Keep It Holy

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 24, 2006
The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Keep It Holy
Nehemiah 8:1-8
Luke 4:14-20

Sunday morning – The Dream:
Your pillow purrs to you:
“Yes, you can roll over for another 10 minutes.”
Your blanket whispers to you,
“don’t go; it’s cold out there, but I will keep you warm”.
Sunday morning:
when the coffee smells richer,
the newspaper seems somehow more enticing;
when the day stretches ahead almost endlessly
and you think just how much you can get done
as soon as you finish the newspaper
and that second stack of pancakes,
bursting with fresh blueberries.

Ah, but Sunday morning the reality intrudes.
The alarm goes off, the pillow doesn’t purr,
the blanket is in tangles at your feet.
Sunday morning and you are off to church.

We all struggle to get ourselves up and out on Sunday morning.
Families with children seem to have a particularly difficult time.
The logistics of getting everyone ready is hard enough,
but then there is always that question,
that question that has been asked dozens times,
but is still asked yet again:
“why do we have to go to church?”
And the answers come in as many varieties
as there are Sundays in a year.
And when all else fails, there is that ultimate parental response,
the one that ends all conversations:
“We are going to church because I say so.”

Why do we go to church?
Why do we worship?
Why do we get ourselves out of bed,
without the pancakes,
and with a fast gulp of coffee
and come here on Sunday?
Well, the answer is simple:
because the answer comes straight from the parent’s mouth:
We come to church because God says so.

Don’t you remember your Sunday School lessons?
What did Moses bring down the mountain with him?
They were called “Commandments.”
“Commandments”, with a capital “C”.
God did not give Moses the “Ten Suggestions”,
or the “Ten Things to Think About”,
or the “Ten Things to Do
when you don’t have anything else to do.”
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

And the Fourth Commandment is as clear
and straightforward as can be:
“remember the Sabbath day,
and keep it holy.”
(Exodus 20:8)
That’s the command:
Set the day apart,
consecrate it, hallow it --
The Sabbath,
the Lord’s day, as we now call it.

And part of keeping it,
part of keeping it holy and sacred, is worshipping.
Worshipping together, not by yourself,
but as part of the covenantal community
God has created here.
“Worship is a first-person plural activity”
as one writer once put it.
It is something we do together, we, all of us
the community of faith.
We come here to encounter the Holy
by listening, learning, singing, praying,
praising, and just being still.

We worship together,
young and old,
families together – let me say that again,
families together, young people sitting with their parents,
and parents with their children to help them learn about worship.

We worship because God commands us to worship,
We worship because God calls us through his Holy Spirit
to worship.
God’s call is what keeps us from falling back asleep after
we’ve hit the snooze button the second time;
it’s what gets us out of bed, and gets us going.

We gather here in this Sanctuary,
but we could worship anywhere.
Our summer worship services out on the side yard
are just as faithful
as the most elaborate service we have here.
The where of worship is not as important as the what.
There are certain things we must do in order to worship faithfully,
to assure that we are keeping the day holy.
In the Reformed tradition we have identified
four components of worship that we must have,
four elements that we must weave into our worship service.

The first is easy to figure out:
the Word of the Lord as it comes to us through the Bible.
We have to read from the text.
Old Testament, New Testament: either, both,
it doesn’t matter.
We simply must have a reading.
It is what Ezra was doing before all the people:
reading from the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible
that we often call the books of Moses.
And almost 500 years later,
it is what Jesus was doing in the synagogue:
reading from the Book of Isaiah.

The second element that we must have
also has roots in our two lessons:
after we hear the word, we then interpret it,
talk about it, learn from it so we understand.
Did you hear in our first lesson,
“So they read from the book, from the law of God,
with interpretation. They gave the sense,
so that people understood the reading.”
(Nehemiah 8:8)
In that verse we have the roots of our modern day sermon.
It is what Jesus did after he read from the scroll of Isaiah;
He stood to read from the scroll,
and then he sat down to teach,
the custom in Jesus’ time.

Can we interpret the word in other ways?
Of course. Think about the children’s Christmas pageant.
What are they doing?
They are interpreting the birth narratives
from Matthew and Luke.
We can interpret through music, as well.
Or dance, or drama.
Over the centuries we have expanded the ways
in which we can interpret.
We have also shortened considerably
the time we spend interpreting.
Did you hear in the lesson from Nehemiah,
“He read… from early morning until midday…”
Keep that phrase in mind the next time
worship runs a few minutes longer than 60 minutes.


What is our third element, the third thing we must do?
Pray!
We must lift up our voices in prayer to God.
We offer prayers of adoration,
prayers of confession,
prayers of thanksgiving,
prayers asking for help for ourselves,
prayers asking for help for others.
Prayers that cause us to be still so we can listen,
and hear God’s voice.
We pray with heads bowed and hands clasped;
We pray as well when we stand and
open our hymnals and sing out.
Every time we sing, we are praying:
we are lifting up our voices to God.

So that leaves us with the fourth essential,
the fourth “must-have.”
Is it a Call to worship?
A benediction?
An affirmation of faith?
One of the two sacraments?
The fourth element that we must have is an offering.
We must have an offering.
It is not a worship service without an offering,
an opportunity for us to respond, to bring our “firstfruits” to God.
to bring our tithes to do the work of the Lord.
It is not a collection;
it is an offering each of us gives and gives freely
in response to God’s teaching
and in response to God’s blessings.

Did you notice that we put the offering plates
on the Lord’s Table this morning?
That was intentional.
They will be there each Sunday,
before and after we receive the offering,
as a reminder of God’s call to us to tithe,
to give freely as we have been freely given.

So there you have them, the four pillars of our worship service:
Reading from the Bible,
Interpretation,
Prayer,
and an Offering.
How we put all those together differs from church to church,
but as long as we have the foundation, the pillars
we have a worship service.

Now most church sanctuaries are set up like ours for worship:
worship leaders up on a platform, just like Ezra,
the congregation out on the floor in pews or chairs.
In many megachurches the sanctuaries are auditoriums
and the platform is a stage.
Worship services have taken on a theatrical feeling,
with the congregation as audience,
the worship leaders as the actors,
and of course, God as prompter, inspiring the service.

But more than a century ago, the philosopher
Soren Kierkegaard turned this model on its head.
He argued that the congregation – you - are the actors,
the worship leaders are the prompters,
and God is the audience.
And I think he’s right.

Worship is your opportunity to encounter God;
each of us, and all of us are here to feel ourselves
in the presence of God.
Deborah and I as the worship leaders prompt
by providing words, songs, prayers, and lessons.
We prompt so that you can respond,
and engage with God,
who really is not a passive audience,
that’s where I would disagree with Kierkegaard:
God is actively engaged in our worship through his Holy Spirit.

Long ago the Psalmist sang in joyful praise,
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord…
my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God,
…for a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.”
(Psalm 84)

Experience what the Psalmist felt on the Sabbath.
Reach for that feeling each Sabbath, every Sabbath.
Come worship each Sunday.
Come because God commands you.
Come because you know
that there is no better way to be renewed,
to be refreshed,
to be restored,
to be centered, re-focused, energized,
filled with peace,
calmed, assured,
to know love.
Come join the Psalmist
and “sing to the Lord a new song,
sing to the Lord…
For honor and majesty are before him,
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary;
[We shall] bring an offering and come into his courts.
[As we] worship the Lord in holy splendor.” (Psalm 96)
As we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
AMEN

I’ll Have To Get Back To You

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 17, 2006
The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I’ll Have To Get Back To You
Jonah 1:1-3
Mark 4:21-25

I put the key in the door and turned the latch.
The door swung open with a groan,
the stale air was ripe with mildew.
The cinderblock walls wore a tired,
dingy coat of band-aid brown.
The dresser wobbled and the light on the desk didn’t work.
I stopped for a minute and looked up at the ceiling,
closed my eyes and asked,
“Are you sure this is what you want me to do?”

I knew the answer even before I lifted up my prayer.
In fact I had known the answer for months
before that day ten years ago
when I arrived on the campus of Princeton Theological Seminary
as a student on the path to ordination as a minister
of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church.

I had had the answer for the better part of a year,
since that day when I’d sat in the gothic splendor
of the Kings College Chapel
on the campus of Cambridge University in England.
I was in the middle of a week-long business trip to London,
a trip that ran from Wednesday to the following Tuesday,
so on Saturday I decided to take a quick visit
up to Cambridge, to see the university
and browse the bookshops.
When I toured the Chapel I noticed that
an Evensong Service was scheduled
for that afternoon at 4:30;
I resolved to return.
As I sat there before the service began,
the silence of the small group of us preparing to worship,
soared to the very heights of the vaulted ceiling above us.
I knew as I sat there that it was time for me
to change the path I was on.
I knew that God was calling,
calling me to serve in a new and different way.
Now this was most definitely
NOT one of those Hollywood moments,
with the clouds parting,
the heavenly host singing across the skies,
a great voice booming from the heavens.
No, in the quiet before the service began,
I finally listened to what God had been saying to me for years,
I finally paid attention.
In the silence, I finally heard.
“Let anyone with ears to hear listen.”

Up until that time, I had done my best to be a 20th century Jonah,
adept, even eager at running away from God’s call.
Over the years I had done my best to re-interpret God’s call.
I had used my lawyerly and business skills
to deconstruct God’s call and reassemble it
in a way that suited me,
in a way that I found more to my liking,
in a way that fit what I wanted to do with my life.

God had been calling for more than ten years,
and I had become expert at running, dodging, deflecting.
I had become expert at not listening.
I had become so good at saying, “thanks for thinking of me,
but you know now is a really bad time.”

But it was always there in spite of my running:
that feeling, that tugging.
The great Scottish preacher Peter Marshall,
referred to it as a “tap on the shoulder.”
A “tap on the shoulder from the chief.”

I interpreted the tug, the feeling, the tap,
as a call to more active service as a volunteer in the church;
to more cheerful service as a committee member,
Sunday School teacher, trustee, an elder.
Over the years I kept hoping the feeling would go away,
and I took on new hope when a change in jobs took me
from Buffalo to New York City.
I thought, perfect: a new home, new job, new people,
new church: I would finally be rid of that feeling.
It was going to be easier than boarding a boat to Tarshish.

But of course, the feeling did not go away;
It was there with me a year after my move
as I sat in the chapel.
But then, what did I do?
I ran away again: as soon as l left Cambridge,
as soon as I went back to work on Monday,
I ran away from it yet again,
tried to ignore it, put it off.

God in his infinite patience let me drift along
for another couple of months
but then tugged, tapped, and pulled all at once,
and this time I knew I needed to pay attention.
I telephoned one of the pastors at my church
and asked if I could come talk with her.
She was a wonderful pastor, a wise and faithful woman,
and she helped me to understand
that God was trying to get my attention,
that I needed to listen,
as I had done in the chapel at Kings College.
But I needed to do one more thing:
I needed to stop running and respond;
I needed to act.

I listened to God speaking through her,
and then I did act; slowly at first, with tentative steps.
I went out and visited Princeton Seminary;
I filled out an admissions application;
I then took a big step and completed one of those forms
those of you who have children in college know so well:
the financial aid forms.
I told my landlord that I was not going to renew my lease;
and I resigned from my job.

And then came that day,
that day when I stood there in the doorway
of that dreary dorm room,
a student in the Master of Divinity Program
at Princeton Theological Seminary.
It made no sense:
It had been more than 15 years since I had last sat in a classroom.
Now I was going to eat in the cafeteria;
share a bathroom that was down the hall;
live with most of my furniture and possessions
in a storage unit that was larger than my dorm room.
I struggled with the reality that I was older
than most of the other students;
closer in age to my professors.
That point was drilled home to me on my second day,
when one of my new classmates, a young woman,
asked if she could sit with me at lunch.
Before even taking a bite from her sandwich,
she looked me straight in the eye and said,
“So – what’s your story? Mid-life crisis?”

But it was not a mid-life crisis;
it was a mid-life opportunity,
an opportunity God had set before me years earlier,
but which I had run from for years.
It was a mid-life opportunity because
I stopped running;
It was an opportunity because I finally listened to God;
It was an opportunity because
for the first time in my life
I chose to trust in God completely.
to “walk by faith and not by sight..”
(2 Cor. 5:7)

Peter Marshall put it this way,
“A man walks on through life –
with the external call ringing in his ear
but with no response stirring in his heart,
and then, …, the Spirit taps him on the shoulder.
…The ‘tap on the shoulder’ is the almighty power of God acting….
acting to produce a new creature,
and to lead him into the particular work which God has for him.”

Now ordained ministers are not the only ones
God taps on the shoulder.
God taps us all on the shoulder,
calls us all to live our faith,
calls us all to be transformed,
to become new creations in Christ,
calls us all to ministry in the name of Jesus Christ.
As Carolyn Russell reminded the Elders at our last Session meeting,
we are God’s hands:
if you and I don’t do God’s work,
it simply won’t get done.

But who among us doesn’t have our Jonah side,
the part of us that runs away.
The part of us that says to God, as I had,
“Thanks for thinking of me,
but you know, now just really isn’t a good time.
I’ll have to get back to you.”

Do you see what happens when you do that?
You miss an opportunity,
and God loses a hand.
You miss an opportunity
and a part of God’s work doesn’t get done,
a part of the Kingdom of God doesn’t get built.

Do you see what you are doing
when you respond to God’s tug, God’s tap,
God’s call to service by saying to him,
“just let me get through the next two months,
oh, yes, and then the holidays.
Right after the first of the year,
I promise to help,
although now that I think about it,
it will have to wait until after the trip south;
late January, early February, for sure.”
Don’t you see what you are doing?
You are sailing away from God
just as surely as Jonah did.

Close your eyes…. close your eyes,
Close your eyes and be still.
Be still, listen to the silence.
……………………..
Do you feel it?
Do you hear it?
A tug, a tap, a call?
That is God calling you to service,
here, now.
Not right after the first of the year.
Not when it is more convenient.
Now, because God needs you,
needs you to be his hands
his hands, his arms,
his loving presence.

What is God calling you to do?
Where is God calling you to serve?
Make time again to be still, to be quiet,
to listen.
Listen and you will hear;
Listen and you will learn.

There is no shortage of opportunities here in this church.
There isn’t a ministry team,
a group, a committee that couldn’t use help,
couldn’t use some extra hands.
Many of our ministry teams have two or three people,
when they should have six, seven, eight.
Here’s just one example: Mishelle Noble-Blair is our Elder
heading up this year’s Stewardship Campaign.
She’s looking for folks to help her.
Perhaps God is calling you to join her team
so you can learn why Stewardship is about so much more
than just raising funds,
so you can learn that Stewardship is not just
something to be done in the fall;
so you can learn that serving on the
Stewardship Ministry Team can even by fun.

“Pay attention to what you hear,” says our Lord, our Teacher.
"The measure you give will be the measure you get.”
If you put in only a little effort,
you won’t get much in return.
But if you give your all, put in your all,
if you learn to walk by faith and not by sight,
riches will overflow in your life;
I can,
I do,
I will testify to that.

God is calling you even now,
and waiting for you,
waiting for your yes, your unconditional yes,
your yes to be his hands, his arms, his back,
your yes to be his love.
Don’t run away from God.
Don’t put God on hold.
Listen for God’s voice in your life
and then respond confidently,
enthusiastically….joyfully:
“Here am I, Lord. Send me.”
AMEN

Kid Stuff

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 10, 2006
The 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Kid Stuff
Isaiah 30:18-22
Luke 11:1-11

A few summers ago Pat and I headed to the coast of Maine
for a week’s vacation.
We stayed at a small inn right on the edge of Penobscot Bay.
The briny scent of the cool ocean breeze
was a welcome tonic
to the stifling heat and humidity of mid August.
We took our bags to our cottage
and then stepped out on the deck to take in the view:
we looked out upon dozens and dozens of buoys
bobbing up and down in the bay,
each marking lobster traps.
We breathed in the salty air and knew
what we would be eating for dinner that night.

A couple sat on the deck in front of the cottage next to ours.
They were relaxing in the late afternoon sun:
the man with his nose deep in a newspaper,
the woman immersed in a book.
We stopped and said hello, as folks do in small inns,
and we quickly found ourselves engaged in conversation.
We learned that they were heading home the next day,
back to Philadelphia, after a week in Maine.
As we continued to talk, the man told us that he taught at
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
I had gone to Wharton right after college
and earned a graduate degree,
a masters degree in business administration.
Over the years I had stayed connected with the school
and worked there part-time while I was in Seminary,
editing papers for faculty and writing articles
for the school’s internet business journal,
but I did not recognize the man.

We finally exchanged names and when he told us his,
I almost burst out laughing.
I turned to Pat and said,
“He was one of my professors when I was a student.”
I then turned back to him and said,
“You taught the Business Law course I took
in the fall of my first year.
I remember you very well.
You were the best teacher I had.”
With that, he beamed, and jumped up, ran into his cottage
and came out a few seconds later with a bottle of wine,
which he handed to me.
“Anyone who feeds my ego like that” he said,
“deserves a bottle of wine!”

I learned that he had been teaching business law
part-time at the school for almost 30 years
even as he built a successful legal practice
in downtown Philadelphia.
He was a remarkable teacher,
even though it was only a part-time profession for him.
He was able to take a dry subject - business law -
and turn it into something interesting,
something exciting, something we students found engaging.
He was not an easy teacher; in fact he was very demanding.
But all of us in the class worked hard for him,
because we knew he was working hard for us.

There is something very special about a great teacher.
We have all had them:
Someone who stimulates us, inspires us,
awakens in us a desire to learn.
Great teachers are not easy graders
nor are they light with the homework.
In fact, they are more likely to be demanding,
holding students to very high expectations.
But they do so because they know that their students
can not only meet those expectations,
but often exceed them.
And they are never expect more from their students
than they do from themselves.

We all have had someone we thought of as a great teacher:
someone who was firm but fair,
who was serious, yet could laugh and smile,
someone whose passion for the subject
was positively infectious.
Who are you picturing in your mind right now?
Someone from elementary school?
Middle School? High School?
College?
Everyone has a picture:
more than two hundred people picturing
more than two hundred different teachers.

Stop for a minute and consider this, though:
even though we all might have different pictures
in our minds right now, we all have one great teacher in common:
for when we talk about great teachers,
we cannot overlook our Lord Jesus Christ.
After all, the term that was used most frequently in the gospels
to refer to Jesus was “rabbi”, which means, “teacher”.
Jesus was a master teacher.
He was demanding;
His expectations were high.
And the high standards he set for his disciples,
are just as applicable to you and me today.

He wants to teach us,
wants us to learn from him.
He wants us to use that phrase we heard in our lesson,
“Lord, teach us”.
and the corollary: “Lord, help us to learn.
Open our minds and our hearts to your teaching.”

When Jesus taught, he did not stuff his disciples’ minds
with bits and pieces to memorize.
He wanted his disciples to think;
he wants us to think,
for that’s the foundation of learning.
Don’t you remember from last week’s lesson
how Jesus shared God’s complaint about practices
that we commit to memory;……that we learn by rote?
We say words without thinking about them.
That’s not what Jesus wants us to learn;
it is not how he teaches us.

So, when he responded to his disciples’ request
“Lord, teach us to pray”
he did not give them words to memorize;
What he did was teach them how to pray,
how to talk with God.

Jesus gave his disciples a few sentences,
but he didn’t bother to explain each sentence,
what he meant with each word, each phrase.
He left it to his disciples,
he left it to us,
to figure out what we were saying.
So, we can and should ask,
why is the version we find in Matthew’s gospel different
from the version we heard from Luke?
How is different?
Should we say “sins”, or “debts”, or “trespasses”?
Why is the prayer we will say in a few minutes
different from both versions we find in the gospels?

Jesus moved on to the parable,
the text following the prayer:
and the lesson that Jesus wanted his disciples to learn,
wants us to learn,
is that we are to pray, and keep praying
to pray without ceasing, as Paul puts it.
We are to persevere in prayer.
We are to be in continuous conversation with God,
talking, lifting up our concerns to God,
and, just as important, listening,
listening,
listening for that “still small voice” to respond to us.

We are to persevere so we will learn
that God not only hears every prayer,
but also answers every prayer.

We are to persevere in prayer so we will learn that
while God answers every prayer,
God may not answer your prayer your way,
in the way you want,
or in your time;
that God will answer your prayer
in God’s time and in God’s way.

We are to persevere in prayer
so we will learn that no matter how God answers our prayers
the answer will always grounded in love.

We are to persevere in prayer so we will learn that
sometimes answers may elude us;
that the answer to our prayer may be acceptance,
rather than understanding.
This is one of the hardest lessons for us to learn,
but the poet Emily Dickinson helps us with her poem:
“I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder of his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.”

We are to persevere in prayer so that we will learn
that God will teach us now, if we let him,
and God will teach us in the life to come.

We are about to begin a new year of learning,
a new year of teaching.
as we begin Sunday School.
Our children will be reading through their Bibles
in the weeks and months ahead
learning all those wonderful stories:
Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel;
Abraham and Sara; Moses leading the children of Israel
through the wilderness;
David and Goliath; Solomon and his Temple;
Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene,
and, of course, Jesus.

But if our children forget stories,
or dates, or places, but learn to pray,
learn to talk to God and listen to God,
then we will have taught them well.
If a child thinks Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife,
or thinks that Jesus was a native son
because he was born of a Virginian,
but keeps praying, persevering in prayer
as he walks through life,
even in the face of difficulty, pain, and loss,
then we will have taught him or her well.

Learning is not kid stuff,
it is for all of us.
There is no one among us whose learning is done,
who doesn’t have more Jesus could teach him or her.
Our Lord will teach us, every one of us,
teach us just he taught his disciples,
teach us in worship, teach us in classrooms,
teach us as we work in ministry teams
teach us as we reach out in mission work,
teach us as we pray, pray for ourselves,
pray for one another.

Parker Palmer, a man of deep faith
and an expert on education, has written,
“good education is always more process than product.”
Jesus provided his disciples with a process;
Jesus provides us with a process: a process called prayer
a way for us to learn, a way for us to grow.

Our teacher, our greatest teacher is here with us now,
and will be with each of us as we walk through our day today,
tomorrow, every day.
Our greatest teacher will be with each of us
to help us to pray, to talk, and to listen,
so that
“when we turn to the right
or when we turn to the left,
our ears shall hear a word behind us saying,
“This is the way, walk in it.”

AMEN

That's Good, But...

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 3, 2006
The 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

That’s Good, But
Mark 7:1-8
James 1:17-27

Our lesson from Mark is not one
we want our children to hear, do we?
What parent doesn’t find himself or herself
repeating that familiar phrase before every meal:
“Did you wash your hands?”
And then we hear Jesus teaching us
that we don’t have to wash our hands,
that we can actually come to the dinner table with dirty hands.
From sandbox to spaghetti,
from mud to meatloaf
from dirt to dinner
without that agonizing detour to sink and soap.
And all God’s children lifted up their voices in praise:
Way to go, Jesus!

What is Jesus doing here?
The Pharisees were the leaders of the religious community,
followers of the Lord God,
the leaders at the Temple --
not, by the way, the Temple Solomon built,
the Temple we heard about last week,
but the one that was rebuilt more than 400 years later
after Solomon’s Temple was destroyed.
The Pharisees were men who took their faith,
their religion very seriously.
The rules that governed their rituals and practices
had been collected over more than thousand years,
rules with their roots in Scripture, Torah,
and especially in the book of Leviticus.
Ritual handwashing,
along with ritual washing of pots and other utensils,
had become an important part of preparation before a meal.

And then Jesus came along and was neither respectful, nor polite.
His words were harsh as he condemned the Pharisees as hypocrites.
He quoted from the prophet Isaiah;
God spoke through the prophet more than 600 years earlier,
spoke of his exasperation with his people,
how they preferred ritual, tradition,
practices and rules they had developed,
to living according to God’s laws:
“These people draw near with their mouths
and honor me with the lips
while their hearts are far from me.
and their worship of me is a human commandment,
learned by rote…” (Isaiah 29:13)

That described the Pharisees;
in fact it described most of God’s children.
There was nothing in Scripture that demanded
that they wash their hands before a meal.
The rules the Pharisees were following
were rules they had made up,
their own traditions, their own practices.
It may have made for elaborate and impressive ritual,
but Jesus’ reaction was blunt, direct:
“what’s that got to do with love, mercy,
kindness, goodness,
What it got to do with following God’s laws?”

A thousand years earlier,
Moses tried to make things clear for the Israelites
as they stood on the east bank of the Jordan River,
gazing upon the land promised them by God,
the land they were about to enter
following their years in the wilderness.
“What does the Lord your God require of you?” Moses asked.
“Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways,
to love him, to serve the Lord your God
with all your heart
and with all your soul,
and to keep the commandments of the Lord your God…”
(Deuteronomy 10:12)
How simple was that?
Love God and follow God’s commandments –
all ten of them.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The prophet Micah reinforced Moses’ teachings
with his words, “what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly before God.”
(Micah 6:8)
Simple, straightforward,
not complicated.

And yet what do we humans do?
We wander off the path,
away from what matters to God,
substituting our own way for God’s way,
our own will for God’s will,
substituting ritual for faithfulness.

We don’t want Jesus to react to what we do
in the same way he reacted to the practices of the Pharisees,
but Jesus expects a great deal from us as his disciples,
as his followers.
He expects nothing less than our transformation.
Jesus is always asking us,
always putting the question before us,
are we really doers, doers of God’s word,
or are we merely hearers,
thinking that we are doers because we do
what we want to do?
Jesus asks us:
“In what you are doing,
are you serving God,
or serving yourself?”
Are you walking in God’s ways,
or in your way?
Are you serving God with all your heart and all your soul?
Are you working for justice?
Are you living and sharing kindness?
Are you walking humbly before God?
Are you sharing the good news
of God’s love and mercy?
Are you looking after the orphan and the widow?

Are we doers of the Word:
doers of the Word of the Lord,
the Word that is really so simple:
The Word that is Jesus Christ…
the Word that is love.

We can say, yes, we are doers.
But how easy it would be for Jesus to respond to us with
“that’s good but…”
“But what are you doing to work for peace?
But what are you doing to look after the poor?
You say you are a doer, and yet tomorrow
30,000 children under the age of 5 will die,
most from malnutrition.
What are you going to do tomorrow?
And what will you do on Tuesday when another 30,000 die?
And what will you do on Wednesday?

Just one hungry child,
just one frightened woman,
just one elderly man living alone
and there is more to be done,
more for us to do as disciples of Christ.

We are about to be fed,
fed and filled,
fed by God and filled by the Holy Spirit,
through a meal prepared for us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
The invitation to this table comes to us
not because of anything we have done.
The invitation comes by grace alone.

As you take the bread and the cup,
lift up a prayer for guidance,
guidance for how you can be a more faithful doer,
a more focused laborer.
Ask God for guidance for how we as a community
can be a church of more faithful doers.
Ask God to help you turn from the distractions that fill your life,
fill all our lives,
the rituals, traditions – all those things
that block your path of doing God’s will,
following God’s way.

For what does God require of us?
Do justice,
love kindness,
walk humbly.
Love the Lord, love one another
with all our hearts, and all our souls.
As the ad campaign tells us,
just do it.
AMEN