“…ing.”

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 29, 2006
The 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Reformation Sunday

“…ing.”
Mark 10:46-52
Acts 15:36-41

I am preaching;
you are listening;
we are worshiping.

The verbs are in the active voice:
we are actively involved in the actions:
you are listening here and now,
we are worshiping here and now.
An hour ago I would have said, “I will preach.”
An hour from now I will say, “I preached.”
But now, I am preaching.
Active voice, active involvement:
I am in the moment, doing it.

So when we read in our Book of Order
that we are not just the church reformed,
but the church reforming, (G-2.0200)
we have to interpret that as active voice,
that we are actively involved here and now,
that our Reformation did not happen,
but is something that is happening,
something that will continue to happen.

We speak of the Presbyterian Church as being part of
the Reformed tradition,
the tradition that sprang out of the Reformation.
But what the Book of Order helps us to remember is that
the Reformation was not a historical point in time,
something that happened some 500 years ago.
The Reformation is something that started in the 16th century
and is continuing here and now,
as we continue the reforming process in our church.

We are the church reforming,
not the church reformed,
but the church reforming.
Which means we are a work in process,
our work is not done.

Reformation Sunday provides us with an opportunity
to look back over our history since that day in 1517
when a Roman Catholic priest named Martin Luther
wrote out a list of things that he thought
was wrong with the church.
It was a list that focused on corrupt practices
that he thought directed the faithful away from God,
away from Christ,
away from what Scripture taught.
Luther’s list was long: 95 different concerns and complaints.
Legend has it that he tacked his list to the door of his church
in Wittenburg Germany.

Luther was quickly condemned for his actions:
a parish priest who had the audacity to question authority,
to question his superiors,
to question the institution that he was part of.
His loyalty was questioned;
His faith was questioned;
He was dismissed as a drunkard
who would, church leaders hoped, realize the errors of his ways
once he sobered up.

A few years after posting his list
he was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church --
tossed out for his views.
But he stood firm in his convictions
that the church was in need of reform.
He was soon joined by others,
including a French lawyer and theologian named John Calvin.
It was Calvin who laid down the foundation
for what we now call the Protestant tradition.

Luther and Calvin both argued that the church had become
built more on man-made thoughts and ideas
than on what the Lord taught through scripture.
They argued that the church needed to be
brought back to the basics.
Calvin was hardly tactful or diplomatic in giving his opinion.
His writings are strong, often angry.
As just one example, he wrote of worship
as it was practiced in the churches
in the mid-16th century, as having “been deformed
by a diverse and unbearable mass of superstitions.”
(Institutes, 4.2.2)

The sale of indulgences was a particularly
sore point for the Reformers.
They argued that it was completely faithless to suggest that
you could be forgiven your sins by paying the priest a fee,
that you could in effect buy yourself out of trouble.
Forgiveness is ours from God through Jesus Christ --
that’s what we learn through the Scripture.
None of us needs a clergyperson to intercede for us,
because we all have Jesus as our mediator.
That is the biblical teaching that the Reformers
argued should be followed.

The Reformers raised questions about the Sacraments;
They asked why the church observed 7 Sacraments.
The Reformers argued that a Sacrament, a holy mystery,
should be only something Christ instructed us to do,
ordained us to do.
After reading carefully through the Scriptures,
the Reformers made their case that there were but two practices
that ought to be considered Sacramental,
that our Lord ordered us to do:
the Lord’s Supper and
the administration of Baptism.

They were not saying that the other practices were not important;
all they were saying was that they were not sacramental,
that Christ did not tell us to “do this”.
So, in the reformed tradition, marriage is a “gift given by God,
blessed by our Lord Jesus and sustained by the Holy Spirit.”
Marriage is something to be held in honor and esteem.
But marriage is not a Sacrament.
Confirmation, with its public profession of faith,
is an important step in the life of our young people,
a wonderful rite in the faith journey of our young adults.
But Confirmation is not a Sacrament.
The ordination of men and women to the office of Deacon,
Elder, or Minister of Word and Sacrament is important,
indeed vital to the church,
but it is not a Sacrament.

Luther, Calvin and others grounded their arguments in Scripture:
The Reformers looked to the Bible for answers.
So, for example, in the case of worship,
as we talked about a few weeks back,
Scripture teaches us what the core elements are
that we must have in a worship service.
If we are faithful to Scripture, we can be confident
that Calvin would not refer to what we are doing
as an “unbearable mass of superstition.”

But even when we think we have found the answers
grounded in Scripture,
we have to remember that if we are always reforming
it means we have to be willing to go back constantly
and take a fresh look at what we do.
Two hundred years ago we believed
there was ample support in the Bible
for the institution of slavery.
A little more than fifty years ago we read the Bible and concluded
that there was ample support prohibiting the ordination of women
to the office of Deacon or Elder,
or Minister of Word and Sacrament.

In a church that is Reforming,
we look at the Bible as a living book;
not something written in stone 2000 years ago,
but the living words of men and women
inspired by God through the Holy Spirit,
that we read with the help of the Holy Spirit
so that we can put the words
into practice here and now.
Scholar John Leith reminds us that
“reformed theology has always been intensely biblical”.
(Lieth, 100)

The book of Acts tells us the story
of the birth of the church of Jesus Christ.
As the apostles fanned out
and took the gospel out into the world,
small groups of men and women who heard the word
and responded to it began to gather to worship.
They gathered secretly in the predawn hours
on Sunday morning to remember the Resurrection.
Every Sunday was Easter for the early followers of Christ.
But even as they gathered, even as they worshiped,
we have to remember that Jesus left no instruction manual,
no Book of Order,
so every group that gathered
tended to do things their own way.
It was the apostle Paul who tried to bring some
systematic thinking to how the churches were organized
so that things would be done not only faithfully,
but also decently and in order.
His letters to churches in Corinth, Ephesus, Colossae,
Thessalonica, Philippi, Rome,
and throughout the region of Galatia
each are a little different,
each a response to how the men and women
in each community were worshiping
and practicing their faith.
Some of the letters praised the followers,
while others rebuked and chastised
those to whom Paul was writing.

In our lesson we heard that Paul was eager to
“return and visit the believers in every city where [he had]
proclaimed the word of the Lord
[so that he could] see how they [were] doing.” (Acts 15:36),
He knew that every group, no matter how well intentioned,
needed continuous help,
needed to work continuously at reformation.
And, as we learned in our lesson, his follow up visits
served to strengthen the churches further,
served to help them with their reforming.

That idea of ongoing reformation,
of being reforming, and not reformed,
faded quickly, though, after the death of Peter, Paul
and the original followers of Christ.
Before the end of the first century, churches were going off
in as many directions as there were churches.
At the beginning of the last book in the Bible,
the book of Revelation,
we find letters to seven churches,
each short letter a plea for reform,
each with the final line,
“Let anyone who has an ear
listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches”
(Revelation 2:29ff)

We need to keep our ears open and listen constantly to the Spirit.
But the reality is, we don’t.
We get comfortable with the way we do things,
with our traditions, our practices.
The answer to the question,
“why do we do things that way?”,
ends up, “because we have always done it that way.”
We continue down that path, no longer a reforming church,
and we open ourselves up to trouble, including
having “light bulb” jokes written about us:
“How many Presbyterians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Seven: one to change the bulb
and six to complain about how much better
they thought the old bulb was.”

We become as blind as Bartimaeus to the need for change.
And only Christ himself can open our eyes.
The Catch-22 we find ourselves in is that
if we are Reforming, we will know when we are blind,
and know when to ask Christ to open our eyes.
If we are not reforming, we won’t recognize our blindness,
we will deny it,
convinced that we are just fine as we are,
and unable then to ask Christ for help.

It was Augustine who wrote that our hearts are restless
until they come to rest in God.
A Reforming church is always filled with a sense of restlessness
as we seek to be more attentive to God’s call
to us through the Spirit.
We are always called by the Spirit to
be looking anew and afresh at what we are doing
at how we are doing things.

We will never reach perfection,
never a place where we can say our work is done.
The words Calvin wrote five hundred years ago are timeless:
“The Lord is daily at work in smoothing out wrinkles
and cleansing spots [in his church].
From this it follows that the church’s holiness is not yet complete.
The church is holy, then, in the sense that it is daily advancing”
(Institutes, 4.1.17)

Our job is to be part of the advancing,
part of the reforming, part of the growth.

So the question before us is:
Are we a church reformed?
or are we a church reforming?
A Church Reformed is more comfortable;
a Church Reforming is more faithful.
A Church Reformed is easier;
A Church Reforming is more work.
A Church Reformed is a church for you and me;
A Church Reforming is the church of Jesus Christ.

Three letters,
three little letters at the end of the word,
three little letters, “i-n-g”
AMEN

Who Are You?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 22, 2006
The 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Who Are You?
Job 38:1-11
Mark 10:35-45

The text we heard from the book of Job
comes from one of the most magnificent passages in the Bible.
We hear the voice of God –
the voice of God! --
a voice booming from the heavens,
a voice booming out from the whirlwind;
the voice, the voice of God,
seeming to come from everywhere.
The voice that explodes on that otherwise somber scene
is not a soothing voice,
not a sympathetic voice;
not a voice speaking from the heavens
to comfort Job in his misery and agony.
No, this is an angry voice,
the voice of a God who has listened to Job and his companions
drone on and on and on
and is now indignant.

And so God asks,
“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Did you determine its measurements?
Did you create the heavens?
Did you create the waters?
Did you create the mountains,
the rivers, the forests?
Did you create the whales and all the fish in the sea?
Did you create the birds, the elephants, the goats, the sheep?
Did you create the food you eat?
Did you create the food your own animals eat?
Did you create anything?
Tell me: surely you know.”

God is indignant after listening to Job and his companions.
They alternate between complaining
and try to convince one another
that each of them understands the mind of God
as they tried to figure out why poor Job’s life
had gone so sour.

God does not answer Job’s most basic question: “why?”
“Why did these things happen to me?
“God, this is unfair.
“I did nothing to deserve this.
“Why is this happening?”
God pays no attention to Job’s questions;
He reminds Job that Job is not God,
not even close to being God
and so there are many things in life
that Job will never understand,
never comprehend.
The book ends with Job conceding,
humbly saying to God,
“I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me,
which I did not know.” (Job 42:3)

We humans are forever flirting with the idea that
we ourselves are little gods,
just a notch below God himself.
James and John don’t flirt with the idea, however:
they get right to it and confront Jesus:
“make us your equals in your glory.”
Jesus doesn’t respond to them with the indignation
that marks God’s response to Job.
Jesus is as ever the patient teacher.
But he is clear with them:
“Do you know what you are asking for?
Do you think you can drink from the cup
that I will be called upon to drink?”
Did you hear the arrogance in the brothers’ answer?
“we are able.”
They will soon prove just how unable they are
when they join the rest of the disciples
in abandoning Jesus following his arrest.

What is it that causes us to be so arrogant,
to be so puffed up?
We read in the book of Psalms
“what are human beings that you are mindful of them, [O Lord],
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet…” (Psalm 8:4-6)

We read that and we think,
“Ah, power, power!
We are just a little lower than God
and we’ve been given dominion over the works of your hands.”
But in our arrogance, we fail to understand
that the word “dominion”
that we translate as the equivalent of power,
carries with it responsibility;
that God has not given us power;
God has given us responsibility.

Who are we?
Are we little gods?
Are we just a little lower than God himself,
than Christ himself?
Truly, this is beyond our ability to understand,
beyond our ability to comprehend.

What we know for sure is that we are
God’s beloved children.
Do you remember our text from two weeks ago:
“See what love the Father has given us
that we should be called the children of God.” (1 John 3:1)
We are children of God,
created in God’s image
bathed in God’s love,

But what Jesus teaches us
is that this doesn’t bring with it a life of wealth,
a life of privilege, and luxury,
a life that will be easy, without pain,
where the road will always rise up to meet us,
and the breeze will be ever so gently at our backs.
And, it doesn’t not bring with it
a place of honor.

No, our position as children of God
and disciples of Christ brings with it responsibility.
It puts demands on us and calls us to service.
There is no room in our lives for arrogance,
conceit,
a sense of self importance.
There is no room for that affliction that is so common
among followers of Christ: self-righteousness.
We are to walk humbly
and serve the Lord.

The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick put it this way,
“Christianity is not simply a message;
it is a deed to be done.”
In this simple sentence Fosdick reminds us
that Christian discipleship calls us to action,
calls us to service.
Fosdick observed, “Many a person’s religion
is emotional responsiveness
without practical response.”
We need the emotional response,
as we give ourselves completely to God through Christ,
but we also need the practical response
as we serve the Lord,
in the same way our Lord served.

We are to live the Gospel.
and to live the gospel means putting aside our own interests
as we seek to serve the Lord by serving others.
We are to live the Gospel by setting aside
our concerns about ourselves,
our egos, our worries, our anxieties,
our focus on success, security,
on things, on status.

James and John missed this point completely;
They thought that being a follower of Christ
assured them of a special privileges,
admittance to the VIP section,
seating in First Class.
Job missed the point completely, too.
He thought as long as he was faithful,
as long as he walked in God’s light
his life would be without problems or difficulties.

Jesus tells Peter that he will be the rock
on which he will build his church,
giving Peter great honor and glory.
But the rest of Peter’s days were arduous,
a constant struggle to share the gospel,
his life always in danger.
And it came to a violent end
when Peter was killed for his faith.
But nothing stopped Peter from serving.

As beloved children of God,
our place is not in seats of honor,
it is with the poor, the hungry,
the elderly, the outcasts of society
the single mother, the elderly man
It is with all God’s creatures,
including those over whom we “exercise dominion.”

Next week we will launch our Stewardship campaign.
The four weeks we have set aside for Stewardship
will provide us with an opportunity to celebrate the history
of this special congregation –
139 years, not as a privileged and exclusive community,
but 139 years of service to Christ,
service in the name of Christ,
service in response to God’s love in Christ.

The four-week Stewardship campaign will provide
each of us with time to reflect:
time to reflect on the ways we served over the past years:
ways in which you served
and ways in which you feel called to serve in the year ahead.

The month will provide you with a time to reflect on the question,
“who are you”;
And it will be a time for us as a community of faith to ask,
“who are we?”
Are we responding as faithfully as we should?
As faithfully as God wants us to respond
to the responsibilities imposed upon us
as disciples of Christ?

Stewardship is not just about making a financial commitment
to the church for the coming year, as important as that is.
It is about committing yourself,
your whole self,
to God’s work in this world.

Stewardship is about responsibility,
about response,
Stewardship is about serving
through our time, our talents, and our treasure.

Your pledge to our Stewardship campaign
will not result in your name on a plaque,
and an increased pledge won’t get you
an MPC coffee mug or Andrea Bocelli CD or DVD.
What it will do is help you to feel confident
that you are responding to Christ’s call to service,
God’s call to service.

Who are we that God should make so much of us?
Who are we that we should know God’s unwavering,
unconditional love through Christ?
Who are we that we should be called to faith?
Called to follow Christ?
We are each of us God’s beloved children,
and each of us Christ’s brother or sister;
But even as God’s beloved children
and Christ’s brothers and sisters,
none of us has been called to a place of privilege,
but of responsibility,
for we are each called by our Lord
not to be served,
but to serve.
AMEN

A Letter to Hayden

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 8, 2006
The 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A Letter to Hayden
Mark 10:13-16
1 John 3:1-3

Dear Hayden,
Today your parents brought you to church to have you baptized.
You were such a good baby;
you didn’t seem to mind having a stranger hold you
and pour water on your head!
You seemed fascinated by all that was going on around you,
and you were a hit with everyone who watched.

A few years from now
you might sit on your mother’s or father’s lap
in front of a computer screen,
and look at pictures your family took of this day:
you with your parents, your brother,
your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.
All those people!
You may wonder why all the fuss for a few minutes,
a few words,
and a few scoops of water.

You’d be right to ask.
Why did we baptize you at such a young age,
at a time in your life when you couldn’t really understand,
much less enjoy what was happening?
Your curiosity about your baptism will grow even more
when you learn in Sunday School that Jesus was all grown up
when he was baptized, not even a teenager,
but an adult, and he got to stand in a river,
wade in the water,
and have his head ducked under.

You may wonder why 2,000 years later,
we baptized you on a Sunday morning in church
in the middle of a worship service,
with only a bit of water poured in a bowl.

In Jesus’ day, and for hundreds of years after Jesus’ death
we didn’t baptize babies or children;
We only baptized adults after they professed their faith in Jesus.
It was about a thousand years ago
that we started to baptize babies.
Some churches still baptize only adults.
Other churches baptize babies to assure their salvation,
but that’s not why we baptized you today.
No, God has already taken care of your salvation;
God took care of that even before you were born.

No, we baptized you today because we wanted to say, “Welcome”.
“Welcome” into the community of believers in Jesus Christ.
“Welcome” into the holy catholic church of Jesus Christ:
the universal church of all who profess faith in Christ.
Today, your family grew by millions and millions
as you were welcomed not only by everyone here,
but by new brothers and sisters in Christ
in churches of other denominations,
other languages,
other countries.

That’s why I took you down the steps after your baptism,
and walked with you around the Sanctuary:
so you could meet some of your new brothers and sisters,
your brothers and sisters in Christ
who are part of this church.

Now with all the fuss, all the ceremony,
you might ask your mom or your dad,
“did I get any presents?”
After all, what’s a celebration without gifts?

They will tell you that you received some wonderful presents.
In your baptism God gave you the gift of the Holy Spirit;
In your baptism, God filled you with his Spirit,
his Spirit that will be with you, inside you
all the rest of your life.
You’ll know God’s Spirit is inside you,
because you will feel the Spirit.
It is that feeling that we call love,
that feeling that we call peace,
that feeling that we call assurance.
God’s Spirit will guide you,
lead you, comfort you,
and help you all the days of your life.

Now as wonderful as that gift is,
that’s not the only gift you received.
You also were given the gift of more than 300 godparents today.
Three hundred people who were here with you today,
who promised to help you grow in faith.
Your grandfather asked everyone gathered in this Sanctuary,
whether we “as members of the church of Jesus Christ
promised to guide and nurture you
by word and deed, with love and prayer,
encouraging you to know and follow Christ
and to be a faithful member of Christ’s church.”
And we all said yes;
we all said yes with great enthusiasm,
and when we all said yes, we all became your godparents.

We will each fulfill that promise, that responsibility,
in different ways in the years ahead.
Some may be your Sunday School teachers,
others may help with a choir you’ll sing in,
or a Youth Group you’ll be part of.
We will all help you to know and follow Christ.
We will each try our best to encourage you
to be a faithful member of this church
and a faithful member of Christ’s holy catholic church.

In the baptism service, I said a prayer over the water,
a prayer that the water would be filled with the Holy Spirit.
I asked God in my prayer to wash away
your sins as I put the water on you.
Now, of course you are much too young
to have started building a book of sins.
But you are, after all, a boy,
so the word “sin” will take on
greater meaning with every passing year,
starting in about another year,
when you hit that time
every parent knows as the “Terrible Twos”.

You won’t even be aware of it,
but you will be learning that life is filled with choices,
that each day will be filled with opportunities
for you to decide, to choose:
to choose to be obedient,
or to choose to be disobedient,
And with each decision,
you will choose to sin,
or choose not to sin.

With every choice you make,
with every decision,
you will be doing one of two things:
you will choose to follow God’s commandments
or you will choose to follow your own path.
You will choose to turn toward God,
or you will choose to turn away from God.
And that’s what sin is:
it is anything you do that causes you to turn away from God.
anything you say that causes you to turn
from God’s commandments,
and the teachings of Jesus,
It is anything that causes you not to listen
to that still small voice of the Spirit trying to guide you.

As you go through life, there will be times when
you will choose to be disobedient,
when you will choose not to tell the truth,
when you will chose not to do the right thing.
We all do.
Which means you will sin.
We all sin.
But here’s another gift you received today:
God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
When you make bad choices,
you will disappoint your parents,
but they will never stop loving you,
and they will always forgive you.
And when you sin,
you will disappoint God,
but God will never stop loving you
and God will always forgive you.

Here’s what you should do
when you make a bad choice,
a bad decision,
when you do or say something you know you should not have:
First, acknowledge your mistake:
take responsibility for it.
Say, “yes I did that”; “yes I said that”,
“I know I should not have.
I was wrong.”
Then apologize; say you are sorry,
The promise God gives you through Jesus
is that you will be forgiven,
washed clean;
you will start anew and fresh;
you will be guided back to the path that God wants you on,
that Jesus calls you to follow,
that the Spirit is always gently nudging you to stay on.

As you grow in years, work on growing in faith.
Ask questions, read, listen, learn.
By the time you get to be an adolescent,
you’ll learn that it is easy to dismiss faith,
that it’s easy to think that church is boring
and definitely not cool.
But don’t take the easy path.
Take the harder path of learning,
the harder path of exploration.
Take the harder path of questioning and growing.

And always hang onto just a bit of your childlike innocence,
that look of wonder that was in your eyes today.
With each year, you will struggle to become
more and more independent, and less innocent.
The paradox of faith is that the more dependent you are on God,
the more dependent you are on Christ,
the more independent you will be life.

Hayden, we all marveled today
as we all participated in your baptism
and recalled the promises and the gifts
we each received in our own baptisms.
See what love God the father, God the mother
has given us that we should be called God’s children,
for that, Hayden, is what you are,
that is what I am,
that is what we all are
and that is what we always will be.

To the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory
this day and always.
AMEN

Do This

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 1, 2006
The 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
World Communion Sunday

Do This
Exodus 12:1-14
Matthew 26:26-29

Take.
Eat.
Do this.
Do this in remembrance.
And they did,
the group gathered together,
gathered in that upper room
in the city of Jerusalem;
gathered in faith to remember that night
more than a thousand years before,
that night when death passed over Pharaoh’s slaves,
when death passed over the children of Israel,
when the angel of death passed over them
and in the process unlocked their shackles
and freed them from their bondage,
the bondage that had been their life
for more than 400 years.

There in that upper room
the men who followed Jesus of Nazareth
gathered to remember,
gathered to remember that night,
that night when the children of Israel
became for the first time a people,
when they took that first step toward becoming community.
The group climbed the stairs and took their places
in that simple room.
In dozens, even hundreds of other rooms,
in tents, and in other dwellings,
the same table was set,
the same meal was about to be shared.
Hundreds, thousands, of God’s children,
the people of God, the children of God,
gathered, a handful here, a handful there,
but all together, all in community
all gathered to share the meal.
They gathered to eat;
they gathered to remember;
they gathered because God said through Moses,
Take, Eat; Do this in remembrance.

Rituals had been added over the centuries.
The Hallel Psalms,
the psalms we know as 113 through 118,
were sung as the meal progressed.
Prayers were offered;
four cups now passed.
But the menu was unchanged after a thousand years:
lamb roasted with bitter herbs,
and bread made without yeast.
Everyone took;
everyone ate;
everyone remembered.

The men gathered in that upper room
had no reason to think that this Passover supper
was going to be any different from Passover suppers
they had been part of before.
But Jesus always seemed to surprise his followers;
And so Jesus took bread,
and gave thanks to his father in heaven,
and then he looked at that motley, tired group
gathered with him in that small room,
the air thick with smoke from the oil lamps,
the mens’ eyes heavy from the food,
the wine,
the late hour.
He looked at them with such deep, profound love
and said,
“take, eat, this is my body.”
And then he took the cup, --
probably an ordinary pottery cup,
rather than the cup of legends and movies --
he took the cup and
and he passed it to the men,
his friends, his beloved friends, saying,
“Drink from it, all of you
for this is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins.”
Their minds dulled by exhaustion,
none of them understood.
Some of them may not have even heard.
And if they heard, they did not remember;
instead they mumbled and grumbled among themselves.
It would be Paul writing a generation later
who would help us to understand,
help us to remember,
help us to do,
helped us to hear the echo of God
speaking through Moses,
as God spoke through his Son.

We come to this table and we trace our heritage:
back not just two thousand years to that Last Supper,
but back more than three thousand years,
to that last night in slavery,
that night when all God’s children
became a community, a people, a family.

We come to this table to remember,
to remember just how much we have in common
with one another and with all God’s children.

On this World Communion Sunday,
we remember that
when our Lord invites us to this table,
we take our seats with the faithful throughout the world,
men and women who come from different cultures,
men and women who speak different languages,
yet share a common faith.

When we come to this table, we remember that
we have each been invited to this table
only by the grace of God that is Jesus Christ.

When we come to this table we remember
that we are being fed for a reason,
that we are being fed for a purpose:
not to fill our bellies,
but to renew and refresh our faith,
to strengthen our sense of discipleship.
so that we can serve more faithfully,
serve more willingly.

We come to this table to remember our Lord’s teachings,
especially his teachings on peace:
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged”,
“Forgive as you have been forgiven”,
“blessed are the peacemakers”,
“love your enemies”.

We come to this table to remember God’s hope for us,
that we will live in peace,
live in that day when we – you and I –
finally beat swords into plowshares,
and spears into pruning hooks,
a phrase that has such meaning to God
he spoke it not once,
but twice through the prophets.
(Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3)

Do this:
Come to this table
Come as a child of God, a disciple of Christ.
Come as a community, people of God,
Come to be fed by the love of God that is Christ.
the love that has set us free.
Come to this table to be refreshed and renewed:
refreshed and renewed for service.
Come to this table to be filled with peace,
and then take that peace out into the world.

Come to this table in communion with one another,
not just those of us gathered here and now
but with all our church family,
and with all in churches of other names and denominations,
and with all those who have gone before us.
For this is a foretaste, a preview,
a glimpse of the life that awaits us,
when we each take our seat
at the Heavenly Banquet in God’s Eternal Kingdom.

Come commune in communion;
take the Eucharist and be thankful,
share in the Lord’s Supper and be filled.
Come,
do this,
remember.

“Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
…The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing, [and]
it is marvelous in our eyes.” (Psalm 118:19)
AMEN