Processing

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 28, 2010: Palm Sunday

Processing 
Mark 11:1-11

We love stories.

We remember stories.

We learn from stories.

So it’s no surprise that the Bible

is filled with stories:

Adam and Eve,

Noah and the Flood,

David and Goliath,

Jonah in the belly of the whale.

And of course all the stories we learn about Jesus:

The story of Jesus’ birth,

his baptism in the Jordan,

feeding the five thousand,

and today’s story -

the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem.

Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday,

riding in on the back of a donkey,

riding as his disciples walked ahead and behind.

The people shouting and cheering,

“Hosanna!

Blessed is the one

who comes in the name of the Lord!”

The people lining the road, waving palm branches,

the traditional way of welcoming the king,

the triumphal king.

We hear this story each year on the Sunday before Easter,

and we love it.

We too love to wave our palm branches

and shout out “Hosanna!”

The story lifts us and fills us with a sense of joy,

enhanced by the coming of spring,

and for many,

the prospect of a wonderful week’s vacation.

Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

But the version of the story we heard today

comes from the gospel according to Mark,

and Mark is never willing to let his readers off easy.

He is not willing to let us hear the story

and then go with palm branch in hand,

out to enjoy a spring Sunday.

Of the four gospels, Mark’s is the most “abrupt;”

the gospel is, as one scholar has written,

“…all sharp edges”

(Placher, Jesus the Savior),

Mark’s is the shortest gospel,

the text constantly pulling us forward,

as though Mark was racing to get to the end of the story.

Mark wants no tourists wandering leisurely through his gospel;

he wants disciplined followers,

open to nothing less than being transformed

with every turn of the page.

Mark could have, for example,

stopped our lesson at verse 10 and let us off easy,

the people still shouting out,

“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

But Mark doesn’t do that,

He adds one more sentence,

a sentence that on its surface sounds so simple

but on reflection is rather intriguing:

“Then [Jesus] entered Jerusalem

and went into the Temple;

and when he had looked around at everything,

as it was already late,

he went out to Bethany with the twelve.”

Now wait a minute:

Jesus and his disciples had their parade,

their jubilant procession into Jerusalem,

but once the parade was over

and they were in Jerusalem,

it was so late they had to turn around

and walk the few miles back to Bethany

where they were staying the night?

We can understand that Jesus and his disciples

might not have been able to stay in Jerusalem.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims descended upon Jerusalem

for the Passover Festival each year.

Jesus and his disciples could have searched

and searched within the city,

but found no rooms at the inns.

Staying in Bethany,

less than an hour’s walk from Jerusalem,

was much simpler.

But then what was the purpose of the parade?

Why would they have gone into the city only to turn around

and head right back to where they had just come from?

Matthew’s recounting suggests that

Jesus came into the city earlier in the day;

Luke also suggests an earlier arrival –

both gospels giving Jesus time for other activities

after the last of the Hosannas had faded away.

Mark seems more intent on saying to us,

“I am only going to give you the parade,

the procession.

That’s enough for today.

If you want more of the story,

you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

And we do want more, don’t we?

So we will come back tomorrow,

or at least so we should,

which is just what Mark wants from us.

Mark wants us to continue the procession;

he wants us to walk through each day with Jesus,

walk with him deliberately, willingly, knowingly.

                 

And so we process from Sunday to Monday,

when Jesus goes back to the temple,

goes back and rids the temple of all those

who were “buying and selling” within the temple’s walls,

not just the money-changers,

but all those selling animals for sacrifice.                  

Jesus was furious that they had soiled his Fathers house,

a house that had been built to be

“a house of prayer for all nations,”  

(Isaiah 56)

but which had been turned into

“a den of robbers.”

God’s house, the holy temple in Jerusalem

swarming with the first-century equivalent of

pay-day lenders,

check-cashing services,

auto-title loan shops,

and subprime lenders.

The outer courtyard of the temple

filled with venal men and women,

there to prey on the needs of others,

gouging the thousands upon thousands of pilgrims

who had come to celebrate the Passover,

who had come to God’s holy House

to offer their sacrifices.

Hadn’t the psalmist written,

“Open to me the gates of righteousness

that I may enter through them

and give thanks to the Lord”?

(Psalm 118:19)

But the gates of the temple were no longer

the gates of righteousness;

they had become nothing more than

the gates of the seediest forms of commerce.

After Jesus had cleansed the temple

he taught, taught all who would listen,

taught the rest of the day Monday,

and returned again to teach on Tuesday,

teaching through stories, parables.

Jesus continued to teach his disciples

even as they walked each day between Bethany and Jerusalem. 

He knew what lay before him;

he knew his time with his beloved disciples

was near the end.

And so he taught them again of faith and prayer:

“Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain,

‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea’

and if you do not doubt in your heart,

but believe that what you say will come to pass,

it will be done for you.

So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer,

believe that you have received it

and it will be yours.”

And he taught once again of the importance of forgiveness,

“Whenever you stand praying,

forgive if you have anything against anyone;

so that your Father in heaven

may also forgive your trespasses.”

(11:25)

And he taught of the dangers of hypocrisy

which he saw all around him

especially among the leaders of the religious community.

men more consumed with ego and power

than with justice, righteousness,

generosity, charity.

He taught how important it was

to have a generous spirit,

a generous heart.                                   

        

And as Tuesday turned to Wednesday

Jesus taught of the hope we have in the Resurrection,

even though the Sadducees,

part of the leadership group within the temple,

argued furiously with Jesus that the very idea was absurd,

that there was nothing in scripture to support such a claim.

Mark calls us to process and process:

to walk through this Holy Week with our Lord,

processing each of Christ’s teachings,

every word, every saying,

every act as we process through the week.

Palm Sunday is a joyful day,

but more important,

it is the gateway to an opportunity

for each of us to sit with the disciples

at the feet of our Lord,

to hear Christ’s voice,

and learn from him.

It is in John’s gospel that we find Jesus offering us

such powerful words to drive away our excuses:

“Walk while you have the light,

so that the darkness may not overtake you.

If you walk in the darkness

you do not know where you are going.”

(John 12:35)

Process through each day this week,

starting with tomorrow.

Make Monday a day of holiness,

a day of honoring God, glorifying God,

seeking the gates of righteousness

that you might walk through them

wherever you are:

at home, at work, even on vacation.

Make Tuesday a day of prayer,

especially prayers seeking forgiveness,

prayers offering forgiveness:

“if you have anything against anyone”

our Lord reminds us,

you are to forgive them.

                                            

Make Wednesday a day of learning,

of reading, of growing in faith,

remembering that Christ is our Teacher,

a demanding teacher who expects us to work at learning.

He is a teacher who not as interested in whether

we’ve memorized verses from a book

as he is in whether we have learned

that we are to live generous lives,

charitable lives,

giving, loving lives,

grace-filled, grace-full lives.

                 

Process through the first few days of this Holy Week

and then you’ll be ready for Thursday;

you’ll be ready to come to the Lord’s Table

to eat the bread of life,

and drink from the cup of salvation.

You’ll be ready to share the communal meal,

a meal in community,

where the host’s only requirement

before you take your seat at his table,

is that you be reconciled with

everyone else around the table.

And then nourished by the Holy Meal

you’ll have the strength,

you’ll have the courage to face Friday,

Friday -- when “darkness covered the whole earth”

(Mark 15:33)

You’ll be able to process through the dark hours,

Friday into Saturday,

watching and waiting,

remembering our Lord’s promise

that he will come again

and that we are to be alert and ready for that day,

as though it might happen any minute, any second.

Process through this Holy Week

and then on Sunday,

even before your first cup of coffee,

even while you are still more asleep than awake

you’ll hear the words of the angel

who told the women who came to the tomb

“Do not be alarmed,

you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth,

who was crucified.

He has been raised; he is not here. …

He is going ahead of you to Galilee,

there you will see him…

(Mark 16:6)

And you’ll know that you too will see Christ,

see Christ within this Body of Christ,

where we each give life to Christ.

And you’ll see Christ in yourself

as you become more and more Christ-like

to family, friends, and strangers –

serving, reaching out to those who need

Christ’s healing, help, hope,

those who need to know Christ’s grace and love.

Are you ready?

Are you ready to process through this Holy Week?

Are you ready for the journey that takes us

from Hosanna to Alleluia?

Our Lord invites you and me,

all of us,

to join the procession.

Hosanna!

Blessed is the one who comes

in the name of the Lord!

AMEN

Powerless

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 21, 2010: Fifth Sunday in Lent
A Service of Wholeness

Powerless
Psalm 130

The shoeboxes were stacked neatly on the closet floor:
five boxes across, four high – twenty boxes in all.
The boxes were almost all the same,
the shoes from the same store:
practical, business-like.

The bottle moved around from box to box;
never in the bottom row,
usually in the third row.
Hidden away, but still accessible.

The bottle was always vodka.
Never the designer stuff,
the kind you find in ads in the glossy magazines:
sophisticated people having sophisticated fun
in sophisticated locations
while sipping sophisticated drinks.
But it was never the cheapest stuff either,
the stuff that was hardly better than kerosene,
the proverbial “rotgut”.

No, it was the kind a young professional could buy in the liquor store
without feeling overly self-conscious.
It was like the shoes the bottle kept company with:
practical, business-like, functional.

This vodka was never going to be shared with friends;
not something to lubricate a flow of laughter and good times.
This vodka was never going to be used to toast a success
celebrate a birth,
mark a promotion,
or rejoice at a wedding anniversary.

No, it was only going to be used to deaden,
to dull, …to darken.
A few small sips daily,
generally in the evening,
just enough to bring the dusk,
just enough to cloud reality,
but not so much that it would
blanket the world in darkness.

What kind of a person would do this:
hide a bottle from family and friends?
Clearly this person was trying to hide it
from themselves, as well,
hide the reality of their drinking from themselves.
What kind of a person would live this way,
moving the boxes each evening,
unscrewing the cap,
taking a couple of bitter slugs quickly from the bottle,
and just as quickly capping the bottle,
and putting it back in the box,
back among the shoes?

The actions speak of an undesirable person;
certainly not the kind of person any of us
would count among our friends, right?
Someone to be condemned, avoided.

But take a closer look:
Twenty pairs of shoes in the closet?
Clothing hanging above the shoes that spoke of success,
hard work, professionalism.
Diplomas on the wall nearby that had words like
“salutatorian”, “summa cum laude,”
even the seal of an Ivy League university.

Obviously this was not someone we’d label an “alcoholic”.
Alcoholics are those people who sleep on park benches,
who wear filthy, torn clothing,
who stumble down city sidewalks begging for money
to buy bottles of cheap wine,
wines with names like “Night Train Express”,
or “Thunderbird”.

But the reality,
the ugly reality,
the very real reality was,
that this was a picture of alcoholism.
This was a picture of a person who was addicted,
a person whose life was controlled by
Mr. Popov, Mr. Romanov, and Mr. Smirnoff.
The clothing, the house, the diplomas:
none of that mattered.
All that mattered was the daily drink,
the dulling, the deadening,
the hazy grayness.
Alcohol had taken over the person’s life.
This person was an alcoholic,
this person was addicted.

We’ve all seen them,
men and women huddled outside of office buildings,
shivering in the wind, rain, snow and cold,
steaming in the summer’s heat,
outside to have a cigarette because their workplace
won’t let them smoke.

The advertisements define what kind of person you are
by the cigarette you smoke:
lively, liberated,
intellectual, macho,
cool, young, desirable --
decide what kind of person you want to be
and there is a cigarette tailored just for you.

The cigarette manufacturers fought furiously for decades
the claim that smoking was dangerous
to a person’s health.
There was no clear, convincing proof, they said,
no absolutely clear link between smoking cigarettes,
and lung cancer, even though
the Surgeon General of the United States
found differently almost 50 years ago.

The tobacco manufacturers sent their lawyers out
to dispute the point
and then tried to change the subject
with the assertion that
the person who buys cigarettes
is simply making a personal choice
in the free marketplace.
This wasn’t Russia, they’d fume;
no one was forced to buy a pack of cigarettes.

The little secret the tobacco companies
weren’t sharing, though,
was that people were forced to buy cigarettes.
Nicotine is among the most addictive drugs known to humanity,
as addictive, perhaps even more so
than heroin or cocaine.
Nicotine occurs naturally in tobacco;
when a person smokes a cigarette, a cigar, a pipe,
or even chews a little “Mailpouch”
he gets a dose of nicotine.

Tobacco companies learned
the addictive qualities of nicotine very early on,
and they liked the idea:
turn a customer into an addict
and you’ve got the customer for life,
even if it is an abbreviated life.
So the tobacco companies,
companies that around this part of the world
were thought to be respectable members of the community,
began to wonder,
“if we were to put a little more nicotine in each cigarette,
would that make the smoker a little more addicted,
causing him or her to buy more of our cigarettes?”

And that’s just what they began to do,
even as they furiously denied doing any such thing.
But all the litigation over the past decade has made clear
that they have engineered nicotine in cigarettes for decades,
intending to capitalize on the addictive qualities of nicotine.
(see generally, “A Question of Intent” by David Kessler)

Addiction.
Addiction is all around us.
Addiction to smoking:
More than forty-five million men and women still smoke
even after all these years;
More than 400,000 men and women will die
of smoking-related illnesses – preventable illnesses,
here in the US this year.
Die because they are addicted.

Addiction to alcohol:
15 million – 15 million - men and women:
older men and women,
younger men and women,
children as young as middle school,
blue collar, white collar,
rural, urban,
affluent, poor.
Alcoholism knows no boundaries,
it is in every neighborhood,
it is in every church…
every church.

But addiction isn’t a character flaw;
addiction is not a sign of immorality;
not a sign of weakness;
not a sign of something gone wrong
in a person’s upbringing.
Addiction is a disease.

Addiction to alcohol,
addiction to nicotine,
addiction to drugs –
and not just street drugs
but drugs we can find in the medicine cabinets
in leafy suburban neighborhoods -
addiction to gambling,
addiction to food,
addiction to sex, shopping, the Internet.

Addiction takes over
and we are no longer in control.
We are powerless.
Utterly and completely powerless.

Every addict knows that first step toward reclaiming his life, her life,
is to admit their powerlessness,
to admit they are not in control.
To stop saying, “I can stop anytime I want to.”
To stop saying, “I can handle it.”
To stop saying, “I don’t have a problem.”

If you are at all familiar with any twelve-step program,
the kind first developed within Alcoholics Anonymous
and later expanded to all kinds of support groups,
you know that the first three of the Twelve Steps
is to admit your powerlessness,
to admit you are not in control,
to admit your need for a higher power.
This is how AA puts it:
“We admit we are powerless over alcohol—…”
And given our powerlessness,
“We have made a decision to turn our will and our lives over
to the care of God as we understand him.”

The addict turns his life, her life over to a Higher Power,
however they view that Higher Power.
The God of Moses,
The God Allah…
however each person understands
their God, their Higher Power.
For us, of course, our Higher Power
is the Lord God,
it is our Lord Jesus Christ.

The reality is that we all struggle
with something that controls us,
something that reminds us
that try as we might,
we are often powerless.

It might be your own struggle with addiction.
It might be that you are living with a loved one,
a spouse, a parent, a child,
who is struggling with an addiction.
My own experience was so wrenching
to have to acknowledge my powerlessness
when a loved one was addicted and struggling,
that I could not find some way to fix the problem,
some way to help the person.
How could I be that powerless?
But I was,
and I had to turn to a Higher Power.
I had to “let go and let God.”

Something has control over you – what is it?
What has power over you?
It may not be an addiction.
Perhaps it is an emotion,
an emotion like anger,
which once it takes hold
takes over completely,
leaving us completely powerless.
Anger, and its partners:
resentment, envy,
pride, stubbornness.

Perhaps it is a sense of loneliness,
grief over a loss,
a sense of despair,
a feeling of hopelessness.
Perhaps it is worry and anxiety:
about health – your own, or someone else’s;
about a relationship, especially one that is on the rocks;
about money, even as the economy finally
seems to be improving your situation
may be getting worse.

When something controls us,
grabs hold and won’t let go,
we can never hope to be complete,
to be whole,
We can never hope to be at peace
unless and until we turn our lives over
to our Higher Power.

“Out of the depths I cry to you…”
and the promised response is sure,
the voice of our Lord
so quick with assurance in our anguish:
“Come to me, all you who are weary
and carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest,”
(Matthew 11:28)

“Lord hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to the voice
of my supplications!”
And again comes the reassurance,
the measured, calm response:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name,
you are mine.
You are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you,
(Isaiah 43:2ff)

Our Higher Power
our Lord God through Jesus Christ
will make us whole,
will heal us,
complete us.
We have only to give ourselves over to God
in Christ,…through Christ, …with Christ.

“I wait for the Lord,
my soul waits,
and in his word I hope.
In his word I hope.”

And the gentle voice of God responds,
“You are heard my beloved child,
my beloved daughter, my beloved son.
You are heard and
I “give you a future with hope.”
(Jeremiah 29:11)

Turn to God –
who is power when we are powerless.
Turn and fall back into God’s everlasting, everloving arms
and find peace, wholeness, healing.
God’s still small voice in the wind
whispering in your ear,
“Shalom, beloved”.
AMEN

What Lies Within

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 14, 2010

What Lies Within
Mark 1:4-8

Three men, dirty, hungry,
exhausted, fearful,
shuffling and scuffing along back roads
somewhere in the deep south in the mid 1930s,
deep in the Depression.
All three had broken out of jail a few days earlier,
broken out to escape the brutality and the utter hopelessness
that has always been part of life behind bars.

They hear singing off in the distance,
simple voices together, out in the woods,
somewhere off to their right,
singing that is both celebration and invitation.

They stumble upon a large group of people,
men and women in a line that winds through the trees,
and down a path that leads to the calm waters
of small river.
The people wait patiently,
singing joyfully, confidently, for what awaits them.

The people move forward, slowly,
one by one, each in his turn, her turn,
one by one they reach the end of the path
on the river bank,
one by one they wade into the water,
one by one they walk just a few feet
to where the preacher waits,
and one by one they are plunged under the waters.

One by one they come out of the water
perhaps looking the same,
but utterly and completely transformed within,
utterly and completely transformed by the grace of God
given them in the simple act of baptism.

Two of the convicts are intent on moving forward
farther from the cells they left behind,
farther from the police surely chasing them,
but the third man stops and stares.
He watches for a minute, maybe two,
and then breaks away from the others,
stumbling, running,
past all those waiting,
falling into the waters,
slipping on the rocks beneath the surface
in his effort to reach the preacher
who stands there, arms open,
waiting for him,
as though only for him.

The preacher asks no questions,
makes no demands;
he simply takes the man by his hands
and helps him fall back under the waters,
the man trusting, relaxed, sure.

Just as quickly he’s lifted up,
and walks out of the water,
looking no different to his two amazed companions.
But he knows he isn’t the same,
he knows that in that instant under the water
he was transformed,
utterly and completely transformed.
Washed clean, clean of sin,
the past wiped out,
no, not under the laws of the state,
but forgiven absolutely by God,
redeemed, renewed,
and reborn to new life in Jesus Christ.
(from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”)

This is what baptism is: redemption,
renewal,… rebirth.
We go under the waters one person,
and come up a different person.
Washed clean of sin,
marked as Christ’s own forever,
and just as important,
filled with the Holy Spirit.

John the Baptizer makes this last distinction so clear,
the distinction between what he did to all those
who came to him along the banks of the Jordan,
and what God would do in the name of Jesus Christ.
John baptized with water,
for the repentance of sins.
But in Christ, we are baptized with the Holy Spirit,
not just forgiven our sins,
but utterly and completely transformed,
in the parlance of today’s culture,
a total, yes, extreme makeover
of all that lies within.

I fear we miss this element of transformation
in our typical baptismal service.
We love to baptize infants and youngsters.
I love the joy that is part of celebrating the sacrament.
Who doesn’t delight in welcoming
our newest brothers and sisters in Christ,
our newest members of Christ’s holy church,
the church universal,

But as difficult as it is to think of an infant
being washed clean of sin in his or her baptism,
it is harder still to think of a 6-month-old child
being transformed,
changed,
made-over.
And yet that is what is happening in baptism.
It is what happened to every one of us in our baptisms,
even if we were sleeping quietly in our parents arms,
or screaming to the heavens
at the indignity of the whole thing.

I think we lose something in the fact that
we don’t celebrate baptisms through full immersion.
We could, if we wanted to, install a pool --
full immersion baptism is allowed in Presbyterian practice.
We tend to use baptismal fonts for their convenience,
reminding ourselves that the water is, after all, symbolic,
even just a few drops will suffice.

But whether it is the full immersion of an adult,
or a few drops sprinkled on a baby’s forehead,
the effect is the same.
We become more than just disciples of Christ,
more than just members of his holy catholic church,
catholic with a small “c” meaning “universal”.
We become new men and women.

We become spiritual men and women,
the Spirit filling us.
The theologian Karl Barth says that nothing less than
“The Kingdom of God resides within us”
as a result of our baptism.
(Church Dogmatics, 4.4)

Filled with the Spirit,
fully spiritual men and women,
we are set “free to become what [we were] not
and could not be before,
and … enabled to do what [we] did not
and could not do before.”
(Barth 4.4)

We are free to become the children of God
that God hopes we will be,
God wants us to be,
God created us to be.

Our baptism is a “commencement
which points forward to the future.
It is a take-off for…what is not yet present.
It is a start which involves looking to
and stretching for a future”
(Barth 4.4)

In a few minutes you will come up the bowls
and put your hands in the water.
Don’t just dip your fingers in the bowl --
Immerse them completely, fully.
Imagine your entire self going under the water,
coming up head, hands and feet,
washed clean,
forgiven,
and even more:
transformed,
reborn
a new creation in Christ
by the grace of God
and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then, as you walk back to your seat with your stone,
pray that God will help you to embrace more completely
the term “spiritual”
for it defines you:
who you are and what lies within you,
as a result of your own baptism.

Embrace the word and live it,
live a spiritual life
a life of confidence,
a life as Paul wrote,
in which we can forget “what lies behind
and [look] forward to what lies ahead.”
(Philippians 3:13)

That little stone can, if you let it,
remind you of what lies within you:
the Kingdom of God!
For you are a child of God,
redeemed by Christ,
every inch of you filled with the Holy Spirit;
forgiven,
reborn,
transformed.

So come forward;
Don’t hesitate;
Immerse yourself…
Take the plunge.
AMEN

The Five Hundred Dollar Briefcase

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 7, 2010

The Five Hundred Dollar Briefcase
Isaiah 55:1-3

My old one was pretty beaten up.
It was a rugged canvas briefcase I’d bought
from Land’s End ten years earlier.
What it lacked in style
it more than made up for in function.
It was well-traveled: Boston, San Francisco, Toronto,
London, Frankfurt, Moscow, St. Petersburg --
stuffed under seats, jammed into overhead bins;
always carrying more than it was designed to hold:
a laptop, books, papers, pens,
from time to time even a shirt and a tie.

But it was time for a change.
I’d been Editor of Management & Finance Publications
for The Economist Group in New York City for more than a year,
and I thought it was time for something nicer than a $50 canvas bag.
I was meeting regularly with senior executives
from large corporations -
I thought I needed something that was more appropriate
for my position.
More to the point: I felt I deserved a good briefcase;
that I had earned one.

I began to shop the best leather-goods stores in Manhattan.
This was the mid-1990s,
before the technology bubble and the real estate bubble,
but still prices were high.
It would have been easy for me to have spent
well over a thousand dollars,
so I set what I considered to be a reasonable limit.
I thought something around $500 would suit me just fine.
A five hundred dollar briefcase would set me apart,
fit my position -
a five hundred dollar briefcase would satisfy me.

I looked and looked,
and finally found the perfect case:
Leather so soft, the feel of a well-worn baseball glove,
solid brass fittings,
small, but expandable,
elegant, understated.
I ordered the case, asked that it be monogrammed,
and two days later walked proudly out of the store
carrying my new briefcase.
It felt right,
just right for an editor at the Economist,
a man with expertise in
the most sophisticated issues of management and finance.

It was only a matter of days before I realized
that my new briefcase was heavier than my canvas bag.
It also had a shoulder strap that was not at all comfortable.
The bag could expand to hold a laptop,
but I could not stuff as much into it
as I had with the old case.

A few weeks later, when I made my quarterly trip
to Economist headquarters in London,
I left my expensive, impressive briefcase home.
My old Land’s End bag seemed more practical,
more useful for traveling.

I was beginning to think that I had made a foolish purchase.
Not just an impractical one,
but a vain one,
that I had sought to purchase a briefcase
that would make a statement about me,
about who I was.
My ego got the better of me.

I had bought something to fill what I thought was
more than a want,
more than a desire,
it was a need,
my five hundred dollar briefcase.

Within three months I stopped using it,
and was back to carrying my dirty, worn,
but more than adequate $50 canvas case.
My five hundred dollar briefcase became an expensive
filing cabinet next to my desk at home.

There is no society in the world that is as consumption oriented,
as shopping oriented,
as “thing” oriented as ours.
We buy things to fill needs,
practicing “retail therapy”
because we feel we deserve something,
that we need something,
that we must have something.
Yet how quickly the fascination fades
sometimes even before the credit card bill arrives.

We buy things to feed a hunger,
to quench a thirst,
not realizing that it doesn’t matter what we buy,
or how much we spend.
We’ll only be hungry and thirsty again,
sooner than we can imagine.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk,
and author of many deeply spiritual books,
was highly critical of our culture
for its focus on materialism and consumption,
for its focus on the “inessential and the superficial”.
(Northcutt, Christian Century, Mar. 9, 2010)

A five hundred dollar briefcase,
as nice as it was,
was also utterly inessential;
it was superficial;
Ultimately, it wasn’t even all that practical.

Lent reminds of how easy it is for us
to focus our sight, our minds
on the inessential,
the unnecessary,
the unimportant,
the superficial.

Merton wrote, “When we live superficially
we are always outside ourselves,
never quite “with” ourselves,
always divided and pulled in many directions…
we find ourselves doing many things
that we really do not want to do;
saying things we do not really mean;
needing things we do not really need;
exhausting ourselves for what we secretly realize to be worthless and without meaning our lives.”
(as quoted, Northcutt, CC, Mar. 9, 2010)

Lent provides us with the opportunity to look at ourselves
to see where we are living superficially,
to see where we are skimming across the surface of life
chasing the inessential,
the worthless,
the meaningless;
valuing those things on which God puts no value,
and paying little attention to those things
that God does value.

Lent reminds us as no other time of year does
that in Christ we are given the opportunity
to die to old ways,
and be reborn in new life.
And this rebirth, this being born again,
this is not a one-time event;
It is a process,
it is an evolution, not a moment in time,
something we work on constantly.
As Merton observed,
“The true Christian rebirth is a renewed transformation,
… in which [we are] progressively liberated from selfishness
and not only grow in love,
but in some sense actually become love.”
(Merton, Essential Writings, 66)

We slough off the old,
the layers we have built up over time,
layer by layer, bit by bit,
the layers that get between us and God,
us and Christ.
We slough them off in our life-long rebirth
so that the love that is deep within us can come out,
the love God has given us,
the love ignited by the Holy Spirit,
the love fueled by Christ.

Lent offers us the opportunity to turn,
to turn away from
all those things we may feel we need,
want, deserve,
but which are superficial,
empty,
unsatisfying.
God shows just how well he knows us when he asks,
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”
(Isaiah 55:2)

In turning, in repenting,
we can find what is truly satisfying,
what will leave us feeling filled and content.
In leaving the empty and the unsatisfying behind
we can, perhaps for the first time in our lives,
truly understand what the term
“the peace of Christ” really means.

Here at this table
you will find what will fill you
what will satisfy you.
Here at this table,
a table that looks so spare,
you will find what is essential,
what you desire,
what you need.

Come to this table for this Holy Meal,
prepared by our Lord.
Come and “eat what is good,
and delight yourself in rich food.”
(Isaiah 55:3)
Come to this table and eat richly
and you’ll walk away satisfied, content,
and at peace,
singing the Psalmist’s song:
“O God, you are my God,
I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you…
your steadfast love is better than life…
in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.”
(Psalm 63:1)
AMEN