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