Face It

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 18, 2007
Transfiguration of the Lord

Face It
Luke 9:28-36
Exodus 34:29-35

We have to back up a bit before we can understand
what was happening in our first lesson,
before we can understand what happened to Moses
up on that mountain.

The children of God had been freed from their lives
as Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt.
They’d been sent out of the country,
sent out into the Wilderness,
following Moses and his brother Aaron.
They’re goal was the land of the Canaanites,
the promised land,
land that lay northeast of Egypt.
But God led them south, and southeast, into the Sinai peninsula,
deeper and deeper into land that was more and more hostile.
It was brutally hot during the day,
and bitterly cold at night,
water and food were scarce,
snakes and scorpions were in abundance.

The children of Israel paved their road with complaints;
littered the path they were on with their whining,
until they came to the base of a mountain,
a mountain called Mount Sinai.
The mountain loomed large in that countryside,
even though it was not much larger than the Granite mountains
that grace the state of New Hampshire,
a little higher than anything we find along the East Coast,
but nowhere near as high as what we might find in Colorado.

God told Moses that he was ready to speak to his children,
so Moses gathered the people around the base of the mountain,
prepared them to meet their God,
the one who had freed them,
the one who was leading them to the promised land.

You’d think the people would have been
filled with a sense of excitement,
filled with a sense of anticipation,
filled with a sense of gratitude as they waited to meet
the God of their salvation;
the God who had “borne them up as on eagle’s wings”
(Ex. 19:4),
The God who had delivered them from death to life.

But, we read,
“When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning,
the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking,
they were afraid and trembled
and stood at a distance and said to Moses,
‘you speak to us, and we will listen,
but do not let God speak to us, or we will die’.”
(Exodus 20:18)

The children of God were afraid to face their God.
The children of God were afraid to listen to their God.

And so Moses became the mediator.
He faced God,
talked to God,
listened to God.

Moses went up the mountain to receive the Law from God.
But you remember what happened, don’t you,
when Moses came back down with the tablets
that contained the Ten Commandments?
He found the people dancing around a golden calf,
an idol they had built to worship as their god.
They had no difficulty facing an idol,
but they would not face God.
Moses’ face was flushed with fury
as he threw the two tablets to the ground,
where they smashed into bits.

And then Moses went back up the mountain,
back up the mountain to face God:
to face God’s wrath.
He went up to ask God to forgive the people.
God listened to Moses,
and Moses listened to God,
as they talked, face to face.
And Moses came down and told the people
that God, the God whom they feared so much,
whom they were afraid to face,
this God forgave his children.

And then Moses went up the mountain one last time
to receive two new tablets
with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them,
and this is where we pick up our lesson,
for as he came down with the two new tablets in his arms,
the people no longer saw a face filled with rage and fury
because of their misbehavior,
nor did they see a face that was worn by the stress
from their never-ending complaints.
They saw a face filled with radiance from the glory of the Lord.
Moses’ face shone so brightly
that even his own brother was afraid to look at him.

Moses’ face radiated –
not like one who has been out in the sun too long,
but like a bride on her wedding day,
like a father holding his newborn infant for the first time,
like a mother watching her oldest stride across the stage
to receive a diploma magna cum laude,
radiating more than just happiness,
radiating joy, peace,
confidence, assurance…..
radiating love.

But the people couldn’t face the radiance;
they found it overwhelming,
and so Moses covered his face with a veil,
and he removed the veil only when he was in God’s presence.
The people who were reluctant to face God,
were now reluctant to face God’s prophet.
They put a veil between themselves and God
because they could not face the reality of God,
the reality of God’s promise,
the reality of the covenant,
the reality of the responsibilities that came
with being the children of God.

For the next thousand years
God tried to remove the veil through his prophets.
And then finally God sent his Son, his only Son,
that we might look upon the face of God in Jesus Christ
and realize that we were not looking upon a face to fear,
but a face to fill us with assurance,
a face radiant with love,
because it was the face of love.

And how did we respond to Jesus?
We kept the veil firmly in place,
the veil that separates us from God.

In one of his most dramatic efforts to remove the veil,
Jesus invited three of his disciples to go up
to the mountaintop with him,
not Mt. Sinai, but a different mountain.
He didn’t explain his reasons to Peter, James, or John,
he just said, “Come with me”,
apparently to get away,
as he often did, simply to pray.

And the men went with him,
And when they got to the top of the mountain,
Jesus prayed, as the men struggled with the veil of sleep.
And while Jesus prayed, the text tells us,
“the appearance of his face was transformed.”
And then Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus,
and all three disciples saw the glory of Jesus;
they saw the radiance in Jesus’ face,
the radiance that was surely even more brilliant
than the radiance the children of Israel had seen
in Moses’ face more than a thousand years before.

But even as they witnessed this incredible event,
the veils that covered their hearts and their minds
stayed firmly in place:
Veils of bewilderment,
veils of ignorance,
and the veil of ignorance’s ready partner: fear.

Down the mountain they went,
Christ transfigured,
but the three disciples no different
for having joined Jesus on that mountain top;
No different for having seen the radiance in the face of Jesus.
No different for having been in the presence of God.
No different for having witnessed the glory
of God in the form of God’s son Jesus Christ.
No different for having heard God’s voice,
“This is my Son, my Chosen;
listen to him.”

Before we reach the end of the chapter
Luke reports that the disciples were back to
bickering among themselves
as to which of them was the greatest,
which of them might have the seat of honor next to Jesus.
Veils covering their minds, their eyes,
their ears, their hearts.

Here’s the question: would we have reacted any differently?
Wouldn’t we have reacted the same way:
in stunned silence like James and John,
or at best, like Peter blurting out the odd suggestion
to build some booths, to remain there,
to memorialize the moment and the place?
Are we any different from the children of Israel
who felt so uncomfortable with Moses’ face?
Let’s face it:
The honest answer has to be, No.

We look at God as though we are looking through a glass darkly,
as Paul puts it,
not really wanting to see because we are afraid to face
the reality of what it means to be a faithful disciple of Christ.

Let’s face it: it is easier to have a veil between us and Christ,
a veil that keeps us from having to listen carefully,
a veil that allows us to filter Christ’s words,
allows us to pick and choose what we are willing to hear,
and what we don’t want to hear.
Who wants to hear the words Jesus spoke to his disciples
right before they ascended that mountain:
“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves
and take up their cross daily and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”
(Luke 9:23-25)

Deny yourself?
Take up your cross?
Lose your life?
We have trouble enough listening when Jesus says,
“Do not worry;
Do not judge;
Love your enemies.”

Christ was transfigured on that mountaintop,
but the disciples were not transformed.
Transformed by Christ, transformed through Christ.
Transformed to listen,
transformed to follow.
Are we any different?

We will begin Lent this week on Ash Wednesday.
Lent is the ideal time for each of us to begin
a new discipline in our faith journeys,
an ideal time to work anew and afresh on listening,
on following,
on being transformed,
to move to a new level of faithfulness,
discipleship, spirituality.

Lent is the ideal time to forge a new discipline
of listening to the words of our Lord
as though you were hearing them for the very first time.
Remove the veil that covers them.
As St. Benedict taught,
“Listen carefully…to the master’s instructions,
and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”
(Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue)
The ear of your heart.
Yes: that’s where our listening should begin: in our hearts.
If we listen with nothing more than our mind
we’ll just let veil upon veil get in the way.
We’ll draw them back, perhaps, a bit here,
a bit there, but never fully, never completely.
But if we listen with the ear of our heart, we will hear,
we will understand,
and we will grow.

Face it: face where you are now in your faith journey:
face it wherever you happen to be,
face it with honesty and openness.
Pull back all those veils that keep you
from looking upon the face of Christ,
from looking deep into his eyes,
for “the Word was made flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory.” (John 1:14)

Listen anew to his words, his teachings,
and then be transformed,
be transformed in Christ, through Christ, with Christ.
For the Lord makes his face to shine upon us:
the Lord is gracious to us;
he lifts up his countenance upon us
not only to give us his peace,
but also his love through Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Rings of a Tree

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 11, 2007
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Rings of a Tree
Luke 6:17-26
Jeremiah 17:5-8

Trees are natural storytellers.
Scars on the bark tell us that various animals have used the tree
for homes or as a refuge from danger;
Limbs torn away tell us of the power of nature;
In another era, we might have found initials carved in the trunk
that spoke of sentiments on Valentines Day.
It is the rings, though, that tell us the real story,
the true story of the tree.
The rings of a tree tell us about the life of the tree.

Have you ever looked closely at the rings of a tree?
Perhaps you looked at tree rings in science class,
or on an outing with a Scout group;
you may have been hiking and stopped by a downed tree,
glad to have had a comfortable bench on which to rest.
Or perhaps you’ve looked at the stump left behind
after you've had a tree taken out in your yard.

The rings radiate out from the center;
like ripples radiating out in a pond.
Count them up and they will tell you the age of the tree.
But look more closely and the rings will tell you
more than just the age;
they will tell you about the story of the tree.
its history, year by year.
Look closely and you will notice that
rings are not the same width year in and year out.
Some rings are narrow, close to one another,
while other rings are as wide as can be.
There may be no pattern, a narrow ring,
a wide ring, another narrow one,
a ring of medium width:
a completely random pattern.

The rings vary depending upon what kind of year the tree had.
A wide ring tells us the tree had a good year:
that rains were regular and plentiful
that it was neither too hot nor too cold;
that the tree wasn’t threatened by things like fire
or infestation or disease.

Narrow rings tell a different story.
The tree had a tough year.
It might have been brutally hot,
the leaves withering in the heat.
Or it might have been dry as the desert,
with little snow in the winter, or rain in the summer.
Other forces may have attacked the tree:
It may have been in a small stand that withstood a fire,
or it may have been home to a swarm of locusts that came
out of hibernation after a 17-year sleep,
as we witnessed not that long ago.

Trees certainly don’t think,
but somehow trees seem to know that not every year
will be a good year, that one year of rain and sun
could just as easily be followed by a year of drought or disease.
A wide ring is no guarantee that next year’s ring
won’t be as narrow as can be.
So trees push their roots deep into the ground,
deep to anchor themselves,
deep to draw up groundwater and nutrients.
Deep to stand strong against the gusts,
against the droughts,
against all the vagaries of the weather.
Deep to stand strong against
all the inevitable challenges that nature will throw at them.
Deep to make each ring as wide as possible
to reflect determined, healthy growth.

Trees provide us with a wonderful metaphor for our own lives.
so it isn’t surprising that we find numerous places in the Bible
where we are compared to trees:
In the very first Psalm we read that
men and women of strong faith,
“are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.”

This simile appears again in Psalm 92:
“The righteous flourish like the palm
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and [fresh] … (Psalm 92:12-14)

God reinforces this theme through the prophet Jeremiah:
“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes
and its leaves shall stay green;
In the year of drought it is not anxious
and it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

It is a good analogy,
a good comparison.
And we too have rings in our lives,
rings that tell our stories.
Rings that may not be as obvious as those we find in trees,
but rings we most certainly add each year;
rings in our hearts, our minds, and our souls;
rings that reflect the year we had,
wide rings to reflect years of growth,
narrow rings to reflect those years in which we struggled,
years in which life seemed determined to overwhelm us.
Our rings are also narrow when we don’t work to make them wide,
when we make little or no effort to grow.

But like a healthy tree, what will help us add
to the width of our rings,
add to the width even in difficult years,
is the depth of our roots.
Drought will come,
gale winds will come,
searing, withering heat will come,
all come into our lives,
but with deep roots, we will be able to get through
even the most difficult times.

God does not promise a life of ease;
By the sweat of our face we will live, God tells Adam.
Following Christ does not assure that
life will be without struggle.
Christ himself began his earthly ministry with the people
of his own hometown trying to push him off a cliff,
and he ended his earthly ministry nailed to the cross.
There is no prosperity gospel in the Bible.

But we will get through even the most difficult times
if our roots are deeply embedded in faith,
roots that we work to push deeper and deeper to anchor us,
to hold us, strong and solid.
At year’s end, the ring we added may well be a narrow one,
but we will be standing, a solid tree,
with our arms like branches
reaching up, up to God,
reaching up to the very source of life,
still able to fulfill our Lord’s call to bear fruit.

Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah,
God forces us to think about just how shallow our roots are:
that our focus is all too often on “mere mortals”,
that too much of our time, energy, and effort
is spent on “making flesh our strength.”

The shallowness of our roots is all around us:
our obsession with celebrities;
our love of the latest fad.
I read an article in the paper the other day
about companies that make cellphones.
They have found to their surprise that their profits have dropped
because people are no longer willing to pay hundreds of dollars
for phones as a fashion accessory;
The Motorola RAZR was the “it” accessory when it first came out;
people were willing to pay hundreds of dollars
to have something no one else had.
But now RAZRs can be had for next to nothing;
people no longer see cellphones as the thing
that sets them apart from everyone else.

You may well be thinking that that’s not you,
but then you have to ask yourself,
what is your fashion accessory?
Your car?......... Your clothing?
Your home?
Your job?
Your position in the community?
Your position here in this church?
It is probably something.
It always is.
Just look at where our national focus has been the past few days:
Not on the dire situation in Darfur,
not on war in the Middle East,
No, it’s been on the unfortunate death of a woman
whose skill seemed to be in simply finding ways
to stay in the news.

We bring that superficiality to church.
Churches are struggling more and more with the demand
that churches be more entertaining;
with PowerPoint presentations and theatre lighting.
Members expect churches to be more convenient –
to schedule worship that better matches their schedules,
to minimize demands and expectations.
Shallowness and superficiality leads to pettiness,
gossip, arguments over trivial matters,
and then we slide away from Christ,
instead of climbing up toward him.
Woe to us who are full now,
for we will be hungry.

Phillips Brooks, who preached from the pulpit of
Boston’s Trinity Episcopal Church
in the latter part of the 19th century,
helps us to stay focused on our roots,
focused on growing healthy rings,
by reminding us that our lives as disciples of Christ
is not about what is convenient.
Our Lord did not complain that it was rather inconvenient
to be confronted by Roman soldiers
in the Garden of Gethsemane.

We are here for our very lives,
to nurture our roots, to push them down
ever deeper into the soil of faith;
we are here to be nurtured and nourished
to grow and be transformed
from tiny acorn to mighty oak.
We are here to be reminded that if we don’t work
on pushing our roots down deeper and farther,
then we will not grow.

And then when those difficult times do come –
as they absolutely will –
we risk wilting, toppling over,
rotted and dead on the inside.

A young athlete goes to the doctor for a routine physical
before the start of a new season and learns that he has cancer;
A e-mail is sent around the office describing the cutbacks
that will follow the merger of a business;
A husband and wife realize that their marriage has
has foundered, fractured and come undone;
The gales blow in life
always threatening to topple us.

And even when the winds dissipate,
the rains may not come to refresh and renew:
the promotion that does not come,
the boy or girl who does not call,
the championship game that is not won,
The American Idol tryout that is not offered.

We hunger,
we mourn,
we are poor,
we are alone,
And yet, yet, if our roots are deep,
we understand that these are matters of the flesh,
and that blessings are ours
through the love of God in Christ,
even in the storm, even in the drought.

Deep roots can never make us invincible or immortal;
Life has its share of struggle and pain.
A drive around Buffalo makes that clear:
even the mightiest oak trees had massive limbs torn from them
in last October’s snowstorm.
But the trees stand,
stand firm,
scarred, but not bowed,
focused, as always, on pushing those roots downward,
ever downward,
focused, as always,
on making this year’s ring as wide as possible.

Where is your focus?
How deep are your roots?
Here’s the answer: the answer for every one of us:
“not deep enough”
Not deep enough.

How can we hope to respond to our Lord’s call to bear fruit
without deep roots?
How can we hope to weather all that comes with life
without deep roots?
What are you doing to strengthen your roots?
To widen your rings in faith?
The honest answer is the hard one to hear:
“not enough”.
And God makes clear the risk:
that we will be “like a shrub in the desert,
living in parched places.”
These are not my words;
but the Word of the Lord.
Amen

The Four Fifty Team

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 4, 2007
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Four Fifty Team
Luke 5:1-11
Isaiah 6:1-8

I was talking with Sue Simmons the other day
about our Evangelism & Assimilation Ministry team.
That’s the ministry team that reaches out to visitors
who worship with us each Sunday.
Sue is the Elder who leads the team
along with Elder Madeline Snyder.
We were talking about the upcoming new member classes
that we will begin next month for those called to membership
here at Manassas Presbyterian Church.
We will start the class on March 4
and we will receive new members during worship on March 25.
That’s a very appropriate time of year for us to receive new members: right before Easter.

In the early years of the church,
Easter was the only time new members were received.
The Lenten season was a time for those called to membership
to prepare themselves:
to learn about the church, its history, its tenets, its faith statements,
all in preparation for two things:
receiving the Sacrament of Baptism,
and then making a public profession of faith.
Those two acts were tied together;
you could not make a public profession of faith
without being baptized,
and in the first few hundred years of the church
you could not receive the Sacrament of Baptism
until you were ready and able
to profess your faith in Jesus Christ.

Things are easier now for those who feel
called to explore membership.
We have four classes during the Sunday School hour
in which we share information about this church,
and about the Presbyterian Church (USA).
We also want to answer questions folks invariably have.
These days most folks who join our church are more likely
to have come from another denomination;
are more likely not to have had any previous experience
with the Presbyterian Church.
That means we are likely to have lots of questions
about even the basics:
What is the Session?
What is an Elder?
Who is in charge?
Is there a higher ecclesiastical authority we answer to?
How do we articulate and confess our faith?
Do we have a Presbyterian Bible?
And of course, if everyone else says either “trespasses” or “debts”
in the Lord’s Prayer, why do we say “sins”?

We are always eager to have new members join us in our ministry.
Many churches spend a lot of time, energy, and money
trying to attract new members.
That’s what we think of when we hear the word “evangelize”,
the “E” in our “E&A” Ministry Team.
In most Presbyterian churches, though,
the mere mention of the “E” word sends chills up the spine
of even the most outgoing person.
Most studies have shown, though
that the most effective way to add new members to a congregation
is for every person simply to invite a neighbor, or friend,
to come to church.
You don’t need to “evangelize”,
you simply need to invite.

Just as important, though, as reaching out
and inviting others to come worship with us
is how we treat folks who walk in the door for the very first time.
Are we welcoming, caring,
warm, friendly?
We want to think we are, of course,
but the only way we will be
is for each of us,
every one of us,
to be welcoming, caring, warm friendly.
If a visitor doesn’t feel that warmth, that welcome,
on the very first visit,
then it is not likely we will see that person again.

Whether you think of yourself as outgoing or shy,
gregarious or quiet,
each one of us is called to be a successor to Peter
and those Jesus called to be “catchers of people”.
Did you notice the different word in Luke’s gospel?
You were probably expecting the phrase we find in
Matthew and Mark’s gospel:
“Follow me and I will make you fish for people.”

Two thousand years ago fishing wasn’t how we think of fishing:
casting a lure out in the water to try to hook a fish:
the very idea sounds rather unseemly for church folks,
as though we are supposed to land new members
like so many rainbow trout.
But, Peter, Andrew, James, and John
lowered nets over the side of the boat
and then pulled up all the fish
that happened to be there at the time.
A good fisherman knew where the fish were,
and knew where to lower his net.
But in our gospel lesson,
did you hear how the fish found their way into Peter’s net?
Was it because of Peter’s skill as a fisherman?
No: it was Christ who filled the nets;
Christ who led the fish to the nets.
Peter and his partners just pulled them into the boat.

Now, it may not be the best metaphor,
but it does remind us that we are call called to “catch”
those whom Christ sends us through the Spirit.
It is Jesus, by the power of the Spirit, who calls us to church.
But we, each of us, have to be attentive catchers
for those Jesus sends our way.
Or perhaps, because it is Super Bowl Sunday,
it might be more fitting to say that
each of us has to be a good receiver
for those whom Christ sends us.

That receiving, that welcoming,
is a task that belongs to every one of us.
There isn’t a one among who should hold back from that;
every one of the four hundred fifty of us should
reach out to those faces that don’t look familiar,
go up and introduce ourselves
whenever we see someone we don’t know.
Yes, you might well be introducing yourself
to someone who has been a member of this church
for the past 30 years, but what’s wrong with that?
You will have met someone you didn’t know.

But even more important, if it is a visitor,
it is your opportunity to welcome that person,
to receive him or her into this community of faith.
You don’t have to evangelize.
You simply have to welcome:
invite the person to have coffee with you;
Introduce them to me;
ask them about themselves,
what brings them here;
Give them a newsletter, or an annual report;
Show them around the building;
tell them about Sunday School.
Make them feel welcome,
just as you would a person in your own home.

One of my favorite images comes from a sermon
preached by the great Scotsman Peter Marshall,
who served so famously not far from here
at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church
in downtown Washington in the 1930s and 40s.
He spoke of Jesus standing at the door of his church,
of every church,
with his “big carpenter hands” open wide in welcome,
welcome to all, welcome to all.
We are those “big carpenter hands”, we;
every one of us, all four hundred fifty of us.
The E&A Team should be a team of four hundred fifty,
reaching out to welcome all, to receive all.

As we share in the Lord’s Supper in a few minutes,
I will encourage you to take a look around the Sanctuary
while you are waiting for everyone to be served,
and see you if you spot a face that is unfamiliar to you,
a face that you are not sure you know.
I am going to challenge you to do something
that may make you feel uncomfortable:
I am going to challenge you to go up to that person after worship
and introduce yourself.
Yes you might meet a long-time member.
A long-time “Marywood-sider” might meet
a long-time “parking lot sider”.
But perhaps you will meet a visitor
someone who has never come here before.
Be Christ’s big carpenter hands in welcome
welcome the person with the same warmth,
the same openness
you received when you first walked in.

Don’t be afraid.
Do you remember: that’s just what our Lord said to Peter,
that strapping, swarthy, salty man of the sea,
a man probably not given to the social graces.
Don’t be afraid.
For each time you go up to a person
you go with Christ, our Lord right with you in Spirit.

Let’s see if we can do that: become a team,
a team of four hundred fifty,
a team focused not on fishing,
not even on catching,
but simply on welcoming,
welcoming all,
welcoming all in the name of the one who calls us here:
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen