Sunday, July 27, 2008

He Started It!

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
July 27, 2008

He Started It!
Romans 7:14-20
Romans 8:1-8

I had a fascinating couple of weeks on Study Leave.
It truly is a blessing to have time to read,
to study,
to immerse myself in books and articles.
We Presbyterians have always been people of the book,
and it is a wise policy that we have in the Presbyterian Church
that pastors are granted at least two weeks of Study Leave each year.

Most of my time was spent, of course,
working on my dissertation for my doctorate.
I sent my work off to my faculty advisors at Princeton
and based on their comments this past week,
it was a productive and fruitful two weeks.

I did other reading as well;
I always have a pile of books and articles
clamoring for my attention.
But the topic that occupied my time
when I was not working on my dissertation
was one that came out of
our Thursday evening Bible Study group:
the topic of sin.

Now you have heard me define sin
as meaning very simply,
anything that causes us to turn from God.
Anything we do or say
that turns us from Jesus’ teachings,
or from God’s laws and commandments
is a sin, no matter how small.

The question the group had was
where did this business of “original sin” come from?
Is there someplace in the Bible where we can read about
and learn about “Original Sin”?
And if there really is something called original sin,
are we all infected with it,
as though it was some sort of virus?

Just dealing with the topic of sin can be awkward for a preacher.
We really don’t like to talk about it,
and no one wants to hear it thundered from a pulpit.
It wasn’t that long ago, however, that the topic and the word
were the focus of most worship services.
Back in the 18th and 19th centuries,
preachers were quick to use terms like
“wretched” and “unworthy” to describe
the “miserable” sinners filling the pews each Sunday.

No one could match the great 18th century preacher
Jonathan Edwards for the sheer power, and even terror,
he was able to convey through his sermons:
“There is nothing that keeps wicked Men,
at any one Moment, out of Hell,
but the meer pleasure of God.
…The Wrath of God burns against them,
…the Pit is prepared, the Fire is made ready,
the Furnace is now hot, ready to receive them,
the Flames do now rage and glow.
The glittering Sword is whet, and held over them,
and the Pit hath opened her Mouth under them.”
(Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, 1741)

Preach like that today,
and you would probably not find many willing listeners,
not only because that’s not the kind of message
any of us wants to hear,
but because it also isn’t very good theology.

Still, for more than 1500 years
we have wrestled with the idea that we have been infected
with sin since Adam and Eve took that first bite;
That through that original sin,
a virus of sinfulness has passed from generation
to generation infecting everyone,
with none of us immune to it.

The reality, though, is that “original sin”
is more myth than fact.
Read through the Bible
and you will not find term “original sin” anywhere.

It was the theologian and church leader Augustine
who coined the term Original Sin in the 5th century,
almost 400 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
He built his theory on Paul’s writings,
especially the words we heard in our First Lesson.

Did you hear Paul express his frustration
with how he lived his own life:
“I do not understand my own actions,
For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.”
Paul concluded that he behaved that way because,
“sin dwelled within” him,
sin he had inherited from Adam,
for as Paul put it,
“sin came into the world through one man”
(Romans 5:12)

Augustine built on Paul’s theory
that once Adam and Eve sinned,
that ruined it for the rest of us for the rest of time.
Each generation was born corrupt and
would pass their corrupt genes to the next generation:
“…[Man] being of his own will corrupted,
and justly condemned,
begot corrupted and condemned children.
For we all were in that one man,
since we all were that one man who fell into sin
by the woman who was made from him before the sin.…
And thus,…, there originated the whole train of evil,
which, …convoys the human race from its depraved origin,
as from a corrupt root…” (City of God, 13.14)

Simply put: Adam started it.
At least that’s how Paul viewed it.
Augustine may have focused on Adam as well,
but he made clear in his writings
that it was all Eve’s fault.

The Reformation did nothing to shake this notion
We’ve got three Confessions that date from that time
and they don’t hold back.
The Scots Confession of 1560 states:
“By…original sin, the image of God was utterly defaced in man,
and he and his children became by nature hostile to God,…
and servants to sin.” (3.03)
The Heidelberg Catechism, also from the 16th century,
goes this dreary language one step farther in stating,
“…our human life is so poisoned
that we are all conceived and born in a state of sin.”
(4.007)

It wasn’t until about 40 years ago that we took a fresh look
at this hopeless situation we seemed to have been in.
A more careful reading of the Bible has helped us to understand
that there has been more myth and misunderstanding
than knowledge and reality.

The truth, as the Bible makes clear
is that we are not born corrupt
and we are not fundamentally bad.
We have not inherited some genetic viral sin strand.

When God created us, he created us good.
God also created us with free will, however:
the ability to make decisions and choices,
and that means that we can make good choices
and we can make bad choices.
We can choose to be obedient to the will of God,
and we can choose to be disobedient.

It was Milton, in his classic Paradise Lost,
who imagined God speaking of his children:
“I made [them] just and right,
sufficient to have stood,
though free to fall….
Authors to themselves in all,
both what they judge and what they choose;
for so I formed them free
and free they remain.”
(Book 3, line 96ff)

One look at a baby like Rachel
and how in the world could we ever think
that original sin lurks within just waiting to blossom?
Now I know the response to that may well be,
then how do we explain the “Terrible Twos”??
Well, original sin is not the cause!

The answer to Paul’s dilemma,
why do we do the things we know we should not do
is simply because we choose to.
Nothing forces us to;
we just make bad decisions
and bad choices.

But that’s not the worst thing we do.
Even worse than making a bad decision,
a bad choice,
is then failing to acknowledge our decision,
failing to take responsibility for it.
We seem to live increasingly in a society
in which we don’t want to take responsibility,
where it is always someone else’s fault,
where we are victims,
and never the responsible ones.

That rush to get ourselves out of a bad situation,
of not wanting to take responsibility,
of trying to blame something or someone else --
that may well be genetic,
something we inherited from Adam and Eve,
a virus that has been passed on through the generations.
Do you remember how they responded to God,
when God confronted them:
Eve was quick to blame the serpent,
and Adam was quick to blame the woman,
and even God himself: “this woman you gave me!”

Even as Augustine built his theory of original sin,
he acknowledged that the greater sin
was probably the failure of Adam and Eve
to accept responsibility for their actions.
And the enticing question,
the one to which we will never have an answer is,
how might things have turned out
if Adam and Eve, after taking the fruit,
and eating
had said to God,
“Yes, we did it.
We don’t deny it.
We take responsibility and we have no one
but ourselves to blame.
We are truly sorry.”

We have been created by God for good
and to do good.
Even Augustine was clear on that
“God…made man upright, and consequently with a good will.”
(City of God, 14.11)

We are created in a state of grace
by God’s love given to us in Jesus Christ,
given to us when we are obedient and good,
and given to us when we are disobedient and not so good.
God’s love is given to us
even when we try to run away from our own actions.
Paul makes clear:
“there is no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus,”
and that’s you and me.

A better path always lies before us,
the path that Christ calls us to,
the path the Spirit will help us stay on.
the path that is, as Paul refers to it,
the path of the Spirit, the path of God.
We have only to embrace it,
to choose to embrace it,
to decide to embrace it,
and turn from self-indulgent, self focused,
self centered lives.
And the hard truth is that
if our lives are not focused completely on God,
on the life of the Spirit,
then they are self-centered and self-indulgent,
and self-centered.

Take stock of where you have turned from God
turned in small ways, as well as large,
turned by something you’ve done,
and by something you know you should have done
but haven’t;
turned by things you’ve said,
and by things you know you should have said,
but didn’t.

Acknowledge your sins to God,
and you will know forgiveness,
For we are not “wretched” in God’s eyes.
On the contrary, God makes clear again and again
that we are honored,
and precious, and loved.
After all, weren’t we created,
each of us, in God’s very image?

“See what love the Father has given us,
that we should be called children of God,
for that is what we are.”
Now this is the Word of the Lord!
AMEN

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Too Much Independence?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
July 6, 2008

Too Much Independence?
Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Luke 9:57-62

Who doesn’t enjoy celebrating the Fourth of July?
Independence Day, a day of picnics and parades,
firecrackers and family.
A day to relax and enjoy the sounds and smells of summer,
and a day, of course, to look back on
the proud history of our nation.

It’s been 232 years since those bold men gathered
to sign their names to the Declaration of Independence,
to stand up to the tyranny of the British king
and the wealthy aristocrats
who tried to impose their will on the colonists.
Two hundred thirty-two years
since we took that first courageous step
of what Abraham Lincoln would later call so simply
and yet so elegantly,
“government of the people,
by the people,
for the people”.
(Gettysburg Address)

We Presbyterians should take special pride in Independence Day,
since many of the men who created our nation
were Presbyterians.
Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence
was the Reverend John Witherspoon,
a Presbyterian clergyman who
was also president of a Presbyterian college in New Jersey
that would be later be known as Princeton University.
One of his brightest students
was a young Virginian named James Madison,
a Presbyterian would serve as the principal drafter
of the Constitution of the United States.

The very foundation of our democratic government,
with its system of checks and balances,
and the power residing ultimately in the people,
with the people,
and for the people,
borrowed liberally from the Presbyterian form of government.

For the influence the Presbyterians had though,
it was a wonderfully ecumenical group who established this nation:
Presbyterians working together with Anglicans, Catholics,
Quakers, Congregationalists, Baptists,
and others, all focused on forging a new nation.

It was their ecumenism that assured us
of one of our foundational rights,
the right to practice freely any religion.
Thomas Jefferson laid the groundwork for that freedom
right here in Virginia when he authored
the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1779.
It held that,
“…all men shall be free to profess,
and by argument to maintain,
their opinions in matters of religion,
and that the same shall in no wise diminish,
enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
(Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,
drafted in 1779 and adopted in 1786)

We have freedom and independence in this nation,
including the freedom and independence to pursue our faith,
whatever faith we feel called to,
including the many denominations of Christianity,
as well as Judaism or Islam, or other faiths,
or, if we choose,
the freedom and independence to pursue no faith.

This is truly a God-given freedom,
for it was God who gave us free will:
the ability to make decisions
and make choices for ourselves.
God could have created us differently,
without the ability to make decisions,
or make choices,
creatures that focused on little more than survival.
God could have imposed his will on us,
drawing us by fear to worship and praise him.

But God did not do that, of course.
God graced us with free will,
the ability to make decisions,
and the ability to make choices,
hoping that we would always choose him,
always choose his way,
always choose his love.

But of course, as soon as we learned that
we had the ability to make choices,
we also learned that we had the ability to make bad choices,
choices that would turn us away from God.
Adam and Eve had a choice:
either to listen to God and obey him,
or listen to the serpent,
and in the process exercise their free will,
and disobey God.
And in choosing to disobey God,
Adam and Eve chose to declare their independence from God.

From there as we read through the Bible,
it was like a snowball rolling downhill:
Example after example
of God’s children making bad choices
as they declared their independence from God,
choosing to pursue their own will
and their own way,
rather than following God’s will and God’s way.

More than 3,000 years ago,
as the children of Israel camped on the banks
of the east side of the Jordan River,
waiting to cross over and enter the promised land,
Moses spoke to them and warned them
that the greatest danger that lay before them
would come once they were settled on the land,
secure, prosperous, and content.
Then they would feel more willing
to declare their independence from God,
and pursue their own will, their own way,
whenever that path seemed easier than following the Lord God.
Moses put what lay before them in stark terms:
that they could choose either God or independence,
either life or death.

For the next thousand years
few of God’s children saw their choices as that clear.
It seemed to most that they could easily follow God at times,
and at other times, choose their own will and their own way.
But Jesus clarified that misunderstanding time and time again:
reminding us that it is an either/or choice for us:
either we choose God or we choose independence:
we can’t have it both ways.
Either we declare our independence
and turn away from God,
or we declare our faithfulness,
putting our trust completely to God.

And yet we still think we can customize our faith
to suit our own needs,
our own situations, our own desires:
faithfulness and submission some of the time,
and the path of independence
whenever that path looks a little more exciting,
a little brighter and inviting,
or even when we simply feel the need
to stretch our legs a little.

I just finished reading the book, “The Shack”
by William Young.
You may have heard about the book –
it’s become quite popular.
It’s a moving and poignant story
that focuses on a man named Mack
who spends a weekend in a shack in the backwoods
of a national park out in the Pacific Northwest
in the company of the Triune God:
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Lord God.
The conversations the take place throughout the weekend
are insightful and thought-provoking,
especially when the author has God speak
with great frustration of humanity’s
stubborn independent streak.
That quality helped make us a nation 232 years ago,
but it gets us into trouble when we exercise it toward God.
Moses and Jesus teach us very clearly:
Even a little independence from God
is too much independence.

Now there’s no question that we don’t like the idea
of being “dependent” on anyone or anything.
The very word “dependent” suggest weakness,
an inability to stand our own two feet,
and we are proud of our independence.

What we have to remember is that dependence on God
does not make us weak;
On the contrary, it makes us stronger.
When we depend upon God
we turn to God, look to God,
put our faith in God, our trust in God,
our hope in God,
and in the process we become stronger,
our feet on firmer ground.
God is our partner,
Jesus walking with us,
the Spirit sustaining us.

We realize that God created us to be in relationship with him
and with one another;
not to be alone, independent.
There is a reason, a God-given reason,
why the Bible teaches us,
“two are better than one”
(Ecclesiastes 4:9)
It is independence from God
that makes us weaker.

It is hard step to take,
to turn from independence and
and fully embrace reliance and dependence.
It requires discipline,
and will,
desire and trust.
It requires deep faith.
it also requires another quality that we don’t readily embrace:
it requires humility, humbleness.

As you come to the Lord’s Table this morning
I invite you to bring your independence,
your fierce, proud, well-crafted independence,
and leave it on the Table.
I invite you to come to this table with your head bowed
humble,
not in weakness
but in reliance, complete reliance,
your trust completely in the Lord God.

Leave your independence here at the Table
and don’t be at all surprised as you walk away
if you should feel a whole new sense of freedom,
deeper freedom,
freedom you never knew.
For when you leave your independence here at this table,
you will be freeing yourself of the fetters and chains
we humans bind ourselves with:
worries, the anxieties,
our need to control the future,
our constant search for success, power,
prestige, money, security.

Leave your independence here on this Table,
and you will be set free to be fully immersed
in the grace and love that is all yours,
grace and love so freely given to you by God
through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who made a choice: a choice for each of us.
Leave your independence
and give all honor and glory
to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit:
our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
AMEN