Do We Really Understand?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
February 5, 2006
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Do We Really Understand?
Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Have you not understood?
Have you not understood?

Have you not understood what it means
to be a child of God?
Have you not understood what it means
to be a follower of Jesus Christ?
Have you not understood what it means
to be a disciple,
a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ?

The word disciple means comes from the Latin meaning “to learn”.
The very nature of discipleship means
we should always be learning.
The moment you think you have the answer
not only have you stopped learning,
you have stopped being a disciple.
It is why we have been talking the past few weeks about
the importance of learning, if you hope to grow spiritually.
You begin to grow spiritually by learning.

Becoming spiritual requires that we make the effort to seek God.
We seek God by learning, learning about God,
learning by reading through the Bible
learning by studying, by asking questions,
learning on our own,
and even more important,
learning with one another in community.

The disciples who followed our Lord Jesus kept hearing
and they certainly should have known,
but they kept missing this point;
they did not understand.
Look at what they did in our lesson from Mark.
Jesus knew the importance of constantly seeking God,
the importance of working constantly
on his spiritual connection with God.
Listen again to verse 35: “In the morning
while it was still very dark,
he got up and went out to a deserted place,
and there he prayed.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.
had spiritual discipline, worked at his spiritual discipline.
In the early morning hours, he sought God in prayer,
sought God through spiritual discipline.
He had heard and he knew, but he also sought to understand.
Only after he sought God did he go about his work
preaching, teaching, and healing.

Now look at his disciples. What did they do when the sun
rose above the horizon and they opened their eyes to a new day?
They went looking for Jesus:
“Everyone is searching for you.”
In other words, “what are you doing?
why did you run off like that?”
They did not understand.

Is it any wonder that God asks through the prophet Isaiah,
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Have you not understood?
These are the same questions God asks countless times
throughout the Bible.
And time after time we answer,
of course we understand.
But do we?
Do you?
We answer yes we understand
because we are good at going through the motions.
But the question is before every one of us:
are you really living the spiritual life
that you were called to in your baptism?

Meister Eckhart was a German theologian
who lived in the late 13th and early 14th century.
His writings are still quite popular today
because they are filled with simple,
yet profound spiritual teachings.
As faithful as we might think we are,
as spiritual as we might think we are,
Eckhart challenges us to go deeper
to a place where we see God in all things and all places.
Where you see the image of God in all men and women
throughout the world;
Where you see God’s hand in the beauty of the natural world
all around you;
where God is present in everyone and in everyplace
at every time.

Meister Eckhart tells us that we
“ought to lay hold of God in everything,
and we should train our minds to have God
ever present in our thoughts,
our intentions, and our affections.
This real God-getting is a mental process,
an inner turning of the mind and will toward God”
(Solitude and God Getting, 17)
But to do that we have to let go of our petty concerns.
And so many of things we get worked up about are petty.
We latch on to things that we consider important
and then we lose sight of God.
And when you do that it means that you are not learning,
learning to turn from the small things of this world,
to the world of God.
That means you do not understand.

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Have you not understood?

Paul’s most eloquent and deeply theological letter is
his longest, the one he wrote to the church at Rome.
In chapter 12 he writes of the “new life in Christ”
that we have all been called to:
“Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your minds,
so you may discern what is the will of God.” (Romans 12:2)
That is what we should be striving for in everything we do: discernment;
but discernment can only come through transformation
and transformation can only come from consistently – consistently
working at learning, working at renewing our minds,
working at growing,
working at becoming spiritual.
Discernment is hard work, but the tools we need are simple:
“questions, silence, reason, dreams, and images.
These enable the will of God to surface into conscious
or be discovered right before our very eyes.”
(Charles Olsen,Transforming Boards, 89)
With a full spiritual life, you will never grow weary;
you will feel God’s wind beneath your wings,
You will know that God is yet with you to
help you in even the most difficult times.

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
Have you not understood?
This is God’s world,
a world God created,
a world God entrusted to our care.
God has called us to him, called us to him in love and in Spirit
called us to him to worship him.
We began our service this morning with an Affirmation of Faith,
a statement of what we believe.
In the Presbyterian Church, we have a Book of Confessions,
the book is part of our Church’s constitution.
Have you ever read through any of it?
In the Larger Catechism of the Westminster Confession,
the very first question puts things in perspective:
“What is the chief and highest end of man?
Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God,
and fully to enjoy him forever.”
(Larger Catechism, 7.111)

That is what we are called to do: to live lives of the spirit
to glorify God in our every word, our every deed.
Eckhart writes, “We must train ourselves not to seek or strive
for our own interests in anything – anything – we do
but rather to find and grasp God in all things. …
All the gifts which God has ever granted us in heaven or on earth
were made solely in order to be able to give us the one gift,
which is himself.” (The Talks of Instruction, 40)

Come now to this table to be renewed in Spirit
and let this Holy meal be a new beginning for you;
the start of a new journey as a true disciple of Jesus Christ,
learning, discerning, growing in spirit and faith
so on that day when you stand before our Lord
you will be ready to answer his questions:
Did you not know?
Did you not hear?
Did you not understand?
Amen