Acrophobic Nabalism

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 10, 2007

Acrophobic Nabalism
Psalm 12
Mark 4:21-25

Are you ready?
Pencils sharpened, minds alert?
You didn’t think we were going to wrap up
our Sunday School year without a test, did you?
Okay, here we go:
You remember King David, the great King of Israel,
the King of Judah,
the one who united the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.
David ruled some 3,000 years ago,
and as was common back then, he had more than one wife.
In fact, he had four by my count.
The one you may remember was Bathsheba,
the one who was the mother of Solomon,
who became King on David’s death.

But do you remember that Bathsheba was not David’s first wife?
In fact, she was his fourth wife.
His first wife was Michal,
the daughter of King Saul,
David’s predecessor.

Now: here’s the question, and it’s a tough one.
Who was David’s second wife?
If you remembered the name Abigail
you’d be right!

She was a widow when David married her.
She had been married to a wealthy man,
and they lived in Judah, near Hebron,
where they owned thousands of sheep and goats:
in fact, more than three thousand sheep and
more than a thousand goats.

He was a vain, selfish, and greedy man,
a man who was interested only in his wealth, his possessions --
the things of this world.
Having money has never, of course,
been a guarantee a long life,
and he died suddenly, leaving Abigail a widow.
She then became David’s second wife.
You will find her story in the first book of Samuel
in chapter 25.
Abigail proved to be a woman filled with wisdom,
wisdom just as we talked about last Sunday.
Her first husband, though, the one who died,
for all his money, and all his success,
didn’t seem to have an ounce of wisdom.

You may recall that Hebrew names often meant something:
the word reflected a characteristic of the person.
The name Jesus, for example, came from a Hebrew word
that means “he saves.”
Abigail’s first husband’s name fit him perfectly.
His name was Nabal,
which in Hebrew meant “foolish one”.

Now Nabal was clearly a smart man,
shrewd and skilled at business,
He probably worked very hard to built up his herds
and take care of them.
Were he alive today,
he would probably have been a successful entrepreneur,
with a thriving business.
He and Abigail would have lived in an
8,000 square foot house
on five acres of land,
a house with a pool and a tennis court,
and a media room.
Expensive cars would have filled their driveway,
and their closets would have been filled with
designer clothing and accessories.
Nabal would have been the envy of his neighbors and friends
for his wealth, his possessions, and his success.

For all his material success, though,
Nabal was still a foolish man;
foolish because his focus was on all the wrong things.
His focus was on money, wealth, accumulation,
the trappings of what he thought made for a successful life.
His eyes, his heart, his mind
were focused downward,
on the things of this world,
rather than upward on the things of God’s world.

Had Nabal lived a thousand years later,
he probably would have paid no attention
to an itinerant preacher from Galilee who said,
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust consume
and where thieves break in and steal;
but store up for yourselves
treasures in heaven...” (Matthew 7:19)

Nabal had a bad case of “nabalism”.
Now that’s a word you won’t find in any dictionary,
because I made it up.
I made it up to describe the type of thinking that affected Nabal
and affects us still today:
the chase for things, for money,
for comfort,
for possessions, prestige.
We see the signs of nabalism all around us:
the endless desire for bigger cars,
bigger houses,
the latest electronics,
things we buy because we believe they are “must haves”,
and that not to have them would leave us
feeling somehow deprived.

Now there is nothing wrong with having ambition,
and using the gifts God has given us
as business people, engineers, teachers,
homemakers, medical professionals.
I did not turn away from the business world
when I went to Seminary.
I take pride in my business career,
pride in the job I had with the Economist,
pride in my association with the Wharton School
where I earned my business degree.

But the question that God asks us,
the question that Jesus puts before us is,
“where is your focus?”
Is it on the things of God
or the things of this world?
Are you eyes focused upward or down?
Is your mind focused upward or down?
Is your heart focused upward or down?

It is so easy in our consumer society to have our focus
downward, on the things of this earth.
We may turn our focus upward from time to time,
on Sundays, and other occasions,
but then its right back to the routine.
And yes: we in the clergy are just as susceptible
to the Monday morning slide as everyone else.

It is a struggle we have had throughout human history.
The great preacher Peter Marshall wrote rather acidly
more than sixty years ago:
“It is difficult for us to transfer our affections,
for we have fallen in love with toyland
and our playthings have become so dear.”
Marshall, who preached from the pulpit of the
New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in downtown Washington,
reminds us that the purpose of life is not to make money,
not to pile up a healthy bank account,
not to live in comfort and security,
as hard as we try to achieve those goals.

The purpose of life is to live as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
The purpose of life is to live as children of God.
The purpose of life is to worship and praise God,
to serve God,
to serve as we have been served.

Are you ready for another question?
What does the first statement of the Larger Catechism
of the Westminster Confession of Faith teach us?
The Westminster Confession of Faith
is one of our core Confessional Statements.
You will find it in our Book of Confessions,
which is part of the Constitution of our Church,
the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The very first statement goes right to the point in asking,
“What is the chief and highest end of man [and woman]?”
and answering, “To glorify God and fully enjoy him forever.”
(Book of Confessions, 7.111)

That bumper sticker that says,
“the one who dies with the most toys wins”,
could not be more wrong.

We are called to recognize that we are lights
filled with the illuminating power of love given us by God
through Jesus Christ,
and connected to God’s
unwavering energy by the Holy Spirit.
We are called to shine brightly
by serving God as we follow Jesus Christ.
called to shine brightly
with our hearts, eyes, and minds,
focused on God
at all times, in all places,
here on Sunday of course,
but also in our vocations as well.

When Paul wrote to the new followers of Christ at Colossae,
he urged them to set their minds on things above,
(Colossians 3:1ff)
He told the Colossians to “put to death”
thoughts and desires that were earthly.
We tend to read that as Paul telling us
to put to death “earthy” things: things
we know we shouldn’t be thinking about.
But Paul is much more expansive than that;
his term is earthly: all those things
that don’t point to heaven.

We are called to do the same thing,
you and I:
“to seek the things that are above.”

We seem hesitant, afraid to do that:
to turn our eyes upward,
our minds upward,
our hearts upward,
for more than a brief period here and there,
as though if we did so for more than a few minutes
we'd lose the focus we need to stay competitive,
to get that next promotion,
win the next game,
or even simply to stay up with the Jones’s.

it is as though we suffer from spiritual acrophobia,
a fear of higher things,
a fear of higher callings.
It is our nabalism that causes our focus to be so fixed
on the things of this world;
it’s no wonder we find ourselves disoriented and confused
even dizzy at times, if we stay
focused too long and too intently
on heavenly things.

One summer when I was in college
I worked a construction job as an electrician’s helper.
One day I had to climb a very high ladder
to get to where I was supposed to fix something.
The electrician I was working with kept telling me,
“Don’t look down,
keep looking up and you’ll be just fine.”
And he was right.
That is good advice for when you are off the ladder,
as well as on.

If we keep looking up,
we will have our eyes, our minds,
our hearts focused on Christ,
and with our focus there,
we will never suffer from spiritual acrophobia.
If our eyes, our minds, our hearts are in the wrong place,
if they are cast down on the things of this world
then we will go down the wrong path,
the path of foolishness, of nabalism.

We are lights, with much expected of us.
Much expected of us as individuals and as a community of faith.
In a world with a growing number of people
who are living in poverty,
where the gap between the wealthy and the poor grows,
where children dying of hunger exist alongside
an epidemic of childhood obesity,
where children die in parts of the world
from diseases that we here in this country
don’t even think about any more,
the need for us to shine couldn’t be more acute.

According to the United Nations Childrens Fund website,
ten million children under the age of five
will die over the next year
from hunger, illness and disease that we can readily prevent.
Ten mllion children under the age of five.
That means 20,000 will die tomorrow,
from hunger, pneumonia, measles, diarrhea…
One hundred in the time it takes any of us
to go through the drive-thru at McDonalds.
What will you do tomorrow to save one life, just one life?
And then what will you do on Tuesday?
And then again on Wednesday?

Did you hear the lament of the Psalmist:
“the poor are despoiled, and
the needy groan”? (Psalm 12:5)
That’s the lament of one who sees
acrophobic nabalism all around him.

The world is groaning, calling us,
calling us to be the lights God wants us to be,
Christ teaches us be,
the Spirit energizes us to be.
“Let anyone with ears to hear listen.”
AMEN