless we have spiritual disciplines.
And our spiritual disciplines come in countless ways.
What works for me may or may not work for you;
we each have to find our own disciplines.
Yesterday at our Session meeting, our Elders spent the beginning
of our time together with their Epaphras partners,
talking and listening to one another.
You may recall that I wrote about Epaphras in the newsletter;
your Epaphras is someone who is your prayer partner,
someone with whom you can grow in faith,
struggle in faith, practice discipline together.
Our Session is devoting more time to spiritual disciplines
so we can be more faithful spiritual leaders of this church.

We are going to be hearing about Stewardship
over the next few weeks from our Stewardship co-chairs,
Nick Grounds and Nancy Popoloski.
They will share with us not just the need
for support of our church,
but the joy that comes with giving.
But if we were disciplined,
we would not even need a Stewardship campaign
because everyone would be tithing.
We would be tithing, giving 10%,
bringing our first fruits here,
because that is what God expects of us,
and tells us so clearly to do.
Perhaps that’s a discipline for you to consider
taking in the coming year: working toward tithing.

Without discipline, we run the risk
of settling for “church lite”;
faith defined the way we want it to be defined,
faith that doesn’t intrude too much on our lives.
But is that what our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to?
Doesn’t he call us to follow him,
to lose our lives so that we can gain our lives?
To take on his yoke?

What new discipline will you make a part of your life this week?
What will add you the week after?
Each week add something new, however small.
Perhaps it is remembering to say grace before every meal,
not just family dinners.
Perhaps it is remembering to pick up one thing
for the Food Pantry on every trip to the grocery store.
Perhaps it is finding your Year of the Bible Bible,
or buying a new one and starting your reading again.
Perhaps it is beginning to work toward tithing.
Perhaps it is learning from other faiths
and adapting a discipline,
such as fasting, or daily prayer.

Let the Spirit guide you;
Let the Spirit help you.
Deny yourself and open yourself to God more completely
Lose yourself
and then you will understand what Jesus means
when he says only then will you truly find life.
AMEN

Looking Through the Right Lens

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 16, 2005

Looking Through the Right Lens
Matthew 22:23-33
1 Corinthians 15:35-49

We hear the names frequently as we read through the Gospels.
They always seem to be around Jesus,
questioning him, confronting him, demanding answers:
The Sadducees and Pharisees.
The very words sound ominous, sinister;
we hear those two words and we think, “uh-oh”.

The Sadducees and the Pharisees were leaders
in the Jewish community in Jerusalem;
they were leaders at the Temple, part of the Sanhedrin,
the ruling class,
men in position of power and authority.
They shared a common faith in Judaism,
but they did not agree on everything.
In fact, they quarreled frequently on matters of faith,
and theology, often bitterly.

One subject was more contentious than any other,
more certain to cause fireworks between the two groups:
the idea of resurrection, resurrection of the body.
Now keep in mind that this was before the first Easter,
when God raised our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Greeks often talked about immortality of the soul,
but that was not the same as resurrection.
Traders from the East sometimes talked about how a person
might come back to live again and again;
But resurrection and reincarnation are two very different things

Resurrection of the body:
the idea that the dead would be given new life
somehow someway, through the power of God.
The Pharisees argued that resurrection was indeed
a promise given to all by God.
The Pharisees believed that scripture pointed to God’s promise.

The Sadducees, though, scoffed at the very idea
arguing vehemently that there was no scriptural support
for resurrection.
The Sadducees were men of wealth, power and prominence.
They were deeply conservative, strongly in favor of the status quo.
They were literalists, who argued that only
the five books of Moses,
the books of the Bible that we call the Pentateuch
were scriptural, the word of God.
The books of the prophets – Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others --
as well as the Psalms, the Proverbs,
they were all well and good,
but they were certainly not scripture.
And the Sadducees were defiant and adamant:
nothing in the five books of Moses supported an argument
in favor of resurrection.

The very idea that a carpenter from somewhere up in Galilee
might disagree with them made them bristle
with anger and contempt.
Besides, the carpenter seemed to side with the Pharisees,
and the Sadducees found that to be intolerable.

To the Sadducees, the very idea of life eternal,
of bodily resurrection, seemed ridiculous,
yet the firmness with which the carpenter held his opinions
provided the Sadducees with what they thought
was the perfect way to trap him.
He would prove himself either apostate,
or he would be proved a fool.
But as we heard in our lesson, their effort backfired
and they only made fools of themselves
when Jesus responded to the gaseous self-important men:
“You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures,
nor the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29)

And then Jesus interpreted Scripture
to show that almighty God was always,
is always, and will be always
God of the living, not of the dead,
Jesus knew the Sadducees well,
so he quoted from the Book of Exodus,
using one of the five books of Moses to make his case.
The Sadducees tried to define God in ways
that suited their purposes,
their own goals, their own power and position.
They put limitations on God,
It never occurred to them to think that
with God all things are possible,
that God is stronger than death itself.
Had they only read from Isaiah,
they would have heard God’s promise
to all his children that God would
swallow up death. (Isaiah 25:8)

The resurrection of the Body is a central tenet of our faith.
When we hear the word, we tend to think of Jesus and Easter.
We don’t think that the word really applies to us.
Yet it does, just as much as it did to Jesus.
When we recite the Apostles Creed,
we say very clearly Jesus Christ was dead and buried,
but on the third day he rose from the dead…
rose from the dead through the power of God.
And then we conclude by saying,
“I believe in the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.”
When we say that, we are not talking only about the resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are talking our resurrection:
the resurrection that each of us can expect
as a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Every time we have a funeral,
we give witness to our belief in the resurrection of the body.
We give witness to our hope in life eternal,
life in the very presence of God
in the very presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We give witness to our understanding that
God has made good on his promise to swallow up death,
that through the death and resurrection of our Lord,
God has vanquished death,
that death no longer has any power over us.

I read a lovely and moving book this past week
“A Letter of Consolation, by Henri Nouwen, a priest,
It is a letter Nouwen wrote to his father
some years ago, shortly after the death of Nouwen’s mother.
It was an attempt on Nouwen’s part to take a step back
in his grief, and to help his father as he too grieved.
He built his arguments on the hope that is ours in resurrection.
With that hope, then, he writes,
we can focus on the gift we have been given in life.
We can focus on the fact that God has given us life
not to worry about the things of this world,
but to anticipate the life that is to come,
the life that we will have in God’s presence.

Now of course we cannot possibly begin to understand
what the resurrection body will be like.
It is not likely we will resemble our current selves.
As Paul tries to explain in his reply to the Corinthians
our mortal remains die, and in our resurrection
we will become “spiritual bodies” (1 Cor. 15:44)
I cannot imagine that I will spend eternity
having to get stronger bifocals every two years!
And last week we heard Anne Lamott put it humorously
when she wrote that in heaven,
“no flossing [would be] required.”

In the resurrected life, we will be what God created us to be,
what God wants us to be.
We will be what God hoped we would be on this earth:
Children of the Spirit, filled with the Spirit,
guided by the Spirit,
children filled with love,
guided by love,
motivated by love;
rather than children of the flesh
consumed with envy,
and guided by all the petty concerns that absorb us.
In the resurrected life we will stop our snarling at one another.
We won’t act like the bloviating Sadducees,
more wind than wherewithal.

When a loved one dies,
even in our sadness and grief, we have the opportunity
to look through the lens of resurrection;
we have the opportunity to have our focus changed
restored, put back to where it should be,
where God wants it to be.
As Nouwen puts it
“eternity can break into our mortal existence”,
and help us to become transformed.
And afterall, aren’t we called to be transformed each day
in faith through Christ?

Nouwen concludes his book with this thought:
“the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the glorious manifestation
of the victory of love over death.
The same love that makes us mourn and protest
against death frees us also to live in hope.
It is with this divine love in our hearts,
a love stronger than death,
that our lives can be lived as a promise.
Because this great love promises us
that what we have already begun to see and hear
with the eyes and ears of Jesus Christ …
is the beginning of eternal life.” 93

God’s love for us, the very fact that he gave us his only son
tells us that “there must be something more than death”
at the end of our mortal lives;
that there must be a promise yet to be fulfilled.
As we focus on the hope of the resurrection,
we can look at death in a different way too,
We can look at it, as a colleague once put it,
not as a period at the end of sentence,
but as a comma that links two parts of the same line.

Our Lord calls us to look at our lives here and now
through the lens of resurrection,
the hope of eternal life that is ours in Jesus Christ.
Our Lord calls us to remember that God is God of the living
Then when we hear God’s words through the prophet Isaiah
we can understand them:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name: you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you
For I am the Lord your God
and you are precious in my sight.”
(Isaiah 45:1ff)

This is not a promise of immortality;
this is a promise of God’s loving presence in our lives:
our lives in this world and in the world to come,
because “we are precious in God’s sight.”

Our God walks with us throughout our mortal lives
here, and in the life to come.
We have nothing to fear, for this a promise
made to us in the life of Jesus Christ.

When we look at life through this lens,
through the lens of hope and love,
it becomes easier to live in response to the promise,
to live in love,
to respond in love,
to leave the petty things of this world behind,
to live in the Spirit, with the mind of Christ.
When we look through the right lens
we can understand what Paul means when he writes,
“our outer nature is aging,
but our inner nature is being renewed day by day”
(2 Cor. 4:16)
renewed for the life to come,
life eternal, the resurrected life,
This is the hope given to us in Jesus Christ
the hope given to us by our loving God,
truly a God of the living, in this world and the next.
AMEN

What Part of Yes Don’t You Understand?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 9, 2005

What Part of Yes Don’t You Understand?
Matthew 22:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9

The invitation was simple: Come to dinner.
But this was no ordinary dinner,
no pot of spaghetti to be shared with friends
around a table on a Sunday afternoon.
No: this was a wedding banquet,
a wedding banquet given by a king,
a wedding banquet given by a king in honor of his son.
Who could decline such an invitation?
Who would even think about saying no?
But yet, the excuses flowed in:
all the guests, all those the king personally invited,
declined for one reason or another.

Matthew tells us that some of the invited guests
“made light” of the invitation.
Anything was more important,
everything was more important.
Other guests were so intent on not accepting
that they killed the servants sent to fetch them!

You can understand why the king might have been a bit upset.
He decided to start all over;
But the second time, he told his servants
to go out and invite anyone, everyone.
The guest’s position in society didn’t matter,
who he or she was, where the guest lived,
Nothing mattered: everyone was invited.

Soon the hall was filled with guests.
The king walked through the teeming crowd,
happy that so many had come.
But then he noticed a guest who stood out,
stood out because of the way he looked.
The king approached the guest,and demanded,
“how did you get in here without a wedding robe?”
In other words, “why are you not dressed for the occasion?
You accepted my invitation, but you did not
think about how you should clothe yourself
in my presence and in my house.”
The guest was stunned, speechless.
He stared at the king, fumbling for response.
But it was too late: a group of the king’s servants
hustled the guest through the crowded room,
out to the back door and there
he was unceremoniously thrown out into the darkness.

What a story!
What are we to make of it? What should we do with it?
Jesus taught through parables
and he expects us to work at understanding,
so let’s do that and see what we can pull from this text.
This is one of his more difficult parables,
with lessons on different levels.

First of course, is the issue of the king’s invitation.
The king called out a selected group of people
but they all turned a deaf ear to his voice.
They didn’t say “no”; they simply said,
“I cannot accept your invitation now."
They provided an assortment of excuses,
but they all said in effect the same thing:
“I am too busy.
I would love to, but don’t you know,
that’s just when I had something else
on my calendar.”

Now, before we spend too much time pondering
who these guests were
and how they could all behave that way,
Jesus wants each of us to hold a mirror in front of ourselves
and see our own reflections,
because Jesus is talking about you and me.
God invites us again and again
to participate in the fullness of life that is Jesus Christ,
but what do we do with God’s invitations:
We say yes from time to time,
but most of the time we decline the invitation.
We don’t think we are saying “no”,
any more than the guests in the parable;
we just think we are saying,
“Now is such an impossible time.
I am so busy.”

There isn’t one among us who isn’t a busy person,
who doesn’t wish for an extra hour or two every day,
who doesn’t feel like he or she has too much to do.
And there isn’t one among us who hasn’t used our busy-ness
to turn from God’s call, God’s invitation.

Jesus is teaching us here about priorities.
about where our focus should be.
Our focus should always be on God,
on God’s will, on responding to God’s call, God’s invitation.
This is no ordinary invitation:
This is God’s invitation;
an invitation to nothing less than new life
in Jesus Christ,
through Jesus Christ.
How can we possibly plead
that we have other more important things
that we need to attend to?

Jesus teaches us again and again that our focus is often
on the wrong things in life.
That we are busy because we are focused on money matters
or buying things for the house,
to trying to improve our social status among our friends.
We think we do these things because they will make us happier;
the more things we have, the happier we will be.
But what did Jesus have?
What did the disciples have?
What did Paul have?

There was a fascinating article in the paper the other day
about how researchers are trying to measure happiness.
In this country we have equated happiness with prosperity:
having a good job and money in the bank.
Forty years ago a measurement of success was having a garage.
Twenty years ago, it was having a two-car garage;
Now it is having a three-car garage.
What Jesus wants us to learn is that we have our priorities wrong.

The second lesson that Jesus hopes we will learn from the parable
is that we have to do more than just show up,
just accept the invitation.
There is more to faithfulness and discipleship
than just saying yes.
The guest at the wedding banquet said yes,
but the question the king could well have asked him,
was “what part of yes don’t you understand?”

When we say yes, expectations come with our response.
When we accept the invitation,
like the guest at the banquest,
we are to robe ourselves appropriately;
Robe ourselves how?
In righteousness,
in mercy, in goodness,
in kindness, in charity.

All too often, when we do respond to God’s invitation,
we come to him wearing the robes we always wear:
the robes of selfishness,
of judgment,
of contempt,
of arrogance,
of indifference.
of pettiness, of worry, of apathy.
When we say yes, we must change,
shed our old robes, and put on the new robe of Christ.
When Paul writes “stand firm in the Lord in this way”
he is referring to the way of righteousness,
that we are to be robed in Christ, robed in righteousness.
If we are not robed properly, then
even if we accept the invitation,
we are not going to be a welcome guest.
We too will be hustled out the back
and tossed out the door.

Righteousness begins with our focus on the needs of others,
the concerns of others,
the feelings of others

Last Sunday following worship we heard about just one way
in which we can act in righteousness:
Candace Moose, Mary Ann Castimore’s sister, spoke
movingly about her experience as the recipient
of a heart transplant a few years ago.
Candace is a woman of powerful faith
and she feels called to share her story with others
to encourage folks like you and me to become organ donors.
She told us that there are more than 90,000 people in this country
waiting and hoping for organ donations to save their lives,
yet there are fewer than 10,000 people signed up
on the national organ donation registry.
I was struck when I went to the registry to learn
there are hundreds and hundreds of children under the age of 10
who are awaiting transplants.
When we think of patients needing transplants,
children certainly don’t come to mind.
Many of those waiting for transplants will die
before a donor organ becomes available.

When we are robed in righteousness,
we understand that accepting God’s invitation
is a call to service:
to serve others, especially the poor, the sick, the weak,
the elderly, the lonely, those we think of as different.
Luke makes this point very clear in his account of this parable:
the host tells his servants to go out
through the streets and invite not anyone and everyone,
but specifically, “the poor, the crippled,
the blind and the lame”

An article in the newspaper a few weeks back reported
that the number of men, women, and children
living in poverty in this country has gone up
every year for the past four years.
Thirty seven million men, women and children live in poverty.
Twelve percent of our population, one of every eight.
How can we think of ourselves as robed in righteousness
when we are allowing more and more people
to fall into poverty?
And this winter, with the high cost of heating for all of us,
there will be even more who will join those ranks.
I have already heard from seniors in our community,
folks living on fixed incomes,
who fear having to choose between
heating and eating this winter.

The parable is difficult, with hard lessons for all of us.
But then again, Jesus never said
that following him would be easy.
“Take up your cross” is the phrase he uses,
not, “have a seat and get comfortable.”
C.S. Lewis has written,
“The almost impossible thing
is to hand over your whole self to Christ.
But, it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead.
For what we are trying to do
is to remain what we call ‘ourselves’,…
We are all trying to let our mind and hearts go their own way –
centered on money or pleasure or ambition –
and hoping, in spite of this,
to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.”
(“Mere Christianity”)

The author Annie Lamott,
a gifted writer and a woman of deep faith,
puts it another way,
“we should try to stay on God’s good side.
It’s not hard.
God has extremely low standards.” (Plan B, p. 129).
We tend to think clothing ourselves with righteousness
is more difficult than it really is.
It begins with thinking about others first.
That’s been a theme running through our texts and sermons
the past few weeks.
When Cain asks God, “am I my brother’s keeper?”(Gen. 4:9)
The answer is yes, we are responsible for one another:
that is what is means to be wearing the robe of righteousness.
But the way we act, God would be well within his rights
to ask, “what part of “yes” don’t you understand?”

In this month's newsletter I suggested another way:
Find someone in the church and pair up with that person
to become one another’s Epaphras:
listen to each other, pray for each other,
takes an interest in each other.
Doing that clothes you in righteousness.
Not completely: we always need to do more,
but it is an excellent place to start.

Lamott puts it this way: “Pray, take care of people,
be actively grateful for your blessings,
give away your money –
[Do things like this and] you’re cool. You’re in.
Nice room in heaven, flossing no longer required.”
(Plan B, 129)
You won’t be hustled out the back door
and tossed into the darkness.

“Many are called, but few are chosen.”
Few are chosen because few respond genuinely to the call.
Few understand what it means to say yes.
You have said yes –
but are you dressed appropriately?
Are you robed in righteousness, or
are you robed in the same outfit you’ve always worn?
Our Lord wants us to remember that we have each said yes,
but the question he has for each of us is,
what part of yes don’t you understand?
Amen

The Church With No Walls

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
October 2, 2005

The Church With No Walls
Matthew 21:33-46
Philippians 2:12-24
World Communion Sunday

Imagine two visitors to our town who take a walk by our church,
They come down the hill from the direction of St. Mary’s
and walk past the driveway.
There they stop to look around; what do they see?
They see a lovely white clapboard building,
a simple building that bespeaks tradition and quaintness.
They look around the property and see a beautiful sign
that tells them something about who we are:
Presbyterians who have gathered to worship together
and grow in faith for 164 years.
They see another sign that tells them
that we think children are special:
the sign for Stepping Stones.
There is usually one more sign out front,
hanging from the post.
That sign changes with the seasons
as it tells us about Chicken Barbecues,
Auctions, White Elephant Sales,
and Vacation Bible School:
the many different activities that take place
in and around our building.

Look past the building, past the signs,
and the premises look tidy, and neat,
a good reflection of our Protestant focus
on doing things decently and in order.

Of course, the visitors are not able to see the heart of the church:
the people inside who make up our congregation:
you and me, the two hundred adults,
the seventy children and young people
who are all part of this community.
The visitor won’t be able to see the congregation
gathered here in the Sanctuary to worship,
or in Hazekamp Hall for fellowship,
or in a classroom to work and learn.

In an article I read recently, the author thought that every church
should tear down its walls.
Now obviously this author did not live in the Northeast!
For us as we look ahead to winter,
that would be a little impractical.
But still, the author made an interesting point:
Were we to tear down the walls,
and just leave the roof over us to keep the rain off our heads,
anyone walking by on the outside
could stop and see the world on the inside.
Our church would become transparent,
our activities would be out in the open,
nothing hidden, everything visible and accessible.
How well we worship and work together would be as apparent
as how poorly we worship and work together.
How do you suppose we would look to an outsider who stopped by
and watched not just what we did,
but how we treated one another,
how we really were toward one another?
Would a visitor be convicted by our faith?
Would a visitor say to himself,
“I would like to be part of this group?”
or would the visitor decide to continue his walk?

Paul was concerned about what was going on behind the walls
of the churches in Galatia, Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and Thessalonica.
That’s why he wrote so many letters.
In the first few hundred years of the church,
followers of Jesus Christ had to worship behind walls,
behind closed doors, out of view,
so they would not be discovered by authorities and arrested,
and possibly be put to death.

But they were always under the watchful eye of Paul
even from a distance, as Paul sought to break down their walls,
their figurative walls,
even if he could not break down their literal walls.
The Philippians were among Paul’s favorites;
More often than not, they seemed to get it,
to follow Jesus faithfully.
But even they had walls that needed to be taken down,
and so Paul wanted to send his young protégé Timothy
to help them, especially to help them to learn to think
less selfishly, to spend less time thinking about themselves,
and more time thinking about others.

The tenants in the vineyard lived behind
what they thought were impenetrable walls,
walls that kept their behavior out of sight
of anyone except themselves.
They thought they could literally get away with murder.

But even when we think our actions are hidden from view,
there is one who is always watching us,
looking on, one who is never kept out by a wall,
any wall, that we build,
especially walls we build around our hearts and our minds.
God is always watching us,
standing outside on the sidewalk,
listening, watching, observing,
at times, delighted by what we do and say,
and other times deeply troubled, saddened that
his own children behave as they do,
that we say some of the things we say,
think some of the things we think,
do some of the things we do.

Do you remember in last week’s reading
Paul urged us to seek the mind of Christ?
That is something we are to work on constantly
and we do that by tearing down walls,
walls that separate us from one another,
walls that separate us from the world outside,
walls that act as barriers between ourselves and God.
Frederick Buechner reminds us that,
“we have it in us to be Christs to each other,
and maybe in some unimaginable way to God too…”
We have this ability,
but we have to work at it, always, each day
When we pursue what we want,
we are not thinking like Christ,
and we build walls.
When we pursue what God wants,
we do think like Christ,
and we tear down walls.

On this World Communion Sunday, we come to this table
in the company of more than a billion followers of Jesus Christ
in countries all over the world,
people all trying to follow Christ, to live Christ-like lives.
We come to this table to be refreshed and revivified in Spirit
so we can work at breaking down barriers, tearing down walls,
walls that exist between ourselves and others,
those in our family, in our church, in our communities,
in the world at large.

Even as we mark this special day on our liturgical calendar,
we should also note that this week marks the beginning of
Rosh Hashanah for our Jewish brothers and sisters,
and Ramadan for the faithful followers of Islam.
For both faiths, it is a time of prayer, spirituality
and community, with families gathered together
trying to remove walls that time and circumstances build.
If we look at members of those other faiths as somehow
less than ourselves, we know right away that we have work to do
to tear down the wall that prejudice and ignorance
have built in our own minds,
for we know that someone with the mind of Christ,
would not look at Jews or Muslims that way.

We start the process of tearing down walls
right here in our worshiping community.
We can’t hope to knock down walls in the world,
unless we can do it with one another.
As we tear down walls and work on building community
we will then bear fruit, the fruit our Lord calls us to bear,
fruit that will make our Lord proud of us.
fruit that will make us worthy of being called disciples of Jesus.

Come to this table to be refreshed and renewed;
that you can work on taking down walls,
walls in your hearts, in your minds,
walls you have built over days, weeks, months, years,
walls that keep you from bearing fruit:
the fruit we are called to bear,
the fruit of mercy, forgiveness,
kindness, and love;
the fruit of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen