How We Welcome One Another

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 25, 2009

How We Welcome One Another
Luke 14:7-14

Every book, every journal article,
every seminar, every expert:
they all say the same thing.
Research has confirmed it again and again:
How we welcome one another matters;
The warmth of our smile matters;
Graciousness matters.

How we welcome not just the visitor, the stranger,
but how we welcome one another,
greet one another,
treat one another,
Sunday after Sunday,
month after month,
year after year:
that’s what speaks most clearly,
most loudly,
and most compellingly about who we are.

Theology, creeds, preaching, music:
they are all important,
but not as important as how we welcome one another,
whether we are warm to one another,
friendly,
genuinely friendly,
reaching out,
embracing with graciousness and kindness.

Visitors pick up on this almost immediately.
A vibrant, faithful worship service helps.
An engaging Sunday School class for children
or adults: they are important, too.
But what is more important:
The greeting at the door,
the smile as a bulletin is offered,
a handshake during the passing of the peace,
an invitation to stay for coffee following the service.

Hospitality is ministry,
and ministry is hospitality.
Christianity means community (Bonhoeffer)
and community is built on hospitality,
hospitality offered across age,
vocation, length of membership,
where you came from,
even the college football team you root for.

Our hospitality –
or our lack of it –
is a reflection of our faith,
a reflection of whether we are salt and light.
Doesn’t Jesus teach us
that it is by our love for one another
that we are known as his followers?
And we show love for one another
through our hospitality toward one another.

Our hospitality towards those we know and call friends,
and toward those who walked through our doors
for the very first time this morning.

A smile,
a handshake,
words of welcome.
Asking such a simple question,
“how are you”,
and then listening attentively,
with genuine interest,
letting the speaker know that you asked the question
because you really do want to know how they are.

We are all called to the ministry of hospitality,
every one of us.
Not just the folks on the Membership Ministry Team,
or the Worship Ministry Team;
not just the greeters or the ushers,
or those who have organized the Coffee Hour.

We look to our Elders to set the example as leaders.
At our last Session meeting, we were reminded
of the charge from the Book of Order
that Elders collectively and individually
are called to nurture the faith and life of the congregation
(G-6.0304a)
and we nurture the faith and life of this congregation
by building community,
building a community in Christ,
with Christ,
and through Christ.

We have to work at being a hospitality community,
it doesn’t just happen.
We live in a society that seems more intent on shouting,
ranting, criticizing, fighting and dividing.
It makes it that much more critical for us
to work at welcoming.

It isn’t the swine flu virus
that poses that greatest danger to this church,
or any other community gathered in the name of Jesus Christ.
It is the virus of indifference, aloofness,
separateness, selfishness,
a virus that can infect us
and spread so quickly.

Jesus teaches us the importance of hospitality in our lesson;
The text tells us about genuine humility,
genuine hospitality,
genuine concern for others.
The preacher and teacher Fred Craddock
says that what Jesus is teaching us in this lesson
is “kingdom behavior”:
that Jesus is teaching us here and now
what we can expect to find
when we take our seats at the table
in God’s heavenly kingdom.
Jesus doesn’t want us to wait to learn what to do
and how to behave when we get there;
he wants us to model kingdom behavior here and now.

Now you might think,
how hard can it be,
when we take our seats at banquet table
in God’s kingdom?
After all, we’ll be in the presence of God,
bathed in light and love,
and certainly seated with family and friends.

But in a book a I read a few years back,
the author suggested that God may have a surprise for us,
that God may take a different approach,
depending upon how well we modeled
kingdom behavior in this life.
The author suggested that when we prepare to take our seats
at the heavenly banquet table
an angel of the Lord might well guide us to our places
as we might expect.
But as soon as we get seated,
another angel will escort someone else to take the seat
next to us
and that person won’t be a loved one;
instead, it will be someone
to whom we did not show hospitality in life,
someone with whom we might have argued
and failed to reconcile,
someone we might have ignored or looked down upon.,
someone we might have even considered our enemy.

God will leave us there to work on reconciliation,
to show one another hospitality
giving us as much time as it takes --
all eternity if need be!

And don’t think that as soon as you and your Kingdom Table
partner have shown one another hospitality
you are all set for eternity.
No, God will change your table partner,
and yet another person with whom
you were not reconciled in this life
will sit next to you,
and the process will begin again
until you are reconciled to all.
Only when all God’s children
are seated in genuine hospitality around God’s table
can the great banquet truly begin.

I love the imagery,
and it makes great sense to me,
for God in Jesus Christ calls us to lives of peace,
of warmth, of welcome, of friendship, of love.

In the Year-of-the-Bible group’s readings this last week,
we worked through the two letters to Timothy,
letters attributed to Paul,
who wrote to his young protégé
to provide him guidance on how to walk through each day
both as a disciple of Jesus Christ,
and as a model of the life Christ calls us to.
Be “hospitable” is the advice Paul gave,
Be “gentle”,
“set others an example in speech and conduct,
love and faith”.
And this is teaching for us, too.
All of us: for me,
for our Elders, our Deacons,
and for all of us.

We are often afraid of reaching out,
especially to strangers, to those we don’t know,
to those who look different,
perhaps speak in strange accents.
But our calling is to reach out,
reach out to all, welcome all.
Our call is to remember the image that Peter Marshall has given us
of our Lord Jesus Christ standing at the entrances to the church
with “his big carpenter hands” open wide in welcome,
welcome to all.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there, does he?
No, he passes along to us each person he welcomes,
saying to you and me,
“See what I just did,
how I greeted this person,
how I welcomed him or her?
Now you do the same thing.”

If you have not yet met all of our new members,
make sure you do so,
today, before you leave.
Then next Sunday go up and re-introduce yourself.
Remember: they have 400 new names and faces to learn;
each of us has just 8.
Our job is to help them:
Help our new members to feel welcome
help them to find their place here in this church,
wherever God might be calling them to let their light shine.

It can be a stretch for some of us to reach out,
but remember this:
with God at your back, and Christ at your side,
you are never are alone
as your extend your hand in fellowship and welcome.

Friendliness,
graciousness,
concern for another’s comfort and wellbeing,
kindness,
generosity of heart and spirit:
Are these words a visitor would use
to describe Manassas Presbyterian Church?
They will be ONLY if every one of us,
every one of us,
all of us,
are friendly, gracious, kind, generous,
always showing a concern for another.
Only if we take seriously our call to hospitality to all.

Take a look at your hands.
They may look ordinary to you, but they are not.
They are “big carpenter hands” just like Jesus’
even if they are not big,
even if they’ve never done carpentry.
They are hands God designed for many purposes,
including embracing and welcoming,
hands created to extend in gracious hospitality to all.

So put them to work today
every Sunday,
every day,
as you welcome one another,
as you welcome one another
in the name of the one who welcomes you,
welcomes you in grace and love.

AMEN

To Tithe or Not To Tithe: That is the Question

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 11, 2009


“The choicest of the first fruits of your ground
you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.”
Exodus 23:19

“The best of the first fruits of your ground
you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.”
Exodus 34:26

“All tithes from the land,
whether the seed from the ground
or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord’s;
they are holy to the Lord.”
Leviticus 27:30

“Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed
that is brought in yearly from the field.”
Deuteronomy 14:22

Do you see a pattern here?
A pattern that the children of God are called
to set aside a portion of what they had
and bring it to the Lord?
This is the biblical tithe,
the biblical ten percent.
And not just any ten percent,
but the first and best:
set aside and given to the Lord.

Actually “given” is the wrong word.
The first fruits, the tithe, the ten percent:
it was not a gift,
not something that was given to the Lord.
No, the tithe was a response,
it was a way to return to the Lord
a portion of what the Lord had given each person
in the first place.

The tithe was a reminder
that everything came from the Lord;
everything belonged to the Lord.

The tithe is a reminder
that everything comes from the Lord,
that everything belongs to the Lord.

And God was firm, adamant,
about the importance of bringing the tithe.
God was not interested in excuses or rationales:
“It wasn’t a good year;
I needed a new ox and plow;
I had to set money aside for retirement;
I’ll try to tithe next year.”

Listen to God’s angry voice speaking through the prophet Malachi:
“Will anyone rob God? Yet you are robbing me!
But you say, ‘how are we robbing you?’
In your tithes and your offerings!
You are cursed with a curse,
for you are robbing me –
the whole nation of you!
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse…”
Malachi 3:8

Bring the full tithe;
the full tithe.

So there we are: all we need to know.
We are to bring our first fruits, our tithe,
bring them to God, here in God’s house.
Bring them in response to God’s blessings,
bring them not as a gift to God,
but as a way for us to return a portion
of what we have been given by God.

But oh how hard this is for us!
Studies have shown that Presbyterians give an average
of two percent to the church,
a long way from ten percent!

We’re not done learning from the Bible;
we’ve only read through the Old Testament.
Let’s check the New Testament
to see what can find there,
to see if there ia different instruction,
that we don't have to tithe.

Jesus doesn’t speak of a tithe,
he doesn’t teach it.
Perhaps because he thought it was a lesson
that did not need teaching,
that it was so clear, he didn’t need to say anything.
You recall he lifts up the poor woman,
the widow who puts her coins in the box,
all she had,
so much more than a tithe.
She is the model for our giving:
more than generous;
giving should be selfless.

We have to turn to Paul to find anything specific about giving.
We might expect Paul to speak of tithing;
after all, he built his arguments on Scripture,
which for him was the Old Testament.
Paul certainly knew his Exodus,
his Leviticus,
even his Malachi.
Surely he must have something to say about tithing.

Let’s have a look.
In his Second Letter to the Corinthians we read:
“For, as I can testify,
the people in the churches in Macedonia
voluntarily gave according to their means…”
2 Cor. 8:3

“Gave according to their means”?
What does that mean?
Was Paul saying that they gave their tithe?

Let’s read further:
“…if the eagerness is there,
the gift is acceptable according to what one has –
not according to what one does not have.”
2 Cor. 8:12

“If the eagerness is there”
Is this the new test for giving?
And what did Paul mean when he said,
“the gift is acceptable according to what one has –
not according to what one does not have.”

So far we have not heard a word about tithing.
Let’s read further;
Here’s what he says next:
“The point is this: the one who sows sparingly
will also reap sparingly,
and the one who sows bountifully
will also reap bountifully.
Each of you must give as you have made up your mind,
not reluctantly or under compulsion,
for God loves a cheerful giver.”
2 Cor. 9:6

“To tithe or not to tithe” --
we thought that was the question.
But Paul doesn’t seem to say a word about tithing.

What Paul teaches us is this:
“each of you must give
as you have made up your mind.”

That’s it right there:
give as you see fit.
It is what the Stewardship Committee tries so hard to make so clear;
Take your pledge card,
pray,
listen for God’s guidance,
and then make your pledge of support
for the work God calls us to do
here at Manassas Presbyterian Church.
“Each of you must give
as you have made up your mind.”

Just as important,
God loves a cheerful giver;
So give eagerly.
Give joyfully.
Give not because you have to;
but because you want to,
because you are eager to respond to
the blessings God has given you.

Give gratefully.
That’s the premise of tithing,
it is an acknowledgement that it really isn’t your money,
my money, our money,
that God is the source of all you and I have,
that we are no different than the children of Israel:
we are merely returning a portion of what God has given to us.

Filling out a pledge card should be such a joyful task:
Are you grateful for blessings in your life?
Are you grateful for this church and all we do here?
It is so easy to be critical,
to say, “I don’t like this or that”
about our church.
But what’s the point of that?
We all know we are not perfect;
You can look everywhere and you will never find
the perfect church.

We are the body of Christ,
every one of us an imperfect child of God.
We do some things well,
and we do other things not so well.
But God has called us all here
to work together,
to work gracefully with one another,
to work cooperatively with one another,
each of us a vital part of this body.
We look after each other,
we pray for each other,
we nurture each other,
teach each other,
learn from each other.

Pat and I pledge separately –
she’s the member of the church; I am not.
I don’t tell Pat what to pledge;
I don’t even know what she pledges.
That’s between her and God.

I always look forward to filling out my pledge card.
I find it deeply spiritual time,
an opportunity for me to reflect on
how God has blessed me.
It is such a simple way for me to respond
as I return to God a portion of what
God has given to me.
And each Sunday I prepare myself for worship
by putting my envelope in the plate
when I walk in, even before I put water in the font.

When you receive your pledge card,
you will find a little trifold brochure
that provides a narrative overview of
how our budget is spent.
We were talking yesterday at the Session meeting
about how it seems that the numbers
don’t match line items on the budget.
What the Stewardship and Finance teams have tried to do
is provide a simple way to look
at the main components of our ministries.
As they have done this, they have allocated costs
to each of the ministry components:
building costs, salary costs and so on.

So, when you see, for example, the dollar figure for Mission,
that number is more than the money we send out each year;
the number represents costs allocated to the Mission ministry,
including Ann’s time, my time, building costs,
and so on.

Don’t get caught up in the precision of the numbers;
if you want to know exact amounts,
look at last year’s annual report,
or just speak with Charlie Harris.
One elder used a good term for the numbers
and the graphs you’ll find on the folder:
they reflect our “energy”,
where we discern God is calling us to serve,
where we are called to do Christ’s work.

When the telephone call comes
from the person before you on the trail route,
invite the person over right away;
Remember: he or she is your neighbor,
your brother or sister in Christ.
They aren’t going to talk with you about your pledge;
that’s up to you and God.
But do invite the person in, even just briefly;
welcome the person with genuine Christian hospitality
share a joy with the person,
and then do the same thing
when you take the trail bag to
the next person on the route.

Tithe if you can: it is a worthy goal for yourself
and your own spiritual journey,
I can confirm that from my own experience.
But more important
remember Paul’s call to pledge joyfully, eagerly and gratefully,
for as he reminds us,
“God is able to provide [us] with every blessing in abundance,
so that by always having enough of everything,
[we] may share abundantly in every good work.”
2 Cor. 9:8

To God be the glory and honor.
AMEN

Go in Peace

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 4, 2009
World Communion Sunday

Go in Peace
Selected texts

A mother sits on the dry, dusty ground in Darfur,
that brutally hot region in Western Sudan,
the region which has known nothing but death and destruction
for the past 20 years.
She is one of the more than 7 million refugees,
7 million,
displaced by endless warfare and fighting.
There is not enough water, not enough food,
not enough shelter from the relentless sun.
Her little boy is just 18 months old,
and she knows he will not live
to reach his second birthday.
Starvation, malnutrition,
dehydration will draw life from him
a little each day.
He will die in her arms.
The mother knows no peace.

A young man, mature beyond his 15 years,
comes home from another rough day at school.
He’s bright and he works hard; his grades are good.
He will be the first in his family
to finish high school.
His parents, who immigrated to this country
just ten years ago,
never got beyond the 9th grade.

What makes school so hard for him
is not the classwork,
but the bullying
the taunts about his accent,
the color of his skin, his hair, his eyes,
the country where he was born.
It is one of the boys who’s a star on the football team
the young man fears most.
The boy is enormous, a hero to most in the school,
but he is savage with his comments:
“Immigrant.
Why don’t you speak American?
Go back to your own country.”
And that’s only the beginning;
words flow foul and furious,
instilling fear in the young man,
even as all those who hear the bully boy rant
laugh and think it is all great sport.
The football player’s car sports a bumper sticker that says,
“Jocks for Jesus”.
The young man has created his own bumper sticker,
which he has on the wall in his room above his small desk.
It is a verse from the Bible,
part of the law given by God through Moses:
“You shall love the stranger, the foreigner,
for you were once a stranger,
you were once a foreigner….”
(Deuteronomy 10:19)
The young man knows no peace.

A woman sits in the Emergency Room of a hospital.
Her daughter is burning up with fever.
The woman’s husband lost his job more than a year ago
and with it went their health insurance.
“You can always go to the Emergency Room!”
Those were the last words she heard
from the insurance company
when they confirmed the policy
was no longer in effect.
She and her daughter have been sitting
in a crowded, stuffy room for more than 4 hours
and have still not seen a doctor.
The overworked nurse assures her they will be seen soon,
but there were so many other more urgent needs.
As she sits there waiting the woman worries:
What if the doctor treats the girl
by prescribing an antibiotic,
how will she pay for it?
What if the doctor says her daughter needs other tests,
or even needs to be hospitalized?
Her husband has tried so hard to find another job,
but “not hiring” are the words he keeps hearing,
even at places that offer no benefits, no insurance.
The woman knows no peace.

The elderly man sits quietly in his wheelchair in the hall.
He has lived at the nursing home
since his wife died two years ago.
She had taken care of him as his health deteriorated,
and when she died he knew he had no choice:
He could barely see, barely walk.
His children and grandchildren live far away.
The hallway in which he sits is decorated for the season.
Carols come from the small boombox
in the recreation room around the corner.
An aide walks by him and cheerfully chirps,
“I will be off tomorrow for Christmas,
so you have a wonderful day!”
The man is grateful for the care he gets,
but the loneliness gnaws at him.
The man knows no peace.

We think of peace as the absence of war,
the silencing of the sounds of gunfire,
explosions, cries, and screams no longer the night’s backdrop;
Blissful silence,
the still small voice of peace,
at least for the here and now.

God wants us to live with an absence of war.
God wants us to beat swords into plowshares,
spears into pruning hooks, (Isaiah 2:4)
“Violence shall no more be heard in your land,”
says the Lord God through the prophet Isaiah,
“I will appoint Peace as your overseer
and Righteousness your taskmaster.”
(Isaiah 60:17)

That’s God’s hope for us,
if only we would learn history’s lessons
of the futility of war.

But the absence of war is only the beginning of peace.
When God speaks of peace,
when Jesus speaks of peace,
they speak of fullness,
completeness,
health,
wholeness,
contentment.

When Jesus says in his Sermon on the Mount,
“blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the children of God.”
(Matthew 5:9)
He is talking about those who do more than
help work for an end to war.
He is speaking of those who feed the hungry,
who bring hope to the hopeless,
who welcome the stranger,
who tend the sick,
who comfort the lonely –
who reach out to
all those who know no peace.

We live in a world that desperately needs peacemakers;
We cannot pick up a newspaper
without reading about war somewhere.
But even putting aside war,
we seem so intent on creating a more and
more hostile, angry society,
a world in which personal attacks are the norm,
nasty, stinging words,
a readinesses, even eagerness to lie
the currency of our conversation.
Our response to such clear and present problems
in our health care system is to strap on our guns,
load our AK-47s.

How can we speak of peacemaking
when we demand more and more violence
in our sports: harder hitting on the football field,
punishing checks that lead to gloves off in hockey,
even little league baseball games
that sink into shouting, pushing, brawls.
Ultimate fighting,
no sport, but only a savage brutal contest,
becoming more popular by the week;
children wanting to smash chairs over each other’s
heads just like wrestlers,
because they think that’s how to have fun.

Why are we so intent on plumbing the depths of the
the lowest common denominator,
when our Lord calls us to raise up,
build up;
Aim high;
Seek peace, make peace.

Blessed are the peacemakers,
those whose words are grounded in
kindness,
gentleness,
that reflect a generosity of spirit,
a willingness to give completely of themselves,
those who understand that as disciples of Christ
we are called to do whatever is needed,
whatever is needed,
to feed even one hungry person;
we are called to bear any cost
to heal one sick person.
Yes, this is what we are called to do,
this is what makes us children of God.

We can never hope to be at peace ourselves
if we are not actively engaged in peacemaking,
something we can do in a thousand different ways,
each of us as the Spirit calls us.

Set before us is a table
where all God’s children can come together,
where there is neither slave nor free,
Jew nor Greek, male nor female;
(Galatians 3:28)
where there is neither native-born nor foreigner,
neither liberal nor conservative,
neither VIP nor outcast.

This is the place where we can be fed,
and find that peace which surpasses all understanding
(Philippians 4:7)
A table where we can be nourished and refreshed,
so we can go out to work for peace
by helping others find their way
to wholeness, fullness, and completeness.

Come to this table;
come, for the Prince of Peace invites you,
invites us all.
Come and be fed,
come quench your thirst,
and then, as the Psalmist teaches us, go out to
“seek peace and pursue it”
Psalm 34:14

Come to this table,
for here you will find:
“peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Galatians 1:3
AMEN