Good, But Not Enough

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
January 15, 2006

Good, But Not Enough
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
John 1:43-51

Drive down to Paramus, and there
on the northbound side of Route 17 right before the Mall,
is a marvel of a store: The Container Store.
It’s a store filled with just what its name suggests: containers.
Containers of every shape and size,
all designed to help you organize:
organize your kitchen, your closets,
your office, your family room, your garage --
every room in the house.
Walk down the aisles and you will see things
that make you wonder how you got this far in life without them;
things you feel you must have
if you ever hope to eliminate clutter
and restore order in your life.

I visited the store in early December
and I cannot imagine that the management of the store
thought for a moment that some of their items
might help a group of disciples of Jesus Christ
do a little re-organizing of their faith lives.
But the four plastic jars that hold our covenant cards
all came from the kitchenwares section of the Container Store.
They were designed to hold things like pretzels,
but I think they do a great job holding our covenants:
our promises to ourselves, our church,
to Jesus, and to God.

After worship today I will move the jars
to the table in the Denniston Room,
where we will leave them for the rest of the year.
We will put out extra cards in case
you have not yet made your covenants,
or if you want to add a covenant or change one.
My hope is that by having the jars and cards visible
to remind us of the covenants we have made,
we will each make a more concerted effort
to honor our covenants as we seek to grow in faith
and find new ways to serve the Lord.
I am hoping that the covenant cards and jars
will help each of us to grow spiritually in the coming year.

Our Elders and I have been spending an increasing part
of each Session meeting talking about spiritual growth
and what it means to be a spiritual person.
We often think that our Elders are called only to chair committees
and make sure things run smoothly in the church.
Yes, that is part of their responsibility;
but the more important part of each person's calling as Elder
is to be a spiritual leader.
And none of us, not me, not our Elders, not our Deacons,
none of us can hope to be a spiritual person,
much less a spiritual leader,
if we are not working on growing spiritually ourselves.

Becoming more spiritual doesn’t just happen.
All those infomercials that promise us better health
or bigger bank accounts, or thinner thighs
may lead us to think that we can get whatever results we want
with little or no effort, provided we are willing to make
three easy monthly payments.

Perhaps there is a business opportunity for our church:
“Become a more spiritual person in just 30 days
with Reverend Skip’s tried and tested Simple Spirituality System
Try it in the privacy of your home for 30 days
and if you are not completely satisfied,
not completely convinced that you have become
a more spiritual person, return the System
for a full refund.
Operators standing by to take your call.”

That’s not how it works, of course!
No becoming spiritual takes time, effort and work.
The reality is that there is no easy way to stay fit physically:
no easy way to lose weight;
no easy way to become rich;
Staying fit requires discipline, time and effort;
losing weight requires discipline, time, and effort;
saving money requires discipline, time and effort.
So too does growing more spiritual.
Coming to church on Sunday is good,
but it is not enough.

Henri Nouwen, a Roman Catholic priest,
wrote a number of wonderful books on spirituality
over the course of his lifetime.
We just read one over the past two weeks
in our evening Bible Study group.
Nouwen grounds spiritual growth in the phrase
we heard in last’s week’s gospel lesson,
the words God spoke following the baptism of Jesus:
when he refered to Jesus as his “beloved.”

For Nouwen, the beginning of spiritual growth
is seeing God’s beloved in the faces of family,
of friends, of one another here in church,
and even in strangers.
This is where we start, with God’s words to guide us:
“this is my beloved”:
this person, that person, every person.
It doesn’t matter where, when, or who.
The person sitting across from you is God’s beloved,
just as you are God’s beloved.

Nouwen starts there and then builds with Jesus’ teaching
that we are to set our mind on the Kingdom of God.
That’s the next step in spiritual growth,
re-ordering our priorities, so that we don’t focus on
the things of this world, but instead focus on the Kingdom of God.

Nouwen refers to this as “heart-knowledge”.
Spiritual thinking is thinking with both head and heart.
In the ancient Hebrew language of the Old Testament,
the word for head was the same as the word for heart.
Head and heart are connected:
we are to look at the world, people, problems, everything
with an equal balance of head and heart.

Of course we know that we are not very good
at balancing head and heart.
We tend to push both aside and let our emotions control us.
Isn’t that what Nathanael was doing in our gospel lesson?
His first comment to Philip is sharp, sneering, sarcastic:
“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
And then even when Jesus said to him,
“Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”
Nathanael responded, “Where did you get to know me?”
Where is the “heart and head”,
the “heart-knowledge”,
in Nathanael’s responses?

Think about things you have said and done just in this past week.
How many times did you fail to see God’s beloved
in another person?
How many times did you fail to see God’s beloved
in a family member, a colleague at work,
perhaps someone here in the church?
How many times did you let emotions get the better of you,
emotions of self-righteousness and pride,
anger, insecurity, envy, jealousy?
How many times did you forget to put the Kingdom of God first?

None of us can hope to begin to grow spiritually
if we don’t make time to grow, if we don’t make an effort.
Nouwen suggests that we begin with making time
for silence and solitude
even just for 10 minutes each day – every day.
Yes, that’s hard, but if you make the effort to get to the gym,
to save money, to watch your weight,
why can’t you make time to grow spiritually?
If your focus is first on the Kingdom of God
as Jesus teaches us, then it won’t be hard.

Silent time is a time for prayer,
but more important, it is a time to listen,
and time for reflection,
a time to hear what God is saying to you,
for you to hear what God wants from you and for you.
You don’t have to remove yourself from the world
to grow in spirituality.
Activities like retreats can be helpful,
but we are immersed in a busy world most of the time,
so we need to learn to develop spiritual disciplines
even in the busy-ness of our every day lives.
Jesus did not cut himself off from the world,
No, think about a typical day for Jesus:
teaching at the temple,
enjoying the company at a wedding banquet,
eating with 5,000 on the side of a hill.
Jesus was always with people;
but he made time for quiet, for prayer, for God.

Nouwen reminds us that
“Jesus does not speak about a change of activities,
a change of contacts, or even a change of pace.
He speaks about a change of heart.
This change of heart makes everything different,
even while everything appears to remain the same.”
(Making All Things New, 42)

As you become more spiritual, you won’t detach yourself
from the world, but in fact become more involved,
more completely intertwined,
but your focus will be very different
You will see everything through more spiritual eyes,
not self-righteous eyes,
not with a feeling that you possess truth
and those around you are wrong.


No, you will always begin by seeing the beloved in others.
Then with your priorities focused on the kingdom
you will stop worrying about the trivial, the petty,
the silly things.
Your focus will be on the things
that Christ wants you to be focused on:
Are you treating others with love?
Are you reaching out to those who need help?
Are you tending to the sick, the hungry, the hopeless?

Spiritual maturity leads to a feeling of serenity and calm,
but not all the time.
Jesus himself was often irritated, frustrated,
annoyed, even outraged,
and you will feel those same feelings
as you grow in spiritual maturity.
The difference will be that you will find
that petty little things that people say or do
will not bother you quite so much.
But you will find yourself filled with a sense of
outrage over the fact that today alone,
more than 20,000 children will die of hunger and disease.
You will find yourself angry that we tolerate violence of any kind
in our schools, on television, in our neighborhoods.
You won’t be annoyed with the church
because we have not sung your favorite hymn in a while;
you will be annoyed because we are not doing more
to reach out to a world in need.

Paul reminds us that we are spiritual infants
as long as our minds are still on things of this world,
and not on the Kingdom of God.
Being spiritual for an hour on Sunday morning
is all well and good, but it is not enough.
It is a start, a building block, one step, a part.

Living a spiritual life does not require a change in your life;
it requires a change in your heart.
It starts there, and then changes your life.
We need to do physical exercises
to keep our bodies healthy and strong,
and now medical experts are telling us
we need to keep our minds exercised
to help ward off Alzheimer’s,
In the same way we need to do spiritual exercises
if we hope to grow in spirit.

As we each grow in spirit as individuals
we will become a more spiritual community.
The more spiritual we are,
the less we will quarrel about things,
the less fractious we will be,
the less likely we will be to retreat into silos
around petty issues.

Jesus calls us to lives of Transformation,
transformation through the Spirit,
transformation that is ongoing, every day.
But that doesn’t just happen to us;
we need to work to make it happen.
and to keep it happening throughout our lives.
Nouwen reminds us,
“God speaks to us not only once in a while, but always.
Day and night, during work and play, in joy and in sorrow,
God’s Spirit is actively present in us.
Our task is to allow that presence to become real for us
in all we do, say ,and think.” 91

But we need to do more than allow the presence to become real;
we need to create the place within ourselves
where God’s Spirit can grow, the flame glowing brighter
as we reflect the light of Christ to all God’s beloved.

Add one more covenant for yourself, for your church,
a promise to Christ, and to God:
you don’t even have to fill out a card,
Add a covenant to grow in spirit, each day.
The Spirit of God is within each of you,
within all of us
Let it shine brightly, this day, and always.
Amen