Sunday Morning Alarmination

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
May 21, 2006
The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Sunday Morning Alarmination
John 14:15-17
1 John 5:1-5

For some it is an insistent buzz,
for others a clanging bell.
Some people have soothing music
that starts out quietly and grows louder by the minute.
A few even have elaborate computer programs
that tie lights and sounds together.
Anything, but something to awaken us each morning;
everyone has that necessity: the alarm clock.

The alarm goes off, interrupting us in our deep sleep.
We often dream in the early morning hours.
You might be lying on a beach in the Bahamas,
or sinking a 40 foot putt,
or about to accept the Publishers Clearing House
ten million dollar grand prize.
But it is inevitable that just when the waiter asks,
“may I freshen your drink?”
Just when the ball is about to drop into the cup;
just when you are about to take the prize check,
the alarm goes off, reality intrudes.

There is something so luxurious about holidays –
to know that you don’t have to set an alarm:
you can sleep until you wake.
A week from tomorrow, Memorial Day, is one of those days.
Turn off the alarm,
no need to set it.
In fact, look at it right before you turn off the light at night,
and let the clock know that come morning
it will have no power over you.

Most alarms have snooze buttons.
Clock manufacturers are smart:
they make the buttons big
knowing that we grope for them in our grogginess.
They also make the buttons tough,
knowing that we have a tendency to smack them
as if to say, “Go away. Not yet; it can’t be time.”
You may not be aware of this,
but there is a verb for this action:
when you hit the snooze button you are "alarminating".
When you hit it a second or third or fourth time,
you are "re-alarminating".

When we have to set our alarm clocks Monday through Friday,
it doesn’t seem fair that we should also have to set them
for Saturdays, but most people do, to do all the activities
they try to pack into that day.
Sunday, then, should be a day free from alarms.
Sunday morning alarmination just doesn’t seem right.
After all, doesn’t God tell us to rest on Sunday?
Doesn’t God tell us to take a day off?
Why then do we have to get up early?
Take a shower?
Find clean clothes,?
Get in the car?
and then spend an hour sitting, standing, singing.

And if the hour wasn’t bad enough,
you have to be nice to people,
nice to people as they ask you to serve on a committee,
or help with an activity,
or give more money.

No one in this year’s Confirmation Class asked the question:
asked why should we go to church,
why we have to go to church,
why we have to get up on Sunday morning.
I think they were too polite.
But I think that question has been on the mind of
almost every student in every Confirmation Class I have taught.
I know I had it when I was their age:
Wouldn’t life be so much easier if we didn’t bother with church;
did away with alarm clocks on Sunday
and just went about life trying to live by Jesus’teachings
and God’s commandments?

The answer is, of course, yes.
It would be easier.
Imagine if everyone did just that:
lived every moment of their lives
by Jesus’ teachings and God’s commandments.
But the reality is that no one does.
No one, not here in this church,
not in any church.
No one.
The only one who ever did was Jesus himself.

We are all human and we all veer off the path
that God wants us on.
We all say things and do things that are not faithful
to the teachings and commandments Jesus calls us to follow.
We all say and do things that we know we should not say or do.
We all make bad choices.

The words “choose” and “choice” form a thread
that runs through every Confirmation Class --
that life is filled with choices.
We talk about how Adam and Eve had two choices
set before them.
They could follow what God told them,
or they could follow what the serpent told them.
They made their choice – a bad choice.
Every one of us here continues to follow their lead;
we all are confronted with choices.
Sometimes we choose well,
sometimes we choose poorly.

Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote in his famous book
“How Good Do We Have to Be?”
“Religion is not the carping voice of condemnation,
telling us that the normal is sinful and
the well-intentioned mistake is an unforgivable transgression....
Religion is a voice that says,
I will guide you through this minefield of difficult … choices,
sharing with you the insights and experiences
of the greatest souls of the past,
and I will offer you comfort and forgiveness
when you are troubled by the painful choices you made.”

We come to church not to feel bad when we are
unmerciful, unkind, uncaring, unforgiving and unloving.
We come to church to open our eyes to our behavior
so that we see when we are unmerciful, unkind,
uncaring, unforgiving and unloving.
We come to church to learn when and where
we have made bad choices,
acted badly or spoken badly.
We come to church to help us learn how much richer life is
when we are merciful, kind, caring, forgiving, and loving,
and not just to people we like, people we think of as friends,
but to all, including those people we may disagree with,
those people we may not even like.

We come to church to renew and refresh ourselves
to learn, to grow.
Of course, sometimes that is hard even in church.
Churches are not filled with perfectly pious people,
Churches are filled with men and women who are
filled with flaws, foibles, faults and failures.
We come to church to learn to accept and love them
even with their flaws, foibles, faults, and failures.
We come to church to learn that we too
have our own flaws, foibles, faults and failures.

We come to church to learn why Paul calls this
the Body of Christ,
that the church is not a building,
not an institution;
The church is people
a rich mixture of different attitudes,
different ethnicities. different ages
different backgrounds,
different political persuasions,
even different languages.
God calls us to church to help us learn to accept diversity
in every sense of the word, including diversity of opinion.

We come to church to learn how to stop talking,
to stop talking and learn to listen,
listen to one another, that through one another
we might hear God’s voice.
We come to church to learn that God is more likely
to speak to you through the voice
of the person you are least likely to want to listen to,
than through someone you are close to, or think well of.
We come to church to learn why James, the brother of Jesus,
tells us that the thoughtless tongue, “stains the whole body.”
(James 3:6)

We are called to church by God through the Holy Spirit
to help us focus on what really matters.
And what really matters?
Does money really matter?
No, of course not. God will see to it
that we have what we need.
Do things and possessions matter?
No, everything eventually turns to rust, rot, and dust.
Clothes go out of fashion,
iPods break,
and what was yesterday’s “must have”
is tomorrow’s donation to the Goodwill.

What matters?
Only one thing: love.
God calls us to church to remind us that
nothing should ever get in the way of love.
Love that that is freely given,
even if it is not returned.

Not everyone who goes to church faithfully every Sunday
faithfully follows Jesus’ teachings.
And not everyone who faithfully follows Jesus’ teachings
goes to church every Sunday.
Frederick Buechner puts the two groups in two different circles.
The first group he calls the visible church.
The second he calls the invisible church.
Buechner tells us that the real church,
the church of Jesus Christ is where the two groups
become one.
And that happens only when we work at our faith
and take it seriously, working with one another
in humilty, kindness, and goodness.

Sunday is not just about “going to church,
it is about taking part in the activity
by which God is shaping a new creation.
It is a foretaste [of what awaits us in God’s heavenly kingdom].”
[Dorothy Bass]
Every Sunday is Easter, a joyful celebration of the resurrection,
a joyful acknowledgement of the love God gives us in Jesus Christ,
the love we know and feel through the Holy Spirit.
Sunday is a day for us to acknowledge, as John tells us,
that following Jesus’ commandments and teachings
is not a burden; it is liberating, filling us with a sense
of peace and purpose.
Next Sunday, and the Sunday after that,
and every Sunday, when the alarm goes off,
that awful alarm that rattles us
out of that wonderful world of sleep,
don’t alarminate, not even once.
Get up and embrace the day, the Lord’s Day,
the Sabbath, the day given you as a gift from God,
give you for rest, for refreshment, for nourishment
a day to be fed spiritually
Get up and feel yourself bathed in God’s love,
God’s everpresent love, God’s renewing love.

Sunday is a day to truly reflect on your blessings,
A day to feel joy and peace
a day to listen,
a day to respond to God’s goodness and mercy,
and yes, a day to reflect on the bad choices you made
in the past week, and work to make better choices.

Sunday is never a day to alarminate.
It is day truly to rise and shine.
Sunday is the day to say,
“This is the day that the Lord has made
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
Psalm 118:24

AMEN