Who Are We? Whose Are We?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 1, 2009

Who Are We? Whose Are We?
Matthew 10:34-39

The scene is chilling, figuratively and literally.
The bishop strides into the room
resplendent in his purple, his eyes steely,
his demeanor as icy as the weather.
The young men greet him without a word,
grateful for his presence,
yet nervous and fearful about what awaits them.
They know that before the sun sets that very day,
some of them will be dead,
hopes and dreams ripped from them,
spilled with their blood,
by a bullet, a bayonet, a cannon shell.

The bishop walks to the front of the room
to the makeshift altar,
little more than a few boards nailed together
to hold a cross, a chalice,
and a plate with some bread.
He has a job to do,
to pray over these men
before they march into battle.

It is January 1915,
and the scene could be a Lutheran bishop
about to pray over German soldiers,
young men from his own town
preparing to fight the French enemy.

Or it could be a Roman Catholic bishop
about to pray over young men who just a few years before
might have been altar boys in some small village in France,
but who are now prepared to train their guns on the Germans.

The scene, though, is one of an Anglican bishop,
an Englishman
who has come across the Channel to France
to say a few words to a group of Scotsmen
who will join with the French
in the mud and filth and bitter cold of the trenches
as together they fight the Kaiser’s war machine.

His eyes barely look at the King James Bible before him
as he shares the text he’s selected:
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth:
I came not to send peace, but a sword.”
Without hesitating, the man of God looks at the men and says,
“The sword of the Lord is in your hand.
You are the defenders,
the forces of good against the forces of evil.
You must kill the Germans,
kill the Germans,
…kill every one of them.”
(Scene from the movie “Joyeux Noel”, 2005)

It is a powerful scene in a powerful movie,
a scene made more powerful,
more compelling, and more troublesome
by the bishop’s interpretation of this difficult text.

You heard the text in its entirety,
and it sounds so awful:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth;
I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me;
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me
is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up the cross
and follow me is not worthy of me.
Those who find their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

This is not a text to be read to solders about to go off to war.
It is a text the Prince of Peace,
the Wonderful Counselor,
spoke as he called those around him,
as he calls all those who follow him,
including you and me,
to remind us that in following him
we are to die to our old ways,
our old ways of thinking and acting,
so we can fully embrace
the new life we are offered in Christ.
We are to lose our lives, our old lives,
so we can find new life in Jesus Christ.

Christ is teaching us the difficult reality
that in embracing this new life fully, completely,
with conviction and commitment,
there may need to be a severing,
a cutting away from the old,
and that may include cutting away relationships,
even family and friends.

The way of Christ is not the way of war, of course;
it is the way of peace.
It is the way of selflessness,
and of responsibility,
of introspection,
of mercy, righteousness, and justice.

It is the way our Elders and Deacons put it
as they spoke their constitutional vows
two weeks ago:
the way of energy, intelligence,
imagination and love.

It is the way that looks for the path to reconciliation,
not the path of dominance and victory.
It is a call to a life
in which our every word and deed,
reveals the love of God,
the grace of Jesus Christ,
and the communion and the universal fellowship
of the Holy Spirit.

It is a way and a life that reveals the Kingdom of God,
that place where people from east and west
and north and south sit at table – together.

This text is not a call to take up arms;
it is a call to take up new life,
new life,
and that means leaving the old life behind.

And if ever we needed to embrace new life,
and truly cut away and sever the old ways of the past,
it is here and now as we begin 2009,
with our society – the entire world,
staggering and reeling from too many years of
indulgence, and selfishness,
too many years of self-righteousness
and self-satisfaction.
Too many years of “I’ve got mine”;
“I possess truth”;
“I am right and you are wrong”.
Too many years of trickle down,
instead of building up.

We have gorged on the bread of materialism,
and drunk too richly at the fountain of consumption.
We have fed ourselves at the table of rationalization
and arrogance and certainty,
and drunk from the cup of ignorance
and willful blindness.

Our Lord invites us to come to a new table,
and drink from a new cup.
Our Lord invites us to turn from the past,
to sever it, cut it away,
so we can embrace the new,
embrace it completely
as you and I never have before.

Our Lord invites us to come to his table
for the bread that will feed us: you and me;
nourish us: you and me
as no other bread can.
Our Lord invites us to drink from a cup
that will quench our thirst, yours and mine,
as no other cup can.

But we can only come to this table
if we are ready, even eager
to lose our lives, our old lives,
so we can embrace the new life
that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Are you ready, really ready,
to accept this invitation?
Our Lord stands at this table
waiting for you, waiting for me,
eager for each of us to look him straight in the eye
and give him a resolute, convicted,
committed, absolute,
“Yes!”

AMEN