Connected

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 31, 2009: Pentecost

Connected
Acts 2:1-12
Galatians 5:22-26

What happens when we live God’s way?
This is the question Paul asks us
in Peterson’s paraphrasing of the text
that Ashlie just read.

Our first reaction to that question might well be,
“well, isn’t that how we are living?”
After all, we here are in church,
here in God’s house, to worship and praise God.
We could be sleeping in,
or we could be puttering around the garden,
or out on the golf course or tennis court,
or sitting at the kitchen table
drinking a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper.
We’ve got lots of choices on Sunday morning,
but to paraphrase Joshua’s bold statement,
as for you and me
we’ve chosen to be here in the presence of God.

But being here in the presence of God
doesn’t necessarily mean we live God’s way,
at least not all the time.
Sunday morning may be one of our high points during the week,
the time of the week when we are most likely to live God’s way.
Other times during the week may see us
slip and slide far from God’s way.

Failing to live God’s way
doesn’t mean we are out robbing banks,
or stealing cars, or doing criminal things
that might land us in jail.
Not living God’s way means simply
that we are not living as Jesus taught us to live,
as Jesus calls us to live:
living in service to others,
living lives of selflessness,
of thinking of others more than we think of ourselves;
of focusing more on what can give,
than what we can get;
on what we can share,
than on what we have.

Living God’s way means we trust God
in all parts of our lives:
we don’t worry,
we are at peace,
our hearts, minds, strength and soul
focused on God, on following Jesus.
We understand what Jesus means when he says,
“take my yoke upon you, and learn from me…
and you will find rest in your souls.”
(Matthew 11:29)

Last week we talked about how we live in this world,
yet like our Lord Jesus Christ,
we are not part of the world.
We talked about how hard living this way can be,
how in the early years of Christianity
many followers of Christ chose to live
separate and apart from the world
so their lives would not be filled with distractions
that would cause them to turn from God.
Living a hermit’s life in the desert seemed easier for some
than trying to navigate all the complications of life
that for us includes family, school,
work, community,
and other obligations.

But Jesus doesn’t want us to live behind cloistered walls,
set apart from the world.
He lived in the world, the real world,
and found great joy in being with people,
all kinds of people,
as he traveled from town to town throughout his ministry.
And he sends us out to be part of the same real world.

Still, though: Jesus teaches us that even as we live in this world,
we are not of this world.
We are called to align our wills,
our hearts and our minds,
with God, with God’s will.
We are called to put aside our concerns
for “earthly” matters, “earthly” concerns,
“earthly” worries.

Now of course, we cannot do this all by ourselves.
Jesus could do it, but then,
he was the Son of God.
We need help, all of us,
ministers, too.
And we have help, help that Jesus promised us we’d have:
powerful help in the form of the Holy Spirit.

God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Christ that fills us,
that nourishes us,
that picks us up when we are tired,
that gives us courage,
that calms us and reassures us
even in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The Spirit helps us as we make decisions throughout our day,
helps us to make the right decisions,
helps us to hear the “still, small voice of God”
so we can choose the right path,
and avoid the wrong the path,
especially when the wrong path can often look
so much more inviting and so much more attractive
than the Godly path.

The story from Acts that Reece read,
of the Spirit coming upon the Disciples,
coming upon them like a wind blowing through them
paints such a vivid picture.
Peterson puts it so colorfully:
“Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force –
no one could tell where it came from.
It filled the whole building.
Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks…”
(The Message)

Wow! No wonder we love to observe Pentecost!
But the Spirit probably has not come through the Sanctuary
of the Manassas Presbyterian Church
in such a dramatic and wild way
in any of the more than 140 Pentecosts
this church as observed.

It doesn’t matter, though.
We still have the Spirit;
We are still filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit fills us in the same way
it filled the Disciples 2,000 years ago --
without the drama, of course:
the Spirit that is the breath of God,
the Spirit that was the wind that first blew across the waters
right at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis,
the breath of God that brought life to all creation.

Many of us grew up speaking not of the Holy Spirit,
but of the Holy Ghost.
We still sing hymns from time to time
that use that term, Holy Ghost.
The traditional Gloria Patri sings out,
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.”

The term “ghost” in place of “spirit”
was the result of a translation mistake in the Bible
made hundreds of years ago,
a mistake that became institutionalized.
Go back to the original Hebrew of the Old Testament,
and the original Greek of the New Testament
and you will see the language is clear:
the reference is clear:
the word is “Spirit”:
it is the “Breath” that blows over us,
the “Wind” of God that refreshes us,
the Spirit of God that fills us.
The are no ghost stories in the Bible.

It is the Spirit that gives us the ability to proclaim;
proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ
in every language, every dialect, every tongue,
to all the world.
When our young folks offered the Call to Worship
in different languages,
they were doing just what the Disciples did 2000 years ago,
speaking the word of the Lord to all,
reminding us that language is no impediment to the gospel,
language is no impediment to God’s love.
The gospel of Jesus Christ translates easily to any language.

Once we open ourselves to the power of the Spirit,
oh what a life we can live!
“God will really bring gifts into our lives!”
extending from “exuberance about life”
to “serenity”.

The struggle we Presbyterians have, though,
is with that word “spiritual”.
We may sometimes refer to a person as being “spiritual”,
but we tend to think that “spiritual” men and women
are the exception, rather than the rule.
We are generally quicker to embrace the term “frozen chosen”,
to describe ourselves than we are to embrace the word,
“spiritual”.
Yet the reality is that every one of us is spiritual,
simply by definition: we all have the Holy Spirit within us,
given us by God, by the grace of God, by God’s love for us.

God calls us to embrace the Spirit
to grow in spirit, to grow in spirituality
as we grow in Christ,
as we grow in discipleship.
That’s what Paul was trying to explain
to the men and women in the churches in Galatia.
He thought they were doing well,
unlike those wicked men and women of Corinth.
He looked at the Galatians and saw men and women
who readily embraced the Spirit.
But there was also a word of warning to the Galatians:
of how easy it is to turn from the Spirit, turn from God,
to slip and slide away.
Paul wanted them to remember how important it was for them
to work constantly at growing in Spirit and in faith.

As we grow in spirit, in spirituality,
wonderful things happen:
we develop a greater affection for others
a genuine love, even for those who are “different”
or for those who don’t see things our way.
We learn more than just acceptance;
We learn empathy, that ability to put ourselves
in the shoes of another person.

We learn what real joy is.
We also know serenity and peace.
We know the Spirit fills us with assurance,
even in the midst of difficult times.

Living a spiritual life is to become connected,
connected with the world all around us.
It is to be more deeply connected with one another
as brothers and sisters in Christ.
It is to come out of the little rooms, the little boxes,
the silos where we put ourselves.
and embrace the community we are part of,
in all its richness and diversity.

At Thursday evening’s Bible study
we were talking about the passage in the gospel of John
in which Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches”.
We are not tree branches,
each of us going off in our own direction.
That’s not the analogy Jesus uses.
He says we are “vine branches”,
and vine branches intertwine,
wrapping around each other, growing together,
not separately.

Paul reminds us that,
“the fruit of the spirit is love”.
From a foundation of love we build community,
all of us together,
bound by the Spirit, fed by the Spirit,
growing in the Spirit, each of us individually,
and all of us together.

When we live Spiritual lives,
we understand that “God is closer to us than our breath”,
We see holiness in everything,
we see holiness in every person.

So, now we know the answer to the question:
what happens when we live God’s way?
We become spiritual, deeply spiritual.

Are you ready for that?
Ready to become more spiritual?
Ready to let the Spirit guide you, move you,
stir you, lead you,
lead you even to places
you would not go on your own?

Are you ready to become the Spiritual person
God wants you to be?
God hopes you will be?
God created you to be?

Are you ready,
for the wind is blowing through this Sanctuary
and through our lives, here and now,
the Spirit...
the very breath of God.
AMEN

Out of this World

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 24, 2009

Out of this World
John 17:14-19

Go back some 3,000 years.
The Israelites have ended their time in the wilderness,
and have settled in the promised land.
Moses is long dead;
Joshua is long dead.
The people have lived under a series of judges:
Deborah, Gideon, and Samson, among others.

The prophet Samuel was now the one who spoke for God to the people.
He warned them repeatedly,
just as the prophets had before him,
that they were in danger of straying from the Lord.
The people paid no attention.
They saw no reason to pay attention.
Life was good: the land fertile,
the rains plentiful,
the crops bountiful.
The people were prospering and enjoying a good life.

Still, life was not without its problems.
There were no maps with heavily drawn lines
marking a country’s boundaries.
Borders came and went
depending on the viciousness of invading armies
and the strength of the opposition’s resistance.

The people of Israel decided that they needed
one man to rule over them,
one man behind whom they could unite for a common defense.
And so they approached Samuel and said,
“We want a king,
a king to govern us,
just like the other nations.”
(1 Samuel 8:5)

Samuel was deeply troubled by this request,
and took it before the Lord God.
God responded with disappointment and resignation:
“Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you,
for they have not rejected you,
but they have rejected me from being king over them.”
(1 Samuel 8:8)

And with that, Saul was anointed King,
and he was followed by David,
who was followed by Solomon,
who was followed by his son,
and on down the years.

When the children of Israel asked for a king
so they could be like other nations,
our ancestors in faith took a wrong turn.
They rejected God as their King,
God as their ruler, their only ruler,
their Sovereign.
They wanted to be like the other people,
the other nations,
The people of Israel had lost their focus,
had lost their sense of priorities,
as they grew more and more comfortable
in the Promised Land.
Moses had warned them that this might happen,
but they paid no attention to the words of a man long dead.

For the children of Israel
and for us,
the truth is: God is our King,
Christ is our Sovereign.
And yet, we too are like are our Israelites ancestors;
quick to forget that God is our Sovereign,
quick to push aside Christ as our King
when worldly concerns preoccupy us.

This is what Jesus was trying to help his disciples understand
as he offered his final prayer for them
on the night of his betrayal and arrest.
John’s gospel gives us something
that we don’t find in the other gospels:
He gives us Jesus speaking at length,
from chapter 13 through 16,
as he shared his final meal with his disciples.
In chapter 17 Jesus stopped talking to his disciples
and turned his voice to his Father in Heaven,
offering up a powerful and moving prayer
for those who had been with him throughout his ministry.

And the heart of the prayer was the reminder
to his disciples:
“they do not belong to the world,
just as I do not belong to the world.”
We can and should substitute “we” for “they”:
“We do not belong to the world,
just as Jesus does not belong to the world.

Eugene Peterson paraphrases the passage this way:
“They are no more defined by the world
than I am defined by the world.”
Or putting us in the text:
“We are no more defined by the world,
than Jesus is defined by the world.”
(The Message)

Our focus is on God,
our focus is on Christ,
or at least so it ought to be.
That’s what matters,
that’s all that matters.

We are called out of this world
to follow our God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The reality is, of course,
that we live in the world;
We are part of this world.

We live in the world for however long our life span happens to be.
We go to school,
to work,
we play,
share joys and sorrows,
successes and setbacks
all as we walk through life in this world.

Jesus knows this,
and said as much in his prayer,
[Father], “I am not asking you to take them out of the world.”
Just watch over them, look after them.

In the early years of Christianity,
many thought life would be simpler
if they lived out of this world.
So they moved to separate communities,
set apart from the rest of the world.
Others were more extreme, moving out into the desert,
to live hermit-like lives in caves.
Their lives were focused on
nothing but praying and worshiping God.

The word “monastery” comes from a root
that means “to live alone”.
The idea of monastic life
was to remove oneself from the world
so nothing would interfere with a life of devotion to God.

Benedict established the Benedictine order in the 6th century in Italy
as a way for himself and others literally to wall themselves off
from the violence and chaos that was all around them
as the Roman Empire collapsed.
Benedict sought to develop a place
where men could live in humility and obedience,
where all things would be shared,
where all would live to serve one another
as they served the Lord.
He put his desire simply:
“the life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent”
(Rule of St. Benedict)
A continuous Lent:
in the sense that life is devotional, prayerful,
worshipful, confessional,
humble, and obedient.

You and I don’t live cloistered lives, of course;
We live in the world.
But our calling is the same as those
who live behind a monastery’s walls:
to live lives of humbleness, obedience,
devotion
and worship;
our eyes, hearts, minds, and spirits,
focused first and foremost on God, and on Christ.

We go out into the world sent by Christ as his disciples,
sent out to proclaim the good news,
sent out to live the good news.
Jesus sets the example we are to follow when he said,
“I always do what is pleasing to [my Father]”
(John 8:29)
That is our goal:
to strive to do what is pleasing to God.
Always: in all places, all times,
under all circumstances,
for God our King, our Sovereign.

Living this kind of life can, however,
sometimes put us in conflict with our worldly concerns.
Living faithfully as a disciple of Jesus Christ,
may at times force us to choose between
things of this world that we like or that are important to us,
and the things of God’s world.

Nowhere is this conflict more apparent
than in matters of war.
Our human history is one of warfare, constant warfare.
Historian Will Durant once estimated that in all of human history
only 29 years could be counted as years without war
somewhere in the world.

War is very much on our mind this weekend
as we remember those men and women
who gave their lives in war,
in service to us and to our country
over the years.
We should remember these brave men and women,
and we should take time tomorrow to honor their sacrifice.
No one said it better than our Lord,
when he said, “No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
(John 15:13)

But even as we honor those who gave their lives,
as Christians we know that there may be times,
just as there have been times in the past,
when we have to oppose the march to war.
We have to, not because of cowardice,
not because of lack of patriotism,
but because we put the Lordship of Christ first,
even before country.

We have to do this because
our Lord is not only our Sovereign,
he is also the Prince of Peace,
the one who teaches us peace,
the one who said so boldly,
“blessed are the peacemakers
for they will be called the children of God.”
(Matthew 5:9)

The Prince of Peace sends us out to work for peace.
The Prince of Peace makes clear his expectations for us:
that we are to reach out even to our enemies,
not with a gun but with a hand extended in fellowship,
even when we are all but certain,
our hand is going to be slapped back,
even when we may fear for our own lives.

We know we are to do these things
and live this way,
because even as we live in this world,
we are not defined by this world
any more than Jesus is defined by this world.
We do this because God is our King,
and Jesus our Sovereign Lord.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the Barmen Declaration,
one of the Confessional Statements we have in our
Book of Confessions, part of the Constitution
of the Presbyterian Church.
The Barmen Declaration was written in Barmen Germany
in 1934 to reflect the clear, absolute sovereignty of our Lord
in all circumstances, with no exceptions.

The Declaration is clear:
“there are no areas in our life
in which we [do] not belong to Jesus Christ.” (8.15)
The Barmen Declaration helps us to understand
that there may be times when we are forced to choose
between faithfulness and obedience to God
and obedience to the world we are part of.
The Barmen Declaration makes clear
that there may well be times
when saying “yes” to peace,
means saying “no” to war.

This is not easy.
Over the centuries we have tried to develop tools
to help us figure out if there are times
when we can find war not in violation of Jesus’ teachings,
not in violation of the sovereignty of God.
The “Just War” Theory is the most prominent tool
we use to help us, to give us a lens
to try to help us understand with greater clarity
what are always complicated, difficult situations.

As followers of the Prince of Peace,
there may be times when after prayer, reflection, and study,
we have to say, No,
we cannot support the decision to go to war.
That doesn’t mean we don’t love our country;
it doesn’t mean we are not patriotic.
What is means is that our decision reflects
the absolute Sovereignty of God,
as we strive to do what is pleasing and faithful to God,
even when that path may be one that puts us at odds
with the common political will.

And we know that the path of peace is pleasing to God;
God says so repeatedly in both the Old and New Testaments.
Indeed, as William Sloane Coffin has said,
“to give up on peace, is to give up on God.”
(Credo, 91)

In the Larger Catechism that is part of the
Westminster Confession of Faith, we are taught,
our “chief and highest end is to glorify God
and fully to enjoy him forever.”
(The Larger Catechism, 7.111)

We glorify God by being obedient to God,
as our Sovereign Lord,
as our King.
We glorify God by doing what is pleasing to God
as we live our lives as part of this world.
We glorify God as we follow faithfully the teachings of his Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ.
We glorify God when we recognize that there may be times
when saying yes to God, may well mean saying “no”
to worldly concerns, worldly matters.
We glorify God by remembering that
although we live in this world,
we are not defined by this world.

Tomorrow as you offer up your prayers of gratitude,
prayers of thanksgiving for the men and women
who gave their lives for us in service to this country,
offer up a prayer as well that you will work for that day
that God wants, that our Lord came to bring about:
that day when swords are beaten into plowshares
and spears into pruning hooks.

Offer a prayer that you will work
for what God our King wants for us,
that we will all learn the lesson
our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us
to take out into the world.
the world that we are part of,
but which does not define us.

And then after you pray,
go out into the world
giving all honor, praise, and glory
to our Sovereign Lord:
God the Father,
God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit.
AMEN

Don’t Wait a Minute!

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 17, 2009

Don’t Wait a Minute!
2 Peter 1:3-11

[Note: In preparing this sermon I relied on Eugene Peterson’s
paraphrasing of this text in The Message]

In a life that’s already filled with too much,
along comes one more person
giving us something more to do,
and in the process, telling us: hurry up, do it now,
don’t waste a minute,
don’t let the grass grow under our feet!

Peter’s letter sounds almost like an infomercial:
“Hurry up and buy this product!”
We almost expect him to say,
“Call in the next ten minutes
and we’ll double your order!”

This letter reflects a vibrant time in the early years
of the Christian community.
It comes at the very end of Peter’s ministry
some 30 years after the crucifixion
and resurrection of our Lord.
Peter, Paul, and all the apostles had spent those years
fanned out across the nations,
proclaiming to people from east and west, north and south
the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In some places they found ready listeners,
men and women with eager hearts and minds
ready to embrace Christ.
In other places they found unreceptive audiences.

Paul’s experience at the Areopagus in Athens was typical:
most of the crowd were just fine holding onto the ideas
and traditions they knew,
and that they were comfortable with,
including the pantheon of gods they knew so well.
But a few responded to Paul,
“tell us more…”
God had touched a spark,
a tiny flame had been lit within a few hearts,
a small glow, waiting, just waiting,
for someone to come along
and fan the flame.

Virtually every group Peter, Paul and the others spoke to
were much like our Confirmands:
men and women new to the faith,
new as professed followers of Jesus Christ.

Paul took a more scholarly approach,
but Peter was excited and
shared his excitement as he spoke:
“You’ve been given everything you need!”
Or as Eugene Peterson puts it in his marvelous translation:
“Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God
has been miraculously given to us …”
How? “by getting to know, personally and intimately,
the One who invites us to God.”

Everthing we need that goes into a life of pleasing God
has been given us in Jesus Christ.

And then Peter is even more emphatic:
it is “the best invitation we’ve ever received”;
it is the best invitation we ever will receive:
I choose you, says our Lord Jesus Christ.
And we respond as our Confirmands have done:
by publicly choosing Christ.

Peter knows, though, there is more to it than that.
There’s more to life as a disciple
than just standing up and saying,
“I am a follower of Jesus Christ”,
no matter how loudly and how publicly
we might make our profession.

Peter knows that our response to the invitation
begins with words of faith,
but that’s only the first step in utterly and completely
transforming our lives;
the old ways left behind,
a new life in Christ,
with Christ,
and through Christ embraced.

So Peter gives us some help to move us along the way,
some lessons, some instruction.
At first, it sounds like he is just giving us a list, a to-do list.
Here -- do these things, fill your life with them:
faith,
goodness,
knowledge,
self-control,
endurance,
godliness,
mutual affection,
love.
Got them all?
Check!

But Peter’s method is more subtle.
Over the years, the fisherman has become
an accomplished and skilled teacher.
What he is doing is giving us a training plan,
an exercise plan,
a plan that ramps up,
and helps us to climb and grow in faith.
Call it Peter’s ladder,
or better,
call it Peter’s stairway.

We start in faith, of course.
That’s the first step,
the step our Confirmands witnessed
as they professed their faith in Jesus Christ.
It’s the first step everyone takes
on the road to discipleship.

Now, onto the next step:
Peter tells us that we are to
“complement our basic faith with good character”
Good character: that’s doing the right thing,
the honorable thing,
not telling lies, not cheating,
not even a little.
That’s the athlete who would rather lose honorably
than cheat to gain the trophy;
The student who will accept the B+
rather than copy from a website
and pass the work off as her own.
The business person who seems to be less and less common
these days: the woman or man whom we can trust,
who operates honestly and ethically, with integrity.

The next step up from character is knowledge;
spiritual understanding is the term Peterson prefers.
This comes from worshiping regularly,
remembering the Commandment
to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.
This also comes from reading the Bible each day,
whether through a study group here at the church,
or with friends, or on your own.
This also comes from making time for prayer,
We are all busy, but who is too busy to pray?

It also comes from asking questions:
that’s one of the best ways to learn.
When Jesus teaches us to have the faith of little children,
we should remember that one of the things children do
is ask questions, sometimes lots of them --
that’s how we learn.
It’s why I love to teach:
I learn by the questions students ask. .
This year’s Confirmation Class was filled
with lots of wonderful questions
as we all learned together.
Answers may elude us,
but that may be God’s point:
that he wants us learn to love simply wrestling with questions,
rather than always trying to nail down answers,
as we chase certainty and absolutes.

The next step up Peter’s staircase is self-control,
alert discipline in Peterson’s words.
We need self-control and discipline in every part of our lives:
it is how we assure ourselves of strong, active bodies and minds,
ready for service.
Through self-control and discipline
we learn how to control ourselves
in an era of instant gratification;
in an age when the focus is on ourselves:
when our mindset is more likely to be:
“what has the world done for me lately”,
“how many friends do I have on Facebook?”
“how many followers on Twitter?”

We learn how to think of others
before we think of ourselves
We learn how to think of the impact our actions may have
on others, or on the world.
We learn to control our tongues
so we don’t speak rashly,
hurting others with our remarks,
or possibly ending up looking foolish ourselves.

We’re ready to take another step up:
from discipline to endurance.
Peterson’s term here is perfect: “passionate patience”.
passionate patience:
we are still passionate in our discipleship;
still eager to serve,
yet patient,
trusting God to tell us when,
as well as what to do.
We can endure the setbacks that are inevitable in life.
One of the many important lessons we discussed this past year
was that living a life of faith following Jesus Christ
is not a guarantee of a life of ease, of wealth,
of comfort, of material success, of money in the bank.
All lives have their difficult times,
bumps in the road.
Sometimes the bumps can be wrenching,
almost more than we think we can endure,
but the promise is sure: that God will be with us
even in the most difficult of times.

Now we’re ready for the next step:
finding godliness in everything,
learning to go through life
with a sense of “reverent wonder”.
We see God’s hand in all things, all about us.
I attribute the growing realization
in churches of all denominations
of our responsibility to look after God’s earth
as a re-awakening of the sense of reverent wonder.

Reverent wonder helps us to grow to a deeper level of spirituality.
Spirituality is a term we Presbyterians are
not terribly comfortable with
even though it describes us perfectly –
because we are all filled with the Holy Spirit,
given us by the grace of God.

From the step of reverent wonder,
seeing God’s work and God’s hand all around us
and in every person as well as every thing,
it’s easy to move to the next step of genuine affection.
Peterson again finds a better way to help us understand
with his term, “warm friendliness”.
Warmth and friendship, deep, caring,
reaching out to all, not just those people
we like, those who think the way we think,
look the way we look, dress the way we dress,
vote the way we vote,
those who are on our Facebook lists.
It’s remembering Jesus’ teaching that everyone,
everyone,
is our neighbor.

Once we stand firmly on step of warm friendliness
and mutual affection, the best step is within reach:
the step of love,
real love, deep love
that we can feel coming from God,
love that abides in God,
because we abide in God.
Love that is giving,
love that is generous, reaching out,
nourishing,
that builds up --
love as our Lord lived it and modeled it,
and calls us to live and share.

As Peter teaches us his stairway, we realize that
“each dimension fits into and develops the others”.
It is like climbing a set of stairs, one step at a time,
taking the next step only when we are confident,
when we are ready for the next step.

This is the life we are called to,
the invitation we have been given.
No wonder Peter is telling us,
embrace it now, don’t waste a minute.
Peter is not nagging us, or haranguing,
he’s genuinely excited for us to embrace the life
he had been chosen for,
the life he’d been living
for more than 30 years
since Jesus first invited him to set aside his fishing nets.

The briny, temperamental fisherman
became a man of God, a man of Christ,
willing, literally, to give his life for his Lord
as he proclaimed the good news.

Peter’s right!
There is no time to waste.
In fact, we’ve wasted too much time:
It’s been 2000 years since Christ walked with Peter
and the others and we still have a world
wracked with war, poverty,
divisiveness, anger, hopelessness:
all those things Jesus came to eliminate,
all those things Jesus calls us to eliminate.

In a book I was reading the other day,
(James C. Howell, The Will of God)
the author stressed that God is constantly pushing us
to move from “is-ness” to “ought”.
God is calling us through Christ,
to move from what is
to what ought to be:
What is war
ought to be peace;
What is hunger
ought to be enough for all;
what is misery
ought to be hope;
what is greed,
ought to be sharing;
what is selfishness,
ought to be caring.

We move farther from “is”
and closer to “ought”
with each step up we take Peter’s staircase.
So don’t wait another minute.
Do it now.
“confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you.
Don’t put it off!”

“Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing,
the streets paved, and the way wide open
into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

AMEN

Be First

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 10, 2009

Be First
Acts 8:26-40

The sun was blazing hot
as the chariot banged and bumped its way
along the road that led south out of Jerusalem
down to Gaza, into the desert.
The man sitting in the chariot was going home,
back to Ethiopia.
He was just starting out on a journey, a long difficult journey,
one of more than 1500 miles.
It would take the better part of two months,
over difficult, dangerous roads,
most of it through desert,
where death was every traveler’s constant companion.

His community for the next two months
would be a mix of snakes and scorpions,
the occasional bird wondering if the man or his horse
might become its next meal,
and an endless parade of thieves and bandits,
men who valued whatever coins a person
had in his purse
more than they did a human life.

The man from Ethiopia had traveled the same route north
when he first came to Jerusalem,
so he set out with quiet confidence and hope
that he would make it home safely.

In addition to his confidence and hope
he also had faith,
faith that he would reach his home,
faith that God would watch over him on his journey,
faith that God would watch,
“his going out and his coming in”;
that God would “make his face to shine upon him.”

The man from Ethiopia was a man of faith
a man of God,
and his pilgrimage to Jerusalem
was part of his desire, his hunger,
to grow in knowledge, in understanding, and in faith.

His time in Jerusalem wasn’t long;
he had important official duties
that he’d left behind in Ethiopia
as one of the Queen’s counselors.
He was master of the treasury,
the Queen’s chief financial steward.
He assured his Queen that he would be gone
no more than 6 months.
He went with her blessing.

But his time in Jerusalem was long enough:
long enough for him to learn more about the Lord God.
He’d sat with learned men in the Temple;
he’d spoken with Pharisees and Sadducees,
scribes and scholars.
He’d heard them debate their own differences
even though they shared a common faith.
He was particularly fascinated by the argument
the Pharisees and the Sadducees had over resurrection.
The Pharisees believed in it, while the Sadducees did not.
They both pointed to Scripture to make their points,
and they both sounded so sure of themselves
as they debated and quoted texts.

The man from Ethiopia was a learned man,
scholarly, able to read Greek with ease.
The Hebrew Scriptures had been translated into Greek,
which made them much more accessible to him.
He’d read from many of the different books:
The books of the Pentateuch,
the books of the Prophets,
the books of the Wisdom literature,
all in his desire to learn more about the Lord God,
Yahweh, as the Hebrews called him.

His favorite book was that of the prophet Isaiah.
He carried it with him on his journey,
reading it on the long trip up to Jerusalem.
He looked forward to reading through it again
on his journey home.
The prophet’s words read like a poem,
but the Ethiopian found many of the passages
difficult, often confusing.

He was especially eager to read the prophet’s words now,
for during his time in Jerusalem
he had heard people talking of a Messiah,
a Savior,
a man named Jesus, a carpenter from Nazareth
who had been crucified,
nailed to a cross outside the city gates.
People said he had risen from his tomb on the third day,
that his followers had seen him alive.

He had heard the Pharisees and the Sadducees scoff at the story,
saying it was all the ravings of a group of
madmen, loose women, and troublemakers.
After all, a carpenter?
From Nazareth?
He’s the Messiah?

But the man from Ethiopia
had also heard a small number of voices
speak quietly but resolutely that Jesus was the Messiah.
They said the Scriptures proved it,
especially the prophet Isaiah.

But which passages, which verses?
How many times had he read words from the book
and felt confused as to what they meant?
One passage read,
“Now the Lord is about to lay waste the earth
and make it desolate,
and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants”,
and yet just a few lines later he could read,
“The Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people
he will take away from all the earth.” (Isaiah 24/5).

The man knew he needed someone to teach him,
to help him, to be his guide, to help him understand.
And just as he thought that,
he saw a strange man up ahead in the road,
a man who caught up to the chariot
and walked along next to it.

The strange man asked the Ethiopian such an odd question,
“Do you understand what you are reading?”
And the Ethiopian replied without a second’s hesitation,
“How can I unless someone guides me?”

And with that, the Ethiopian invited the stranger,
a man named Philip,
to climb into the chariot
and join him for part of his journey.

Philip immediately began to tell the Ethiopian man
the good news about Jesus,
and, when they came alongside some water,
Philip baptized the Ethiopian,
baptized him in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
just as Jesus had taught him to do.

And from there they parted company,
the Ethiopian to continue on his way home,
and Philip to continue on his way,
doing the work the Lord called him to do,
proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is such a wonderful story,
with so many different things going on
in the short space of just 15 verses.

We’ve got two men, two complete strangers,
coming together,
pushed together by God
pushed together so that Philip could proclaim
while the Ethiopian learned,
and then once the Ethiopian learned,
he too could proclaim.
Do you remember how last week
we talked about how we are all called to proclaim,
every one of us, all of us who follow Jesus Christ?

Look closely at these two men;
they are such an unlikely pairing:
The first, a wealthy, powerful,influential man
but also a man who was a foreigner,
a man with dark skin,
and, as we learn, a eunich, different sexually.
Philip was a man of apparently no importance at all,
not part of the religious and social elite of Israel,
more of a social outcast, really,
a man who probably had the appearance of an unmade bed.

The moment the Ethiopian invited Philip
to join him in his chariot, however,
they become a community;
bound together in Jesus Christ,
even if the Ethiopian
did not yet understand it.
Whatever differences they had did not matter,
as they shared their common love for God.
Right there we have such a powerful lesson in welcome,
in reaching out,
in hospitality,
in community.
All in two men riding in a chariot through the desert.

The religious leaders complained, of course,
of the way Jesus kept company
with “sinners and outcasts”,
and Philip probably fit right into the cast.
The Ethiopian was an outcast, too:
a foreigner,
a man so physically different with his dark skin
and a eunich.
That fact alone would have prohibited the Ethiopian
from ever coming near to the Temple to worship the Lord God.

But by the grace of God given to them
and us in Jesus Christ,
both of them were welcomed into community,
into the family of God.

You have heard me say in the past how much I like
the Reverend Peter Marshall’s description of Jesus
as standing before us with
“his big carpenter hands
open wide in welcome.”
Jesus, the one who calls us to community
and welcomes all of us to community.
Jesus, the Son of God who looked past skin color,
or country’s borders,
or language,
or sexual differences.
so he could offer words of welcome,
words of acceptance.

The very nature of the church means,
as William Willimon reminds us,
that we can find ourselves in the company
of the “most surprising sorts of people.”
And that’s a good thing.
We are all different, aren’t we?
And that makes life and the church richer by far.

When we proclaim the good news,
we are proclaiming God’s love and God’s welcome
to God’s community,
the community God invites all to be part of.
We are also proclaiming the reality
that God is always at work
creating, making all things new,
transforming,
tearing down the barriers and boundaries
that we seem so insistent on building,
as God continues to build his kingdom:
a world of joy,
a world of peace,
of reconciliation,
often in the face of our best efforts to work against him
even as we say we are just following Scripture.
We often have more in common with
the Pharisees and the Sadducees
than we want to admit.

These two men: two outcasts,
teach us the importance of reaching out.
They were pioneers some 2000 years ago:
Philip one of the first within the community of apostles
who followed Christ to proclaim this good news.
And the Ethiopian one of the first in the larger community
to hear the good news and respond to it,
and then in turn
take that good news out into the world.

Two thousand years later we can still be pioneers,
we can still be among the first
the first not only to proclaim
in a world that would rather blog, bloviate,
tweet, and argue,
but the first to welcome,
the first to build community
the first to tear down barriers that have existed for too long.
It is surprisingly easy to be first to share love,
to offer acceptance,
to extend arms in welcome.

Even after two thousand years
we can still be pioneers in putting truth
to the words the Ethiopian would have read in Isaiah:
“my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.”
(Isaiah 56:7)
All peoples.

These two outcasts,
these two “different” men teach us the truth of a verse
we find later in the New Testament,
words that had not even been written
as they rode along under the hot sun:
“There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casts out fear;
whoever fears
has not reached perfection in love”
(1 John 4:18)

Be first within this community,
be first outside these walls,
not only in proclaiming the good news,
but in living the good news,
living the gospel
Be first each day to give life
to the words the Ethiopian and Philip
both exemplified that day so long ago:
“God is love,
and those who abide in love abide in God,
and God abides in them.”
AMEN

The Lot Fell on Matthias

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 3, 2009

The Lot Fell on Matthias
Acts 1:12-26

The lot fell on Matthias.
This sounds so ominous, doesn’t it?
“The lot falls to you Mathias” --
It sounds like he drew the short straw.

This is one of those stories in the Bible
that we know is there,
but which we don’t pay much attention to.
Once we start Acts, we’re eager to get to chapter 2,
with the wonderful story of the first Pentecost,
when the Holy Spirit first came upon the apostles
like tongues of fire.

But here we are, twelve verses into Luke’s second book,
his follow up to his Gospel.
Luke tells us that Jesus was with his apostles for 40 days
following the resurrection;
forty days to help them understand
“by many convincing proofs”
that he was alive, real,
that the tomb could not hold him,
that death could not bind him.

Then at the end of the 40 days,
Luke tells us Jesus was lifted up,
lifted up to heaven.
But before he ascended to heaven,
before he was lifted up,
he provided his apostles with some reassurance:
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses…
to the ends of the earth.”
(Acts 1:8)

With that the disciples went back
to the room in Jerusalem where they were staying.
Was it the same room where they had hidden themselves
six weeks earlier following Jesus’ crucifixion,
or was it a different room? -- we don’t know.

What’s clear, though, is that the fear they had felt
on that first Easter Sunday was gone now.
Even without the power that was to come,
the power of the Holy Spirit,
they were finding themselves
ready to carry on with their ministry,
the ministry Jesus called them to.

For the first time their thoughts were on the future,
on the work they were called to do,
the work their Lord expected them to do:
to witness,
to witness to the resurrection
and proclaim the good news, the gospel,
of Jesus Christ,
a gospel of “repentance and forgiveness of sins
… to all nations.”
“to the very ends of the earth.”
(Luke 24:47)

But even before they could get to work
Peter reminded them they had to fill a gap:
add an apostle to replace Judas,
to bring the number back to 12.
The names of two men were put before the group:
Justus and Matthias,
and the group then prayed that God would reveal
God’s choice,
of which one would
“take the place in this ministry and apostleship”.

As was the practice back then,
they cast lots to discern God’s response.
If that sounds rather like tossing dice
you would not be far wrong.
Those of you who have been participating
in the Year of the Bible
may recall how the garments worn by the priests
back in Moses’ and Joshua’s day
were described in exacting detail,
right down to two special pockets on the ephod,
the outer garment,
designed to hold the Urim and the Thummin,
the sacred rocks the priest would cast
to learn of God’s will.

It sounds a little glib to our 21st century ears,
as though they prayed and then to discern God’s answer,
they turned to their version of a “Magic 8-Ball”,
hoping, of course, that the response would not be
“Outlook Cloudy”, or “Ask again later.”

The word was clear, though: Matthias was the one,
the one God wanted to bring the group back to 12:
the Scriptural 12,
reflecting the 12 Tribes of Israel,
the 12 Patriarchs.

Matthias was chosen,
and the lot fell to him.
He became the 12th apostle -
the one to replace Judas.
And no sooner was Matthias named an apostle,
than that was that for Matthias.
We never hear another word about him,
or from him.
The curtain drops, the door shuts,
locked, click. Done.

Who was Matthias?
A fisherman like Peter, Andrew, James or John?
A tax collector like Matthew?
A carpenter like our Lord?
Was he barely out of his teens,
or a man with thinning hair flecked with gray?
Was he a team player,
or was his ego going to put him in competition
with others for which one would be the greatest?

Was he a steady man, temperate, even,
or was he temperamental, quick to anger,
zealous in his opinion?
Was he articulate,
or was he easily confounded and confused?
Was he a man ready to lead, or
did he always have his head down
eyes cast away,
hoping someone else would take charge?

We do not know the answers to any of these questions.
We know nothing about Matthias.
There were stories about him that came out decades later,
but there’s probably no truth to any of them:
One had Matthias taking the gospel
to Ethiopia and dying there in service to God.
Another had him staying in Jerusalem.
Still another story hinted that
Matthias was in fact Zacchaeus,
the corrupt chief tax collector.

What we know for sure about Matthias is this:
he was just like you and me:
For he was called by God, called by Christ,
the lot fell on him in the same way the lot falls on each of us,
the lot that calls us to service, to witness,
to proclaim, yes, even to evangelize,
which is nothing more than sharing the good news
of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The lot falls to all of us
to proclaim,
not convert – that’s God’s job;
but proclaim – proclaim the good news
and why would we hold back on good news!?
The lot falls of each of us to do that
in every part of our lives
every day of our lives.

As you come to this table in a few minutes,
I invite you to think about how you witness
to the gospel of Jesus Christ:
what do you do,
how are you fulfilling your call to apostleship?

I invite you to think about one new thing you can do,
something new, something that will move you to a new level
of apostleship, discipleship.

Perhaps it’s something here in the community of this church,
or in this community of Manassas
through SERVE, or Habitat,
or a new service.
Perhaps it’s participating in a new form of
caring for God’s creation
as a group from our church did so enthusiastically last week.

The advantage we have is that we already
have the power of the Holy Spirit
to grace us with conviction, courage,
ability, and hope:
we don’t have to wait another 4 weeks
until we mark Pentecost.

So come to this table
because the lot has fallen on you:
the lot of being called to discipleship
following our risen Lord Jesus Christ.

And then go, as all apostles have for 2,000 years:
Go out living the good news,
and proclaiming it,
proclaiming it to all the nations,
proclaiming it to the ends of the earth.
For that is the word of the Lord.
AMEN