Overwhelmed

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 29, 2008

Overwhelmed
Galatians 5:13-15
Luke 16:19-31

Your maibox is probably like mine:
filled with bills,
catalogues,
and of course, junk mail.
The bills go into one pile,
the junk mail goes into the recycling bin,
and the catalogues are sorted, some to keep,
and others, those in which we have no interest,
we now enter into the website at catalogchoice.org to stop them.
If you have not tried this, it does work;
we are now receiving far fewer catalogues,
and in the process saving at least a few branches,
if not a whole tree.

There is probably something else in your mailbox,
another pile of unsolicited letters,
letters you would not call junk mail -
one, two, perhaps even three or four a week,
the numbers reaching a peak in December,
each envelope in its own plaintive way
trying to draw your attention:
“open me, look inside!”

They are solicitations and requests from nonprofit organizations,
charities of every shape and size:
groups that feed the hungry;
that provide shelter for the homeless;
that provide medical care here and abroad;
that clean up the environment;
that look after animals;
that protect our national parks and wild lands.

UNICEF,
Doctors Without Borders,
The Red Cross,
Hospice,
the Humane Society,
the ASPCA,
the Nature Conservancy,
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation --
the list is endless.

Every piece of mail tells a compelling story;
every piece of mail asks the reader to respond to an urgent need,
a need we know is real.
But what do we do with all these requests,
what can we do with all these requests?
We are overwhelmed with them!
Life is overwhelming enough for all of us:
we put in long hours in jobs,
we’ve got traffic to fight,
family to look after,
escalating prices of everything.
We hardly have time to look after ourselves,
much less think about others.

There are times when life seems to throw more at us
than we can handle;
and then on top of everything else
come these relentless reminders
that the world is filled with
the hungry, the homeless, the hopeless;
that there are abused and abandoned animals
desperate for a safe home and a bit of food;
that our oceans, lakes and rivers,
along with the skies above us groan
with the poison and garbage we pump into them.

There is no respite, no letup,
these groups are relentless,
so effective at finding our guilt buttons
and then pushing, pushing, pushing.
There is no charityoptout.org website
where we can take cover and hide.

We can almost sympathize with the rich man
in our second Lesson.
There are times when we feel like we almost
have to turn a blind eye, a deaf ear
to the overwhelming needs,
even if they are just outside our doors.
For all we know, the rich man might well have
been faithful and generous with his tithe at the temple.
He may have thought he was doing all he needed to do.
He might have thought that living in the purple,
and eating his fill every day was a sign
that God was favoring him for his faithfulness.
It was only just a few years ago that the Prayer of Jabez
was on everyone’s lips,
and more than a few coffee cups:
“Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border”
(1 Chronicles 4:10)
“Oh that you would bless me with riches, Lord.”

We all do our part,
such as we can, right?
What else can we do?
But there is always more we can do,
more we should do,
because God calls us, Jesus calls us:
Outreach, inreach,
mission, ministry,
caring, compassion, looking after others,
nurturing, tending,
helping, healing:
this is the life of discipleship to which we are called
and to which we are expected to respond.

We’ve all been given different gifts by the Holy Spirit,
and we are all called to different missions and ministries
by the Spirit.
Some are called to serve at YouthWorks projects,
others are called to work on Habitat projects,
still others to serve at SERVE.
Every leader, teacher and helper
who was here this past week
with our Vacation Bible School
was part of our mission and ministry outreach
as we fed more than 100 children –
fed them with with love, laughter
and the Bread of Life.

We serve within the church,
as well as outside the church;
we serve as we work on a church-sponsored projects,
and we serve in other ways, through other groups,
groups that may not be faith-based, but are
grounded in God’s love and Christ’s teachings.

Paul’s writings are timeless,
and the counsel he gave to the new Christians
scattered throughout Galatia is
just as appropriate for us today:
that we have been given freedom,
but not freedom to indulge ourselves
and our every whim,
but, “to become slaves to one another,”
as Paul puts it so bluntly:
to look after our neighbor,
to live as Christ calls us to live,
loving neighbor as ourselves,
and showing our love through our selfless service,
self-giving service,
and yes, at times even sacrificial service.

This is hard to do in a world where we seem
every day to become more selfish and self-centered,
where we demand instant gratification,
where self-help is grounded in “retail therapy”,
where even our federal government is telling us
to take our tax rebate checks
and go out and buy something for ourselves –
“indulge yourself and your whims!”

The sad reality is that there will always be
more needs than we can respond to.
But that’s not a new development.
Go back more than 3,000 years
and listen to Moses speaking to the children of Israel
as they prepared to enter the promised land:
“…there will never cease to be some in need on the earth…”
(Deuteronomy 15:7)
And Jesus reiterated that when he reminded us
that the poor we will always have with us.
(Matthew 26:11)

But that’s not a green light for complacency,
for indifference,
for drawing the blinds as the rich man did,
or not paying attention to God’s teachings,
as the rich man’s brothers did.
We should be outraged that there are hungry people;
we should be outraged that there are children dying of illnesses
that we know we can cure;
we should be outraged that the elderly worry about
food, shelter, and medicine
especially in this country,
where the wealthiest 1% continue to grow wealthier
by the minute and the poor grow poorer,
the chasm between rich and poor growing ever wider.

Find your mission, your ministry,
what it is that God has called you to,
what will stir you,
and fill you with passion.
No mission and ministry is more important than another
none is less important.

Save a month’s worth of solicitations that come in the mail,
and then go through them and see if
you discern God speaking to you, calling you to respond.
There in that pile may well be an invitation --
an invitation from God to a new kind of service,
a new ministry, new mission.

Find a new ministry team here within the church.
Our Senior High Youth Group needs another couple
to work with Ann and Spence Curtis;
Our Middle School Youth still need leadership.

Would you like a relatively simple ministry to be part of,
a mission that is lying right at our doorstep as visibly as Lazarus?
We need volunteers to help out in our ETC,
our Extended Time with Children program on Sunday morning.
We are in danger of having to close the ETC program
for the summer for lack of volunteer helpers.
And if we close it,
that will probably lead some young families to decide
not to come to church.
Every member of this church made a promise
to every child in this church
to nurture and look after them.
One time a year, for 30 minutes would be a wonderful way
for you to honor the promise you made,
and at the same time reach out to the parents,
the young moms and dads who long for
the occasional Sunday
when they can immerse themselves in the Word
without interruption.

Even as we respond to new needs,
new services,
new missions and ministries,
we need never worry about feeling overwhelmed.
Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that
God always matches our gifts,
measure for measure,
so we can look at 5,000 people waiting to be fed,
and trust that God will help us do that
even as we stand there with just five loaves
and two fish.
With God, the crowd is never too big,
the odds are never too poor,
the work never too hard,
the situation never too hopeless.
(“Local Miracles”, from Mixed Blessings)
The promise is sure:
“Those who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
they shall run and not be weary…”
(Isaiah 40:31)

The ministry you are called to is there,
right before you.
It may be here in the church,
or it could be in a pile of unsolicited letters
sitting on the kitchen counter.

Open your heart,
and open your mind,
and be prepared to be overwhelmed:
not by exhaustion or frustration,
but by the powerful presence of God,
by the palpable presence of Christ at your side,
and by the Spirit filling you as you serve.
Be prepared to be overwhelmed by a sense of joy
in serving others.
Be prepared to be overwhelmed by love
pouring through you --
love that comes from God through
the one who came not to be served,
but to serve, our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN

Passing the Shoe

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 22, 2008

Passing the Shoe
Ruth 4:1-12
Matthew 19:1-9

Yesterday I had the honor and pleasure
of taking part in the wedding of
Jaime Patterson and Scott Fargrieve
at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church.
Weddings are such joy-filled events --
I love presiding at them and
I love participating in them.
It doesn’t matter to me whether it is a
formal ceremony held in large church,
or a simple, small service
held outdoors in a garden bower.

All weddings seem to have a wonderful consistency:
The bride and her attendants radiate beauty;
the groom and his groomsmen blend chiseled handsomeness
with charming nervousness.
The children who participate are adorable;
virtually every woman cries,
and at the reception every man
has the look of a hunted animal
once the dancing begins.

Marriage has come a long way since Ruth’s time
more than 3,000 years ago.
Did you realize as you were listening to the First Lesson
that you were witness to a marriage,
the marriage of Boaz and Ruth?

Boaz bought the property that had belonged
to Naomi’s late husband,
Ruth’s former father-in-law.
When Boaz bought the property,
he got Ruth as his wife in the bargain --
she went with the property!
There was a ceremony to mark the occasion,
but it did not take place in a church or temple,
there were no flowers or white dresses,
nor any vows or music.
The ceremony centered on the passing of a sandal,
a shoe,
from the man who had the first right
to the property, the next-of-kin,
to Boaz, symbolizing the transfer to Boaz:
the property, the land, the title,
and all that went with it,
including Ruth.

I think it is safe to say that this was not a high point for marriage.
The happy news is that there was genuine affection
between Ruth and Boaz.
They would go on to become the parents of Jesse,
and the grandparents of King David.

For most of human history,
marriage was a drab, business-like affair,
more contract than commitment
more merger than marriage,
more property and money
than husband and wife.
Up until the very recent past,
when a man and woman married
it was for economic gain,
political power,
and self interest.
Fathers would agree to merge sons and daughters
to bring about a larger combination of families:
the more people to farm or produce goods,
as well as defend a town or settlement.
Love was not a concern in marriage.

It was not until the 12th century
that the church became involved in solemnizing marriages
with couples standing before God and clergy
to exchange their vows.
Even then, the move from a strictly civil service
to a religious one had less to do with love
than it did with upholding laws
that discouraged marrying within family,
and assuring the legitimacy of children.

Given the history of marriage,
we should be neither horrified nor surprised
as we read through the pages of the Old Testament
and learn that men often had many wives;
and that they had children not only by their wives,
but also by their concubines.
Solomon represented either the peak or the trough,
depending on how you look at such things,
with his 700 wives, and 300 concubines.

Even in Jesus’ time, it was not uncommon
to have more than one wife.
This makes Jesus’ teaching in our gospel lesson
all the more remarkable.
Jesus was asked a question about divorce:
was it allowed, and under what circumstances.
For a thousand years, the law handed down by God through Moses
spoke to allowing divorce under some circumstances.
(Deuteronomy 24)
As we heard in the Lesson, the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus.

But as Jesus often did when questioned by religious leaders,
he did not answer the question directly.
Instead, he made a subtle but radical point:
that marriages were not about economic or political union,
nor were they mergers engineered by the parents of the couple;
they were unions formed by God and blessed by God.

Jesus quoted Scripture from the very beginning of the Bible
the second chapter of Genesis:
“Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother
and cleaves to his wife,
and they become as one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)
He reinforced the point with his own words:
“They are no longer two, but one flesh”.
And then he concluded with those words
we hear at the end of every wedding ceremony:
“Therefore what God has joined together,
let no one separate.”

No one had thought this way before:
that when a man and woman married
it was because God had called them to one another,
called them together in a holy bond,
two becoming one in marriage
and through marriage.
No one had thought of marriage as grounded in love before,
but if marriage was grounded in God,
then it must be grounded in love,
for “God is love”
(1 John 4:16)

Here in the Presbyterian Church,
we refer to marriage as a “gift given by God,
blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ,
and sustained by the Holy Spirit.”
It is a “covenant through which
a man and a woman are called to live out
together before God
their lives of discipleship.”
(Directory for Worship, W-4.9001)

We begin a wedding service in our church by explaining the gift:
that God gave us marriage,
“so that husband and wife may help and comfort each other,
living faithfully together in plenty and in want,
in joy and in sorrow,
in sickness and in health,
throughout all their days.”
Our Book of Common Worship tells us that
“God gave us marriage for the full expression of love
between a man and woman.
In marriage, a woman and man belong to each other,
and with affection and tenderness
freely give themselves to each other.”
Marriage is nothing less than “a new way of life,
created, ordered, and blessed by God.”
(Book of Common Worship, Christian Marriage)

There is a fascinating paradox in all this:
that while God gave us this extraordinary gift,
the Bible comes up very short with
examples of good marriages.
Adam and Eve get into trouble right away,
each trying to blame the other when caught by God
as they ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree.
Moses all but abandoned his marriage
to lead the Israelites from Egypt.
The prophet Jeremiah complained to God
that he was so busy doing all the work
that God told him to do
that he had no time for marriage or a family.
Jesus of course did not marry,
unless you believe “The DaVinci Code”,
and some of Paul’s writings suggest that he did not
think marriage an especially wise step,
that it distracted both husband and wife
from focusing mind, soul, heart, and body on God.
(1 Cor. 7:32ff)

Now the Bible may lack examples of good marriages,
but it is rich in wisdom and counsel
that can help couples through the years
as they go through life together.
One of the best examples comes from, of all people, Paul,
in his letter to the Colossians.
It is a text I share with couples
every time I preside at a marriage:
“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness,
humility, meekness, and patience.
Bear with one another,
and if one has a complaint against the other,
forgive each other;
Just as the Lord has forgiven you,
so you also must forgive.
Above all, clothe yourselves with love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
And do not let the sun go down on your anger,
but let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
Be thankful,
and whatever you do,
in word or deed,
do everything in the name of our Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
(from Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4:26)

Paul was also the author of those words
we hear at so many weddings,
the powerful words that he wrote
in his first letter to the Corinthians,
“Love is patient,
love is kind,
love is not envious or boastful
or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way,
It is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoings,
but rejoices in the truth.
[Love] bears all things,
[Love] believes all things,
[Love] hopes all things
and [Love] endures all things.”
(1 Cor. 13:4)

Last week in her sermon Cheri Villa
used a word that I think is so vital to strong marriages:
it’s a word we don’t find in any of Paul’s writings,
a word that doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible:
The word, “empathy”.
To “empathize” is not the same as to “sympathize”.
It means to understand another’s feelings and situation.
Cheri called us to lives of empathy
so that we might try to understand – really understand --
what it would be like to live and eat
like those who need Food Stamps
for their groceries.
She called us to do that by stepping into the shoes
of those who live on food stamps
by living for three days
spending less than $4 per day on food.

Couples are called to lives of empathy,
called to step into the shoes of their spouses,
not to judge, not to criticize,
but simply to understand.
Step into their shoes and learn their hopes
their dreams, their fears, their concerns,
their joys, their sorrows.
Recognize their world on their terms,

It is hard work to empathize.
to step into another’s shoes,
to set yourself and your own concerns aside
so that you can learn
really learn, selflessly learn
about a loved one.
It is easier to pass the shoe,
than to step into it.
But that’s the life that God calls couples to in marriage,
that’s part of the two becoming one.

Our Christian Education Ministry Team is working on ideas
for programs, workshops, and seminars
on marriage enrichment that we hope to offer next year.
It is the start of what we hope will be a greater focus
on how we can all help nurture marriages,
from the newest to those celebrating 50-year anniversaries.

No couple who stand before God, their pastor,
family and friends, to exchange their vows,
are married;
They are “becoming married”
(Herbert Anderson & Robert Fite)
starting a process that they will work on
the rest of their lives.
And every marriage requires hard work;
No marriage is perfect.
As one writer observed, the only perfect thing
in any marriage is the picture taken of the couple
on their wedding day,
and even that has been retouched.

But if a couple makes God the foundation of their marriage;
If they open themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit that will help them step into the shoes
of the other to learn empathy;
if they recognize that they are constantly
becoming disciples of Christ
as much as they are becoming married;
If they seek to grow in faith together,
then they will grow in love together,
and they will understand the words of our Lord,
“that the two shall become one.”
AMEN

What Have You Learned?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 8, 2008

What Have You Learned?
Ezekiel 2:1-3:3
Luke 12:49-53

It’s hot, it’s muggy,
it’s the beginning of summer,
the time of year when we want to slow things down.
So I think it is the perfect time to… take a quiz!
Find a pencil and take your bulletin:
did you notice the extra space we provided
for you to write down your answers?

Ready? Here we go with the first question:
Why are we called Presbyterians?
What’s the meaning of the word?
Does it have to do with our theology and what we believe?

Second question:
How many sacraments do we have in the Presbyterian Church?
What are they?
Can you name something that is not a sacrament for us,
but is in the Roman Catholic Church?

Here’s the third question:
How many books are there in the Bible?
How many in the Old Testament?
How many in the New Testament?
If you attended a service in Roman Catholic Church,
would their pew Bible be the same as ours?
Would it have the same number of books in it,
or would you find a different number?

Question four:
We speak of the Old Testament as the Hebrew Bible.
If you went to a Jewish synagogue and looked at their Scriptures
would you find the same books that we have in our Old Testament?
Would the order be the same?

Five: We have two books that together make up
the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA),
the church of which we are a part.
Can you name each Book?

The sixth question is easy!
In the story of Noah and the Flood,
what was the name of Noah’s wife?

Question seven:
In which gospels can we find stories of Jesus’ birth,
the Christmas stories?
Are the stories all the same?
Do the shepherds and the three kings appear in all the stories?

Question eight:
Dance has been part of how we worship and praise God
since the days of King David more than 3,000 years ago.
In fact King David himself once led the nation in dancing with joy.
What was his reason for dancing with such enthusiasm?

Nine:
How many Psalms are there in the Book of Psalms?

Here’s your last question:
Here’s a verse from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,
"Women should be silent in the churches.
For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate,
as the law also says.
If there is anything they desire to know,
let them ask their husbands at home.
For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
(1 Cor. 14:34ff)
Do we read this verse, as well as the rest of the Bible,
as the literal word of the Lord?
Or is this another word we use rather than “literal”?

We Presbyterians have a history of being people of the book.
people who study so we can learn and grow in faith.
Learning has been so important to us that
historically the pastor in a Presbyterian Church
has been referred to as the Teaching Elder,
a term that had fallen out of use,
but appears to be coming back into favor.

Jesus was often called Rabbi,
a Hebrew word that means “teacher”.
I teach because Jesus taught,
and teaches us still.
I also teach because there is no better way to learn.

I teach when I preach each Sunday.
A sermon is the interpreted word of the Lord.
When a minister prepares a sermon,
he begins by learning what the biblical text
he is preaching on is all about.
This is called “exegesis”
which means analyzing the text,
studying it, and learning.
We read the text, along with the passages
that appear right before and right after,
to learn about the context.
We check other translations to see if there are differences;
we often will go back to the original Greek or Hebrew
to see how it was originally written.
Presbyterian ministers have to show a working knowledge
of ancient Hebrew and Greek in order to be ordained.
We will read commentaries from scholars
and dig into the history and the culture at that time and place.
And of course, we look to God to guide us
by the Holy Spirit as we are doing our work.
A standard rule of thumb for most ministers is that
we should expect to put in an hour of learning and preparation
for each minute we expect to preach.

We do all this to help us all understand the word as it comes to us
through the mouths and pens of prophets and apostles,
through the recorded history,
through poetry and song.
We do all this because the Bible demands it.

My teaching isn’t limited to Sunday mornings
in the pulpit, of course.
I also teach in other settings throughout the year.
Two Bible study groups,
the Confirmation Class,
and other occasional classes throughout the year.
Add it all up, and I spend about 30 hours every week
teaching, learning, and preparing to teach.

Learning has been woven into the fabric of the Presbyterian Church
throughout its history.
The very notion of Sunday School developed
within the Presbyterian church
and it was a Presbyterian who established
the American Sunday School Union
in the early part of the 19th century.
Presbyterians have established dozens of colleges
over the centuries;
Princeton University began its storied history
as a small Presbyterian school called
the College of New Jersey back in 1746.
In 1812 it split off its divinity school
as Princeton Theological Seminary,
which will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 4 years.

Here in our church, we take teaching and learning seriously,
from our Sunday School offerings,
through our Adult Education classes.
One of the areas where we hope to have an Associate Pastor
devote a portion of his or her time,
in addition to working with our Youth,
would be to help develop and lead
more Adult Education offerings.

Next week we will change our worship schedule for the summer.
I have to be honest here: I don’t like the idea
of changing times for worship in the summer.
Sunday is the Sabbath, the Lord’s Day,
52 Sundays a year,
and we should honor that
with a consistent time for worship.
Adapting God to fit our schedules
so we can get on with other activities
just doesn’t seem to be the right or faithful thing to do.
But beyond that, moving the worship time from 11 to 10
squeezes out the education hour for the summer,
squeezes out an important time for us to keep learning,
especially for Adult Education offerings.

We learn so we can understand,
and in understanding,
as you hear me often pray,
grow in faith, obedience and love.
We learn so we can understand even the more difficult
passages we hear in the Bible.

The second lesson, the passage we heard from Luke.
is a terribly difficult passage.
Last week we learned how Jesus calls us
to love even our enemies,
and now this week we hear him saying,
“I came to bring fire to the earth,
and how I wish it were already kindled!...
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?
No I tell you, but rather, division!”
In Matthew’s version of this story,
Jesus says he has come not to bring peace,
but the sword!

What are we to do with this?
How can Jesus say in one place,
“blessed are the peacemakers
for they will be called children of God”
(Matthew 5:9)
and then in another say he’s come to wreak havoc?

Let’s start with Jesus’ talk about fire.
What is the purpose of the fire?
Is it to bring destruction?
Is there a violent intent to it?
Go back the beginning of Luke’s gospel
back to when John the Baptizer
was telling the children of Israel
that while he baptized with water,
another greater than he was coming,
one who would baptize with
“the Holy Spirit and fire”
Luke 3:16
The fire is a not a destructive fire;
it is the refiner’s fire
designed to purify,
to burn out the ungodly parts of a person
so that the good and the godly can radiate through.

In our Bible Study groups we have from time to time
read from texts outside the Bible
including apocryphal gospels,
The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas
records Jesus as saying,
“Whoever is near me is near fire.”
(Gospel of Thomas, 82)
near the refiner’s fire,
and not a destructive fire.

Now, what do we do with Jesus’ words about division?
Again, how do we reconcile this
with his teaching that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves?
Is he trying to break up our homes?
No, of course not!
He is reminding us is that following him
requires commitment,
such a strong commitment that if others in our family
get in the way,
we may need to turn away from them
so that we can turn fully to Christ,
Following Jesus comes before everything else.

How many different ways does Jesus say this:
"Let the dead bury their own dead," (Matt. 8:22)
"Sell all your possession and give your money to the poor”
(Mark 10:21)
"No, you cannot go back to say goodbye to your family
before you follow me." (Luke 9:62)
In each instance, Jesus uses hyperbole,
exaggerated teaching, to make his point so clear
that we cannot help but understand.

Following Jesus is not easy, it is hard work.
It isn’t a pleasant walk down a country road on a 70 degree day,
a soft breeze blowing at our backs.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases Jesus’ teaching perfectly:
“Do you think I came to smooth things over
and make everything nice?
Not so!
I’ve come to disrupt and confront.
I have come to change everything.”
(The Message, Luke 12)
“If you don’t go all the way with me,
through thick and thin,
you don’t deserve me.”
(The Message, Matthew 10)

You are probably familiar with the list of
the Seven Deadly Sins.
If I asked you where in the Bible we can find the list
would you know where to look?
The answer is that there is no list in the Bible.
It was Gregory the Great, a sixth century pope,
who devised the list,
which was later immortalized in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
One of the sins was sloth.
Now sloth is thought of as laziness,
the feeling that overwhelms us when
both the temperature and humidity race past 90.
But the word as it was used by Gregory
referred to spiritual apathy, spiritual indifference,
an unwillingness to do what was needed
to follow faithfully our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ difficult teachings were aimed at this spiritual sloth,
spiritual apathy,
spiritual summer vacations.
Jesus reminds us again and again
that with him it is all or nothing.

Summer is here and with it comes a tendency to let things go.
But don’t let your learning take a holiday.
Don’t become slothful in your spiritual journey.
The question really is not “what have you learned?”
The question is rightly,
“what are you learning?”
Work on your learning throughout the summer.
If you’d like help or suggestions, just ask.
Here’s a first step:
I won’t give you the answers to the quiz.
Instead, make time this week to find the answers.
We will print them in next Sunday’s bulletin.

Keep learning, keep growing.
Start with the Bible;
You don’t have to take in the words
the way Ezekiel did: that was a metaphor.
But when you read, you will find them “sweet as honey”.

What God wants us to do is learn.
Learn of me, says our Lord.
Learn with me;
Learn from me;
Learn: Fall,
Winter,
Spring,
and yes, Summer, too.
AMEN

Are You A “Luke 6-er”?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 1, 2008

Are You A “Luke 6-er”?
Amos 7:7-8
Luke 6:27-38

There is something percolating out there,
bubbling, simmering…
Something’s happening, right before our eyes.
It may still be off to the side, out of our main focus,
but it’s there.
It is exciting, yet at the same time unnerving:
Exciting because of the energy and possibilities,
yet unnerving because challenges, uncertainty, and change
are all part of the mix.

What I am talking about is what is happening
among our younger Christians throughout this country
and in fact throughout the world.
These younger Christians are peers
of those young men and women
we recognized and honored today,
young men and women ages 18 to 29.
They come from all denominations, all ethnicities,
all backgrounds, from every corner of the globe.

This is a group that is hard to categorize,
precisely because they don’t want to be categorized.
This is a group whose focus is not on religion and church
as much as it is on faith and Jesus Christ.

They have little interest in what they see as
dated teachings, such as what Bishop John Robinson
of the Church of England
has called the “three-decker” model
that’s preached from most pulpits,
with heaven above, hell below
and a woefully earthy earth in between.
(Robinson, Honest to God)
They have a deep awareness that,
as we talked about last week,
God is not some deity beyond our reach,
sitting high above the clouds,
or off in some far distant galaxy,
but a living God, with us,
breathing his Spirit in and through us;
A God who revealed himself
and reveals himself still in the risen and living Jesus Christ.

They have no interest in coming to church
as a way to purchase fire insurance,
to keep themselves from being dropped into the lowest level.
They come to church to grow in faith and discipleship,
to do more than learn about Christ,
but instead learn Christ:
learn what he teaches so they can follow more faithfully .
The only word that begins with “h” that concerns them
is hypocrisy,
for what these younger Christians seek
is authenticity in their faith.
As a result, they are turning from ideology,
rejecting labels, such as conservative or liberal,
and even denominational labels if necessary.

This emerging movement is vastly different
from the last major change
we’ve seen in the church,
the one that began about 20 years ago
with the rise of the mega-churches,
those churches that draw thousands and thousands
to worship services each Sunday in cavernous auditoriums.
The halcyon days of the mega-church may in fact be in the past
as seekers look for something
that is more than just a visceral experience.
The effort to be more “contemporary”
too often dropped substance and depth in the process.
The loud, throbbing beat,
the flashing lights,
the pastor kitted out in Hawaiian shirt and headset,
have grown stale for many.
Interestingly, there has been a significant growth in
“house churches”, small, non-denominational groups
that take us back to Christianity’s first 300 years,
before Constantine turned the Christian church
into an institution.

We always look for terms to define groups;
it makes life easier for the sociologists and writers,
but it automatically categorizes and limits the group.
Still, we might call these younger Christians “Luke 6-ers”.
“Luke 6-ers” because Jesus’ message in this chapter of the gospel
is foundational for how they live their faith.

Did you hear what Jesus was saying in Luke 6,
what he is teaching us?
Love even your enemies.
Yes, love even your enemies.
And Jesus pushes the point so we don’t miss it:
“I am not impressed when you love those you like;
Find a way to reach out in love to even those you don’t like,
those you consider your enemies,
even those you fear.
But don’t do it in a patronizing, condescending way.
Be authentic; make it genuine.
That’s what I am looking for in my disciples.
Remember: it won’t be by your religion
that you will be known as my followers,
but by your love.
And, of course, Do good.
Do good through church,
but do good in the work you do, too.
You are my disciples Monday through Friday, 9 to 5,
just as much as you are on Sunday morning.
Do good because that is loving faithfully and fearlessly.

“And whatever you do,
Don’t judge.
And when I say don’t judge,
you know what I mean:
don’t criticize; don’t gossip;
don’t talk down; don’t talk about;
don’t sneer, don’t sniff:
‘he’s so lame,
she’s like, so not cool.’
How is that kind of talk loving?
And if your talk isn’t grounded in love,
then neither are you.”

Luke 6 is known as Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.
It is similar, but not identical to,
the Sermon on the Mount
we find in Matthew’s gospel.
Matthew’s version of the sermon has more to it
than what we find in Luke,
but Luke ends with Jesus asking a question
Matthew did not record:
“Why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you?”
"If you hear my words and don’t do what I tell you,
don’t live your life by my words,
you’ve built your spiritual house
on a foundation that’s sure to collapse."
Eugene Peterson imagines Jesus saying,
“These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life,
homeowner improvements in your standard of living.
They are foundation words,
words to build a life on. …
Work these words into your life.”
(Eugene Peterson, The Message).

And that’s what "Luke 6-ers" are trying to do.
Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine
sees this cohort as part of a Great Awakening,
as faith in America shifts from culture wars,
from ideology, from partisanship,
from right versus left,
even from denominationalism
to a new spirituality
deeply rooted in Christ.

This new Great Awakening,
which these young folks are part of,
perhaps even driving,
brings a new plumb-line to how we measure
our faithfulness.
It is not a plumb-line that someone else
uses to measure you;
and certainly not a plumb line for you to use
to measure the faith of another.
It is a plumb line for you to use yourself
to help you to true yourself,
and right yourself
as you build a strong foundation on Christ.

“Luke 6-ers” are not just limited, of course,
to young folks –
we should all be “Luke 6-ers”,
and “Matthew 25-ers”
and “John 13-ers”.

As you come to this table this morning
to share in this meal
which our Lord has prepared for us
and to which our Lord invites us,
think about the words we heard our Lord speak to us
in his Sermon on the Plain:
Love your enemies,
Do to others as you would have them do to you,
Do good,
Do not judge,
Do not condemn,
Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Take the words in,
Drink the words in,
work these words into your life,
make them your plumb-line.

Come to this table and be fed,
and then, regardless of your age,
go out, pledged anew to Christ,
that you too will be a “Luke 6-er”.
AMEN