The Charismatic Disciple

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 22, 2009
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant

The Charismatic Disciple
Matthew 3:13-17

We all know this story.
The baptism of Jesus is one of only a handful of stories
that appears in all four of the gospels.
Jesus is about to begin his ministry.
He starts his journey on the banks of the Jordan,
in the company of John the Baptizer
and the crowds who flocked to John
to do something that was rather new:
wading into the river
and being baptized,
repenting and being washed clean of sin.

Matthew is the only one who records
the hesitancy John had when Jesus approached him.
Jesus seeks to be baptized
but John wonders: why does Jesus need to be baptized?
“I need to be baptized by you,
and do you come to me?”

Jesus doesn’t argue, doesn’t demand.
Even now, two thousand years later,
we can hear the calm voice of our Lord
as he looks at his cousin
with his piercing, luminous eyes,
“Let it be so now,
for it is proper for us in this way
to fulfill all righteousness.”

Any of us might have had the same question John had:
Why Jesus would seek baptism.
He was the Son of God,
perfect, sinless;
he certainly did not need to be washed clean of sin,
not even symbolically.
Jesus came up out of the water just as clean,
just as sinless as when John submerged him.

But then there is the next part of the story,
with that wonderful image:
the Spirit of God descending upon Jesus
in the form of a dove.

The gospel writers wanted their readers to understand,
to have no doubt that Jesus was the Messiah,
that he was the one the Scriptures pointed to long before.
We remember the passage from Isaiah that we hear
at Christmas time that is only one of many
that foretell the coming of the Messiah, the Christ:
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”
(Isaiah 11:1-2)

Jesus himself would reinforce this
when he would say,
“the Spirit of the Lord is upon me…”
(citing Isaiah 61:1ff)

Now when we baptize,
we may not see the manifestation
of the Holy Spirit,
but it is there,
just as certainly as it was with Jesus.
We take on faith
that it is at our baptism that we receive
the gift of the the Holy Spirit.

In the baptismal prayer I offer
you hear me say,
“Pour out your Holy Spirit upon
[the one who is to be baptized]
that he or she may have the power to do your will,
and continue forever in the risen life of Christ.”
“Pour out your Holy Spirit upon them” --
upon each man, woman and child
who comes up out of the waters of baptism:
you and me, all of us.

In our baptism we not only become members
of Christ’s holy catholic church,
the church universal,
we become spiritual people,
spiritual men and women,
spiritual girls and boys.

We Presbyterians are not terribly comfortable
with that word, “Spiritual”.
But we cannot deny the fact, the reality:
in our baptism we become spiritual people, you and me.

And, we are not only spiritual
but guess what else we are?
We are “charismatic” --
another word we Presbyterians do not readily embrace.
We are charismatic Christians,
charismatic disciples of Jesus Christ.

Being a charismatic Christian,
a charismatic disciple, has nothing to do
with emotional outbursts of faith,
as we may sometimes think when we hear the word.
Being charismatic is simply recognizing that
we are spiritual people.

The word “Charisma” means we have been favored,
given a gift from God,
the gift that is the Holy Spirit.
Charismatic disciples have not just been graced by the Holy Spirit,
they recognize the gift,
acknowledge it,
embrace it,
thank God for it,
live the gift fully, completely.

Being Spiritual, being Charismatic
means that we are attentive
to the presence of the Spirit within us,
attentive to the Spirit’s call to us.
Being Spiritual, being “Charismatic” means
we live our faith with vitality,
a lively faith,
without fear,
trusting in the Lord.
Jurgen Moltmann, the German theologian
writes that being charismatic, being spiritual
is simply to “delight in living in the joy of God.”
( The Spirit of Life, 178)
It is as simple as that.

Charismatic life --
life in the Spirit is springtime:
it is a daily re-awakening to God,
and to our calling as disciples of the living, resurrected Christ.
It is a daily blossoming
like the buds on the cherry trees
that are just beginning to emerge.

It can be demonstrative or ecstatic;
but it can also be quiet and dignified,
decent and in order.
But even quiet and dignified,
it is always joyful.

I think Loren Mead of the Alban Institute
captured it well when he wrote,
“The Holy Spirit has always represented something unruly
to the people of the church.
People who love God and love the church
are always discovering that the Holy Spirit
paints outside the lines we draw to order our church life.”
(the Once and Future Church, 311)

The Holy Spirit does not call us to unruly lives,
but the Spirit does call us to paint outside the lines,
when we paint lines that are too narrow, too confining,
when our lives as disciples
are too “wintery” and not reflective of spring.

When you come up in a few moments to take your stone,
look upon the stone as a physical reminder
of the charismatic gift,
the grace-filled favor you received in your baptism
when you were filled with the Holy Spirit -
the very same Spirit who descended like a dove
on our Lord.

Keep the stone as a reminder that
you have been filled with the breath of God,
that God’s refreshing wind blows through your life constantly
to chase away the stale and the worn,
to chase away fears and worries,
to chase away winter,
and bring the spring of
resurrection hope into your life – each day.

Keep the stone as a reminder of your spirituality,
your charismatic discipleship,
as you continue your faith journey
following the one who is
“the foundation stone,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone,
a sure foundation” (Isaiah 28:7)
Our baptized Lord,
Our Spirit-filled Lord,
our Living Lord: Jesus Christ.
AMEN

The Thoughtful Disciple

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 15, 2009
Third Sunday in Lent

The Thoughtful Disciple
Mark 12:28-34

The First Commandment,
the Great Commandment,
that’s what we call Jesus’ teaching,
what he said to the scribe in our lesson:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.”

Jesus wasn’t teaching the scribe anything new.
Jesus isn’t teaching us anything new
as we hear him now.
Two thousand years ago this Great Commandment
was already more than a thousand years old.

Moses was the one who taught the children of Israel this lesson.
We find it in Deuteronomy,
the fifth book of the Bible,
that great speech that Moses gave
right before the children of Israel entered the Promised Land
after wandering through the Wilderness for 40 years.

We can picture Moses, his hair white with the years,
his beard a reflection of his powerful wisdom,
his shoulders stooped from the burdens he carried for so long,
his face still radiant, though,
radiant with that glow that came during his time
on the mountain top 39 years earlier
when he received the Ten Commandments
and was face-to-face with God.

Moses and the Israelites, their journey at an end,
camped on the east bank of the Jordan River.
Moses’ voice was still strong
as he instructed the people one last time:
“Hear, O Israel:
The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your might.”

“Keep these words I am commanding you today in your heart;
Recite them to your children.
Talk about them at home,
and when you are away,
when you lie down and when you rise…”
(Deuteronomy 6:4ff)

Powerful words, life-giving words:
Jesus is simply reinforcing Moses’ teaching,
reinforcing this powerful lesson
for the scribe
and for you and me.

But Jesus did make a change,
a slight change, a subtle change.
Did you catch it?
He added a fourth line.
He called on the scribe,
and he calls on us,
to love God not only with all our heart,
our souls, and our might,
but with our minds as well.
With our minds.

We are to come before God not only faithfully,
not only obediently,
not only prayerfully and humbly,
but thoughtfully,
thoughtful,
thinking disciples each of us.

Jesus is teaching us that we cannot live our lives
with our minds disconnected,
our minds detached,
powered down,
always in first gear.
We are to come to our faith thinking, reflecting,
reading, studying, observing,
asking questions,
seeking understanding,
so we can grow in faith.
Our minds should be as engaged as our hearts.
In fact, in the ancient Hebrew language
the word for “heart”
was the same as the word for “mind”.
Heart and mind were linked, connected, and balanced.

Listen to the discussions we have on Wednesday morning
in our Bible Study class,
or on Thursday evening,
or Sunday morning in the Year of the Bible classes,
or in any class we offer, for that matter.
What are we doing? We are reading,
studying, learning, asking questions.
Our foundation is, of course, the Bible.
And we read and find passages in the Bible that confuse us,
passages that don’t seem to make sense,
passages that trouble us,
passages that conflict with other passages.
What do we do?
We talk them out, think about them,
seek guidance and illumination from the Holy Spirit.
Our minds are fully engaged.

How we read a passage today
may be different from how we might have read
the same passage just a month ago, or a year ago,
or how our ancestors in faith interpreted the passage
a century ago, two centuries ago.

We read the words of Psalm 96
where the psalmist tells us that,
“The world is firmly established;
it shall never be moved.”
Psalm 93 says the same thing:
“The Lord … has established the world;
it shall never be moved.”
Psalm 104 reinforces the same immovability of the earth:
The Lord, “set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.”

With those passages as our guide,
we can understand why
for so many centuries it was thought that
the earth stood solid, immovable,
at the center of the universe.
The Sun moved across the sky each day
because the sun did just that:
it moved across the sky,
In Greek mythology the sun god Helios
rode his blazing chariot across the sky.

So how do you suppose church leaders reacted
in the late 15th and early 16th centuries
when astronomers questioned that idea,
and suggested instead
that the earth was moving around the sun?
It was around 1600 when Galileo used an invention
called the telescope to confirm the work
other astronomers had done:
that the earth was not the center of the universe
but instead rotated on an axis,
and revolved around the sun.

Church leaders were aghast:
Scripture was clear!
They accused Galileo of heresy,
and he was convicted at trial.
Galileo was right, of course,
but it would be a long time before the church
would acknowledge that the Bible
is not a scientific textbook.

We’ve been going through a similar struggle
for the past 150 years
with the debate over Creationism versus Evolution.
Ever since Charles Darwin published his
Origin of the Species
there have been those who have been as aghast
as church leaders were in Galileo’s time:
“It’s all right there in the first book of the Bible,”
they cry out,
“We don’t need godless scientists
to tell us how we were created.”

Laws were written to block the teaching of evolution,
and to this day, there is still a vigorous effort
to put laws on the books similar to the law
that caught and convicted a high school science teacher
named Scopes in a small town in Tennessee back in 1925:
“That it shall be unlawful for any teacher …,
to teach any theory
that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man
as taught in the Bible,
and to teach instead that man has descended
from a lower order of animals.”
(Tennessess Statutes, 1925)

Read through the first two chapters of the book of Genesis
and we find, of course, two quite different Creation stories.
The first is the familiar story of God creating the world in 6 days
and resting on the 7th.
In that version, God creates the fish, and the birds,
and the animals, and then
God creates humankind:
“God created them, male and female
in God’s image.” (Gen 1:27)

In the second version of the Creation story,
God creates man first, Adam,
created from the “dust of the ground.”
Only after God has done that does God create animals,
also from the dust of the ground.
Then after creating animals,
God creates woman,
creates her from Adam’s rib.
There’s no mention of timing in the second story,
no mention of the first day and the second day.
Even if there had been,
we have no idea how God measures a day.
There are those who argue stridently
that “day” means “day”: 24 hours.
But the Bible itself takes issue with that notion,
when we read in the Second letter of Peter,
“that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years are like one day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

As thoughtful disciples, we realize
that answers can be elusive,
but still we press on with questions:
If God is eternal, why would God measure time?
Why would God define his day by the time it takes
for the planet Earth to complete a rotation?
If God is light, why would he measure time for himself
by the rising and setting of the sun at a point
on the planet Earth?

Science and faith are not mutually exclusive.
Knowledge of any kind, including scientific knowledge
can in fact enhance our faith,
help our faith to grow.
When Darwin’s theory first was published in 1859
many theologians and clergy embraced it
because for them
the power and beauty of evolution
magnified God’s majestic creative power.
I agree.
The more I learn about science,
about things like evolution, and biology
and botany, and astronomy,
the more I see God’s
awesome creative power at work.

God wants us to use our minds.
God wants us to discover his handiwork.
As the theologian John Polkinghorne puts it,
Genesis does not give us a tidy creation story
relieving us of the task of having to discover things
and figure things out for ourselves;
what it gives us is,
“the theological truth that nothing exists
except through the creative will of God.”
(Questions of Truth, 7)

God is the Creator.
God creates.
Only God creates.
How God does it is known only to God.
But acknowledging evolution does not deny faith,
does not deny God’s role as the Creator.

And God is no intelligent designer.
As attractive as that phrase is,
it has a number of weaknesses:
First, it’s come out of the Creationist camp
as a substitute for the term “creationism”,
something more politically palatable.
But second, it is a phrase that puts limits and constraints on God:
God is more than intelligent,
and God is more than a designer.
You and I at our best are intelligent;
You and I can design.
But God is God!
God creates.
Only God creates.
You and I can plant a tree;
we can plant a whole forest of trees,
but only God can create a tree.
“Without him,
not one thing came into being.”
(John 1:3)

Back in the early years of the 20th century,
the African American preacher James Weldon Johnson
put the Creation story so poetically:
“Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
he kneeled him down;
And there the Great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God,
like a [mother] bending over her baby,
kneeled down in the dust
toiling over a lump of clay
till he shaped it in his own image
Then into it he blew the breath of life
and man became a living soul…”
(The Creation, from “God’s Trombones”)

Maybe that’s how God created the first human,
the first Adam.

But what if instead, God put matter in a vast void,
and the matter then exploded
and expanded in every direction,
and great clouds of gases formed from the explosion,
and from those clouds stars were born,
and from the exploding matter planets were formed,
and over billions of years
creatures were formed,
first nothing more than a single-celled bacterium,
but over time, time and a half, and more time,
there walked a creature who stood upright
and walked on his legs –
and God said, “This is what I planned;
this creature will bear my image
because this creature will know me.”
And God then made this creature conscious of God,
not just alive, but aware,
the brain called to do more than govern survival,
but lead the creature to wonder
to seek, to learn,
to look up at the heavens with awe and ask,
“who created this?”

Jesus calls us to use our minds
as we worship the Lord our God.
Paul teaches us that we are to be “transformed,
by the renewing of our minds.” (Romans 12:2)
The lesson Moses taught the children of Israel,
the lesson Jesus taught the scribe,
the lesson Jesus teaches us now
is such a timely lesson for each of us,
in this Lenten season as we take on new disciplines
to renew and refresh our faith.

For we are not only grace-filled disciples,
we are thoughtful disciples,
and thought-filled disciples,
as we love the Lord our God with all our heart,
and with all our soul,
and with all our strength.
and yes, with all our mind.
AMEN

Reliance

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 1, 2009
First Sunday in Lent

Reliance
Psalm 25:1-18

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust.

To you, O Lord,
I lift up my soul.
O my God,
in you I trust.

I lift up my soul,
my being,
my life, myself,
all of me, nothing withheld.
Into your hands I commit my spirit,
(Psalm 31:5)
not at the end of my life, but now:
Into your hands I commit my spirit;
Into your hands I commit my soul;
Into your hands, I commit my life.

In you I trust.
In you I hope.
My reliance once was on myself,
on money, on things,
on achievements,
on success, on position,
on popularity.

I am wiser now.
And I seek to grow in wisdom each day,
for I lift up my voice and pray,
Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all day long.

You answer my prayer.
You teach me and lead me.
There are so many paths I can follow,
but your way is the only path that leads to life,
the only path that leads to truth.

Can I even remember how many other paths I have tried?
Too many -- more than I count.
Who would not prefer a path that
looks attractive and seductive,
easy and inviting?

Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!
Do not remember the sins of my youth;
do not remember all my transgressions.
They are so many!
If I were to say otherwise,
you would know better,
and I would deceive only myself.

In you I can find grace,
in you I can find mercy.
In you I can find new life,
no longer weighed down by things I did,
things in the past,
things whose very memories
cause my cheeks to burn with shame.
There is no shame in you
for your word is true:
you will remember my sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31:34)

In you, O Lord, I am washed clean;
In your love I am born anew;
Through your Spirit I embrace new life.

Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.

I know in order to learn from you
I must be prepared to listen;
I must quiet myself;
I must center myself;
I must open my heart, my mind,
my strength and my soul to you.

I must come before you humbly
for I cannot hope to learn otherwise.
You will teach me wisdom
and you will point out the error of my ways.
You will teach me compassion,
you will teach me mercy,
you will teach me goodness.
You will teach me how to serve others,
how to put my selfishness aside,
and in the process
you will teach me to live love.

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.
Your love is steadfast;
it does not waver.
Your love is unconditional;
and your faithfulness is certain and sure;
I am the one who wavers and waffles;
I am the one whose love is not steadfast.
I am the one who does not keep covenant,
for I flit like a bird in a tree,
jumping from branch to branch.
How can I ever hope to learn?
How can I ever hope to know grace?

For your name’s sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great.
It is great not because of some evil act,
but because I choose disobedience.
I choose to turn from you --
fully aware of my choice.
Your way lies before me,
and I go another way
If there is even the possibility of a cross to bear,
I will choose another path.

What is my greatest sin?
Is it my pride?
Or is it my stubbornness?
Is it my refusal to learn?
Or is it my unwillingness to change?
Is it my unwillingness to take responsibility,
for my actions, my words, my thoughts,
my going out and my coming in?
To you my greatest sin must be my unwillingness
to open my heart and mind
to be transformed by your grace and your Spirit.
My greatest sin is a closed mind,
and a boxed-up heart.

Who are they that fear the Lord?
He will teach them the way that they should choose.
Those who fear the Lord are not weak,
they are not cowards.
No, I understand now,
they are the strong ones,
men and women who are wise,
who rely on you, utterly and completely.

The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
and he makes his covenant known to them.
It is more than friendship that you offer;
it is confidence:
your confidence in me
and my confidence in you;
your hand in my hand
at all times and in all places,
whether I am standing in your Holy House
singing your praises on the Sabbath,
or lost and struggling in the wilderness.
For if I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me…
your … hand shall hold me fast.
(Psalm 139:10)

My eyes are ever towards the Lord…
My eyes are ever towards you O Lord;
for where else should I look?
When my eyes are toward you
I see your hand everywhere
in the beauty of your creation,
and the glory of all your children --
no wonder you delight in your creation.

When my eyes are toward you,
I see your love,
but I also see your absence --
absence not where you have turned away,
but where we have chased you away,
pushed you away,
leaving a void, a hole
filled by violence, poverty
hunger, hopelessness,
How many God-shaped holes am I responsible for
just myself, O Lord?
How many?

Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
Relieve the troubles of my heart,
and bring me out of my distress.
Consider my affliction and my trouble,
and forgive all my sins.
Yes, Lord, this is what I ask:
forgive all my sins;
blot out my transgressions,
wash me thoroughly from my iniquity.
(Psalm 51)

And you have:
you have turned to me
in your steadfast love
and set a table before me,
filled with the richest of foods:
the bread of life, and the cup of salvation.

I will come to your table and eat;
I will come to your table to be fed;
I will come to your table to be renewed.
My cup does indeed run over.

To you, O Lord,
I lift up my soul.
O my God,
in you I trust.

Amen