Variations on One

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 5, 2008

Variations on One
Leviticus 16:29-31
Matthew 7:12

It may have been in elementary school,
possibly middle school,
or maybe it didn’t happen until high school,
but we’ve probably all done it:
sat with a globe in front of us,
a model of the earth.
We’ve spun the ball on its axis,
and wondered why the axis runs at an angle
tipped toward the diagonal,
rather than straight up and down.

We’ve run our finger over the equator,
to see how the line that divides the northern hemisphere
from the southern cuts across countries, continents and oceans.
We’ve wondered whether we could really dig a tunnel
through the earth and come out in China or Australia,
and if we were to do that,
would they be upside down, or would we?

A globe helps us to see just how much water covers the earth;
most of the surface is water: oceans, seas, lakes, rivers.
Our baptismal liturgy, which we heard last week,
reminds us that water gives us life.

We can point to the spot on the globe
that is Manassas Virginia, where we live.
The spot, tiny as it is,
that’s home for us.
Then turn the globe slowly to the right,
and run your finger on the latitude
that runs through Manassas,
not quite 39 degrees north.
Follow it on its westerly course across the country to San Francisco,
and then out across the Pacific.
We are well north of the Hawaiian islands,
so we won’t hit land until we get to Japan.
From there we move to Korea --
North Korea, to be precise,
and then into China,
across the Gobi Desert,
and to the steppes of Central Asia.

Keep moving, turning the globe slowly,
and watch your finger move across
Iran, Turkey, Greece,
the toe of Italy,
across the Mediterranean,
through Spain and Portugal,
one last bump into land at the Azores
and then we are back home.

In that quick tour,
how many different countries would we have visited?
How many different people?
How many different languages?
How many different cultures?
How many different beliefs?

We would have traversed nations that we once considered
to be our enemies,
but with whom we now live in peace;
And we would have traversed nations
we now think of as our enemies,
but who were once our friends.

There are more some 200 different countries in this world,
and more than 6 billion people.
Such a vast world, almost beyond our ability to comprehend,
yet, it was the anthropologist Margaret Mead
who reminded us that there is only one human race.
For all our variations, we are but one,
one humanity,
one human species.
We may speak different languages;
our skins may have different hues;
we may eat different kinds of food;
we may even have different theological beliefs;
but still we are one humanity, one people,
in so many variations.

On this World Communion Sunday
we join with millions and millions of followers
of Jesus Christ scattered through the world
and come to the Lord’s Table, all of us together,
responding to the invitation that comes
from Christ himself.
We reflect the world’s diversity,
the variations of humankind.

Could there be a better time,
and a better place for us to remember
that Christ teaches us to work for reconciliation and peace,
and not just with our brothers and sisters in Christ,
even though we often find that hard enough,
but lives of reconciliation with all the world,
all humanity.

Could Jesus’ teaching on the Golden Rule
have captured that in any simpler way?
It is all encompassing.
He did not put any limits, any conditions on the “others”.
He meant everyone.
Do you remember how we talked a couple of weeks ago
of Jesus’ lesson when he said,
“let the little children come to me”?
He was including all children in his invitation.
Would Jesus have turned away a Samaritan child?
A Roman child?
A Greek child?
An Ethiopian Child?

We should learn of other peoples, other cultures,
and other faiths and beliefs.
Learn to appreciate differences in culture and beliefs;
Learn to find joy in the variations God has created,
even as we are one.
There is so much we can learn from others,
if we only would lose our fear of the different.

This week, for example,
we have a wonderful opportunity to learn
from our Jewish brothers and sisters,
as they mark their High Holy Days,
a ten-day period that began last Tuesday with Rosh Hashanah,
and ends on Thursday with Yom Kippur,
the Day of Atonement.

Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of a new year for Jews,
but it is not a time for hats and horns and “auld lange syne”.
It marks a time for introspection,
a time for reflection,
a time for repentance.

We heard in our First Lesson the foundation for Yom Kippur,
the Day of Atonement.
It is a day to seek forgiveness and to offer forgiveness.
Not just from God, but with everyone.
Get mad at someone and carry a grudge with you,
and the longest you can do that is 364 days:
Come the Day of Atonement,
God expects you to offer forgiveness;
completely and absolutely.
The wrong, the injury, doesn’t matter.
It is time to let it go, lifting it up to God.

Yom Kippur is all about community,
renewing it,
ridding the community of the toxin and poison
that comes with anger and grudges,
resentment and bitterness.
Yom Kippur makes the way clear for reconciliation,
renewal and restoration.
Perhaps we would have an easier time following Jesus’
call to work for peace and reconciliation if we learned
from our Jewish brothers and sisters this powerful lesson.

We come to this Lord’s Table
always filled with a sense of awe and wonder,
for we come to be lifted up into the presence of Christ himself,
to sit at table with all the saints
throughout all time.

But then we go from this Table,
renewed, refreshed, filled with new life
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
and we go out into the world
a world filled with Christians
and so many others.
We go from the table on World Communion Sunday
charged by Christ
to make tomorrow World Community Monday,
and the day after that World Community Tuesday,
and onward with each new day.

God can often be inscrutable and mysterious,
but he makes so very clear that this is what he wants for us.
Speaking through the prophet, God says,
“On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food…
and he will destroy the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
the sheet that is spread over all nations.” (Isaiah 25:6)

All peoples,
and all nations,
in all the wonderful variations God has created,
all people,
who are still but one.
This is the word of the Lord!
AMEN