A Drop in the Bucket

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 23, 2006
The Second Sunday of Easter

A Drop in the Bucket
Acts 4:32-35
1 John 1:1-2:2

The lesson from Acts sounds so wonderful:
“Now the whole group of those who believed
were of one heart and soul…”
The first group of followers of Jesus came together
in harmony, peace, and love.
They shared everything they had;
no one held anything back:
“there was not a needy person among them….
[for what they had] was distributed
to each as any had need.”

In the mid-19th century a German writer
adapted that phrase to
“from each according to his ability
to each according to his need”
in his effort to create a communal society
with everyone sharing – no one with too much
no one without enough.
The writer was Karl Marx.

This has always been the ideal,
always been God’s hope for us –
that all God’s children would live in peace,
that all God’s children would look after one another.
The Psalmist captured God’s hope with the words,
“How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm 133.1)

But as much as we might aspire
to such a wonderful way of living,
we just don’t seem to be very good at making it work;
we just don’t seem to be able to live the way God hopes for us.
We always start off well, with the best of intentions,
but just when things are going well
something breaks down,
someone tears at the fabric,
and then we disagree, argue, snarl, and eventually fight.

Greed is often at the heart of the breakdown.
Someone wants more;
Perhaps it’s more money,
but it is often something other than money:
Someone feels a need for power, control, authority.

Continue reading in Acts
and we see the sad reality of our nature.
A couple, Ananias and his wife Sapphira,
decided to sell some of their property,
but instead of giving all the money from the sale
to the community the way everyone else was,
they kept a portion for themselves.
We can hear the rationalization:
“We gave most of it to the work of the Lord.
We were just keeping a little for ourselves;
And even if we kept some, we still gave more
than either the Jones or the Smith families.
Why, the community should be grateful for our gift;
After all, it was our property; we worked for it,
it belonged to us;
It was ours and we didn’t have to sell it
or share any of the proceeds with the community.
We should be thanked for what we did.”

The rationalization all sounds well and good,
but something is missing in all those words.
God is missing!
Jesus is missing,
Concern for others is missing,
Love is missing.
Do you remember the end of the story –
what happened to the couple?
When each was confronted by Peter,
they dropped dead.
First Ananias and the Sapphira.

But it was not their greed that brought their death.
It was something more insidious:
They lied.
They pretended that they were giving their all to the group;
They pretended that they were concerned for all;
But they lied to Peter;
They lied to the rest of the group.
They lied to God.
(Acts 5:4)
They were not honest to God,
honest to God’s purpose;
they put their own selfish desires and needs first.
They put their own desires and wants
between themselves and God.
Selfishness is an all too human emotion
We all struggle with it.
Ananias and Sapphira were not the only church members
who struggled with selfishness,
who put their own needs and desires
ahead of those of the larger community.
Paul’s letters are full of both encouragement and rebukes
aimed at selfishness, self-centeredness,
any behavior that did not build up the larger community.

Our lesson is a reminder of what God wants for us
as we live in community:
He wants us to get along.
He wants us to live in a culture of Christ,
and of course the place to begin building that culture
is our homes and our church.
If we are unsuccessful at creating
a culture of Christ in our homes and in our churches,
how can we ever hope to create a culture of Christ
in the larger world?

Doing this takes work, of course,
hard work, consistent, constant.
always aiming up, always looking to build.
It does not take much to break things down.
One person, one comment,
one act and it can taint a community.

Have you ever watched paint being mixed at the paint store?
The clerk takes a gallon of plain ordinary white paint
and then puts it under a machine.
A precise amount of tint goes in the paint;
not much at all - just a few drops.
One drop of the wrong tint and the entire gallon is spoiled.
One drop!
One drop of the wrong tint may literally be
just a drop in the bucket,
but it can ruin the entire gallon.

Community is no different;
a drop too much of selfishness,
a drop of self righteousness,
a drop of temper,
a drop of arrogance,
a drop of maliciousness,
a drop of nastiness,
a drop of anything negative,
and the community is infected,
tainted, the culture turns sour.

No one wants to be the one to the source of the drop,
which means that everyone is called to do the hard work
of looking deep within yourselves and acknowledging
where you have the potential to taint the culture,
taint the community, to be the drop in the bucket.

We are blind to our own sins, blind to our own sinfulness.
The lesson from the first letter of John makes that clear,
those words that are so familiar, perhaps even too familiar:
“if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves.”
Even now as you hear those words,
where is your mind?
Are you thinking of yourself,
or are you thinking of someone else,
someone you think needs to hear those words?
Those words are for you, and you alone.

Building community, building a healthy culture starts
with looking deep within ourselves
deep within ourselves, yourself, myself
and acknowledging our sins.
This is hard work, but vital if we hope
to have a vibrant Christ-filled community.

This very notion of community will take on
even greater importance in the months ahead.
For about 4 to 6 months, you will not have a pastor
here with you each day.
You will have a Supply Pastor on most Sundays to lead worship
and the Presbytery will assign a neighboring minister
to provide pastoral care, just as I did for our friends
at Bethlehem last summer and fall.
It will take about 4 to 6 months to secure the services
of an Interim Pastor.
That period will be critical to this church;
which is why Presbytery does not allow churches
to try to speed up the process.
It is a time when you will be led by the Session,
the Elders God called and you elected to lead.
Will they work together, or will they split into camps, factions?
Will you all work together, or will factions
develop within the congregation?

That time from July through the end of the year
will provide this church with a test, a challenge,
an opportunity to aim for true community,
But that will require everyone working together.

When I served as moderator for the Bethlehem Church,
they asked me repeatedly whether I thought
they were going to make it.
My response was always the same:
as long as you work together, you will be fine;
and they did work together during those six months
I was with them,
they worked exceptionally well together.

As you work together, you will give life to the Risen Christ.
His presence will be palpable, so evident to all.
If, on the other hand, Ananais and Sapphiras
pop up within the congregation,
then you will essentially roll the stone back in place
and Christ will be dead in this church.

Pat and I have a plaque in the hall of the manse that says:
Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus Deus Aderit,
a Latin phrase that means,
“Bidden or unbidden, God is present.”
Whether we call on him or not, God is present.
Christ is present, here in this church
at all times and all places
not just on Sundays during worship
but in everything that happens here.

Our Risen Lord will be with you
watching, listening.
Your words, your actions can
put a smile on the face of our Risen Lord,
or they can furrow his brow.

Anthony Robinson, a pastor in a large Congregational church,
has written, “A congregation…participates in the ongoing work
of God and invites others to share in it.
The congregation invites people to participate in the…
unfolding work of God for change and renewal…”
(Transforming Congregational Culture, 37)

That’s what we do in church:
“participate in the ongoing work of God”
in community, with one another,
everyone participating “in the unfolding work of God
for change and renewal”
change and renewal in your own lives,
through the transforming love of God in the living Christ.

Church is community
and of everything you say,
everything you do,
nothing is ever just a drop in a bucket;
Everything either builds up or tears down.

In the weeks and months ahead
keep the words of the Psalmist on your lips
to guide your every action, your every word:
“How very good and pleasant it is
when kindred live together in unity!” (Psalm 133.1)
This is indeed the word of the Lord.
Amen

Interstices

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 16, 2006
Easter Sunday

Interstices
Mark 16:1-8
Acts 10:34-43

The Easter story cannot end this way:
the women fleeing from the tomb in terror,
saying nothing to anyone.
How can we celebrate Easter with the words,
“for they were afraid”?
There has got to be more.
Mark can’t just put down his pen and say,
“That’s it. The end.”

Matthew tells us the women ran from the tomb in fear,
but he also says they ran with joy;
and then only a little way down the road
they literally ran into the risen Lord himself.
They grabbed hold of him,
as he said to them,“Do not be afraid.”
(Matthew 28:8ff)

Luke gives us not one, but two appearances of Jesus
following the Resurrection.
The first was late in the afternoon
on that first Easter Sunday,
as two disciples walked on the road to Emmaus.
The second was a little later
when he appeared to all the disciples.

John provides us with the most picturesque story,
the one that is the favorite on Easter:
Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty
in the early morning hours on that Sunday.
She ran back to tell Peter and John,
who then raced to be first to see the emptiness.
The men did not know what to make of the tomb,
and left Mary alone in the garden,
where she saw a man she first thought was the gardener,
but who of course was the risen Lord.
She ran back to tell all the disciples,
“I have seen the Lord.”

Matthew, Luke, and John all give us Easter,
but not Mark.
He just drops us, leaves us;
The story is over.
He tells us nothing more about the disciples,
He tells us nothing about anyone seeing the risen Christ.
There is no road to Emmaus,
no Doubting Thomas,
No, “and remember I am with you always,
to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
Nothing,
Nothing,
Just, “… they were afraid”, and then “the end.”

Later editors found this so unsatisfying
that they appended two different endings to Mark’s gospel.
One is called the “Shorter Ending of Mark.”
It is a continuation of the final verse:
“And all that had been commanded them
they told briefly to those around Peter.
And afterward Jesus himself sent out through them
from east to west
the sacred and imperishable proclamation
of eternal salvation.”

Now there’s an ending we can live with:
the women went back and told the disciples,
and the disciples believed.
Most important, the resurrected Christ appeared --
appeared to his disciples, instructed them,
and then sent them out into the world
with the gospel, the good news.
That ending gives us Easter!

But even that appended ending still left many unhappy,
so a later editor tacked on 12 verses that we refer to as
“The Longer Ending of Mark.”
This ending matched Luke’s
and again gave some closure to the gospel.

The problem with both the Shorter
and the Longer endings, though,
is that neither of them is considered to have been
part of Mark’s original gospel.
So we are back to Mark’s ending and what to do with it.
We are back to the women fleeing in terror, afraid,
not saying a word to anyone.

Ah, but Mark does give us something.
You heard it, you may even be thinking about it:
The young man dressed in a white robe, sitting in the tomb,
the one who said to the women,
“Do not be alarmed;
you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth,
who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here.
…he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
there you will see him,
just as he told you.”
(16:6ff)
“He has been raised;
He is not here;
he is going ahead of you;
you will see him,
just as he told you.”

But the women did not understand.
In their fear, their faith had evaporated,
dried up like a puddle under the hot Judean sun.
For them, as well as the rest of the disciples,
there was no good news;
There was no Easter.

Mark leaves us in an interstice.
(in-ter-sti-see, accent on the second syllable)
Interstice: the word is most easily defined as a gap,
a place between,
a space between things or parts.

Mark leaves us in an interstice
between the crucifixion and the resurrection,
between Good Friday and Easter,
between despair and hope,
between death and life.

Mark leave us there, perhaps intentionally,
perhaps with a sentence that he did not write,
but had in his mind:
“You decide. You decide how the story ends.”

Mark leaves us in the space, as one minister once put it, between,
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”
and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
(from Fleming Rutledge, the Seven Last Words on the Cross,77);
between consuming fear,
and convicted faith.

In Mark’s version of the story,
we have to conclude that all of Jesus’ followers
had the same phrase from Psalm 22 on their lips,
the phrase that Mark records as Jesus’ final words:
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”
What else could they think?
What else could they say?
Their Lord was dead and all they had was an empty tomb.

But while the women and the disciples may have been stuck
in the interstice of fear and fleeing faith,
the Psalmist was not.
The Psalmist may have begun Psalm 22 with those words,
but his faith pulled him through his interstice,
pulled him through the space of abandonment and hopelessness
to faith in the Lord,
from “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”
to: “I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”
His faith pulled him to
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Those words, the words that Luke records
as the final words Jesus uttered from the cross
are from Psalm 31.
In that Psalm, the Psalmist again feels alone,
bereft, without hope,
standing in the interstice of fear,
facing what he perceives to be certain doom.
But then he turns to faith and leaps from the interstice
with as simple and profound a phrase as we ever imagine:
“Into your hand I commit my spirit.” (Psalm 31:5)
The Psalmist is no longer in the interstice,
but has embraced faith in God completely.

The women, the disciples, all of Jesus’ followers
were stuck in interstice of fear when Jesus was arrested,
and they were still there on that Sunday morning,
even with an empty tomb,
for they had forgotten not only what the angel had told them,
but they had forgotten what Jesus himself had told them
“The Son of Man will be handed over…
[and he will be killed]…
and after three days he will rise again.”
(Mark 10:34)
They had forgotten what he had told them at the Last Supper,
“But after I am raised up,
I will go before you to Galilee”
(Mark 14:28)

Even when Jesus appeared,
they were still not sure what to make of it all.
The disciples made their leap from interstice to “Easter people”
only after Pentecost, only after they were graced with courage
by the Holy Spirit.

In Peter’s bold statement that we heard in our first lesson
we learn for the first time that Peter
is no longer in the interstice of fear,
the interstice between death and life,
the interstice he was in when he denied Jesus.
He has bridged the gap, embraced faith completely,
so completely that he would eventually be killed for his belief.
“Father, into your hand I commit my spirit.”

This is not a sentence that is limited
to that moment when we breathe our last.
This is a sentence we should offer up each morning
as we begin each day anew:
committing ourselves afresh to God as his children,
and to our Resurrected Lord as his faithful disciples.
In this simple sentence we can leave worry behind,
fear, anxiety, all those things that preoccupy us
that keep us stuck so firmly in the interstice
between death and life,
between flesh and spirit.

But oh, that requires so much faith,
such trust – absolute and complete.
it requires the faith of our Lord in the garden,
“Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,
yet not what I want, but what you want.” (Matthew 26:39)

And we are so headstrong;
so stubborn;
we are a “stiff-necked people”
in the words that God used to describe us.
We are all in the interstices,
all in the gap between flesh and spirit.

This church as a community of faith is in the interstices now
as we go through a time of transition.
There has been some anxiety the past few weeks,
“we’ve got to do something, got to get going,
Got to get to work to find an Interim pastor
Got to get to work find a new pastor.
Last summer and fall, I walked with the Session
of a neighboring church as the Moderator of their Session
as they went through this process.
I was appointed by Presbytery as part of the procedure
every church follows when there is a change in the pastorate.
The Presbytery will guide our church and support it
every step along the way in the weeks and months ahead.
There is nothing to worry about;
the process has started and Presbytery will guide this church
and walk with it throughout the transition.
Worry and anxiety is a sign that you are standing in the interstice.
For don’t you know:
God has already selected the person
who will be called to this church as Interim Pastor.
And God has already selected the person
who will be called to this church as the next installed pastor.

The hard work this congregation and its leadership will have to do
is the hard work we all do each day: the work of discernment,
the work of listening, the work of trusting in the Lord,
the work of stepping out of the interstice of anxiety and worry
the hard work of saying,
“Into your hands I commit my spirit”
"Into your hands we commit this our church."

Peter Gomes, the gifted preacher and teacher
once said, “Easter is confrontational;
The resurrection is God’s way of getting our attention.
It is God’s way of making us listen up.” (Sermons, 73)
Gomes is telling us that the Resurrection is God’s way
of pulling us out of the interstices that we are all in;
pulling us out of that place between death and life
between flesh and spirit,
Pulling us out through the fulfillment of God’s promise to us
that we need not be afraid of anything:
life, death, the grave, the future – nothing,
for our Resurrected Lord is with us always
always, even unto the end of the age.
Gomes reminds us, “the only message of Easter is this;
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead…
He is out there, ahead of us,
and our job is to spread the good news that he lives.”
(Sermons 74)

On this glorious Easter Sunday,
let us do just that: spread the good news that he lives.
But even before we do that,
let’s first say to God, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Let the promise given us through the Resurrection
pull us out of our interstices.
For our Lord is risen!
Yes, our Lord is risen!
He is risen indeed.
AMEN

Just How Willing?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 9, 2006
Palm Sunday

Just How Willing?
Mark 11:1-11
Mark 14:32-42

It is one of the few scenes which all four gospels capture:
Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey,
fulfilling the Scripture prophesied by Zechariah
more than five hundred years earlier:
“Lo, your king comes to you;
triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey…”
(Zechariah 9:9)
The people in the crowded city were in a festive mood
as they waved branches at the passing parade,
giving life to the words from Psalm 118:
“bind the festal procession with branches…”
(Psalm 118:27)
John’s gospel tells us that the branches were palm fronds,
and from that comes our tradition of Palm Sunday.

It is easy in the crush of preparations for Easter
to jump from Palm Sunday to Easter,
but as you have heard me say,
we cannot get to Easter without going through Good Friday:
the crucifixion, the death of our Lord.

But even before we get to the crucifixion,
even before we get to the Last Supper,
if we read through the Bible carefully,
we realize that Jesus did not just get off
the back of the donkey after the parade
and then prepare for the Last Supper.
He was active, busy, in constant motion each of the days
that separated the day he came into Jerusalem
and the day he sat down for supper in that Upper Room
with his disciples.

The day after the parade Jesus was at the Temple
teaching, preaching, speaking to all who would hear him.
He spoke to the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Do you remember who they were?
They were the leaders of the faith,
the leaders at the Temple, the priests, the scribes,
the wise men of authority.

Jesus confronted them, challenged them,
questioned them,
even baited them a bit,
probing, testing the depth of their faith;
was there anything solid there?
Jesus, the Pharisees, the disciples, the Sadducees –
they all worshiped the same God – the Lord God.
They all read from the same Scriptures –
the books of the Torah, the prophets, the Psalms.
Why did they seem to be so far apart,
as though they all lived different faiths?

Jesus taught those around him,
taught them in parables,
those lessons that two thousand years later
we still skim over because they seem to require so much work.
The people around Jesus were no different from us -
they wanted faith that was easy, upbeat,
that would assure them of an easy life.
Today’s televangelists preaching their gospels of prosperity
had their own ancestors in Judea:
“God wants you to prosper –
God wants you to have money
to have all those things you want.”
The speakers change, but the script does not.

Jesus watched, he observed,
he looked at people, watching them go through the motions
coming to the temple, exchanging coins from their hometowns
for local currency so they could buy a dove to offer as a sacrifice.
Why were they still doing this?
Had not God spoken through the prophet
“I desire steadfast love, and not sacrifice;
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
(Hosea 6:6)
Hadn’t God said through the Psalmist
“the sacrifice acceptable to God is a…contrite heart.”
(Psalm 51:17)
Why were the moneychangers
and the priests with their long knives
still doing such brisk business in blood and smoke?
But Jesus knew his father’s words spoken through the Psalmist
so long ago: “You hate discipline
and you cast my words behind you.” (Psalm 50:17)

Still, he had a few moments of joy,
especially when he spotted the widow,
the poor widow who had nothing,
yet who shared what little she had for God’s work.
“There,” he thought, “is a woman of faith,
for she gave from her heart.”
Why were there so few like her?

Even his own disciples could not keep their focus
as they argued among themselves which of them
was the most important.
Through it all Jesus kept teaching, teaching
speaking to all who would hear,
any who would hear:
“Be watchful,
be vigilant,
let your light shine.”
So many words,
and yet they swirled around as though
caught in the eddies blown from the desert to the south,
so few taking root in the hearts and minds of those
who heard his voice.

And then they gathered, Jesus and his disciples,
in that room, that upper room.
Only Jesus understood that it was the final meal
he was going to share with that rumpled group
who had been following,
following,
following so faithfully, but understanding so little.

The bread was passed around,
but who understood what Jesus meant when he said,
“this is my body, which is given for you.”
And then the cup went around the table,
but who understood when Jesus said,
“this cup that is poured out for you
is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke 22:19-20)

They sang the final psalm to end the meal,
end the evening with bellies filled,
minds softened by a little too much wine,
bodies worn by the late hour.
They went down the narrow stairs, unsteady on their feet,
spilling out onto the street,
all comfortable that they had followed Scripture,
and observed the Passover as their ancestors in faith
had for more than a thousand years.
Now their minds turned to sleep, sleep,
and they followed Jesus,
assuming that they were following him
to a comfortable place
where they could sleep off a good meal with good friends.

They walked east, just outside the city gates,
Jesus trailed now just by Peter, James, and John.
Even at the late hour, the sounds of laughter and merriment
floated over the walls of the city
and drifted down among the branches of the olive trees
there in the garden of Gethsemane.
The stars in the night sky glimmered above the foggy heads
of the three followers, all of them wondering about their Lord,
“Doesn’t this man ever slow down?
Doesn’t he ever take a break?
It is late and we are tired;
Can’t we carry on in the morning?”

But they did not understand that come the morning
it would be too late.
Exhaustion overwhelmed them,
sleep demanded their full attention,
and yet Jesus said to them, “Keep awake.”
Ah but the hour was so late,
and sleep can be such a relentless adversary...
As Jesus prayed so fervently in the garden
the men drifted off under the night sky.
And Jesus saw them asleep
and said more with pity than anger
“could you not stay awake one hour?
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
But they couldn’t keep their eyes open,
and as Jesus turned to pray yet again,
the three men drift off again.
oblivious to their teacher’s prayers,
oblivious to their teacher’s anguish.

And then it was too late,
the time came, and there they were:
Judas and group of men with swords and spears.
Peter sprang to action, adrenalin pumping through his veins,
the flesh no longer weak, the spirit more than willing,
but it was too late; the hour had come.


As we begin this Holy Week, just how willing is your spirit?
How willing is your spirit to follow our Lord,
follow the one who was obedient to God,
obedient even to death?
Is your spirit that willing?

Our flesh overwhelms our spirits;
our flesh governs our spirits.
In his letter to the Christians in Rome Paul wrote,
“For those who live according to the flesh
set their minds on the things of the flesh,
but those who live according to the Spirit
set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
To set the mind on the flesh is death,
but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God;
it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot,
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
Romans 8:5-9

When we think about having our minds on things of the flesh,
we tend to think that the allusion is to limited
to certain types of thoughts,
thoughts we are told it is a sin to have,
thoughts that are simply not talked about in polite company.
But the point Paul makes in this statement
is that our minds can be only one of two places,
either focused on the things of this earth,
or focused on the things of God.
Flesh or Spirit; you cannot have it both ways.

And so we choose the life of flesh
over the spirit.
We allow ourselves to be spiritual,
but only a few minutes here and there.
Let me ask you:
Where will your mind be in the week ahead?
Where will your focus be,
your principal focus?
The work you need to get done before Easter?
Who you are having Easter dinner with?
Plans for the vacation week?
Why won’t your thoughts be on our Lord Jesus Christ?
This is Holy Week, the week our Lord went to the cross.
On Friday will you be part of the millions and millions
of disciples of Christ who will think of the day
as an opportunity to sleep in, to shop, to relax,
to prepare for visitors,
to plan for a week’s vacation?
How many disciples of Christ
will spend time in prayer and devotion
thinking about crucifixion of our Lord:
why he died;
for whom he died?
Ah, but the flesh is too strong.

Here’s a suggestion:
Why not start each day of this Holy Week
with prayer that includes words from Psalm 51,
Psalm 51, verse 10 to be specific:
“ ‘create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.’(Psalm 51:10)
Put a new and stronger spirit within me O Lord
help me to be stronger in spirit than in flesh, O Lord,
so that I might keep awake,
and follow your Son that much more faithfully."

In this Holy Week, start each day with prayer,
and a few verses from one of the gospels.
In this Holy Week, set the flesh aside
and live in the Spirit.
In this Holy Week, let the Spirit of God fall afresh upon you,
Let the Spirit of Christ fill you,
Let the Spirit lead you.
Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

AMEN

Whoever Serves Me Must Follow Me

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
April 2, 2006
The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Whoever Serves Me Must Follow Me
Jeremiah 29:11
John 12:20-33

I have been asked lots of questions since last Tuesday evening
when I informed the Session that
Pat and I would be moving come July.
Why? Where? How? When?
This was not an easy decision for us.
Like Abram and Sarai, we are being called
from a place we know,
to a place we don’t know;
we are being called
from people we know,
to people we do not know.

We wrestled with the call as vigorously
as Jacob wrestled with God at Penuel.
But we knew that God was calling
and we knew our only response was to follow.
We know our only response is to do what Jesus teaches us
in our gospel lesson:
“whoever serves me must follow me”
Our Lord could not be clearer.

We are called to follow God;
We are called to follow Jesus;
We are called by the Holy Spirit to follow.
That call to follow –
it is that sense of restlessness that fills us all,
It is why more than 1500 years ago Augustine wrote,
“our heart is restless until it rests in you” O Lord.
(Confessions 1)
And our hearts will not rest in God
unless and until we follow God
in everything we do,
everything we say;
in all times, in all places.

Two thousand years ago, Paul knew that following meant
leaving his comfortable life behind to take the gospel
to the newly formed churches throughout the Mediterranean:
the churches in Corinth, Rome, Colossae,
Philippi Thessalonica, Ephesus,
and throughout Galatia.
Have you ever looked at the maps we keep in the Denniston Room,
and looked at the one that shows Paul’s journeys?
How far and wide he traveled?
Following Pentecost, the disciples fanned out throughout
the known world to spread the good news.
Thomas, the man who will forever be known as the “doubter”,
is thought to have taken the gospel as far east as India.
That doesn’t sound like a doubting Thomas to me!
That sounds like a faithful follower of Christ.

When I was at Princeton I was in a study and prayer group
with three other men:
we were all second career students:
each of us had come from the business world,
jobs and paychecks left behind.
Two came to Seminary with wives and children.
All of us were at an age when people start to become
settled in life, and yet when God called,
we all found ourselves in Princeton.

And then after three wonderful years in seminary,
our calls scattered us: one to Chicago, one to Atlanta,
one to Washingtonville,
and one all the way across the Atlantic to England.
Since then, God has called the others to move at least once:
Chip moved from Atlanta back to Princeton,
and is about to move yet again.
Steve and his family moved from England to Germany.
And Charles, his wife, and their three young children
moved from Chicago to Baltimore,
and this summer will move from Baltimore
to the rugged ruralness of Northern China
where they will serve as Missionaries for the next year.

“Whoever serves me must follow me.”

I marvel at how much this church has changed
over the past 6 years;
I think if someone had last worshipped here in late 1999,
and came back again now, he would hardly recognize the place.
Yet one thing remains constant:
remains as constant as it has since this church
was established 165 years ago.
We are a group of people called by the Holy Spirit
to be followers.
We have doubled in size over the past 6 years, from 115 to 210.
And that means that more than 100 women and men
have been called to this church to follow Jesus Christ.

We have launched a highly successful nursery school,
as a mission and ministry of this church,
helping children to grow in a safe, nurturing environment.
We’ve done this as followers of Christ
in response to Christ’s teachings.

We have painted and fixed up virtually every room
in this building and the Manse.
We have done all this
to make our space safe, comfortable, welcoming,
always remembering that our Lord
stands at every door of this building,
with “his big carpenter hands”,
as Peter Marshall would say,
open wide in welcome,
saying to all who come through the doors,
“Follow me”

I have baptized more than two dozen babies,
as we have welcomed them into Christ’s Holy catholic church.
In every baptismal service, we all make a promise
to both the baptized child and the child’s parents
to help them follow Christ.

I have worked with more than 30 of our young people
in six Confirmation Classes.
Next month I will listen with such gratitude –
and a little pride –
as the members of this year’s class do as
the young people before them:
profess their faith publicly.
Yes, their voices may all be a bit tentative
but they will all say the same thing:
“I will follow you.”


That is what we are called to do: Follow Christ,
Follow by listening for God’s still small voice
that voice that speaks to us in a hundred different ways
each day guiding us, helping us to follow more faithfully.
Calling us, always calling us,
to reach out, to grow, to do more
as we spread the gospel and do our part
to build the Kingdom here on earth.
There may well be times that that still small voice
calls to us to serve in a way that makes us uncomfortable,
or perhaps even frightens us a bit,
But we always – always - have the promise God makes to us
through the prophet Jeremiah:
“for surely I know the plans I have for you, …,
plans for your welfare and not for harm.”

Frederick Buechner, the Presbyterian minister and writer,
tells in his newest book the story of a little girl
who in a Christmas pageant blurted out unexpectedly,
“Let Jesus Show!”
Buechner writes, “Let Jesus show
in this church we have built for him --
the real Jesus – not the one we try to make of him,
but the one who sat there at that table in the upper room
with his disciples as they shared that last meal together.
And the only way we can let Jesus show
is for each of us to follow
follow the one who is the way, the truth, and the life.”

In a few minutes we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper together,
responding to the invitation of our Lord
to share in a meal that he has prepared for us,
a meal to renew us, refresh us,
grace us with deeper faith
so that we can follow more faithfully.

As you take take the bread and the cup
let the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ fill you;
Feel that Spirit, let it course its way through you
until it positively bursts through your fingertips.
And then say to God, say to Christ,
say to the Spirit:
Yes, yes, I will serve you!
Yes, I will show you to all the world!
Yes, Lord, I will follow you!

AMEN