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