The Presence of the Absence

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 23, 2007

The Presence of the Absence
Isaiah 25:6-9
Selected other texts

On Friday my sisters and I will gather with
aunts and uncles, cousins and friends
to celebrate my mother’s life.
We are not referring to Friday’s time together
as a Memorial Service;
we are intentionally calling it a celebration:
a service of celebration and thanksgiving
for the gift of my mother’s life.

It will be a worship service:
The minister from her church will lead us in prayer,
I will read from the Bible,
and a soloist will sing two of mom’s favorite hymns.
But we will not be at the church;
we will be at the Twentieth Century Club,
a women’s club in downtown Buffalo
where my mother was a member for many years.

The setting will help us to remember
the many different parts of Mom’s life:
she was a teacher
an avid reader,
a dedicated bridge player;
she loved music and theater,
she loved being with her friends,
and she loved her family.

We will laugh at stories we’ll share.
I am sure every one of us will learn something new,
something about my mother that we did not know,
something that will make us all smile.
I am not sure, though, whether I will share the story
of how Mom reacted that time 40 years ago
when I put a cap in one of her cigarettes,
and it went off as she smoked it
in the middle of a restaurant!

There will be tears, of course.
Even as we celebrate her life
and offer words and prayers of thanksgiving,
we will all be painfully aware of “the presence of her absence”.
That voice that said to me so many times,
“not just a minute, now”
is silent, still.
We won’t see the twinkle in the eye
that reflected her wonderful sense of humor.
And we won’t see that smile
that blossomed whenever she was with her family.

I have felt the presence of Mom’s absence
in countless ways over the past month.
I have been most aware of it
around 4:30 on Sunday afternoons.
For more than 30 years,
that was the time she and I talked on the telephone,
a pattern we established when I was in college.
Yes, we talked at other times throughout the week,
but Sunday was our time to chat.
She would tell me about her week,
which up until 3 years ago, had always been filled
with a stream of activities: bridge, lunch,
book club, evenings out with friends at dinner,
movies, the theater, shows.

After she told me about her week,
she would ask about me, and about Pat,
and then she would ask,
“what was the sermon about?”
She wanted to know what I had preached on:
what were the texts, what was the theme.
It was her way of being present each time I preached,
each place I preached.

My mother surprised me not that long ago
when she told me that had things been different for women
in the post World-War II years when she graduated from college,
she would have gone to seminary
and become a priest in her church,
which at that time was the Episcopal Church.

The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay gave us such a powerful phrase
when she wrote of “the presence of absence”.
When a loved one dies, that’s what we feel:
the absence of the person,
the loss of his or her presence.
There is a void, an empty place.

This won’t be the first time I have felt the presence of absence.
I felt it when my father died;
I felt it each time a grandparent died;
I’ve felt it when friends have died,
especially those who died much too young,
from illness or disease.

Each time there has been a renewed sense of that
presence of absence,
that void, that emptiness;
a person, a special person, who was part of my life,
important to my life,
someone who enriched my life,
was no longer there.

Recognizing that absence,
acknowledging it, talking about it,
is all part of the grieving process.
In time we fill the void as best we can --
fill it with memories,
that wonderful gift God has given us,
a gift that allows us to recall a time, a look,
a laugh, a word, a moment.
Our memories help us keep loved ones with us,
help us to remember the promise
that love never dies.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, in her famous study, “On Death and Dying”
identified five stages of grief we go through in loss.
In the first stage we deny the loss;
we think that what happened can’t have happened,
that it has all been a bad dream;

The second stage is anger;
we might feel anger at ourselves,
that we could have done more,
or that we should have said something,
or should not have said or done something.
Our anger may be directed at doctors and caregivers –
why couldn’t they have done more?
Our anger may be directed at the one who died:
why didn’t he stop smoking?
why didn’t she wear a seat belt?
And we may even get angry at God:
how could he allow something like that to happen?
It’s okay to get angry at God:
God can handle our anger.

The third stage is bargaining:
we more likely to do this as a loved one nears the end of life:
God please give us a little more time.

The fourth stage is depression.
This is more than sadness;
depression can drop us into such a deep hole
that we may well need help to find our way out.
We can understand the Psalmist’s lament:
“out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord,
Lord hear my voice!” (Psalm 130:1)

The last stage is acceptance.
Acceptance of what has happened,
acceptance of the loss,
This isn’t saying that we’re okay with it;
we are never okay with the loss,
but when we accept the reality of the loss
we can begin to heal as we move forward in our lives.

How we grieve is as unique as each of us.
How long we grieve differs from person to person.
Grieving takes time;
it takes as much time as each person needs.
When a loved one dies,
the entire year following the death can be difficult;
each day may bring a reminder:
the first Christmas without the person,
the person’s birthday,
a wedding anniversary.

Our faith helps us through the grieving process,
helps us with accepting the presence of the absence.
In our faith, we can find hope
even in the absence.

We who follow Jesus Christ have the advantage of the promise
our Lord makes to us when the end of mortal life is reached:
the promise of eternal life.
This promise is not one that Jesus speaks of in cryptic parables,
parables we sometimes struggle with,
but instead Jesus speaks of clearly,
to be certain that we’ll have no doubt.

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells us,
“I am the resurrection and the life,
Those who believe in me
even though they die, will live;
and everyone who lives and believes in me
will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

A few chapters later, Jesus tells his disciples and us:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
If it were not so, would I have told you
that I go to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and will take you to myself,
so that where I am,
there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3)

Even on the cross, Jesus told the thief who believed
that that very day, they would be together in paradise.
(Luke 23:43)

It is an extraordinary promise of hope and love,
a promise that we will know God’s love
both in our mortal lives, and for all eternity.

Paul puts it so simply for us:
“We do not live to ourselves,
and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die,
we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:7-8)

We are the Lord’s in this life,
and we are the Lord’s in the life to come.
My mother was the Lord’s in this life
and she is still the Lord’s.
My father was the Lord’s in this life
and he is still the Lord’s.
My grandparents were the Lord’s in this life,
and they are still the Lord’s.

This is the hope we have in Jesus Christ,
the hope that helps to take away some of the sting,
some of the pain,
even in the presence of absence.

The promise that is ours in Jesus Christ
is that when we reach the end of mortal life,
it is not death that comes for us,
but rather Christ himself
to bring us to the heavenly kingdom,
to be with him in the presence of God.

Isaiah’s prophesy that we heard in our first lesson
points to the life that is ahead of us
when this earthly life comes to an end:
a life on God’s heavenly mountain,
with us seated at God’s heavenly banquet table.
a place where death is swallowed up forever,
where every tear is wiped away.
(Isaiah 25:8)
This promise is so powerful
that more than 600 years later,
John would reinforce it in his Revelation.

Death can often seem so cruel and capricious.
Death can break into our lives so unexpectedly,
so violently.
Death is never welcome.
The grief that comes with death is real,
the pain is real,
the sorrow is real,
the suffering is real.

But we must never forget that
God is with us in our suffering,
that God himself knows the pain of death,
that God himself has felt the death of his own son,
his only son,
murdered so callously and cruelly.
And because God knows death
God “never lets death have the last word.”
(A Matter of Life and Death, 106)

Death has no hold on us;
death dares not to “be proud”
for through Jesus Christ,
death has died, death is no more.

In a wonderful little book I keep on my desk
one writer imagines death as a boat
that takes a loved one off over the horizon:
The loved one sails away, out of sight,
to a place we cannot see,
but in our faith we know that
there are those waiting for him or her
on that far distant shore,
waiting to welcome him, welcome her
embrace the loved one
in the new life that awaits us all.
(“Words of Comfort”)

What is that place like,
that place over the horizon,
that place we call heaven?
Will we have wings?
Will we play harps?
Will we be floating just above the clouds?
I certainly don’t know,
What I do know is that Jesus used the term Paradise,
and I cannot imagine a more perfect word,
for we will be embraced in the light and love
of God for all eternity

I stand on the shore
and I look, but I cannot see.
My mother is gone, my father is gone,
my grandparents are gone --
they have all sailed over the horizon.
They are absent from my life,
present now only in memories,
pictures in my mind
and feelings in my heart.
And yet I know where they are,
and I know who came for them.

And I know that someday I too will take that journey,
when Christ comes “to take me to himself”.
to take me to Paradise,
and those who are absent will welcome me
as part of that choir that will sing out
“Behold, one more to increase our love.”
(Dante, Paradise)

I understand now
why our Lord teaches us,
“Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.”
(Matthew 5:4)

AMEN

A Lot, Actually

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 16, 2007

A Lot, Actually
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Luke 14:25-33

Did you ever stop to think what might have happened
if Moses had stuck with his “no”
when God first called him to service?
Read through chapters 3 and 4 of Exodus
and you will realize that Moses
was more than a little reluctant, more than a little hesitant,
about accepting God’s call to serve.
Moses gave God one reason after another
why he was the wrong man for the job:
“Who will listen to me?”
“I wouldn’t know what to say.”
“I am not a very good speaker.”
and then finally,
“Please God, pick somebody else.”
(Exodus 3:11-4:14)

Back and forth they went,
Moses coming up with one argument, one excuse,
after another, and God countering every one
with the same promise: “I will be with you.”
Finally, God had had enough and said to Moses,
“Stop arguing with me.
I am calling you,
and that’s that.
I will give you the tools you will need,
I will be with you at all times and in all places.
I need you, I am calling you.
What part of “yes” don’t you understand?”

What if Jeremiah had been firm in his initial no to God?
When God called Jeremiah to serve him,
Jeremiah responded much like Moses:
“I am too young;
no one will listen to me;
I wouldn’t know what to say.”
But once again God assured his prophet that
he would give Jeremiah everything he would need to serve.
Once again, God said, in effect:
“I need you,
you are the one I am calling to do the work
I need to have done.
What part of yes don’t you understand?”

Read through the Bible
and it’s always the same:
Almost every time God called someone to serve,
the person was quick with the “no”,
quick with the “I don’t know if I can do it,
I don’t think I am the right person
I wouldn’t know what to say,
I wouldn’t know what to do.”

And God’s response was also always the same:
“You can do it.
I will be with you.
I will give you the wisdom, the words,
the courage to do my work.
You are the one I need, the one I have called.
Just say yes so we can get to work: you and I.”

When God calls, we should have only response:
“Yes.
Yes Lord, I am ready to serve,
I am willing to serve,
even if I have my doubts about my ability to serve.
With you at my side, why wouldn’t I say yes?
With you guiding me,
why would I hesitate?
So yes, Lord, my response is yes,
for I know that you will be with me.”

What if David had said no to God’s call,
put away his sling, and remained in the pastures,
tending his sheep?
What if Peter had said to Jesus,
“you’ve come at a terrible time:
this is the height of the fishing season;
I will make most of my year’s profit
over the next couple of weeks.”

What if Matthew had said,
“My wife and I want to add to the house,
and we were thinking about taking a vacation,
so let me collect tax revenues for the next 6 months,
and then I will get in touch with you.”

Time and time again,
the faithful have put aside their own interests,
their own concerns,
their doubts about their ability,
in many instances their own comfort,
even their own safety,
and responded to God’s call to service.
Time and again, the faithful have said “yes”.

God calls to each of us time and time again
to serve God in countless ways.
God needs every one of us,
and calls every one of us to ministry and service
in the name of Jesus Christ.

But oh, how resistant we can be with the yes,
as though we think the lesson we should learn
from Moses is that if we are not successful
with five different reasons for why we cannot serve,
we should try 7, or 8 or 10!

A word we hear Jesus speak again and again
throughout the gospels is “repent.”
“Repent.”
When Jesus said, “repent and follow God”,
Jesus was not saying, “confess all your sins”.
The word “repent” means simply, “turn”:
turn from how you are presently living your life
and turn to a new way, a new life,
following God in a new way,
a more faithful way,
with God first,
not second, or third,
after work, sports, school,
other activities.

Michael Lindvall, the pastor at the Brick Presbyterian Church
in New York City,
where I worshiped when I lived in Manhattan,
reminds us that
“God asks for everything.
Everything.
… Faith cannot be one band of interest in our lives…
We are to be turned around toward God at the center.
If we occupy the center, God cannot. …
(A Geography of God, 132).

We need to “repent”
and turn from lives that are filled with so many divergent interests
and make our lives as children of God and followers of Christ
the foundation on which all other parts of our lives are built:
family, work, community, school.
Everything we do, every relationship
flowing from God.

This discipleship business isn’t easy.
It is what Jesus tells us in our gospel lesson.
As he often did, Jesus teaches with hyperbole to make his point.
Jesus doesn’t want us to hate our family,
or live in poverty;
but what he wants us to understand is that
if we are going to follow him,
then God has to come before everything else,
everything else: family, work, possessions, money,
God first.
If we find that unacceptable, Jesus’ response to us is simple:
don’t follow.
Jesus offers us no compromise, saying to us:
“think about what you are doing
and decide if you are willing
to stay with me all the way.”
(Fred Craddock)

All the way.
It’s hard.
Even the disciples who walked with Jesus
did not understand completely.
But that’s what God wants: our all, our everything.
That’s the life Jesus calls us to.
So when a call to service comes at a time
that isn’t really all that convenient,
we should not complain,
and we shouldn’t hesitate:
God first. Service first.

The children of Israel had forgotten this lesson
in Jeremiah’s time.
They were living in a time not all that different from our own:
the people were growing in affluence
with the rich getting richer.
People were focused on money, business,
reputation, comfort, pleasure.
Oh yes, they considered themselves faithful:
they paid their tithes,
and observed the laws,
went to the synagogues and the Temple.
But the very idea of responding to God’s call to service,
if it required sacrifice, was no more appealing then
than it is now.
Is it any wonder that God was so frustrated,
so angry,
so intent on teaching his children
the lessons they needed to learn?

Our Lord reminds us that he came to serve,
and not be served
and if we are going to follow him faithfully,
then we too have to remember
that we are called to serve.
serve whenever God calls us,
regardless of whether it suits our schedule.

Each one of us will someday stand before the Lord in judgment.
The questions Jesus will ask us
will have nothing to do
with how successful our careers were,
how much money we made,
or how our sports teams we participated on did.
No: our Lord will ask us:
did you visit the sick?
Feed the hungry?
Clothe the naked?
Did you create a place of hospitality and welcome
in your church, your home, your workplace,
with strangers as well as friends,
everywhere you went?
Did you work for peace and reconciliation
with family, with workers,
with colleagues and friends,
with strangers,
and yes, even with enemies?
Did you say yes each time God called you to serve?

Most of you have seen the green Time and Talent surveys
our Stewardship Ministry Team has sent out through our Deacons.
We have so many needs here in our church:
we are eager to match needs with interests
so we can do all the things God calls us to do.

Please fill out the form and return it.
If you remember doing this a few years back,
and not getting called, the operative phrase is
“the old ways are past and a new life has begun”:
Ann Curtis and Sarah Slader spent a great deal of time this summer
updating our database to make it much easier for us
to capture information and then use it
so we can make matches.
But even if you don’t get a call right away,
don’t complain; give me a call or send me an e-mail
and let me know where you feel called to serve.
I will help you find your place.

It is easy to say no,
no because you are busy,
or, perhaps because you think,
what difference can one person make?
The needs can sometimes seem so overwhelming
that it is easy to feel that you as one person cannot
really make much of a difference.
But the answer to the question, what can one person do is,
a lot actually.
History is filled with stories of the power behind
one person’s act.
As our Lord teaches us,
with God all things are possible.
With God your partner,
there is virtually nothing you won’t be able to do.

Moses, Deborah, David, Jeremiah,
Peter, Mary Magdalene, Paul, Lydia:
each an otherwise ordinary person,
really not all that different from any of us.
But each repented,
and turned from the way they had been living their lives,
repented and turned to make God the center,
God the focus,
turned to serve the Lord,
serve in all times and all places,

God is calling each person in this room here and now,
calling each to service.
Every one of us.
There is no one God will overlook.
God needs us each and all.

How is God calling you?
Where is God calling you?
Do you hear the call? Do you feel it?

You may not be certain
just how God is calling you to serve,
but give it time, give it prayer,
and you’ll discern your call – it’s there.
And when you do,
be ready with your Yes,
be faithful with your Yes:
“Yes, here am I, Lord.
Maybe a little unsteady on my feet,
a little uncertain of my ability,
but ready nevertheless.
ready to follow and to serve,
ready to follow your call,
as I follow your Son, my Lord,
wherever he leads.”
AMEN

A River Runs Through Us

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 9, 2007

A River Runs Through Us
Mark 1:21-39
Isaiah 43:18-19

Some five hundred years before the birth of our Lord
the Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed
“you cannot step into the same river twice,
for the waters are ever changing.”
A river runs,
the current slow or fast,
but never still.
A river is not like a lake or a pond:
the water changes with every moment,
carving away at the banks,
cutting, digging;
over the centuries smoothing stones,
in time reducing boulders to pebbles,
always bringing new life,
as it carries away the old.

You might step into a river
and stand with the water flowing around your ankles
for only a minute,
but even in that minute
the water around you is different, new,
the old is past.
Sit by a river for an hour
and the picture may be one of pastoral beauty,
God’s changeless world,
but the river you look at is different with every blink of your eyes.

“Behold, I make all things new.”
These are the words we hear God speak from the heavens,
according to John’s Revelation. (21:5)
We hear those words, and think about that new day
that God will bring.
But God made that promise long before John’s prophecy
and has already made good on it;
we do not have to await the end of time.
It is a promise God makes with every day
and fulfills every day.

A river runs through us, bringing the new,
carrying away the old.
John’s prophecy simply echoes the words God spoke
through the prophet Isaiah 600 years earlier,
the promise personified in Jesus Christ.

A river runs through us, each of us
and through this Body of Christ
that is the Manassas Presbyterian Church.
God is constantly at work making all things new
here within these walls.

God washes away the old,
and brings in the new,
carving new channels and directions,
smoothing rough edges – at least so we hope.
We can, of course, try to divert the river,
to bend it to our own will.
We can also try to block it, to dam it up.
It happens in churches all the time.

But God speaks to us
calling us to embrace the new life God has for us:
“Do not remember the former things,
or consider things of old.
I am about to do new things…
do you not perceive it?”
(Isaiah 43:19)

Are your eyes open?
your minds?
your ears?
your hearts?
Or is the dam in place,
the one built on that infamous phrase:
“we’ve never done it that way before”.

Tradition is wonderful,
history important.
We have a history in this church that stretches back 140 years,
to those wild and wooly years of Reconstruction
following the Civil War.
But as important as our history is,
as important as we consider the past and all its traditions,
what is more important is our future,
what lies ahead.
Our past is merely the foundation that we are called to build on,
Our past is where we’ve come from,
but the future is where God calls us,
as he makes all things new.

Imagine yourself on the seat of a rowboat,
the sun glistening off the water,
a breeze just gentle enough to refresh
as it blows over the surface.
You pull on the oars and the boat begins to move.
You pull again and the boat glides forward.
You get into a rhythm on the oars
as the bow cuts through the waters.
With every pull on the oars you move forward,
but where are you looking?
Where is your focus?
Where are your eyes fixed?
Backward, on where you’ve come from.
When we row a boat,
our eyes are not fixed on where we are going,
they are fixed on where we’ve been.
That’s how it often is in churches:
we move forward, carried by the river,
but our eyes, our minds
are focused backward,
on where we’ve come from,
on where we’ve been.

God calls us to turn our gaze forward,
to be filled with a sense of eager expectation,
of eager anticipation of what lies ahead of us,
of where God is calling us.

The future is always filled with uncertainty of course,
and we struggle with the fact that we don’t like uncertainty.
It is human nature to prefer what we know
to what we don’t know.

It is just what God was dealing with
2500 years ago with his children.
They had lived for the better part of 50 years,
two full generations, in captivity in Babylon.
But the war that had forced them out of their country was over,
and the children of Israel were being offered
the opportunity to return to Israel.

They weren’t so sure about taking the offer, though.
They had become familiar with their lives in Babylon,
comfortable, settled.
Following God meant giving up the known, the certain,
for the unknown, the uncertain.
Following God meant leaving their settled lives
to trek through wilderness,
across desert and mountains,
back to a land that few remembered,
and most knew nothing about.

But God was calling, calling them to follow,
to walk by faith, not by sight,
to use Paul's words.
God was calling them with the promise
that God makes to all his children:
the promise of his presence at all times, all places,
even in the valley of the shadow of death.

God calls us to follow, to face the future
to go with the flow of the river that runs through us,
the river whose current is neither weak
nor a torrent,
but always steady and strong.

Mark’s was the first gospel,
written about 20 years following the crucifixion of our Lord.
Mark writes tersely, and he gets to the point quickly:
There’s no infancy story in Mark;
we have to look to Matthew and Luke
for our Christmas stories.
Mark gets right to the Jesus’ ministry, his work,
Mark takes us to the river in the very first chapter.
Did you hear the flow of the current
how strong it was, never slowing?
Jesus off to the synagogue at Capernaum to teach on the Sabbath;
from there he went to Peter’s house,
and healed his mother-in-law of her illness;
After dinner others come to the house to hear,
to be healed, to be in the presence of Jesus.
Early in the morning Jesus was up for his quiet time,
his time with God, time in prayer,
and then he was off for more:
off to neighboring towns
to share the good news of God’s love,
God’s ever-present love.
The river flowing strong and sure,
never letting up,
washing away the old,
and bringing new life to all.
calling all to follow.

The river that runs through us transforms us,
transforms each of us as disciples of Christ,
and in the process, transforms this Body.

Look around: it is easy to see signs of tranformation
around our building.
Did you see the new paint in the Sunday School wing?
The blue door frames are a wonderful splash of color!
We’ve got new teachers in our Sunday School classrooms
new offerings for young people and adults
we’ve got new leadership for our High School youth group,
and we hope, soon for our Middle School group.
We’ve got a newly formed group of young adults
in their 20s and 30s
who are working on plans for activities
for fellowship and discipleship.
In three weeks we will add to our congregation
when receive new members called to this Body
by the Holy Spirit.

We see transformation as officers retire from
our Session and our Board of Deacons,
and new officers are called by God to serve.
Even now, God is calling men and women
to service as Elders and Deacons.
Just a reminder to those of you who may be receiving
a call in the coming week or two:
that voice you hear on the other end of the telephone
may sound like another member of the congregation,
but it is the voice of God calling you to service.
And God’s preferred response to his call to service is “yes”.

When God called the children of Israel
back to their land from captivity in Babylon,
they stood at a threshold.
The place they were in was one of familiarity,
certainty, and comfort, even in captivity.
The place God was calling them to was unfamiliar,
uncertain, in many ways even frightening.
It would have been so easy for them to remain,
to stick with what they knew
but they did not: they followed God,
followed God by faith,
in faith, and through faith.

We too are standing at a threshold
as we begin a new year together.
God is calling us,
calling us to respond,
respond in faith: confident faith,
bold faith, fearless faith.
A river runs through us,
the current calling us to ministry,
as disciples of Jesus Christ.
It is hard work;
it requires our all, our “yes”,
but God will equip us, lead us
support us,
and, of course, nourish us with living waters
and the bread of life.

God speaks to us on this Genesis Sunday:
“I am about to do new things.
Even now it springs up.
Do you not perceive it?”
AMEN

A Seat at the Table

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 2, 2007

A Seat at the Table
Jeremiah 2:4-13
Luke 14: 1, 7-14

Have you ever thought about just how radical
what we are going to do in a few minutes really is?
The Lord’s Supper seems so simple:
we take a loaf or two of bread,
cut the bread into pieces,
and put the pieces on trays;
and then we take a bottle or two of grape juice,
fill tiny cups with the juice,
put the cups on trays,
and then ask Elders and Deacons
to pass the trays among the congregation
as we share a meal together.

Here’s where it’s radical:
The Lord’s Supper is a table to which everyone is invited,
everyone-
regardless of how much or how little money the person has,
how big or how little the house they live in,
how long or how short they have lived here,
how much or how little education they have,
how long or how short a time
they’ve been a part of this community of faith;
Position, prestige, prominence,
even politics in this Washington suburb
are all irrelevant;
country of origin is irrelevant,
accent: irrelevant,
skin color: irrelevant,
age: irrelevant,
sexual orientation: irrelevant --
none of these things matter.

This is the Lord’s Table,
and all who profess faith in Jesus Christ are invited,
every one of us is an honored guest;
no seat more important,
no seat less important.
All of us invited by the grace of God that is Jesus Christ;
the love of God that is ours through Jesus Christ.
How radical is that?

Think about a dinner party you might have at your home.
Who would you invite?
Your friends of course, people you know, people you like.
Think about a dinner part to which you’ve been invited:
you probably hope you’ll be seated next to someone you know,
someone with whom you get along,
a friend with whom you can talk.
That’s just human nature.

But that’s not how Jesus invites guests to his table.
He invites everyone,
and gives everyone a seat of honor,
including the lame, the poor, the outcasts,
in a display of hospitality that is radical, even extreme,
in its outpouring of love and grace.
There is no greater act of hospitality
than an invitation to this meal,
an invitation to this table.

We may well be seated next to someone we know,
someone we like,
but it is just as likely
that we may be seated next to someone
we don’t know,
even someone we don’t like all that much.

In a book I read not long ago (If God is Love)
authors Philip Gulley and James Mulholland
pondered the interesting question
of how we will be seated
at the heavenly table in God’s Kingdom,
following the end of mortal life.
We tend to think that we will rejoin family and friends,
but the authors wonder whether God may not choose first
to seat us next to someone we did not like in life,
someone with whom we did not get along,
someone we may have even considered an enemy,
and leave the us seated next to that person
for whatever part of eternity it takes
until we two are reconciled.
And then God would repeat the process
one person at a time
for as long as it took
until all God’s children were reconciled,
reconciled at God’s heavenly table.

The hospitality that God offers us at this table,
where we have a foretaste of what awaits us,
is a hospitality where all are welcome,
where there are no cliques, no little groups,
no VIP sections, no box seats,
no right, no left,
no conservatives, no liberals –
as unhelpful as those terms are –
but simply one table set with
grace and love for all
A table that enrourages us
to take that hospitality out into the world,
to be so filled with it that it overcomes our fear of others,
our obsession with security
that builds walls to keep out the unfamiliar,
the different, the stranger.

In 1993 I spent two weeks traveling in Russia on business.
I had traveled extensively before,
but never to a place that was so different, so foreign.
Each night I had dinner with Russian men and women,
who overwhelmed me with their hospitality.
During the day we were all business,
but at the table we shared conversation,
laughter, and stories,
as we shared our lives with one another.

The wonderful God-filled irony in those meals
was that I am part of a generation that grew up
taught to fear Russians,
a generation taught to think of the Russian as our enemy
viewed in much the same way we view the Islamic world now.
We were taught to think of them as godless communists,
murderous thugs every one of them, j
ust waiting for an opportunity to attack us,
to kill us.
Back in the early 1960s when I was in elementary school
a regular part of our routine every month
was the “duck-and-cover” drill,
when teachers led children into the hall
where we sat on the floor against an inside wall,
covering our heads, learning to prepare ourselves
for that attack we knew, we just knew,
the Russians were planning.
What we didn’t know at the time, of course,
was that Russian children were doing the same thing,
fearful of an attack by “murderous Americans”.

How quickly fears melt away when we come to a table
to share a meal, to share hopes and dreams,
when we extend hospitality to one another,
leaving security where it belongs: in the hands of God.

Could it be that someday we will sit in harmony and reconciliation
with the Muslim,
the immigrant,
the same-sex couple:
all those we consider different,
all those we fear?

The path to that day begins with hospitality,
hospitality grounded in, yes, some naivety,
naivety that is grounded in faith,
faith so strong that it overcomes our fear,
faith so strong that we remember the promise
that God is with us even in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The path to hospitality in the world outside
begins here in this church.
Unless we practice hospitality ceaselessly, in every setting
here in this church, how can we hope to practice it outside?
Hospitality in meetings of the Session and Board of Deacons;
Hospitality in the work of ministry teams;
hospitality in Sunday School classrooms, children and adult;
hospitality in Youth Groups;
hospitality in which welcoming the stranger
is only the beginning.

The priest Henri Nouwen wrote
“The movement…to hospitality is hard and full of difficulties.
Our society seems to be increasingly full of fearful,
defensive, aggressive people,
anxiously clinging to their property
and inclined to look at their surrounding world with suspicion,
always expecting an enemy to appear, intrude, and do harm.
But still – that is our vocation:
to convert the …enemy into a guest,
and to create the free and fearless space
where brotherhood and sisterhood
can be formed and fully experienced.”
(Reaching Out, 65)

Hospitality is our vocation,
not to convert pagan to believer,
but enemy to guest.
In this day of mega-churches,
with so many proclaiming depth and breadth of their programs,
wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Manassas Presbyterian Church
was known as the church of mega-hospitality?

Come take your seat at this table
your seat among all the honored guests,
each of us bathed in the hospitality that comes from grace,
that comes from love,
that is given so freely to us by God
through Jesus Christ.
Come and share in the hospitality that our Lord offers.
And then, nourished and renewed by this meal
we are about to share,
take that hospitality out into the world,
to share with all God’s children:
grace received, and so grace given,
in the name of the one who is grace:
our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN