Sunday, December 30, 2007

Possibilities

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 30, 2007

Possibilities
Matt. 2:13-23
Isaiah 42:1-9

In his poem, “Christmas Oratario”
W. H. Auden captures the poignancy of the week
that follows Christmas:
“Well, so that is that.
Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes…
And the children got ready for school.
…The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory…”

Christmas, a fading memory.
It’s not even a week, and yet Dickens’s
Ghost of Christmas Past has Christmas 2007
firmly in his grip,
the Ghost of Christmas Present idle, out of work,
The Ghost of Christmas Future
gone on vacation,
back in the Fall.

Somehow it doesn’t seem fair, does it?
We put so much work into Christmas.
Was it really that long ago that we began to hear
Christmas carols in the Mall?
Was it really six weeks ago that I began quietly,
stealthily to bring up a few Christmas decorations
from the basement?

Wasn’t it only yesterday that we lit the first candle
on the Advent wreath?
And now the Wreath is gone,
packed away till next year.
its job done.

The New Year beckons,
our eyes, ears and minds focused forward,
at least as far as the weekend,
a blissfully long weekend,
with the New Year’s Day holiday
so conveniently on Tuesday.
Many of us will spend the day as Auden laments,
putting away Christmas, the celebration over.
Come Wednesday, even the church,
indeed every church of every denomination,
will pack Christmas away as quickly as possible
once staff look at the calendar
and realize that the beginning of Lent
is less than 6 weeks away.

So much promise, so much joy,
the brightness, tinsel, music, and light,
and yet what looms ahead
but the dull gray of January.

Go back to the day after that first Christmas 2,000 years ago
and we will realize things weren’t all that different.
After that first glorious Christmas,
with heavenly host singing out,
the shining star piercing through the frigid darkness,
the shepherds went back to their flocks,
to do their hard, cold work through the night.
The Wise Men turned around for their long journey home,
no bright star to guide them.
Even the animals went back to their work:
cows to give milk,
donkeys to carry heavy loads,
sheep to provide wool for clothing.
The joy in that child born in a manger
a fading memory.

But could anything compare to Joseph and Mary’s
post-Christmas season?
They were forced to flee, forced to disappear
in the darkness of the night,
just ahead of the murderous swords of Herod’s killers,
on their bloody quest to dispatch every boy
in Bethlehem under the age of 2,
all because Herod the King
was concerned for his security and his power.

Off the young couple went, into the darkness,
headed to a land that was unfamiliar to them,
far from their families and friends,
far from what was familiar
all to save the child, the son born that night.
Alone, afraid, Joseph’s ears alert for the sound
of horses behind him,
saddles groaning, horses snorting under the weight
of armor-clad men,
Joseph pushing the donkey forward, forward,
cold, hungry, tired, and yet resolute,
his eyes on the strange land that lay to the south.

And then once they settled in Egypt,
did they even think to celebrate their son’s birthday?
His first? His second?
Did things get any better once they returned to Judah
and settled in the town of Nazareth
where Joseph could ply his trade as a carpenter?
Did Christmas ever come again
to the house of Mary and Joseph?

It would be the better part of 400 years
before the followers of Jesus Christ
would make a celebration of Jesus’ birth,
before Christmas would become a date on the calendar.
The very act of making Jesus’ birthday a celebration
was fraught with complications.
No one knew the date of Jesus’ birth.
Two of the gospel writers thought Jesus’ birth and infancy
so unimportant they didn’t even bother to write about it.
The two gospel writers who did include the birth stories
couldn’t agree on the details,
and wrote markedly different accounts.

So church leaders made an arbitrary choice
and decided to set December 25 as the date,
tied to the end of a Roman pagan holiday
that marked winter time,
a time when daylight was shortest
and the nights their longest.

We have built on that tradition over the centuries,
especially over the past hundred or so years,
as we have turned Christmas into quite a party,
quite a celebration.
We build it up with such energy and enthusiasm
that it almost seems inevitable that
we feel exhausted, even let down,
once Christmas is past.
Even in the church sanctuaries that were so full
on the Sunday before Christmas,
and overflowing on Christmas Eve,
usually have room to spare the Sunday following.

But the message of Christmas hasn’t disappeared,
the light hasn’t gone out,
the hope hasn’t faded.
The possibility that is in Christmas is just waiting for us
to get to work on it,
waiting for us to stop celebrating Christmas
and start keeping Christmas.

For as we heard on Christmas Eve
“what has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.”
(John 1:5)

In the promise of Jesus Christ,
light has come into the world
light not just to brighten up Christmas celebrations,
light not just to reflect off of tinsel and ornaments,
but light that is life,
that illumines our lives
because it is the light of life.
When we sing “Joy to the World”
it is not a song for birthday party for one person;
it is a song for a birthday party for all the world,
for in Christ and through Christ the World is reborn,
reborn in hope and possibility.

As Henry Van Dyke so eloquently put it,
dawn broke with the birth of our Lord and Savior.
The light is shining,
but now, as Van Dyke reminds us,
we have work to do.
Work to do because Christ has come into the world,
work to do to take advantage of all the possibilities
that Christmas brings with it.

The possibility, for example of peace,
real peace, lasting peace,
because the Prince of Peace was born for us,
born to lead us.
Peace to stop the scourge of domestic violence,
against women, children, even men,
and increasingly, against the elderly;
Peace to stop young people from thinking
that gangs and rap songs that glorify violence
and dressing as an urban thug
is somehow cool and hip;
peace to stop the endless bickering in churches,
over issues that even the most cursory reading of the Bible
tells us were of no concern to our Lord.
Peace to top our warring madness,
and work for reconcilation,
to act on God’s words through the prophet Isaiah,
“come, let us reason together”
(Isaiah 1:18)

A book written five years ago
(Stanley Weintraub, "Silent Night")
tells the amazing story
of how, on Christmas Night in the year 1914,
German and British soldiers who had been engaged in fierce combat
at the very beginning of World War I
put down their weapons for a few hours,
climbed out of the muck and mud of the trenches
in the fields of Flanders on the Beglian-French border,
and shared food and cigarettes as they
sang Christmas carols.
Peace reigned on those blood-soaked fields
at least for a few hours, until their officers
ordered the men back to the trenches,
back to their fighting,
and men who had been brothers for a few hours,
went back to being enemies,
the possibility of peace gone.
The water in every snowflake that fell upon them
no doubt from tears shed by God,
as he watched his children
squander yet another possibility.

What are the possibilities for this church?
How will we build on the possibilities
our ancestors envisioned
when they established this church in those tumultuous years
of Reconstruction following the Civil War?
As the old hymn reminds us,
“in Christ there is no East or West,
in Him no South or North,
but one great fellowship of love,
Throughout the whole wide earth.”

Think of the possibilities if we’d only live that hymn,
if we stop the polarizing nonsense
that has paralyzed churches of ever denomination
of left and right, conservative and liberal;
if we lived the possibility that the church of Jesus Christ
could resemble the Body of Christ,
rather than a group of bickering
squabbling 8-year olds
who get mad whenever they don’t get their way.

Will this be the year we lay the groundwork for an Associate Pastor,
someone we so clearly need to work with our young people?
We have so obviously felt the
presence of the absence of a staff person this past year,
even with the dedication of so many volunteer helpers.
As we talked about last fall,
the decision to eliminate the Associate Pastor’s position
a few years back, was taken reluctantly,
with the expectation that it was temporary.
And my question, even my challenge,
was “how temporary?”
Unhappily Stewardship giving was up only a fraction,
so we are still a long way off from thinking about
an Associate Pastor.
But still the New Year has not even started,
and the possibility is always before us.

What are the possibilies in you,
for you to grow in wisdom and knowledge,
discipleship and faith in the New Year?
There are so many different ways for you to grow,
so many different ways for you to learn.
Adult Education, Bible Study, joining a Ministry Team.

Our Wednesday morning Bible study group has embraced
an ambitious possibility with their desire to read
through the entire Bible, cover to cover,
using a Year-With-The –Bible program.
Is that something you’d like to do?
Even if you cannot come to the class on Wednesday morning,
let me know if you’d like to read with the group
and we will get you a copy of the One-Year Bible.

The angel Gabriel reminded Mary,
after she learned that she was going to give birth
to the Son of God,
that “nothing will be impossible with God.”
Nothing will be impossible with God,
With God, all things are possible for us,
for with God there are no limits;
We are the ones who impose limits,
who cut back on the possibilities.

Christ was born to lead us to new possibilities,
God’s possibilities.
That’s the work Henry Van Dyke reminds us we are called to
in the quiet days after Christmas,
in the dull grayness of January,
in the somber days of Lent:
all throughout the year.
That’s the work we are called to
as we leave the celebration of Christmas behind
and get on with the more important task
of keeping Christmas.

For the light shines,
the old ways have passed,
a new year beckons,
a new life beckons.
A child has been born for us,
a Son given to us,
a Son full of grace and truth.
Just think of the possibilities!
AMEN

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Why Aren’t You?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 16, 2007
Third Sunday in Advent

Why Aren’t You?
Isaiah 9:2-7
Luke 2:8-14

Grumbling,
griping, groaning,
grousing, grimacing,
grinching:
these are words that describe much of our December experience.
There’s too much to do,
stores are too crowded,
traffic too heavy,
there are too many things to buy,
too many cards to send,
too much to prepare for.

It is easy to fall into mild case of grumpiness in this season,
a season that should be as bright and festive
as lights on a Christmas tree,
but a season when stress can get the better of us.
We risk winding up
with a mild case of grinchiness,
something short of “bah humbug”,
but still a long way off from “joy to the world!”

But “joy to the world” is what we should feel.
It is what we should want to shout out,
sing out, throughout the month
even while we wait in long lines
that move with speed of frozen molasses
for this season’s must-have gifts.

Joy!
Our hearts eager to rejoice,
for unto us a baby has been born!
A baby born for us,
born for you and me.
Born to bring us life.
Who can be even the least bit grumpy
around a baby!

A colleague who is now retired after serving as a pastor
for more than 50 years
was fond of the word “disgruntled”.
He was a cheerful man, with a ready smile,
and a twinkle in his eye,
and the word “disgruntled” really did not fit him;
He always seemed content, and happy.
Still, he loved to use the word,
“I am disgruntled about this;
they’re disgruntled about that”.
Perhaps he just liked the way the word sounded.

One Christmas Day a few years back,
after a wonderful meal with his family,
with everyone feeling pleasantly stuffed,
the atmosphere of his home pungent
with peace and contentment,
his young granddaughter turned to him and
said to him, “Grandpa, that was such a wonderful dinner!
Aren’t you feeling gruntled?"
You can imagine his delight,
in hearing what his granddaughter
had done with his word,
how she had turned the negative “disgruntled”
into the positive “gruntled”.
She had turned a frowny face into a smiley face.
He leaned over to his granddaughter,
and with a warm embrace and a smile, said,
“yes, I am feeling very gruntled.”

This is the season to be gruntled!
This is the season to be merry!
This is the season to be jolly!
Ah, but it is more than that.
this is the season to be filled with joy.
to rejoice,
for Christ has been born for us,
born to save us, born to lead us,
born to give us life,
born to tear down the curtain we put up
between us and God.

Read the birth stories in Matthew and Luke’s gospels
and we’ll find the word “joy”
appearing again and again:
When Mary went to visit Elizabeth,
Luke tells us that the child in Elizabeth’s womb,
who would become John the Baptizer,
“leapt for joy” on hearing Mary’s voice.
(Luke 1:44)

When the Wise Men saw that the star they had been following
-- for how long: days, weeks, even months --
when they saw that the star
had stopped over Bethlehem
they were filled with joy.
Joy… not relief that their journey was over,
but joy that the one they had been seeking
was there, bathed in the light of the star,
Light that lit up their faces, their hearts,
light that chased away the darkness
that night and forever.

In Luke’s gospel that we just heard,
the angel called out to the shepherds,
“behold, I bring you good news
of great joy for all the people”
Good news of great joy,
for all people… all people,
for every one, of every nation.

That’s why we sing “Joy to the world!”
Not just joy to us, but joy to all the world,
All because of a child, a baby born for us,
a child given to us.
The baby born to be
Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
and, of course, Prince of Peace.

It is so fitting that the theme of the Third Sunday in Advent is Joy.
For we should set aside stress, worry, anxiety,
any feeling other than joy.
We should take all those other feelings,
and pack them in a box
and put them up in the attic.

In the lectionary studies and guides we clergy use,
we are urged to keep Christmas carols
tucked away till Christmas,
in order to maintain our focus on Advent,
on the coming of our Lord.
I’ve always been pretty good about following that guidance
during the first two weeks in Advent,
but by the third week,
I am ready to let Christmas out of the box,
to sing carols, to celebrate that joyful news
the shepherds heard on that first Christmas Eve.

Singing helps us to feel that joy.
Is it any wonder we love Christmas carols?
And is it any wonder that God encourages us to sing
by telling us to make a “joyful noise”?!
So we sing out:
“Joyful all ye nations rise,
join the triumph of the skies,
with angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.”

The composer John Rutter even managed to capture
the joy he imagined the donkey
must have felt as he carried Mary on his back
on the journey to Bethlehem.
“Donkey skip for joy
as you go on your way
Alleluia, Jesus is born today.
Hark, the bells ring out with their message clear.
Rejoice and sing that Christ our Savior is here.”
(Rutter, Donkey Carol)

We can almost picture the donkey with a twinkle in his eye,
wanting so badly to skip along the way in joy,
but knowing that the precious cargo he carried
required a steady, solid, sure-footed pace.

“Joy to the world!
The Savior reigns,
let us our songs employ!”
Is it any surprise that composer Isaac Watts tells us to,
“repeat the sounding joy”.

It is Luke who captured the joy of that first Christmas
so magnificently, especially in the version
we find in the old King James Bible:
For “in the same country there were shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them,
and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them,
‘Be not afraid, for behold
I bring you good tidings of great joy
which shall be to all people,
for unto you is born this day
in the city of David a Savior
who is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you:
you will find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’
And suddenly there was with the angel
a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
‘Glory to God in the highest
and on earth peace and goodwill to all men’.”
(Luke 2:8-14, King James Version)

Glory to God in highest heaven
and joy to the world!
For love came down from heaven that night,
love was born in that stable,
love lay in the manger.

The poet Christina Rosetti,
who wrote the words of the hymn
“In the Bleak Mid-Winter”,
wrote a poem that says just that:
“Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
star and angels gave a sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
love incarnate, love divine.
Worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith for sacred sign.
Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine.
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea, and gift, and sign.”
(Rosetti, “Love Came Down at Christmas”)

Love came to us on that first Christmas,
Love that is merciful,
love that is forgiving,
love that is unconditional,
love that is unwavering,
love that knows no boundaries,
has no limits
love that is all, in all
and for all.
How can we not sing “joy to the world”?

Have you been feeling mildly grumpy this past week?
Perhaps even a little grinchy as you think about all you have to do?
Maybe you have been even a bit disgruntled?
We are quick to say things like,
“Christmas has become too commercialized”
but watch that wonderful classic movie
“Miracle on 34th Street”
and you’ll realize that we’ve been making this complaint
for the past 60 years!
Pack up all those negative feelings and
ship them off to parts unknown.
And let the good news of the birth of our Savior envelope you,
let it take hold of you,
for in Christ’s birth each of us
has been “made radiant by the Light of the World”.
each of us has been made luminescent,
made to glow in our joy,
and called to take that light out into the world.

If you are feeling your “joy” batteries running low,
sing a Christmas carol.
Any carol will do.
sing in the car, sing as you take a walk,
sing off-key,
but just sing in a joyful noise to the Lord.
And if that doesn’t work,
spend some time with young children.
Children bring us joy,
especially this time of year in their excitement,
as they focus so intently on being nice,
on not being naughty,
on not pouting,
on being gruntled.
They help us to set aside all our petty concerns,
all our selfish concerns,
all those things that cause us to be disgruntled.
Children get it, get the message of joy.
At what age do we adults lose that?
At what age do we learn to attach the “dis” to “gruntle”?
Do you see how wise Jesus was when he said to his disciples
to let the little children come to him?

In the birth of our Lord came light,
light that overcomes all darkness,
the darkness of violence,
the darkness of incessant war,
the darkness of poverty,
the darkness of loneliness,
despair, pain,
and hopelessness,

Joy abounds, for hope abounds.
In Christ, we are reconciled to God,
put back in that garden,
invited to walk again in the cool evening air
with Emmanuel, God with us.

Christmas is a joy because it is promise,
an unfolding of what is God’s hope for us:
peace on earth,
and goodwill to all humanity.

I am gruntled. How about you?
I am joyful, joy-filled.
How about you?
I am gruntled and joy-filled because
I am focused on the message the angel
brought the shepherds on that first Christmas Eve:
Behold I bring you good news of great joy,
for unto you,
unto me,
unto each of us
a child has been born
a savior given to us
who is Jesus the Christ.
Glory to God in highest heaven
and joy to the world!
AMEN

Sunday, December 09, 2007

The Figure in the Shadows

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 9, 2007
Second Sunday in Advent

The Figure in the Shadows
Matthew 1:12-16
Matthew 1:18-25

He stands there solid, strong,
the glow of the light reaching out and down,
away from him,
casting a soft blanket over mother and child,
but leaving him in the dark,
on the edge,
in the shadows.

I collect nativities and in almost all of them,
Joseph is given the same pose:
standing over his wife and newborn son.
In many of them he holds a lantern,
a small flickering flame fed by olive oil
illuminating that first Christmas,
casting light on everyone --
mother, child,
shepherds, wise men,
even the animals,
light on everyone but himself.
He stands there a figure in the shadows.

We know so little about this man Joseph,
the husband of Mary.
Mark’s gospel, the first to have been written,
says nothing of him.
Mark has no infancy narrative,
but instead picks up with Jesus’ life
in adulthood as he began his ministry.
In chapter 6 we find a reference to Jesus as “Mary’s son” (6:3)
as though Joseph never even existed.

John’s gospel, written about 40 years after Mark’s,
also is silent about Jesus’ birth and childhood,
and equally silent about Joseph.

Only Luke and Matthew include stories about Jesus’ birth,
but they differ greatly.
Luke’s birth narrative is the one we probably know best,
and in his the focus is almost entirely on Mary.
It is Mary the angel Gabriel visits;
It is Mary who learns that her child is to be named Jesus.
Joseph is there, but in a quiet supporting role.
By the end of chapter 2, we find Joseph on his way out
as the 12-year-old Jesus seems to bat him away
in that dramatic confrontation in the temple,
when he stayed behind, so he could
“be about his Father’s business” as he told
the anguished Mary and Joseph.

Only Matthew gives us a picture of Joseph.
Only Matthew takes the lantern from Joseph’s hand,
lifts it up and casts its light on the face of the carpenter,
the face of Mary’s husband.
Here, it is Joseph the angel visits,
Joseph the angel speaks to.

The angel – who is not named –
tells Joseph not to be alarmed
that his wife-to-be is pregnant.
He reassures Joseph that nothing scandalous has happened;
that instead something extraordinary is about to happen
from the hand of God himself.
The angel tells Joseph to name his son Jesus,
a Hebrew word that means “he saves”,
“for he will save his people from their sins.”
(1:21)

That’s all the angel says to Joseph
and yet Joseph acts with as much faithfulness
as Mary does in Luke’s recounting.
We do not hear Joseph speak the same words
that Mary spoke,
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord;
let it be with me according to your word.”
(Luke 1:38)
but Joseph’s actions convey that same faithfulness.
He did just what the angel asked of him,
even in the face of possible scandal,
even with all the questions that must have been
swirling through his mind.
In quiet faith, Joseph took Mary as his wife.

It is only in Matthew’s gospel that we find the Wise Men,
and when they finally found their way
to where the star led them,
Matthew tells us,
“they saw the child with Mary, his mother.”
(Matthew 2:11)
Where is Joseph? He’s completely absent,
not even a figure in the shadows.

Matthew provides us with one last appearance for Joseph.
You will recall that when King Herod heard from the Wise Men
that a child had been born King of the Jews,
he was frightened, for Herod was the King of the Jews,
and had worked hard through bribery and corruption
to assure his position,
with the help of his Roman overseerers.

When the Wise Men failed to come back to tell Herod
where he could find the child born in Bethlehem,
he sent out an order that all boys in Bethlehem
under the age of two were to be killed
to wipe out even the remote possibility
that his power might be challenged.

The angel reappeared to Joseph, though,
and told him to take Mary and the child
and flee to Egypt where they would be safe.
And Joseph did just that, again acting without question,
leaving home and hearth behind,
taking his wife and newborn son to a strange land,
a land where they knew no one,
didn’t speak the language,
a land where they would be foreigners, aliens.
And there they remained
month after month after month,
until the angel spoke to Joseph and told him ,
that it was safe to return to the land of Israel.
So Joseph packed up his little family one last time,
and journeyed north from Egypt
going past Bethlehem,
all the way to the region of Galilee,
to a town called Nazareth,
and there they settled.

And there the story of Joseph comes to an end:
just two chapters into Matthew,
two chapters into Luke.
Nothing in Mark, nothing in John.

More than one hundred years following Jesus crucifixion
and resurrection people had a growing desire
to know more about Jesus as a child, an adolescent,
something about all the years that were missing in the gospels.
They also wanted to know more about Mary,
and more about Joseph.
And so a number of gospels popped up,
all of them considered now to be apocryphal,
which means simply that we think of them as
of questionable authenticity.
But they make fascinating reading,
and help us to understand some of the mythology
that has developed over the centuries.

One that is referred to as “The Proto-Gospel of James”
tells us that Joseph was an widower.
One day the leaders of the Temple
called all the elderly widowers
to the Temple to determine which of them God
would assign to look after a 12-year-old girl named Mary
who had been raised within the Temple.
When Joseph was chosen, he protested at first,
“I have sons and am an old man; she is but a child.
I do not want to become the laughingstock
of the sons of Israel” (9)
But he was pressured into taking her,
not as a wife, at first, but as his ward,
his responsibility.
No sooner did Joseph accept the responsibility for Mary
than he left her in the care of the Temple,
and went off to practice his trade,
building houses as an itinerant carpenter.
When he returned six months later,
he found Mary with child,
and he was horrified and mortified.
But he was prevailed upon to take her as his wife,
and there the story follows a more familiar path.

The most charming of the various gospels
is the “Infancy Gospel of Thomas”.
It is thought to have been written around 150,
about 120 years following the crucifixion and resurrection.
In it Jesus appears as a precocious youngster,
finding himself filled with powers he did not understand,
but which he used for great fun,
as well as more than a little mischief.
His beleaguered father did not understand
his son’s strange powers either,
and tried to rein him in, asking him once,
“why do you do such things?”
Another time, when Joseph tried to discipline him,
he “took hold of Jesus’ ear and pulled it hard.”
Jesus’ response to Joseph was cold and biting,
“You have acted very stupidly. … do not vex me.”
Later in this gospel,
as Joseph worked to make a bed for a customer,
he made a mistake in cutting the beams for the frame,
with one ending up shorter than the other.
But his 8-year old son saved the day for him
by pulling the end of the shorter beam
and miraculously stretching it
to make it the same length as the other.

Reading these and other stories are interesting,
but they don’t really help us to find answers about Joseph:
What was it like for Joseph to know that Jesus was not his son?
Did he live long enough to see the beginning of Jesus’ ministry?
Did he know that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah?
How would he have felt if he had read either of the genealogies
we find in Matthew and Luke that try to establish
that Jesus was descended from the House of David
through Joseph, but both of which make clear
that Jesus was not Joseph’s son?

Did you hear that in our first lesson?
We have one “begat” after another,
this one the father of that one,
But did you hear the difference when we got to Joseph:
Listen to it again: “Matthan, the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Joseph,
the husband of Mary,
of whom Jesus was born, who was called the Messiah.”
(Matthew 1:16)

Luke was no less subtle when he wrote,
“Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work.
He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph…” (Luke 3:23)
a powerful, pointed parenthetical
that left Joseph standing in the shadows.

And yet when we shine light on him,
Joseph emerges from the shadows,
a man of quiet faith, peace-filled faith,
a man who responded so faithfully and willingly
to God’s every call,
doing what was asked of him,
demonstrating time and time again
the faith of Abraham.

In some of my nativities Joseph is posed with a shepherd’s crook,
rather than a lantern,
and that seems so very appropriate,
for he was very much a shepherd,
watching over his young wife,
and the son born to her,
looking after them, protecting them,
even leaving everything behind
to take them to a strange land
to keep the son born to Mary from danger.

I have only one nativity in which Joseph
is not standing over the manger scene.
It is a lovely, tiny nativity that came from France.
There’s no stable, no shepherds, no Wise Men,
no ox, or ass, or cattle.
Just Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus.
And Joseph is on his knees,
just as Mary is,
the two of them obedient, humble,
worshipful before the son of God,
before Emmanuel,
before God himself.
In this nativity, Joseph needs no lantern,
for he is in the light,
the light cast by the Son of God,
the light that shines on all us.

This nativity is a helpful reminder to me
not only of who this man Joseph was,
but also that is on our knees
as obedient, humble children of God
that we all emerge from the shadows,
and find ourselves bathed in the light,
the light of peace, the light of joy,
the light of expectation and anticipation.
It is on our knees that we are best poised
in humbleness and obedience
to know the light that overcomes all darkness,
the light that leaves no one in the shadows:
the light of the Son of God,
the Messiah -
our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Just a Minute!

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
December 2, 2007
First Sunday in Advent

Just A Minute!
Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 24:36-44

A young couple are relaxing in their living room
on a beautiful Saturday morning.
They sip steaming coffee from large mugs
as they read the newspaper.
The couch, the floor, the tables:
everything seems to be covered
with sections of the paper.
The soothing sound of Handel’s Water Music
plays in the background.
The music and the paper block out all thoughts
of the dishes piled high in the kitchen
from last night’s dinner party.
Everyone had had such a good time and it was so late
when the last guest left;
They decided to leave cleanup to Sunday,
but now neither of them is in any hurry to
tackle the mess.
Both are bundled up in flannel bathrobes,
which for each is about the only piece of clean clothing left.
The hamper in the bathroom is overflowing,
and the laundry basket in the middle of the bedroom
groans with the load.

There’s work to be done,
but for now, it is a lovely, lazy Saturday morning,
after a long, hard week at work,
This is a morning simply to relax.
Or at least so they think…
until the doorbell rings.
They look at each other,
wondering who might be calling.
The man goes to the door and opens it –
just far enough so he can see who’s ringing the bell,
but not so far that the caller can see the chaos within.
The woman bolts upright when she hears her husband’s words,
“Mom! Dad! What a nice surprise!”
She’s out of her chair in an instant,
picking up newspapers, fluffing couch pillows,
grabbing coffee mugs.
Her husband says, “Hang on just a minute
while we lock up the dog in the kitchen”.
He closes the door and races to help his wife.
They both hear mother’s words to father
as they stand outside the door:
“I didn’t know they had a dog.”

Most of us have had that kind of experience
that throws us into panic:
when an unexpected visitor stops by.
We’re relaxing, confident that we’ve got a few minutes
just to ourselves, when there it is:
the knock on the door, the ring of the bell.
It’s never someone we can turn away,
a salesperson, someone taking a poll, or campaigning.
No, it is inevitably someone whom we are happy to see;
The visitor is not unwelcome,
just unexpected.

One of the few advantages of cellphones is that
they’ve cut down on visits that are a complete surprise.
Not by much, though. Now it’s something like,
“Hi, I am just about to pull into your driveway
and I wanted to see if you were home!”
The call buys you two, perhaps three minutes.

We will have no such luxury with Jesus;
that’s what he’s teaching us in our gospel lesson.
There will be no cellphone call to give us a head’s up,
and look all you want, but there is no secret code
buried in the Bible to give us some warning,
to tell us the day and time when Jesus will return.
Jesus makes the lesson he wants us to learn
as clear as he can:
when he comes again,
he will show up just like the mother and father at the door:
A complete surprise,
no warning,
unexpected,
with no opportunity for us to ask for “just a minute.”
We will either be ready, or we won’t be.
It’s as simple as that.

He doesn’t expect the house to be immaculate,
but he does expect us to be ready to open the door to him,
and say, “O come in, come in Emmanuel”.

He expects us to be ready, not out of fear,
fear that we might be left behind.
The lesson we heard seems to say that,
but fear is not the point,
not the lesson Jesus wants us to learn;
readiness is.
Readiness grounded in hope.
Readiness built on a sense of
anticipation of what lies ahead,
built on a sense of expectation
of a wonderful, glorious future.

There’s just a hint of that future in the lesson
we heard through the prophet Isaiah:
a future marked by peace,
a future marked by reconciliation,
a future when
“the wolf shall live with the lamb
and the leopard lie down with the kid…
when there shall be endless peace.” (Isaiah 9 and 11)
Is it any wonder that we hear these lessons at Christmas time
each year as we await the coming of our Lord?

We began our service by affirming our faith
using a section of the Brief Statement of Faith,
our most recent confessional statement.
An earlier confessional statement in our Book of Confessions,
the Westminster Larger Catechism
asks the question,
what is the chief end of mankind?
The answer we read is,
“[humanity’s] chief and highest end is to glorify God,
and fully to enjoy him forever.”
(Larger Catechism, 7.111)
To glorify and enjoy,
not to live in fear, but to live in love.
We glorify God not because God’s ego is so fragile
that he needs us to praise him and tell of our love,
but rather our voices and lives are simply
an echo of God’s love for us.
(Moltmann)

When that knock comes, the bell rings,
our reaction should be nothing short of profound joy,
Easter joy,
our voices filled not with a panicky, “just a minute”,
but a resolute “alleluia!
and Glory to God in highest heaven!”

In our Great Prayer of Thanksgiving that I lead us in
each time we gather at the Lord’s Table,
we say together, “Christ has died;
Christ is Risen;
Christ Will Come again.”

How do you say that last line?
By rote?
With confusion?
With fear and uncertainty?

We should say that line with boldness:
boldness that comes with conviction and faith:
“Christ WILL come again.”
because we believe it and long for it,
even if we haven’t a clue as to when, where or how.
It was John Calvin who wisely observed 500 years ago,
“it is foolish and rash to inquire concerning unknown matters
more deeply than God permits us to know.”
(Institutes, 3.25.6)
Speculating about a day or time is pointless.
We should focus our energy and time instead
on simply making sure we are ready.

So what should we do to get ready?
Just what Jesus teaches us again and again:
it is feeding the hungry;
and more: working to eliminate the causes
of hunger in this community, in this nation,
and throughout the world.
It is visiting the sick, and more:
it is working to rid the world of diseases
especially those diseases we no longer fear in this country,
but which still kill and maim in other parts of the world.
it is clothing the naked and housing the homeless,
and more:
it is working to eliminate inequality and poverty.
Saying a rising tide lifts all boats
is meaningless to the man and woman in a boat
that is danger of sinking.

It is reminding ourselves the person who uses a blanket
for a roof, a source of warmth, and a bed
is our brother, our sister,
our responsibility, our neighbor.
It is remembering that Jesus defines neighbor
as everyone, including our enemies.

We are called to lives of “active expectation”:
active in the work of the Lord
as we await his coming.
Jesus teaches us we are to be
like the servants who are still going about the work
expected of them by their master,
even while the master is away
and even when the date and time
of his return is unknown.

We stand on a threshold,
the threshold of Advent,
the threshold of the room we call December,
and we peer in.
We see all that awaits us:
the parties, the packages, the plates piled high.
But there is much preparation to be done
before we’re ready for Christmas.

Advent is a time of preparation,
preparation,
getting ready,
not just for Christmas,
but for the one who will come again in glory.
For Christ has died,
Christ is Risen,
And Christ WILL come again.
Glory to God in Highest Heaven!
AMEN