Can’t We Talk About Something Else?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 27, 2007: Pentecost

Can’t We Talk About Something Else?
Psalm 121
John 14:1-3

It is an interesting collision we have this weekend:
Pentecost and Memorial Day,
the first a date on our liturgical calendar,
and the second a date on our nation’s calendar.

On Pentecost, we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit.
How fifty days after Christ’s death,
the Spirit found the disciples,
that frightened band of brothers,
who were still reeling from the death of their Teacher,
their Master, their Lord.
“Suddenly from heaven there came a sound
like a rush of a violent wind,
and it filled the house where [the apostles] were sitting.”
(Acts 2:2)

The breath of God infused each of the apostles,
and gave them strength they had not felt before,
gave them conviction they had not felt before,
gave them confidence they had not felt before,
The Spirit filled them,
the Spirit Jesus had promised them that last night
when they were gathered in the Upper Room;
The Spirit the risen Jesus had reminded them of
just ten days earlier, right before his ascension,
when his final words to them were,
“you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit
not many days from now.” (Acts 1:5)
In their exhausted and confused state,
they had no idea what the promise would soon mean to them.

With the coming of the Holy Spirit
their fears were replaced by a fiery faith.
The breath of God didn’t take away their fear
as much as it pushed, even shoved it out of the way,
out of the dominant role it had had in their lives
since Christ’s death.
The Spirit filled them with courage:
courage in the face of opposition;
courage in the face of persecution;
courage even in the face of death.

Apocryphal sources tell us that both Peter and Paul
were killed for their faith,
martyrs to their witness, their testimony
that Jesus Christ was the Son of God.
They went to their deaths with courage,
with unshakable, unwavering faith;
They went to their deaths filled with the Holy Spirit.

We don’t really know anything about
the fate of the other apostles.
There are stories,
but nothing in which we have much confidence.
It is likely, though, that most of them died for their faith;
If they died for their faith, we can be confident
that they too faced death with courage,
the Spirit bearing them up,
filling them with strength
in the same way we believe the soldiers
we will remember tomorrow
faced their own deaths,
whether at Bunker Hill,
Bull Run, Bataan, or Basra.

The Holy Spirit is God’s presence with us,
God’s presence in us,
our Sustainer,
the one who teaches us, reminds us,
the one through whom we know the peace of Christ
at all times, and all places,
even in the valley of the shadow of death.

The visage of death is something that looms large for all us.
It is something that I think about,
now that I am north of 50.
Although I may live to be a hundred,
it is more likely that more than half my life is now in the past,
and less than half my life lies before me.
I have one of two choices:
I can do my best to ignore death,
pretend that it doesn’t exist,
until it comes and takes me;
or I can face death,
acknowledge that it is part of life,
a part of my life,
but not something I need fear.

The natural human tendency is to choose the first path;
if we pretend death doesn’t exist,
we can go through life ignoring it.
We can refuse to talk about death;
if someone raises the subject,
we can respond, “can’t we talk about something else?”
“Anything else!”

We avoid confronting death not only by our words,
but also by our actions:
We find countless reasons not to prepare a Will,
not to fill out the simple forms required
for health care proxies, or
or advanced medical directives.

Euphemisms abound so we don’t have to use the word “death”.
The funeral industry talk about one’s “passing”,
as they go about seeing to the person’s “final wishes”.
Cemeteries refer to themselves as “resting places”;
I saw one recently that proclaimed itself as
a place to “celebrate life”.

We use these terms to try to take the sting out of death,
forgetting that we can fall back in God’s everlasting arms
the Holy Spirit bearing us up,
taking away our fear of death.
We forget that we too are filled with the Holy Spirit,
in exactly the same way the apostles were,
filled perhaps not with the dramatic rush of wind
and tongues of flame we read about in the Bible,
but just the same in every other way.

Why, then, are we so afraid of death?
so afraid we won’t even talk about it?
It was Woody Allen who quipped that he wasn’t afraid of dying,
he just didn’t want to be there when it happened.

We have made antiseptic and uncomfortable what is part of life.
Just fifty days ago we read about how
the women came to the tomb
that first Easter Sunday to complete the rituals
that were part of death.
There was no funeral director to handle the “final details”;
family and friends took care of the loved one.
Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body to the tomb,
and the women came that first Sunday morning
to wrap and anoint the body.

Tomorrow on Memorial Day, we will have elaborate ceremonies
at cemeteries throughout this country;
I have participated in more than few.
They are somber, serious affairs, appropriate for
honoring those who are buried in hallowed ground.
Most of us go to cemeteries only when we must;
I think we should go visit cemeteries regularly.
Almost every time I visit Buffalo,
I take a drive through Forest Lawn,
the lovely cemetery in the center of Buffalo.
It was created by the famous landscape designer
Frederick Law Olmstead
to be a place for the living as well as the deceased.
The Ferguson family plot is in one part of the cemetery.
My grandfather and grandmother are there,
along with my father and a cousin
who died a few years ago from cancer.
My mother’s side of the family
are buried in another part of the cemetery,
one of the older sections,
in a plot my great-great grandfather bought in the 1870s
not long after this church was established.
God’s Spirit is a palpable presence with me
every time I drive through the gates of that Cemetery.
God’s Spirit fills me with peace
as I drink in the beauty,
the very liveliness of the place:
the birds singing in the trees,
the squirrels in their frenzied routines,
swans gracefully gliding across the pond.

Even in that place God’s Spirit
reminds me of the hope given to us in Jesus Christ:
That we need not fear death,
that death is not the end,
but simply a transition from this life,
this mortal life,
to the next life, life eternal.

The promise that we heard in our gospel lesson
is the foundation for our hope:
that Christ himself will come for us
and lead us into heaven,
where we will be for all eternity,
in the presence of God,
the presence of light and love.

It is the promise in the Psalm,
that God will keep our lives,
keep our going out and our coming in
from this time on and forevermore.
(Psalm 121:7-8)

It is the Spirit that gives us the courage
to push fear out of the way so we can grasp the promise
and face death,
and in facing death learn to live life more fully,
more completely, more faithfully.

When we “come to terms with death, we will know
how trivial some apparently important things are,
and how supremely important some other things are…”
that we had considered less important.
Our priorities are reordered.
The Rev. Leslie Weatherhead, “On Making a Pact with Death”)

When we face death and think it about,
we remember that the promise made in Jesus Christ,
the promise given us by Jesus Christ,
is nothing less than Paradise.
That is the word our Lord himself used
as he spoke to the thief:
“Truly I tell you,
today you will be with me in Paradise.”
(Luke 23:43)
And the wonderful thing is
we don’t even translate
an obscure Greek word to read “paradise”;
the Greek word itself is “paradiso”.

Now it isn’t likely that this Paradise
is as John described it in his Revelation:
with streets paved with gold.
That was just imagery John used to make a point,
as he did throughout his Revelation.
Whatever it will be, it will be paradise,
for we will be in the presence of God,
the presence of our Lord himself.
And think about it: why in the life to come would we care
whether the streets were paved with gold?

It is Dante, the 13th century Italian poet,
who I think captured best what heaven is:
a place of light and love,
a place where, as each new person enters,
the heavenly choir sing out,
“behold, one more to increase our love.”

Now, none of this takes away the very real feelings of grief
that any of us feels when a loved one dies.
The loss is real,
the grief is real,
the sense of emptiness is real.
The families of the more than 3,800 men and women
who have lost their lives in service to this country
over the past five years
will tomorrow find themselves filled with grief
that is very real.
But is the Spirit who gives life to the words,
“blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.”
(Matthew 5:4)

Following that first Pentecost, the disciples went out
into the world filled with Spirit.
Peter, who had been so timorous before,
would later write,
“blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
By his great mercy he has given us a new birth
into living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead,
and into an inheritance that is imperishable,
undefiled, and unfading,
kept in heaven for you,…” (1 Peter 1:3-4)
The Spirit gave Peter the ability to understand
our Lord’s words to him,
“Be not afraid”.

The Spirit gives us the same ability:
Be not afraid of anything in this life,
and be not afraid of that moment
when this life comes to a close,
for it is but a transition from this world to Paradise.

Even as we celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow,
with picnics, families, and friends,
we can and should also acknowledge death as part of life,
For the Holy Spirit gives us the courage and the faith
to understand that it was not the grim reaper
who came for those we will remember;
and it will not be the grim reaper who will come for any of us.
It will be Christ himself.

The poet John Donne wrote:
“Death be not proud,
though some have called thee Mighty and Dreadful;
for thou are not so…
One short sleep past,
we awake eternally,
and death shall be no more;
Death: thou shalt die.”
(John Donne, Holy Sonnets, X)
As our Lord has assured us,
“if it were not so,
I would have told you.”

AMEN

Choices

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 20, 2007: Confirmation Sunday

Choices
1 Kings 18:17-21
Mark 9:14-24

Well, how easy was that:
you are now members of the church!
You can vote at meetings of the congregation;
You can serve on the Session;
You can serve on the Board of Deacons;
You can serve on any Ministry Team,
get involved in any way you feel called.
And I hope you will continue to be involved,
as most of you already are.
In a church, membership does not bring privileges;
membership brings responsibilities:
responsibilities for each of you, for all of us,
to be faithful stewards of this church,
of this Body of Christ.

Your Confirmation is not your graduation;
you have not completed your Christian education.
None of us has; certainly I have not.
God calls us to learn,
to grow in knowledge all our lives.
As we grow in knowledge, we grow in faith,
grow in mature faith,
faith grounded in wisdom, understanding, and love.

As you grow in learning and in faith,
you will understand that your journey through life
will not always be marked by smooth sailing.
You may have wonderful days filled with sunshine and calm seas,
but you will most certainly also go through times
when you find yourself caught in storms,
tossed about violently by the waves and winds of life.
As Rabbi Harold Kushner reminds us in his wonderful book,
bad things happen even to good people;
bad things happen even to Godly people.
That’s just how life is.
God makes no promises that every day will be sunny,
that life will always be easy and fun.

What God does promise is that
fair weather or foul, he will be with you;
to guide you, strengthen you, encourage you,
comfort you, soothe you,
give you peace.
Psalm 23 captures the promise:
“even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me.”
That’s the promise:
even in the valley of the shadow of death,
even in the worst possible situation,
God will be with you.

We gave you copies of Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”,
a wonderful paraphrasing of the Bible.
I inscribed in each of your Bibles part of a verse
from the forty-third chapter of Isaiah,
I inscribed the verse as it appears in our Bible,
the New Revised Standard Version
that I read from our pulpit.
But this is how Peterson paraphrases the verse:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head,
I’ll be there with you;
When you’re in rough waters,
you will not go down;
When you’re between a rock and hard place
it won’t be a dead end…
So don’t be afraid:
I am with you.”

That’s the promise,
the promise God makes to each us,
the promise makes to each of you,
the promise made flesh in Jesus Christ.

There will be times in your life
when you may find yourself struggling with your faith;
You may wonder why you even need God.
After all, if you are smart and you work hard,
can’t you look after yourself and make your own breaks?
I wondered that myself when I was your age.
Think about it: If you didn’t need God,
that would give you more than 3,000 Sundays
to sleep in the rest of your life!

But having faith in God will make you a different person,
a better person.
Faith will bring out the best in you.
Faith will give you a way of looking at life with hope.
Faith will help you to learn to focus on others,
rather than on yourself.
Faith will give you courage;
Faith will help take away your fears,
and fill you with peace,
even in the most difficult times.

Your faith will help you keep your focus
where it should be,
on the things in life that really matter.
In our society, we seem obsessed with
Celebrities,
wealthy corporate executives,
the politically powerful,
even the splendidly outfitted religious leaders
who know how to talk to the television cameras.

The Psalmist reminds us that people like that,
will all just “fade like the grass”. (Psalm 37:2)
Jesus teaches us where our focus should be:
on the poor,
the hungry, the lonely, the sick,
Jesus teaches us to reach out,
especially to strangers,
to live sharing genuine love:
After all, what did he command us:
love God and love one another.

That’s what our faith calls us to do,
and that’s what our faith helps us to do.

Now I am talking about faith, not religion.
You will get no arguments from me about how
good we humans can be in turning religion into something
that is selfish, destructive and divisive.
The seventeenth-century French theologian Blaise Pascal wrote,
“Human beings never do evil so completely…
as when they do it from religious conviction.”
(aqi, Coffin, Letters to a Young Doubter, 22)
That’s just as true for those who say they follow Christ,
as it is for followers of other faiths.

We look to you to help us do better,
to help us remember that we are the Body of Christ,
called to reflect the love of Christ.
That the doors of this church are open to all,
and that Christ himself, the head of our church,
stands at the door “with his big carpenter hands”
opened wide in welcome, especially to the outcasts.

In professing your faith this morning,
you made a choice,
a choice to follow God,
a choice to follow Christ.
Now that you have each made that choice,
stick with it!
Live your choice as though you really meant it.
The worst thing you can do is drift along,
with faith that is neither hot nor cold.

That’s exactly what had Elijah so mad 2800 years ago.
The people were just going along,
following God one moment, Baal the next.
Elijah was furious:
“How long will you go limping along”
waffling, wavering,
cold one minute, hot the next,
most of the time luke warm.
“If the Lord is God, follow him,
but if Baal, then follow him.” (1K18:21)

Make a choice,
commit yourself; take a stand,
and then live your life by that choice.
Follow Christ with conviction
and commitment,
Don’t follow Christ by convention and convenience.
(Barth)

You will have your times of doubt and struggle,
And that is okay.
We all have our moments and times of doubt.
Even Jesus’ disciples were not men of
perfect, unwavering faith.
Just remember the prayer uttered by the father
in our gospel lesson.
It is the perfect prayer for every one of us:
“I believe; help my unbelief!”

To our newest sisters and brothers in Christ,
I offer Paul’s words from his letter to the church at Philippi:
“Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ…(1:27)
do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit;
Let each of you look not to your own interests,
but to the interest of others….
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, (2:3)
[and] Rejoice
rejoice in the Lord always;
again, I say Rejoice....
And may the peace of God,
the peace which surpasses all understanding
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”
this very special day, and always.
Amen

Quietly, Resolutely, Faithfully

Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 13, 2007

Quietly, Resolutely, Faithfully
Acts 16:9-15
Luke 8:1-3

Have you ever looked at map and traced Paul’s journeys?
He was always on the move, traveling all over
the eastern part of the Mediterranean,
and into what we now call Europe.

Chapter 16 of the Acts of the Apostles
finds him in Syria, the country north of Israel.
It was in the Syrian city of Antioch
that we find the first reference
to followers of Jesus Christ as Christians,
about twenty years after the crucifixion
and resurrection.
Paul moved north from there,
following the coast west into Cilicia, in Asia,
and then inland,
moving northwest
through the cities of Derbe, then Lystra,
where his protégé Timothy joined him.
From there, they continued on with Silas,
Luke writing of Paul’s travels as though
they were as simple as any of us
traveling to Baltimore.
But Paul traveled on foot, of course,
through country that was rugged
and often dangerous.

In our lesson we find Paul in the city of Troas,
a port city on the western edge of what was then called Asia,
and is now modern Turkey.
Paul’s journeys were not to end at the water;
the sea was no barrier to the gospel.
The Spirit called Paul to keep moving,
this time across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia,
once the heart of Alexander the Great’s Greek empire,
but then, like so much of the world
a region under Roman control.

Paul, Timothy, and Silas set sail.
They didn’t have far to travel, about 150 miles.
We could drive that in a few hours.
But they were in a small boat sailing across
the turbulent Aegean.
They docked in Neapolis, a port city, and
from there they went to Philippi
which was inland just a short distance.

They’d come to preach the gospel,
to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
The Roman government had not yet begun
its violent persecution of followers of Christ,
but Paul and his colleagues knew their task was filled with risk.
The Spirit, though, gave them the courage they needed
to press on in a strange land, a strange culture,
far from home.

The language spoken in Philippi may have been Greek,
but the culture was Roman:
the people worshiped Jupiter, Juno, Vulcan, Hermes,
Mercury, and Neptune: all the Roman gods.
There was no Jewish community, no synagogue,
no Temple, no place where those who worshiped
the Lord God, the God of Israel, could gather.

Paul learned that a small group of believers
gathered by the river on the city’s western edge
to keep the Commandment,
so on the Sabbath he and his colleagues went there
and found a group gathered for prayer.
It was there that Paul met Lydia,
who Luke tells us, was a “dealer in purple cloth”.

We know very little about Lydia.
She apparently was a successful businesswoman,
probably a widow, who sold cloth dyed
from coloring that came from the murex fish.
The color was a rich, rare, and royal purple,
favored by kings and the wealthy of every nation.
Lydia had come to Philippi from Thyatira,
a city on the other side of the Aegean,
200 miles to the southeast, in the region
that Paul had just come from.

Now Paul has a reputation as a sexist and chauvinist,
a reputation that I don’t think he deserves.
Just look at what he did here:
he found a company of women gathered in prayer.
He didn’t turn away from them;
he didn’t dismiss them as second-class citizens.
No, he sat with them,
talked with them,
worshiped with them,
prayed with them, and
shared the good news of the gospel with them.

In the process, Paul fanned the flame of faith
God had lit in Lydia’s heart.
She responded by asking Paul to baptize her
and her entire household,
and then she invited Paul and his group to stay with her
while they worked in Philippi,
sharing the gospel.

Lydia became the very foundation of the church in Philippi,
the rock in that city upon which
the church of Jesus Christ was built,
or as John Calvin put it,
“a noble church from that one small graft”
known as Lydia.
(Calvin, Commentary, 102)
In time, the gospel, the Word of the Lord,
the good news of Jesus Christ
radiated out from her home
and drew a growing number of
new believers, new followers,
new disciples.

Some 10 years later,
the church in Philippi was growing and thriving
even in the face of increasing persecution
by the Roman government.
Paul was so delighted and so pleased with
the community of faith that had formed in Philippi
that he wrote them a letter which we now know
as his letter to the Philippians,
a letter filled with praise for their efforts,
along with encouragement and love.

One of the most eloquent prayers found in the Bible
is in the first chapter of the letter:
“And this is my prayer: that your love may overflow more
and more with knowledge and full insight
to help you to determine what is best,
so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless,
having produced the harvest of righteousness
that comes through Jesus Christ
for the glory and praise of God.” (Phil. 1:9-11)

This heartfelt, even lyrical response to what
Paul saw happening in Philippi had its roots
in that meeting on the riverbank on that Sabbath morning,
Paul the itinerant evangelist,
and Lydia, child of God,
chosen by God,
guided by God to be the local church’s foundation.

In a few easily skimmed verses in the middle of
the Acts of the Apostles,
we find the creation of the church
in the midst of a Roman colony
in the heart of countryside that had been Greek for centuries
and it was at the hands of a woman!

We tend to overlook the role women played
in the creation of the church.
But it is no exaggeration to say that without their efforts,
there would have been no church.
Throughout Christ’s ministry, and subsequently,
throughout Paul’s there were women working
quietly, resolutely, and faithfully
in the background
to assure that Christ’s gospel would be heard.

In the eighth chapter of the gospel according to Luke,
we find another paragraph that is easy to overlook.
We tend to treat the verses simply as a link
between two more important sections.
But we should not skim over the sentences
in our rush to get to the next lesson.
Listen again to what Luke wrote:
“Soon afterward [Jesus] went on through cities and villages,
proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.
The twelve were with him,
as well as some women...Mary Magdalene,
Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza,
and Susanna,
and many others,
who provided for them out of their resources.”
Luke 8:1-3

These and other women were not just followers,
they were disciples,
not part of the twelve,
they lived, of course, in a patriarchal,
paternalistic time,
but disciples as surely as each of us is today.
Believing, following, working, spreading the gospel.

There are so many women in the Bible
who quietly, resolutely, and faithfully lived their lives:
Ruth and Naomi,
Deborah,
Hannah,
Abigail,
Esther,
Elizabeth
are just a few of the names we read about;
but how much do we really know about them?
How many other names do we just skip over
as incidental to the larger story?

The Bible was written in patriarchal times:
but yet the Bible is not a man’s book,
written by a man, about men, for men.
It is a book written for every child of God
written for women as well as men,
about women as well as men,
and probably pieces of it
written by women, as well as men.

Read Paul’s letters carefully and you’ll find many references
to women who were instrumental in building the church:
Phoebe, the deacon,
about whom Paul wrote,
“I commend [her to you] so that you may welcome her
as is fitting for the saints…”; (Romans 16:1)
He wrote of how Prisca literally risked her neck for him.
(Romanas 16:3)
Euodia and Syntche worked with Paul
sharing the gospel. (Phil. 4:3)
Nympha established a church in Laodicia
near Colossae.
And the list goes on.

The church is here today because of the work
that God began so long ago in Christ.
It is work that Paul and Peter
and Timothy and Silas and
all built on as they traveled throughout the known world.
But it is also work carried out much less visibly,
but no less importantly by Mary Magdalene,
Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus,
Susanna, Lydia, Priscilla, Phoebe, Dorcas,
and so many others over the centuries,
including the women who have been part of this church
over its 140-year history.
So many women whose names have been lost to history,
or even if we have them,
names that don’t have
the familiar ring of John Calvin or Martin Luther,
but who were just as instrumental in the
foundation of our church.

Read the account of a woman named Egeria
who in the fourth century, traveled to Jerusalem
to join the church.
Read the deeply spiritual writings of
Hildegard of Bingham,
Julian of Norwich,
or Teresa of Avila.
Read from contemporary writers,
such as Barbara Brown Taylor,
Marva Dawn,
Anne Lamott,
Annie Dillard, or
Kathleen Norris.

Women called by God since the beginning of time,
saints who are now seated at Christ’s table
in the heavenly kingdom,
and saints who work among us today.
Daughters of our Lord and God,
sisters of our Lord and Savior.
No ordinary women,
for every one filled with Spirit
and called by God to follow our Lord Jesus Christ
in exactly the same way every man has been called.

Paul got it right when he wrote,
“There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male and female;
for all of [us] are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27)

A lesson he well may have learned from
a woman named Lydia,
a woman whose name is only vaguely known to us now,
a woman who, like so many who followed her,
lived her life quietly, resolutely, faithfully.
“Surely, all generations shall call her
[and those who came after her] blessed.”
Amen

The Hardest Rule in the Bible

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 6, 2007

The Hardest Rule in the Bible
Acts 11:1-18
John 13:31-35

Anne Lamott writes in her most recent book
(Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith)
of the annual fair at her church tucked away
in a small community just north of San Francisco.
The “Faith Fair” was a tradition at her church,
and every year Lamott had been actively involved.
She was the one who was tasked with buying
crafts and games for the children,
and she was also the one responsible for renting
the inflatable jump house.

All the children in the community came to the fair
and they were especially entranced by the jump house,
a big inflatable room that looked like a giant Blue Dog.
The children would bounce themselves red,
or if they’d had too many hot dogs or sno-cones,
they’d bounce themselves white.

Every year she would write up
what her out-of-pocket expenses were
and turn them into the church for reimbursement,
and every year she’d been paid quickly.
Every year, that is, until that year,
the year in which her story was set.

That year she sent off her expenses the night of the fair,
sent them off by e-mail,
pleased with herself, no doubt,
for having been so helpful to the church treasurer
in getting her expenses in before the end of the day.

Minutes later, though, came the sound that announced that
she “had mail”.
As she read the e-mail,
her joy from the day evaporated,
boiled away in anger:
Things apparently had changed since last year:
Now she would have to submit receipts from her credit cards,
or if she had written a check,
she’d have to provide a copy of the canceled check,
if she wanted to be reimbursed.
It was nothing aimed at her, she was assured,
just new policies,
new procedures,
new practices put in place.

Her response to the e-mail was, “Excuuuuuuse me?”
She’d been doing the same thing year after year
for as long as she could remember,
She had chaired the Fair for six years,
she put in hours and hours of time to make it a success,
she was exhausted after a long day,
and now they were telling her
that they wanted receipts and canceled checks?

She sat down at her computer
and wrote an angry response
to almost everyone she could think of,
all directed at the “petty bureaucrat”
hiding behind the policies, practices, and procedures.
“Clearly,” she wrote,
“I do not have what it takes to be a Presbyterian.
I simply cannot spend one more second on this matter”.

And then she made that mistake so many of us have made
when we’ve written an e-mail in anger:
she hit the “send” button.

For a few seconds she felt “powerful and righteous”.
having expressed her indignation
at how she was being treated.
But then she realized what she had done.
She knew she had made a mistake.
She knew the man who was responsible for the change,
the one she dubbed a “petty bureaucrat”,
was in fact, a good man, a faithful man.

What she had done was something we all do,
we do all the time:
She had stopped thinking about others;
she had turned her attention on herself;
She had let anger get the better of her;
She had stopped loving.

She cooled down
and then sent another e-mail to the group,
apologizing to everyone
for having been such a grump.
The man at whom her anger was directed wrote back,
“We are here only with love for you, Annie.”

That man had learned the lesson that Lamott
had forgot in her anger.
It is the hardest lesson in the Bible;
A lesson that is so hard it makes keeping the Sabbath
in July and August seem easy by comparison.
The lesson we heard in our gospel reading,
the lesson that Jesus calls a “new commandment”:
that we are called to love one another.

It is such a hard lesson,
even for clergy.
How can I love the person ahead of me
in the express checkout lane
who has 20 items, when the sign says 12?
How am I supposed to love the person in the movie theater
who doesn’t turn off his cellphone?

How can I love someone with whom I disagree
on a matters that to me have great importance,
matters of theology, or
considering our location, matters of politics?
How can I love the person
who disagrees with my choice?

How can I possibly be expected to love someone
who has offended me?
Someone who has hurt me emotionally?
Someone who has injured me physically or emotionally
and doesn’t seem the least bit sorry
about what he or she has done?

Jesus isn’t interested in any of these questions.
He leaves us with no wiggle room,
He is direct and to the point:
“if you want to be my disciple,
if you want to be known as my disciple,
it will be only if you have love for one another.”

Now that’s hard enough to do even within the boundaries
of a Christian community,
whether it was those who were with Jesus
that night in the Upper Room,
or those of us gathered here within this space.
But the commandment is not limited;
Jesus makes that clear in other parts of the gospels.
Our lesson from Acts also reinforces that lesson.
The Gospel, the good news, is to be shared with all,
which means love is to be shared with all.
The imagery that was Peter’s dream was not about
what can and cannot be set on the dinner table;
it was about sharing the love of God with all.

It is hard to love,
hard to share love unconditionally.
Jesus’ would have a one-word response to us:
“Try”
Try.
Try our best, knowing that like Anne Lamott
we will sometimes fail,
but we are never to stop trying.

It is easier, though, not to try.
It is so much easier to criticize, carp, complain.
So much easier to get with others who think just like you do
and say “Can you believe that new church treasurer?
Who does he think he is, with his policies, his procedures?
Doesn’t he know I’ve been involved in this church fair
since long before he even became a member?
Doesn’t he know I’ve always put in my paperwork this way?”

Ah, but in that there is not even a hint of grace,
the grace each of us has been given by God through Christ,
the grace we are called to extend to others,
to all in love,
to all through love.

We are called to love because that’s the only thing that matters.
We are called to love because it is the only way
we will truly know God’s love, God’s grace.
It was the Russian novelist Dostoevsky who defined hell
as "the suffering of being unable to love.”
(Brothers Karamazov, VI,3,i:360)
and I think that is a very apt description.

We are to love because we have been commanded to
by our Lord,
We are to love because only when we do
will be be known as disciples of Jesus Christ.

As you come to this table,
think about someone with whom you’ve been angry,
or about whom you’ve expressed,
disdain, disappointment, disagreement.
Let this holy meal wash away the toxin of those feelings,
and let the bread and wine fill you with peace,
and fill you with love.
And then share that love,
share that love “in truth and action”
rather than empty words,
share that love in goodness and grace,
nourishing the person
as God’s love in Christ nourishes you.
Then, and only then,
will you be known as
a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN