A Page from God's Blog

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

April 11, 2010

A Page from God’s Blog

Psalm 65:9-13

It seems that everyone these days keeps a blog,

a web log, writing their thoughts on the Internet

for any and all to read.

I’ve posted my sermons on a blog for the past 6 years.

And now it appears that even God has decided to blog.

I stumbled upon his the other day,

and I thought I would share his most recent posting with you.

Here's what God wrote:

“You cannot even begin to imagine the void,

the utter darkness,

the vacuum, the airlessness,

the stillness, the silence.

If I had to point to any one thing,

I think it was the constant chill

that finally got to me.

I resolved to do something.

But what?

I decided to experiment,

and so I took some matter I had created

and squeezed and patted it together,

much like a young boy makes a snowball.

And then I flung it across the void

and just I expected, it exploded,

all that energy I had compressed together

suddenly unleashed,

celestial fireworks going off in every direction,

a rainbow of colors lighting the void,

washing away the darkness,

even if just for a fraction of second.

                                   

As the light faded away I could no longer

see the pieces as they scattered,

but I had tried to shape the ball

as perfectly round as I could,

hoping that pieces would fly off 
in every possible direction.

And sure enough they did,

for after a short while,

I could hear things happening off in the distance,

all around me,

the first sounds to move through the void:

little rumblings, pops,

distinctly fizzy sounds,

whooshes, hisses --

the void suddenly alive with a symphony I had composed

a symphony entitled, “The Creation”.

And then the most wonderful thing began to happen:

first just one, then two, then dozens,

hundreds, thousands, millions,

billions of lights, tiny sparks,

glimmering everywhere I turned.

It was marvelous!

I began to travel around what you call space,

so I could examine more closely what I had begun.

I found that those little sparks of light

were not so little: they were enormous fiery furnaces,

some blazing red with heat,

others reflecting blue, still others yellow, white,

all of them giving off such wonderful light,

light to push back the darkness,

and heat to chase away the chill.

You call them stars;

I call them comforters.

                       

But for all the stars in the sky,

I knew there were still more bits and pieces

from that first snowball still traveling through the void,

bits and pieces that had changed in shape and size 
as they traveled.

And I noticed that those bits and pieces,

which you call planets,

seemed to be drawn to the comfort of nearby stars,

as though the heat and light called to them.

And those bits and pieces each seemed to find a star

where they could settle in,

like they were moving into a neighborhood.

They didn’t stop moving, though,

they each found a path,

that allowed them to glide and whirl with delight           

around their stars, basking in their glow and warmth.

Each star soon had its own collection of bits and pieces.

You call them solar systems,

but I rather like the word, “neighborhood”.

As I continued to watch,

I saw neighborhoods banding together, stars clustering,

as though the stars wanted to form their own neighborhoods.

These I called villages;

you call them galaxies.

Your neighborhood, your solar system,

is in a village you call the Milky Way.

It is a massive village with more than 200 billion stars –

yes I said billion.

When I started all this I wasn’t thinking small.

The Milky Way galaxy is a swirling, spiraling mass

that moves in its own dance with other villages,

billions of villages, each with billions of stars

moving around what you call the universe;

what I call, “home”.

Your own neighborhood -

your Solar System -  is on one of the spindly arms,

a spur that spirals out from the center

of your village, the Milky Way.

I often traveled to your neighborhood as it was forming.

I found it fascinating to take a seat on the planet you call Mercury,

the one closest to the sun.

I loved watching the sun do its work,

the hydrogen undergoing a marvelous process of nuclear fusion

giving off heat and light as a result.

Not bad for someone without a degree in physics!

It was the third planet that I watched most closely.

I knew conditions were different here,

it was just the right distance from the sun:

not too close, not too far.

I watched and each time I blinked,

another million years passed,

and there was something new to see:

great bodies of water,

mountains created as land masses collided,

and so much green!

I am so proud of my trees -

I must admit, even I was taken aback by their beauty,

their majesty, and their infinite varieties.

Now, nothing I create stands idle;

everything has a job to do, a purpose,

and the trees and all the greenery

got to work producing air,

air to support all the life forms I had in mind.

I started small,

and then guided the process upward and outward,

one creature after another,

each new generation a little bit more developed,

but all part of the same family.

I’ve never understood why so many of my children

think it all started just a few thousand years ago,

that I created the earth, the moon, and the stars

with little more than the wave of my hand,

and then as my final act,

created human life from the mud of a riverbank.

                       

Give me more credit than that;

It was WAY more complicated,

and it took a great deal more time.

You seem to forget that I live in the infinite,

so what do I care about time?

That fisherman friend of my Son’s: he understood:

“with the Lord one day is like a thousand years,

and a thousand years are like one day.”

(2 Peter 3:8)                       

While I don’t care about time,

I do care about family,

about connection, about community,

and so as I created,

I wanted everything tied together.

Yes, my children, protest all you like,

but you do have genetic links to monkeys,

and leopards, and robins, and dolphins.

I am hoping you’ll approve of the fact

that there is even a little of the stars in each of you.

That’s how I created everything:

I created it all to work together.

Now it is true that I created you in my image –

not literally of course,

because I am Spirit;

my Son has taught you that.

(John 4:24)

But in creating you in my image,

I didn’t make you of

“of any more special stuff than the rest of creation”;

(B. B. Taylor, The Dominion of Love, in The Green Bible)

I made you in my image for a special purpose:

I made you to reflect me,

my grace,

my goodness,

my love.

I also made you to look after things for me:

to look after all my creation:

to look after other men, women, and children,

especially the most vulnerable;

to look after the plants, the animals,

the birds, the fish;

to look after the seas, the sky,

the mountains, the trees;

to look after all my creation,

every part of it and every one in it,

because it is all good, very good.

When I gave you dominion,

some of you interpreted the word to mean “power”,

that you could do anything you wanted with my creation.

But the word dominion

is not about power,

it is about responsibility:

responsibility for looking after my earth,

my creation.

The land is mine, the water is mine,

the sky is mine

Every creature is mine.

The earth has life because I gave it life;

and I give it life.

I create;

Only I can create.

Can you create?

                                                           

Forty years ago you seemed finally to realize

the damage you had been doing to my earth, my creation,

through your selfishness, your irresponsibility,

your lack of thought for my creation.

You began to realize that you were turning my oceans,

lakes, seas and rivers into sewers,

that you were poisoning my fish, my birds, my animals.

You began to see that the skies I had created

and painted with the perfect shade of blue,

you had turned gray and brown

with haze from your cars and your factories.

                                                           

Oh, you tried to excuse yourselves,

saying it was all for jobs,

all for economic advancement,

all for prosperity.

I am all for that,

but not when it comes at the expense

of all that I have created,

all that I call good.

You’ve made progress over the past 40 years:

I look, for example, at my beautiful Hudson River

and see that it is starting to show signs of life again,

even eagles are nesting once again along the river

confident that they can once again find fish,

where 20 years ago you had poisoned

their food supply with your sewage.

The air in most of your cities is no longer a danger

to the youngest and oldest,

the sick and the weak.

These are all good,

all commendable,

but you still have far to go.

I hear now you arguing now about the impact you are having

on the climate in my creation.

Once again you seem eager to turn a faith issue

into a political issue.

Let me ask you a couple of questions:

Do you really think you can pump tens of millions of tons

of hydrocarbons and other pollutants into the air

from your cars, trucks, and your factories

without all that pollution having some impact,

some bad impact, on my creation?

Do you really think I created this earth

to absorb exhaust from hundreds of millions

of cars and trucks,

from tens of thousands of

smokestacks at plants and factories?

Did you really think your actions

wouldn’t upset the balance I created           

when I created this world?

Those who say that there is still doubt

about just how severe the problem is

sound too much like all those executives

from tobacco companies who all those years kept saying,

“there is no clear, incontrovertible proof

of a link between smoking and cancer.”

Those who deny the existence of the problem

remind me much too much

of the priest and the Levite

who walked by the injured Samaritan

pretending not to see him.

Do you think if you just deny there’s a problem,

deny that your actions might be harming my planet,

you can make the problem go away?

                                                           

My children, actions have consequences.

Your every action has consequences.

Drive a car one mile,

and you pour poison into the air, my air.

Put your trash out on the curb

and the truck that comes to collect has to dump it somewhere,

somewhere on my earth.

Caring for my creation begins with awareness,

awareness of what you are doing to my creation.

Open your eyes and see the impact

you have in all your actions.

Open your eyes and see the impact

you are having on my creation.

My beloved children, open your eyes and see:

you are not living faithfully.                                    

Now I am not asking you to give up driving a car,

or shut down your factories.

Don’t overreact.

What I am asking you to do

is to live your faith by caring for my creation,

live your faith by being a good steward of my creation.            

I gave you oil and coal, but a finite amount.

Quite frankly I am disappointed that you are still using them;

I thought that by the time you entered the 21st century

you would have left them behind

the way you left whale oil behind in the 19th century.

The engine in the car you’re driving

is 100-year old technology.

You are living in the past,

when you should be looking to the future.

Look to the winds, look to the sun:

I have given you them without limit.

I have also given you brains and talent:

put them together

and you can have the prosperity and abundance

you want, and I want for you,

and still live faithful, responsible lives

caring for my creation.

I am grateful to the Psalmist who wrote

“May the Lord rejoice in his works”.

(Psalm 104:31)

I think he may have been the first

to recognize that this earth and all that is in it is mine,

and that his responsibility is to care for it.

Live that way, my children,

demonstrate by your lives that you too

see all my creation as “good”,

and not just “good for you”.

Look after my creation so that

I can always rejoice in my works.

Do that, and not only will I delight in you,

my beloved children,

but don’t be surprised if you feel me

sprinkling a little stardust in your hair.

All my love,

God

AMEN

(Helpful inspirations for this sermon include, The Life of God by Franco Ferrucci; “The Dominion of Love” by Barbara Brown Taylor, found in The Green Bible; and Far Out, by Michael Benson, a magnificent collection of images of the stars in the heavens)

He’s Here – Indeed!

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
April 4, 2010: Easter

He’s Here – Indeed!
Mark 16:1-8

I don’t know this for a fact,
but I am guessing that of the four gospel accounts
of that first Easter,
Mark’s is probably the least popular.
After all – did you hear how it ended?
“So they went out and fled from the tomb,
for terror and amazement had seized them;
and they said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid.”

What kind of an Easter story is that?
Where is "alleluia"?
Where is “he is risen!”?
…Where is Jesus?

Matthew’s gospel was written after Mark’s
and he gives us Jesus:
the women run from the tomb
just as they did in Mark’s version,
but they are not filled with terror;
they are filled with joy
as they run to tell the disciples what the angel told them.
And then, when they’ve run only a few yards,
Matthew tells us, there stands Jesus,
and the women recognize him immediately.
They see him, touch him, hear his voice:
(Matthew 28:8-10)
Matthew gives us “he is risen!”
Matthew gives us Easter!

Luke’s gospel gives us Jesus not once but twice:
the first time later on that first Easter day
as two of the disciples walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
Jesus joins them, walks with them and talks with them.
At first they don’t recognize him,
but when Jesus breaks bread with them,
their eyes are opened and they recognize him!

Jesus appears a second time later that same evening,
this time appearing to all the disciples gathered together,
all of them still filled with fear.
“Why are you frightened,” he asks them.
“And why do doubts arise in your hearts?
Touch me and see.”
(Luke 24:13ff)
Luke gives us “he is risen!”
Luke gives us Easter!

John’s gospel, the last of the four,
gives us the risen Jesus right in the garden,
just by the tomb.
Do you remember the scene:
the grieving Mary Magdalene,
distraught over finding the tomb empty,
fearing that someone had stolen Jesus’ body.
She sees a man she assumes to be the gardener,
but as soon as he speaks,
Mary knows he is Jesus.
(John 20:11ff)
John gives us “he is risen!”
John gives us Easter!

Mark is the odd man out.
He doesn’t seem to want to give us Easter;
he doesn’t give us the risen Jesus.
All he gives us is the empty tomb,
and a very unsatisfying ending.
In fact two later editors thought that Mark’s ending
was so unsatisfactory
that they tacked on two new endings,
an earlier writer adding just one sentence,
and a later writer adding a whole section.
But in the process both gave us “he is risen!”
Both gave us Easter.

Why didn’t Mark give us “he is risen”?
Why didn’t Mark give us an appearance?
Easter isn’t the empty tomb,
Easter is the Resurrection;
it is the Risen Christ.

Ah, but that’s the very essence of faith, isn’t it?
It is believing even when we don’t see.
Perhaps Mark was familiar with Jesus’ words
recorded in John’s gospel,
“blessed are those who have not seen
and yet come to believe.”
(John 20:29)

And we do believe, don’t we?
Even if we have our moments from time to time
when we question, when we doubt,
when our faith seems weak.
Still, we believe in the risen Christ.
We believe in the resurrection.
We believe that in raising Christ from the dead
God vanquished the power of death,
God vanquished the power of sin.
We believe that in the resurrection
you and I are graced with new life in Christ.
This is why we shout out our alleluias!

We believe in the risen Christ
even in the face of Mark’s version,
for we see the risen Christ,
we know he is risen,
we know he is here.
We know he is here indeed!

It is not the memory of Christ,
it isn’t the historic teachings of Christ,
that draw us here, gathered together
this Sunday and every Sunday.

It is the Risen Christ, the living Christ,
who draws us here, draws us together,
draws us into community,
calls us into the body,
all of us followers, believers.

To think otherwise would mean that all we are doing on Sunday,
any Sunday, including Easter,
is simply having a reunion, a memorial,
a time of remembrance
for one who lived, but no longer lives.

It is the Risen Christ here with us now
who calls us to this Table.
This is his Table that is here before us.
The Risen Christ our host,
the one who invites us to sit at table with him,
with one another,
with believers in every time and place.

We may be the hands that sliced the bread,
and filled the cups,
but it is our Living Lord who feeds us
with the bread of life,
and offers us the cup of salvation.
It is our Living Lord who nourishes us,
who feeds us in a way that no one else can,
who quenches our thirst in a way nothing else can.

The Living Christ is here offering us new life;
Our Living Lord waits for us to embrace this new life,
the life of the spirit,
the truly Christ-like life.

This is a life filled with love;
this is a life marked by grace,
This is a life filled with hope,
even in the most difficult of times;
a life in which we know mercy,
and so we can offer mercy;
a life in which we know forgiveness,
and so we can offer forgiveness.

In this new life we shed all the old ways of thinking
all those ways that keep us from
fully embracing the living Christ.
In this new life we embrace Christ’s call
to work for peace and reconciliation
In this new life we embrace Christ’s call
to work for justice and righteousness,
to break down all those barriers we create
between and among one another.
In this new life we embrace Christ’s call
to healing and wholeness for ourselves, for all,
offering healing and wholeness
in every possible way without regard
for politics or ideology.

Christ’s Resurrection is an invitation to new life.
But more than that, it is a charge,
a charge to us, “to live as Jesus lived,
[to walk through] a doorway to a life in which
meals are shared with enemies,
healing is offered to the hopeless,
prophetic challenges are issued to the powerful.”
(N.C. Pittman, Feasting on the Word, 353)

Christ’s Resurrection is a charge to us
individually and together
to take the good news out into the world,
to go out and share God’s grace and love
given us in Christ.

Christ is risen.
He is here with us now;
He is here calling us to new life -
the life that God wants for us,
the life God created each of us for,
the life that completes us,
the life that makes us whole.

Mark’s gospel seems like it is a story in need of ending,
but that makes sense doesn’t it?
For through the risen, living Christ,
the story has not ended;
the story continues through each of us,
each of us doing our part to build the Kingdom.

Christ is risen.
Christ is here.
He is here indeed!
Christ our Lord,
raised to life,
raised to give us life.
Alleluia indeed!
AMEN