High Noon

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
February 21, 2010

High Noon
Luke 4:1-13

Sagebrush and tumbleweeds careen down the main street,
the wind blowing them every which way.
The sun stands high in the sky, beating down,
yet there is a chill in the air.
The townsfolk huddle together,
some along the walks built above the dust of the street,
others behind windows, peering out fearfully.

The main street is short, just a hundred yards,
running east to west.
At one end stands the town’s hope,
the marshal, tall, strong,
his face chiseled by wind and sun.
He stares straight down the street
his focus intense, steely.
The man the marshal stares at
has brought fear and trembling into the hearts
of everyone in town.
He is the very embodiment of everything wrong,
everything bad, everything evil.
He glares at the marshal,
oblivious to everything and everyone else,
knowing it is only the marshal who stands in his way,
who prevents him from ruling the town,
who keeps him from power and riches.

Neither man moves as the winds whirl around them.
Both stand ready, hands at their sides,
adrenalin coursing through their bodies.
The town is silent,
even the dogs have stopped barking.
The people watch,
filled with fear,
yet also filled with hope,
knowing that in just a matter of seconds,
their course, their future will be set.
Who will prevail?
Will good win out,
or will evil triumph?

Hollywood has always made it easy for us, haven’t they?
Pitting the good against the bad,
the right against the wrong.
Movies exaggerate the characteristics of both good and bad:
the good are really good,
the bad are really bad.
Even when the good have their flaws,
the bad are so obviously bad,
so completely and utterly loathsome,
that we have no doubt
about who to cheer and who to boo.

The film ends:
good wins,
bad loses
and we go home content.

Real life is more complicated than movies however.
The good and the bad are woven into the fabric of our lives each day,
but rarely as boldly or as neatly as we find in the movies.
The distinctions are more nuanced, more subtle.
We live in the grays, even if we sometimes think
that everything is black and white.

As we go through each day,
we are faced with choices, dozens of choices,
hundreds of choices,
from the simple, such as what to have for breakfast,
or which coat to wear,
to more complicated, difficult decisions
about work, school,
family, health,
finances, the future.

Every choice we make reflects our faithfulness,
reflects on our discipleship.
There is no choice that doesn’t reflect
how seriously we follow Christ,
how seriously we heed him.
There is no choice we make that doesn’t
reflect how well we’ve learned
the first of the two great commandments,
the one called the “Shema”
by our Jewish brothers and sisters:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul
and with all your might.”
(Deut. 6:4)

If we love God with all our heart,
all our soul,
and all our might, then the choices we make
will be godly choices, faithful choices,
choices for good, for living as God wants us to live.

And that’s just how we all live,
everyone of us,
all the time…right?

Honesty requires us all to ask:
Do we really?
Does any of us?
After all, we are surrounded by things
by people, by circumstances
that pull and tug us away from God
pull us away from living Christ-like lives.
from living in a way that shows we love God
with ALL our heart, ALL our soul, ALL our might.

Our young people, for example:
especially those in high school --
they are confronted almost daily with the temptation
to cheat on tests and papers.
The pressure to get into a good college is so intense,
and sometimes the difference between admission and rejection
is a tenth of a point in an overall grade-point average.
What do you do when you know that others
won’t hesitate to cheat
to keep their grade-points high?
What do you do when you know that if you don’t cheat,
you put yourself at a disadvantage
compared to others in the class?

What do you do when you work in an office
and have a colleague who seems always to be getting ahead
even though you know he cuts corners,
even though she’s not truthful?

Why do we call it corruption when the politician
is from the other party,
but turn a blind eye to the same behavior
when he or she is one of our own?

Why do we scream in fury when the referee misses
a facemask call against our team,
but remain silent when the ref misses
one of our players committing the same foul?

We rationalize behavior, especially our own;
we compare ourselves with others
and say “we’re not so bad.”
But God’s measure is absolute;
God doesn’t compare us with his other children.
God looks at us individually:
“Are you living as Christ calls you to live,
all the way,
If you are not, why not?”
And before you try to excuse your behavior,
remember that God has heard more excuses
than all the State Troopers on I95.

Jesus put his trust completely in God,
not just in our lesson,
but every day.
And what did it get him:
he was alienated from friends,
he was mocked,
he was threatened;
and finally he was arrested,
beaten,
and killed.

Would it have really been that bad
if he had commanded the stone to become a loaf of bread?
After all, he’d been disciplined and faithful for 40 days.
Hadn’t he earned the right at least
to quiet his growling stomach?
Who would he have hurt if he had done that?

Bu Jesus put his trust in God,
which meant he put his life completely in God’s hands.
Jesus loved the Lord God with all his strength,
all his might,
all his soul, all his heart.
And that meant he would do nothing
that was not God’s will.

The season of Lent is the time for us
to take a hard look at ourselves.
To be honest, brutally honest, as to how we are doing,
or more specifically, more pointedly: how YOU are doing.
Each year, I stress that the best symbol for Lent is a broom,
a broom to sweep away all those things that clutter our lives,
that get in the way of living godly lives,
things we have put there.

We began the Lenten season four days ago with Ash Wednesday,
and we use the symbol of ashes two different ways:
first as a sign of our mortality:
to remind us that we came from dust,
and to dust every one of us will someday return.

We also use ashes as our ancestors in faith used them,
as a sign of repentance,
as a sign that we acknowledge our sinfulness,
a sign that we acknowledge
just how quick we are to turn from God
in favor of pursuing our own wants and desires.

The ashes remind us that we probably would not have hesitated
to turn the rocks into bread,
later rationalizing our behavior to God:
“Look, I was obedient and faithful in two out of three,
and the two I did do were the big ones.
You wouldn’t let me eat for 40 days
and I didn’t complain about that, did I?
You can’t really blame me for letting go
on the bread thing.”

But oh, how hard it is for us to say,
“Lord I have sinned:
sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.”
Our inner voices want to scream out,
“I am not so bad, God; really!
I don’t rob banks; I don’t hurt anyone.”
But “if we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us”.
(1 John 1:8)

We had a surprising example of repentance,
a wonderful model of Lenten behavior the other day,
from of all people, a professional athlete.
Athletics, so rife with corruption:
college players taking payoffs,
having their grades changed to maintain eligibility;
professional athletes using steroids and other drugs;
and engaging in behavior far worse.

But there stood Tiger Woods, the great golfer
looking into the camera straight and direct, saying,
“I was unfaithful.
I had affairs.
I cheated.
What I did is not acceptable.”

He didn’t blame drugs, or alcohol,
He didn’t blame the stress or pressure of his profession.
He didn’t blame his family, his coaches:
Again, he was blunt, direct:
“I am the only person to blame…
for my irresponsible and selfish behavior ….

It would be easy to say
that it was all a performance,
that it was all stage-managed
by Wood’s publicity staff to make him look good.
Perhaps it was;
But to my ears, he was sincere;
to my ears, he said all the right things.
What I saw, what I heard, took courage.
And what he said was what we all need to say,
even if our slip-ups aren’t in the same category
as those of Tiger Woods.

We all need to say:
“I did wrong;
I am sorry;
I have no one to blame but myself.”

We do this not so we end up feeling guilty.
Repentance isn’t about feeling guilty;
it is about learning,
learning from our mistakes so we don’t make them again,
learning so we can grow as disciples of Christ,
grow as children of God.
As Barbara Brown Taylor has put it,
“Recognition that something is wrong
is the first step toward setting it right again.
There is no repair for those who insist nothing is broken.”
(Speaking of Sin, 59)

It isn’t perfection that God wants;
It is obedience, learning,
a willingness to work at constant improvement,
based on a true desire to be transformed.

We live in a society in which apologies are seen to be
a sign of weakness.
But I would argue just the opposite:
that only the man or woman who is truly strong,
is capable of humbling himself, herself before God
before family, friends, even strangers,
and saying,
“I did wrong
I have only myself to blame.”

For Tiger Woods as well as the rest of us
the diabolical force that infects our hearts and minds
that sends us down the wrong path,
that keeps us from repenting, from learning
is not some cunning celestial creature:
it is an entirely homegrown characteristic:
it is pride,
pride,
a sense of our own rightness, our own importance,
our own certainty.
Pride, which is another term for selfishness.

Woods understood this:
“I knew my actions were wrong,” he said,
“but I convinced myself that normal rules didn't apply.
…I thought only about myself.”
Mahatma Ghandi, who lived as Godly a life as any man
put it this way:
"The only devils in the world
are those running around in our own hearts—
that is where the battle should be fought."

If you don’t love God with all your heart,
then you are leaving room,
leaving the door open,
letting in other things,
even saying, “welcome”
to things that will turn you from God.

Lent is a time to come clean with yourself.
Time to sweep out the clutter,
the junk you’ve let in,
especially through the door labeled “pride”.

Our every day is filled with high noon moments,
none of them worthy of Hollywood,
most of them small, seemingly insignificant.
But remember what our Lord says,
“whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much,
and whoever is dishonest [and does wrong] in a very little
is also dishonest [and does wrong] in much.”
(Luke 16:10)

You may never stand on a windswept street,
in a small town, ready for a showdown
in a clear battle between good and evil,
but in Christ, with Christ, through Christ,
you, I, we each of us can move confidently
through each high-noon moment
that fills our days,
no drama, no riding off in the sunset,
but you and I but most definitely assured
of a happy ending.
AMEN