Provocations Line-by-Line

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
November 15, 2009

Provocations Line-by-Line
Mark 13:1-8

Tomorrow evening the Session will hold its
third regular meeting of the fall.
We will gather for a delicious dinner,
and share joys and concerns as we have our dessert;
We will then turn our attention to our agenda.

Our business,
the work we are called to do
as Elders gathered as the Session,
is the spiritual leadership of this church.
The spiritual leadership of this congregation
isn’t just my responsibility;
it is very much a shared responsibility,
mine, with each Elder,
all of us collectively on the Session.

We go about this work in lots of different ways.
We’ve focused on specific ministries in previous meetings:
In October we took a close look at our
Christian Education ministry,
as well as our Worship & Music Ministry.
Tomorrow night we will take a broader look,
a look at all our ministries.
The lens through which we will look at our ministries
will be our budget
the budget we are preparing for next year, 2010.

We are not a business organization, of course.
We don’t prepare a budget to maximize revenues
and minimize costs so we can end the year with a profit.
Yes, we always hope to increase revenues
through our Stewardship campaigns,
and of course, we are always mindful of costs.
But ending the year with a surplus is not our goal;
doing the ministry God calls us to do,
doing it well, doing it faithfully:
that’s what we do,
that’s our concern,
that’s our goal.

And doing ministry requires resources,
time, people and, yes, money.
We have equipment and supplies to buy,
staff salaries to pay,
a school to run,
a building to light, heat,
clean, and maintain.

We prepare a budget to guide us in our work,
the work God calls us to do.
A budget helps us to be good stewards
of our financial resources
throughout the year.
But even more important,
a budget helps us to look to the future,
plan for the future,
think and pray about where God may be calling us to grow,
change, and adapt.
God’s Holy Spirit is always at work
bringing in the new and fresh,
blowing away the worn and the stale.

Our budget, for all its numbers,
for all its spreadsheet detail,
is really a statement of our faith,
a reflection of our faith.
It is a statement to all
of how we live out our faith
here at Manassas Presbyterian Church.
Our budget is our witness,
our testimony as a congregation.

How much money are we devoting to the education of our children?
How much money are we devoting
to the education of adults?
How much are we devoting to our Youth Groups,
to help our young people grow in faith?
How are we spending our money on Worship,
the center, the heart of what we do?
All the little things that are so easy to overlook:
music for the choir,
candles for Christmas Eve,
tuning the piano,
cups for communion.

Do we pay our staff fair salaries?
Beyond their salaries,
have we set aside money for each of them
to pursue continuing education and development,
to assure that they grow professionally,
and, just as important, spiritually?

Sometimes our Budget may not reflect fully all we do.
We budget, of course a portion of offerings
to be used for Mission support.
But we also take a number of special offerings
throughout the year,
money that is over and above our Mission giving,
funds for One Great Hour of Sharing; Christmas Joy,
Peace-making,
and most recently blankets for Church World Services.
And we don’t even count Care packages for college students,
or the UnTrim-a-Tree
which we plan to set up next week.

As we look to next year,
every ministry team has been asked
to consider cutting their budgets,
looking for anything, no matter how small,
that might not be necessary,
so that we can add that amount
to a new line we have created in the budget:
a line for an Associate Pastor.

We are getting closer and closer to having that position funded.
That one item, perhaps more than any other,
is a statement about how we see the future,
how we are looking at the future:
with confidence,
boldness,
with excitement.

Look at our budget and it will tell a story,
it will reflect who we are --
who we really are --
as a community of faith.
It will tell how we are responding
to Jesus’ teaching,
“…where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also.”
(Matthew 6:21)

Now, how in the world does our text
figure in all this?
That dark, foreboding text we heard from Mark’s gospel,
the text often referred to as the “little apocalypse”.

Breathe easy:
I did not pick the text as a prelude to bad news;
it is the Lectionary text for this particular Sunday.
As I read it, I will admit my first reaction was
“this is not a text we want to hear
on the last day of our Stewardship Campaign.”
But as I thought about the text,
prayed it,
listened for the Spirit’s guidance,
I realized this text speaks powerfully
about how we are called to look to the future.

We hear apocalyptic texts – this passage,
or the Revelation, which we have been reading
in the Wednesday morning Bible Study class --
and it is easy to be a little frightened of the future,
of what lies ahead.
The visions, the images,
the smoke, the fire, the trumpet blasts,
all signs and portents of the end of the age.

Apocalyptic literature was very popular in Jesus’ time.
In fact, for a period starting about
150 or so years before Jesus’ birth
and running about 100 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection,
there were lots of apocalyptic texts;
only a few are included in the Bible.
They all pointed to a new age,
the fulfillment of time,
they pointed to the day when the Messiah would come again,
come again in glory and bring the Kingdom of God.
That day when “when the wolf would live with lamb,
when every tear would be wiped away,
mourning, crying and pain would be no more,
when even death would be no more.”

We take on faith that that glorious day will come.
We take on faith that we live in the in-between times,
between the time when Jesus was raised from the dead,
and the time when he will come again to make all things new.
That’s the message of Advent:
that wonderful time of preparation that begins
in just two short weeks.
Advent isn’t about getting ready for the birthday,
pointing us to the Christ who was born in Bethlehem;
It is about getting ready for the Christ
who will come again in glory.

When will that day come?
We don’t know.
Even Jesus said he didn’t know.
Will there be signs that will usher in the end times?
We’ve certainly never lacked for people who have said
there would definitely be signs
and that they, and only they, could read them.
Point to any calamitous event in human history,
and there were voices shouting out
that the end times had begun:
The Black Plague in the 14th century;
The French Revolution;
The Civil War;
The flu pandemic after World War One;
The rise of the Soviet Union and the Cold War;
9/11;
Hurricane Katrina;
Swine Flu.

But Jesus doesn’t want us to waste our time looking for signs.
He wants us to look forward with confidence,
not fear,
He wants us to be ready,
ready for that day when he will come
“like a thief in the night”.
and the surest way to be ready for his coming
is if we are already at work building the Kingdom,
doing our part to create a bit of the Kingdom here and now.

To work to create peace;
to work for justice and equality;
to right wrongs,
remove barriers that benefit some
at the expense of others.

To work to assure that anyone who is sick
doesn’t lack for medical care,
isn’t denied coverage because something was pre-existing,
or because they’ve lost a job.
To take a stand and say that
even if you believe in the capitalist system,
as a disciple of Jesus Christ,
there is something wrong
about a person earning a multi-million dollar bonus
that could easily fund jobs for dozens, even hundreds,
in a time when so many are literally hungry for work.

The earthly things we hold onto so tightly
will all crumble to dust
and be no more --
even the Temple in Jerusalem could not avoid that end.
So Jesus warns us:
don’t get too attached to earthly things;
work for the new world that is to come.

Every line in our budget should call us into that work,
call us into the future,
provoke us to ministry, outreach,
compassion, care, concern, discipleship.
Every line in our budget should call us
to kingdom building.
Every line in the budget should provoke us to action,
more,
stronger,
bolder,
more confidently and faithfully.

Look through the budget and it seems so ordinary,
like budgets for other organizations.
But look through Jesus eyes
and you’ll see ministry opportunities,
kingdom-building opportunities everywhere.
Something as simple as the amounts we set aside for property
for building maintenance and upkeep.
In those lines we have a call to ministry:
a building that safe, inviting;
a place for 200 children to come to during the week
to laugh, learn, and be loved;
a place for more than 50 adults new to this country
to come to learn English;
a place for men and women to come
in their anguish and pain
for loved ones addicted to alcohol or drugs,
a safe place where they can find support, help, hope.

Eugene Peterson has observed that
“the way we conceive the future sculpts the present.”
How will we conceive the future that for us is next year?
How will we sculpt each day to create the future?
Will it be the year we take a leap of faith
and say we will add a full-time staff member
to work with our young folks,
to help them as they each embrace their vocation
as Kingdom builders?
To help them learn our Lord’s words,
“The Kingdom of God is not coming with things
that can be observed;
For in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
(Luke 17:20ff)

Frederick Buechner wrote,
“The power that is in Jesus,
and before which all other powers on earth
and in heaven give way…
is above all else a loving power.”
(Secrets in the Dark,161)

Our budget should reflect that loving power.
Our budget should reflect compassion
our budget should reflect selflessness,
It should reflect hope,
confidence,
courage, even boldness.

And it will,
if it reflects our joyful response
to our call to be Kingdom builders,
if every line provokes us to new ways of service
and discipleship,
if every line provokes us to sing the ageless carol,
a carol we should sing all year round:
“come Lord Jesus, come.”
AMEN