Peering In

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
November 30, 2008: First Sunday of Advent

Peering In
Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark 13:24-37

Here we stand on this last day of November -
Thanksgiving behind us,
December starts tomorrow.
It seems that we’d barely got through our turkey and stuffing
on Thursday before the retailers demanded our attention:
“Come to our stores!
Shop! Spend! Buy!”
Stores opened on Friday at 6:00 am; 5:00 am,
some even at the stroke of midnight,
as Thursday dissolved into Friday,
merchants eager, maybe even desperate
for their own variation of “silver bells”.

Stand here on this last day of November
and peer into December,
look as if you are looking into a room,
a room called December,
a room we are about to enter,
a room whose threshold we stand on.

It is such a wonderfully familiar room,
a space that is inviting, that draws us in.
It is a room filled with joy and laughter,
food and festivities.
It is room filled with family, friends,
colorful decorations,
packages wrapped in bright paper,
lights sparkling and twinkling.

It is a room that evokes memories,
so many memories,
from Christmases past,
especially those Christmases that hold special places in our hearts:
Perhaps it was your first Christmas together as husband and wife;
Or your first-born’s first Christmas;
Perhaps your memory goes all the way back to that year
when Santa recognized at long last
just how good you’d been all year long
and rewarded you with almost everything on your list!

The room called December
can be filled with stress, too, of course,
as we try to juggle all the activities we pack into a few short weeks:
There are too many things to do
over the next three-and-a-half weeks.
Add to the normal December stress
the reality that this year Christmas budgets are leaner,
and lists much shorter,
the hunt for bargains that much more fervent.
Do you play the waiting game,
hoping that if you hold off another week
prices will come down another ten percent?
Or do you risk disappointment in waiting,
with the possibility that the items you want are sold out?

The room called December can evoke deep emotion, as well,
especially for those who have suffered a loss this past year.
The break-up of a marriage;
A fracturing of any relationship.
Or perhaps a loved-one whose smile and laughter
graced the room in Decembers past is gone,
the room so much darker as a result.
There is something about December
that makes the presence of absence
so much more palpable and painful.

The sounds that fill the room can provide a healing balm, though.
Is there a better sound than
the giggles of children filled with excitement
as they prepare their lists for Santa?
They are so excited that the only thing that silences them
are those occasional moments when
they feel a brief wave of panic
that something they’ve just done or said
might have caused the word “naughty”
to flash across computer monitors at the North Pole.
Happily, grace abounds in December
and those moments pass quickly
as laughter and giggles resume.

Another healing sound that fills the room
is the sound of music,
glorious music, magnificent music:
from great compositions for orchestra, organ and choir,
to favorite carols we sing on Christmas Eve.
And we can’t overlook all those fun songs:
the ones about Rudolf and Frosty,
and one of my favorites,
the one that tells us we’d better not pout or cry.

The room called December is filled with tradition,
traditions that many of us carry from childhood.
Traditions about what kind of Christmas tree to have –
Scotch pine, Balsam, Douglas fir?
What kind of lights to use:
white or multi-colored,
steady glow, or twinkling?
What goes on top of the tree:
A star? An angel?
Even more traditions can be found in the kitchen
with recipes handed down
for stuffing, egg nog,
pecan pie, or plum pudding.

Peering into the room called December is
like looking at the pages of a wonderful album,
an old-fashioned photo album,
with pictures glued to each page.
Electronics may be the most popular gift under the tree,
but there is nothing digital about December.

There is a feeling of joy that seems to radiate
throughout the room, drawing us in,
a feeling of deep and abounding joy.
Joy even in the face of a bad economy;
Joy even in the face of a leaner Christmas;
Joy even in the face of the presence of absence of a loved one.
It is this sense of joy that fills us with peace,
a joy that fills us with assurance,
that everything is okay,
even if the previous eleven months were a struggle.

It is a sense of joy grounded in hope,
hope even for those who are so reluctant to step
over the threshold from November into December
because we know where the joy comes from.
It is not something that can be purchased at any store,
for any price.
It is joy that is truly priceless,
for it is joy that comes from a part of the room
that we pay very little attention to for most of the month,
a part of the room, a corner really,
dimly lit, with no twinkling lights,
hushed, silent, with no carols
not even the laughter of children.
We have to look closely and carefully to see,
to comprehend.

Peer into the room, and it’s there,
not just over to the side,
but pushed aside really,
by everything else that fills the room.
It’s so simple, so spare, it seems so out of place
with the rest of the room,
but there it is, that scene we know so well:
a beaming father
a radiant mother,
both gazing down at their newborn son,
their looks so suffused with warmth
they could chase away even the coldest wind.
Candlelight and starglow
light the scene, forcing us to look carefully,
intentionally, to make it out.

And though this scene is over to the side,
so dimly lit,
almost an afterthought,
we know, don’t we,
that this is the heart of the room,
the very life of the room,
the room we call December.
Every sparkling light,
every burst of laughter,
every fragrant wisp of pine,
every crackle of paper being unwrapped
everything that fills the rest of the room
all comes from this corner, this scene.

It is in this corner that we find the hope,
the joy,
the promise that is Emmanuel,
that wonderful Hebrew word that means
“God with us”.
Emmanuel, which is probably a more appropriate word
for what we mark in December than “Christmas”.
God with us, Christ with us.
The hopelessness felt by the Israelites of Isaiah’s day,
600 years earlier, gone… gone forever,
for God would no longer hide himself from his children,
never again.
God would be with his children,
present with them,
present with us,
to live with us,
to live as we live, to know our lives,
all so that we can know, really know,
God’s love and God’s grace.

This is the presence in the room that matters,
presence with a “ce”, rather than a “ts”;
the presence of God in Jesus Christ,
a baby born for us, given us.
All we have to do is look and we will see,
see in that room
the Christ who was born for us,
born to give us life.

And as we look we remember that
we look upon the Christ who will come again,
for that’s what Advent reminds us:
that we wait, wait not to celebrate the birth of Christ,
as much as we wait for that glorious day
when Christ will come again to make all things new.

When will that day come?
As our Lord teaches us,
only our Father in Heaven knows.
Our call is to make ourselves ready,
to be alert, to be awake.
And we make ourselves ready
by stepping over the threshold into
the room called December
not because we are eager for presents and lights,
carols and plum pudding,
but because we want to join
with the shepherds and the Wise men,
to come before the Lord,
come on bended knee.
to know his presence.

It is Advent,
this wonderful, magical, marvelous
season of expectation and anticipation.
It is Advent, a time for preparation,
preparation to celebrate with great joy
the birth of our Lord and Savior,
and to look forward to the day when he will come again,
come again in glory.

We need no longer peer into the room,
the room called December,
for we are invited in by the Lord our God,
invited into his presence,
invited to rejoice,
rejoice,
For unto us a child is born!
Glory to God!
Glory to God in highest heaven!
AMEN

The Power in the Words “Thank-You”

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
November 23, 2008

The Power in the Words “Thank-You”
1 Chronicles 16:8-13

Meister Eckhart was a Dominican monk and theologian
whose writings spanned the late 13th and early 14th centuries,
some 700 years ago.
His writings endure today for their simplicity, their spirituality,
and their deep faithfulness.
Among his pithy quotes that have stood
as testimonies to faith over the centuries
are these two, so short, so powerful:
“God is at home,
it's we who have gone out for a walk.”
and
“To be full of things is to be empty of God.”

The quote I like best is this one, though:
“If the only prayer you ever say
in your entire life is, thank you,
it will be enough.”

Now I have a quite a few books in my library,
including some by Eckhart and others about him,
but I cannot find that quote anywhere.
I stumbled across it, in, of all places,
a Sunday comic strip some months ago!
I keep the comic on my bulletin board.

If the only prayer you ever lift up
is one of thanksgiving, of gratitude,
it will suffice.

Yes, we have prayers of praise,
prayers asking for help for ourselves,
or for loved ones.
We lift up prayers of confession every Sunday in church.
But I’m inclined to agree with Eckhart:
if you have no other prayer on your lips,
make sure yours is one of thanksgiving.

Words of thanksgiving can be so powerful:
When we say thank you to someone,
we are turning from ourselves,
and turning to the person to whom we are giving our thanks.
We acknowledge a gift and
we acknowledge the act of giving --
the generosity of the spirit of the one who gave.

The grandness of the gift doesn’t matter;
it is the act that we acknowledge.
It may be cliché, but it's true:
it is the thought that matters.
Someone thought enough of you to give you a gift,
a small gift, a large gift,
something tangible,
something you cannot see or touch,
perhaps just a few words…
it does not matter --
someone thought of you
and gave you something,
and in the process gave something of herself or himself.

When we lift up our voices to God in a prayer of thanksgiving,
we are recognizing God’s thoughtfulness.
We recognize that God is always thinking of us,
even when we are not thinking of him;
God is always present in our lives,
loving us, nurturing us, feeding us,
guiding us.

The writers of the Psalms understood this so well,
which is why we find thankfulness in so many Psalms:
“O come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving.”
(Psalm 95)

David’s prayer of thanksgiving we find
in the often-overlooked book of Chronicles
comes from Psalm 105:
“O give thanks to the Lord,
call on his name,
make known his deeds among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him
tell of his wonderful works….”
(1 Chronicles 16:8ff)

David got it, that everything he had came from God,
that everything he was, everything he was yet to be,
was all from God.
He knew it,
he felt it.
And he wanted everyone else to feel the same way he did:
filled with thanksgiving,
filled with joy.

The root of the word “thanks” comes from the same root
as the word, “think”,
and that makes sense, doesn’t it:
when we thank God,
we are thinking of God.
And when we are thinking of God,
we should be thanking God.
When we think of God
we should remember that everything we have
comes from God, given us by grace,
given as gifts grounded in love,
love personified in Jesus Christ.

We are at the start of “thank-you” season.
It will begin on Thursday as families and friends
gather around tables
and express thanks for so many things,
and it will continue through Christmas
as we give and receive gifts.

The other day I had Chapel Time with the children
in our Early Learning Center
and I asked them to tell me some of the things
they are thankful for;
There were as many different answers as there were children.
Each child had something different, something wonderful
and something heartfelt he or she was thankful for:
Parents, grandparents,
homes, clothes, pets,
sisters and brothers,
school,
a full tummy,
a cozy bed with a warm blanket.
Four-year olds got it, just as David did.

Jesus understood the importance of giving thanks
to his Father in Heaven.
When he gathered with his disciples in that Upper Room
for the Passover Supper,
his final meal with his friends,
he knew what lay before him:
he knew he would shortly be betrayed and arrested,
and then beaten and killed.
Still, as he took the bread, he offered thanks to God.
And then as he took the cup,
he again offered thanks to God.
Thanks to God.
Thanks to his Father in Heaven.
Thanks to our Father in Heaven.
In an evening so heavy with emotion,
Jesus did not forget to lift up his words of thanksgiving.
The Bread of Life understood the importance
of saying thank you for the bread on the table.

Our lives should be prayers of thanksgiving,
and not just on one day,
or even over the course of one month,
but at all times.
Our every act should be accompanied by the phrase,
“after giving thanks to God.” --
I had my morning cup of coffee
“after giving thanks to God.”
I sat down at my desk and got to work,
“after giving thanks to God.”
I put the groceries away in the cupboard,
“after giving thanks to God.”
I fed the dog and then took him for a walk,
“after giving thanks to God.”
I fluffed up my pillow and turned out the light,
“after giving thanks to God.”
How easy is that?

What are you thankful for?
The warmth of the morning sun?
Family? Friends?
The people with whom you work?
This church and the saints past and present
who have been part of this community of faith?
The laughter of a child?
The wag of a dog’s tail?
The colors in the autumn leaves?
The sheer silence of a snow-covered neighborhood?
Love?
Goodness?
The feelings of kindness and hope
that come with the season that lies before us,
the season of Advent that begins next Sunday?

The Psalmist teaches us well:
“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright,
in the congregation.”
(Psalm 111)

Let us do just that: let us give thanks to the Lord
with our hearts, minds, and voices,
all together, in the congregation,
with the litany of thanksgiving that’s printed in your bulletin:

Gracious God, whose love and goodness extends throughout the earth,
and even to the farthest reaches of the universe:
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For the richness of creation, the beauty of the earth,
for crashing sea and towering mountains,
for bountiful fields ready to harvest,
for majestic trees, the birds of the sky,
animals of every size and shape :
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For the love of family and friends, for the laughter of children,
the energy of youth, the strength of adults,
the wisdom of elders, the comfort of community:
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For the nurture of a mother’s love,
the compassion of a father’s care,
for every expression of grace, tolerance, justice, and mercy:
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For the church where our faith is nurtured,
for your Holy Spirit who calls us to praise and worship you,
for the ministries you call us to,
for the brothers and sisters we work with as we share the gospel:
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For your Son Jesus Christ, who calls us to follow,
fills us with hope, and graces us with your love:
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For your constant and abiding presence,
and your overflowing blessings:
We give you thanks, O Lord.
For your overwhelming goodness and love:
We lift up our voices in praise and
thanksgiving to you, our Lord, our God.
AMEN

Welcome Home

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
November 16, 2008

Welcome Home
Matthew 23:1-15
1 Peter 4:7-11

If you’ve ever read any of the wonderful books
written by Anne Lamott
you’ve read of her experiences in her church,
a small Presbyterian Church just north of San Francisco.
It is most definitely not a church peopled by “the frozen chosen,”
as we Presbyterians sometimes think of ourselves.
No, when Lamott writes of the people
who are part of her church,
she uses every color in her box of crayons,
the big box, the one with 64.
In the process, she makes them saints
by making them real,
as real as you and me.
They are her family and she is part of their family.

Her writings help us to understand what church is:
church is home, our home.
We often call this building “God’s house”, and it is.
What makes Lamott’s church, this church,
any church of any denomination God’s home,
is when the people within the church
give life to love and grace,
the love and grace each of us has been given
by God through Jesus Christ.
It is love and grace brought to life,
not the architecture of the building,
or the extravagance and exuberance of the worship service,
but simply the warmth we share with one another,
the simple act of how we welcome one another,
friend and stranger alike.

As Lamott colors in each person in her church,
she reminds us that we all come to God’s house
well short of perfection;
and yet we all come equally equipped
as a dwelling place for God’s love.
Each of us is part of a construction team,
called to the continuous work
of building God’s house,
with Jesus our foreman, the general contractor.
We build by welcoming,
we build with a smile,
a hand extended in greeting,
an embrace;
words offered to a visitor,
“come sit with me.”

We each walk through the doors
knowing that we will find a smile that is genuine,
a welcome that is sincere.
We know that there is sign hanging over every entrance to the building
that says so simply, “welcome home.”
For that is what a church is:
it is home, home for all of us.
Home from the very first time we came into this building.
And every one of us walked through the doors
of this church as a first time visitor,
a stranger.
We came hoping to find a welcome,
a smile from someone;
we came hoping to find a church home.

It is that silly little rhyme many of us learned
in Sunday School, “here’s the church, here’s the steeple,
open the doors, and see all the people.”
“See all the people”
“all the people”…
that’s church, that’s home.

Lamott is a gifted writer and she shows herself
and everyone else she writes about
with all faults, all foibles.
She speaks freely and frankly of what she sees
when looks at her own reflection in the mirror:
recovering addict, with too many years of her life
lost to alcohol and drugs.
It is her wonderfully honest appraisal of herself
that allows her to see in the members of her church family,
angels every one, saints all,
each called to touch one another with grace,
in countless ways,
ways as often unintended,
as they are intended.
She knows she is loved,
she knows she is welcomed.
She knows she is with her family,
when she walks through the doors of her church.

She reminds us of how God calls us together in community
with a lovely little story in which she finds herself frustrated,
and pleads with God, “I need help”.
And God’s response is, “Well isn’t that fabulous.
I need help too.
So you go get that old woman over there a glass of water,
and I’ll figure out
what we’re going to do about your stuff.”
(Traveling Mercies, 120)
And isn’t that how it works as God works through us?
God needs our help in bringing his love to his other children,
and when we turn to God,
God turns right around and says,
“okay, we’ll do this together
and in the process expand the house,
and broaden the welcome.”

Our Membership Ministry team is the group
that helps us build community.
Last year our Session combined our Fellowship Ministry Team
with our Evangelism and Assimilation Ministry Team
to form the Membership Ministry Team.
We were trying to do more than just be good stewards of resources,
going from two ministry teams to one,
and a total of 59 letters to 22 in the name.
We combined the two teams to remind us
of the importance of community and welcome,
and hospitality and fellowship,
and how it all begins when a stranger walks through the door
for the first time.
We wanted to have a seamless ministry
in how we embrace one another,
look after one another,
nurture one another.

Our Membership Ministry Team has, as you heard,
three areas on which it focuses:
First is welcoming visitors and conducting the Inquirers class.
Second is Fellowship,
all those activities that we do throughout the year
that strengthen the bonds that tie us together.
We do this in ways that are not only faithful,
but also fun: barbeques, Heritage dinners, game nights,
ski outings, camping,
anything that brings us together.
Of course, we are Presbyterian, so that means
that food will probably be prominent
in whatever it is that we are doing.
But what could be more appropriate:
gathering together as family
at the table to share a meal?

The third area the Team concentrates on is looking after members.
This the Team does jointly with the Board of Deacons.
We want to be especially attentive to members
whom we may not have seen in a while,
those who might be drifting away.
Quite often we find that when we have not seen someone
in a while, it is because something has been going on in their lives,
generally something that isn’t good: a job loss,
a divorce, illness, or some other concern.

Both of our lessons focus on the importance of hospitality.
Jesus was ever the consummate host, always eager to meet,
to welcome, to listen, to learn, to share a meal.
It was the great preacher Peter Marshall who described Jesus
as standing at the door of every church
with his “big carpenter hands”
opened wide in welcome.
I think this is my favorite image of Jesus.

So it should come as no surprise that Jesus was as harsh as he was
with the Pharisees, condemning them as hypocrites.
They put more effort into closing doors,
and barring the way to faith
than they did to opening doors,
and welcoming all.
They seemed to stand at the entrance of the Temple,
and instead of arms open wide in welcome,
their arms were folded,
as they glared at all who tried to enter:
“let’s check your credentials
and make sure you’re one of us
before we let you in.”

It is something we are always in danger of doing in church.
Closing doors, covering up the “welcome home” sign
to someone who doesn’t look like us,
think like us;
Someone whose skin is a different hue,
whose accent is from another country.
We’ve done this with dreadful effectiveness
the past decade questioning those whose
sexual orientation we think somehow does not
line up with a few verses of the Bible.
Whose life does line up perfectly
with every verse in the Bible?

Hospitality requires empathy,
that ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another person.
Not to say, “I understand how you feel”
but instead to listen, to learn,
really learn, about another’s life.
The empathetic life is the life Jesus calls us to,
where we put others first,
ourselves second.
But oh hard it is to do.

Last week, Kenyatta Gilbert reminded us that in hospitality
there is always hope.
When we take away hospitality, we take away hope.
We keep hope vital,
when we keep hospitality vibrant

In joining this church, we have not been admitted to a private club.
No, each of us has been called by God to this church,
called by God not because of anything any of us has done,
but solely by the grace of God,
to be part of this community, part of this body.
All of us here called to build up,
called, as Peter reminds us, “to speak as though
we speak the very words of God,
glorifying God in our words and our deeds.”

Two months ago I challenged everyone
to identify someone each Sunday you did not know,
someone who was a stranger to you,
and go up to that person after worship
and introduce yourself.
I said then that if everyone did this every Sunday,
by Thanksgiving we’d have no strangers at all in the church,
everyone would know everyone else.

So, here’s the question:
How have you been doing?
Are there still folks you do not know?
The Thanksgiving date was not a deadline,
just a target.
Keep working at it,
keep working at extending hospitality to all:
member and visitor alike.

With every greeting,
every handshake,
every embrace,
every welcome, God is working through you
and you are glorifying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
With every greeting, every handshake,
every embrace,
you are making sure
that the sign above every entrance to this church
says, “Welcome”;
“Welcome Home”.

AMEN