The New Normal?

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

July 18, 2010

The New Normal?

Amos 8:1-12

It’s the perfect summer read,

a gripping tale of suspense and intrigue.

It begins with a group of scientists

toiling away in the laboratory of a giant pharmaceutical company,

working feverishly to create a new drug,

a new medicine to treat a serious ailment,

a drug that has the potential to improve

thousands and thousands of lives.

After months and months of long hours and

countless frustrating dead ends,

they finally succeed in creating the right formula.

The medicine works –

it does just what the scientists want it to do.

The scientists are ecstatic,

but they know their work isn’t done yet.

They temper their excitement with realism;

they know every medicine has side effects

and they know they need to test their new drug thoroughly

to determine the extent of any and all effects.

As they complete their studies,

they come to a disturbing conclusion.

The drug appears to trigger a reaction in many people;

not just the occasional upset stomach, or headache.

No, this drug appears to trigger heart attacks.

This drug appears to have a side effect that is fatal.

The team check the data again and again.

They crosscheck every calculation, every dosage,

every possible variant.

A cloud of gloom descends on the laboratory.

The scientists realize this is a dangerous drug;

too dangerous for the marketplace.

They report their findings to the company’s senior executives.

Not safe.

That’s what they tell the company’s top brass.

The senior management listen to the scientists,

impassive, faces showing no expression.

They congratulate the scientists for their accomplishments,

thank them for their hard work,

and then dismiss them from the conference room.

The executives confer among themselves

and they all agree:

the company desperately needs this drug in the marketplace.

They need the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue

they expect the drug to generate;

they need the tens of millions of dollars in profits

they expect the drug to add to the company’s bottom line.

A successful launch of the drug will result not only

in handsome bonuses for each of  them,

but will also lift the company’s stock price higher,

and the executives sitting round the table in the conference room

will be richer by millions of dollars.

They make their decision:

The drug will be put on the market.

When the scientists learn of management’s decision,

they are startled and concerned.

They assume that the drug will carry a stern warning with it,

a warning to guide doctors as they prescribe the medicine,

a warning that there is a serious risk of heart attack

as a possible side effect.

But no, they learn.

There will be no warnings of any kinds.

The chief scientist sends an e-mail to his team

regarding all their reports, all their findings:

“Per Senior Management request,

these data should not see the light of day

to anyone outside [the company]”

All the studies, all the reports that make clear the risk –

they are to be buried in the company’s files.

Scientists will be forced to keep quiet,

not talk with anyone,

This is the order from top management.

The drug hits the market and doctors prescribe it enthusiastically,

unaware that it is unsafe for many of their patients,

especially those with heart problems.

One by one,

people taking the drug begin to die.

The senior executives knew they were taking a risk

in putting the drug on the market.

But it was a risk,

a gamble,

they were willing to take.

There was simply too much money,

too much profit at stake.

This sounds like a plot from a John Grisham novel, doesn’t it?

Just the kind of book to read this summer on the beach,

on a screened porch,

or while lying in a hammock.

Here’s the problem, though:

The story is true.

It was on page one of the New York Times just this past week.

(“Diabetes Drug Maker Hid Test Data, Files Indicate,”

July 12, 2010)

For the past 11 years,

one of the world’s largest drug manufacturers

intentionally kept files, reports, and studies buried,

hidden away,

all because they revealed the dangerous side effects

of a drug that was too important to the company’s profits,

too important to the company’s bottom line.

Who would do something like this?

Surely only evil men and women?

Surely only men and women with no morals,

no hearts, no souls,

no concern for others.

This must have been a company partnering with organized crime,

willing to do anything to make a buck,

even at the expense of peoples' lives.

No, this was a highly respected global company.

The executives throughout the organization looked like us,

looked just like our neighbors.

They were well educated, had families,

were involved in the community,                          

many probably attended a church, a synagogue,

a house of worship.

And yet, somehow money, profit,

the bottom line -

grabbed hold of their hearts and minds,

corrupting them.

It’s troubling enough when we read of

even one such incident,

one report of this kind of behavior.

But what is even more troubling is that

this kind of behavior seems to be the new normal in business:

more and more companies corrupted

by a culture of greed,

short-term profits blinding everyone 
to even the most compelling moral concerns;

executives justifying their behavior as acceptable risks,

the cost of doing business,        

people hurt written off as unfortunate collateral damage,

paid off through insurance,

or money set aside for lawsuits –

just another deductible business expense.

Make the sale,

push the goods out the door into the marketplace.

How many mortgage brokers pushed people

they knew weren’t qualified

into mortgages they knew they couldn’t afford,

all so that the brokers could book the sales,

and collect their commissions?

BP has been filling newspapers with ads

proclaiming that they will make things right

after causing the single biggest environmental disaster

we’ve ever witnessed.

Yet, BP’s record reveals a company built on a culture

that aims for quick profits,

never hesitating to cut corners,

even at the expense of worker safety,

or complying with environmental standards.

How many times have we heard stories this past year

of investors defrauded,

men and women trusting investment advisors with life savings,

only to learn that their advisor stole their money,

spending it on himself, on living a life of luxury

even as he pushed his clients into poverty.

This is the situation that existed back in Amos’ day,

more than 2700 years ago.

God looked and saw people more concerned with business,

than with righteousness,

more concerned with money

than with faithfulness.

Did you hear how the men of commerce

whined and complained

that they could only sell their goods six days a week,

and not during religious observances:

“when will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain,

and the Sabbath so that we may offer wheat for sale.”

Do you hear what they were saying:

“Every time one of those religious days rolls around,

we lose the opportunity to make money!”

God was disgusted by what he saw:

Merchants who didn’t deny their dishonesty:

“We will make the [the measure] small,

and the shekel great,

and practice deceit with false balances.”

God looked upon his children and

saw too many who paid no attention to the Proverb,

“Better to be poor and walk in integrity,

than to be crooked in one’s ways even though rich.”

(Proverbs 28:6)

God saw too many of his children

who were nothing more than crooks, con artists,

men and women who thought nothing of being

fundamentally dishonest in their business dealings

as long as it made a profit for them.

Where God had called his children to look after the poor,

to tend to the concerns of the needy,

what God found were men and women

who could “buy the poor for silver

and the needy for a pair of sandals”.

These were the precursors of credit card companies,

loaning the poor money to buy grain and food,

and in the process pulling the poor deeper into debt,

pushing them into lives of servitude, slavery.

                 

God wanted none of this;

This was not what God expected of his children,

and drastic action was needed.

So God decided to bring famine upon the land,

but not a famine of food.

No, if the people are more interested in chasing money

comfort and success than in following God,

if they find the poor a nuisance,

and observing the Sabbath an inconvenience,

if they really have no need for the Lord God,

then so be it:

“You who trample on the needy,

and bring ruin to the poor of the land,

you shall run to and fro,

seeking the word of the Lord,

but you will not find it.”

Go ahead, God declares,

sell your grain on the Sabbath;

cheat the poor;

put a dangerous drug on the market;

make cigarettes seductive and cool,

especially to teenagers;

push more debt onto people

who are already drowning in it;

falsify your financial reports;

cut back on worker safety.

Tell the world your job is to

“maximize shareholder value.”

Tell the world, “it’s only business”.

Spin it anyway you like.

But I the Lord God am not buying what you’re selling:

‘Ah, I am rich,’ [you say],

I have gained wealth for myself;

in all of my gain no offense has been found in me

that would be sin.”

(Hosea 12:7ff)

God hears such talk and probably doesn’t know whether

to laugh or cry.

God isn’t anti-capitalist,

or anti-business.

But God is utterly contemptuous

of the business person who is dishonest,

unethical,

who operates without integrity,

who puts profit before people.

And God isn’t interested in rationalization,

or public relations spin.

God doesn’t want to hear,

“I’m not as bad as others.”

God expects honesty, integrity

in everything we do, including our business dealings.

Hasn’t our Lord Jesus Christ taught us,

“whoever is dishonest in a very little

is also dishonest in much.”

(Luke 16:10)

John Galt, the protagonist of Ayn Rand’s

magnum opus “Atlas Shrugged”,

a favorite of the business world for its celebration of

the business man as hero, asks,

“Do you ask what moral obligation

I owe to my fellow men?”

And Galt's answer is firm:

“None.”

(1022)

That may be a good strategy for enhancing the bottom line,

but it is also faithless.

That’s the attitude that was so pervasive in Amos’ time,

and seems to be more and more pervasive in our own.

We can continue down that path,

and watch our bank accounts grow,

but the prophet Amos would tell us

“Be careful.

For some day from the comfort of your affluence

you will seek God,

and you will not find him,

for God will have turned from you.

And you will find the silence deafening.

And all the gold in the world

will not comfort you."

AMEN

Guitar – and Other - Heroes

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
July 11, 2010

Guitar – and Other - Heroes
Luke 21:1-4

I stood in front of the display case in the museum
and looked at the outfit.
It was so elaborate…
too elaborate.
It was too Elvis, too Las Vegas.

It looked uncomfortable,
totally impractical.
How could a rock star wear something like that?

What really struck me though,
wasn’t the look of the outfit;
it was how small it was -
it was clearly made for a man
who was not very tall
and as thin as a flagpole.

I’d seen the outfit more than 30 years before.
The man who wore it was on stage
at Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium.
Up there, he didn’t look like the 25-year old
skinny guitarist from England that he was.
Up on stage, he looked enormous,
a giant of a man strutting back and forth,
side to side,
left hand flying furiously up and down
the fretboard of his guitar,
his right hand picking, pulling,
bending every string,
as he created great crashing cords,
and piercing solos,
the sound washing over 16,000 rapturous fans,
all of us awestruck by the entire band,
but all of us totally riveted by the man with the guitar:
Jimmy Page,
the guitarist in the legendary rock band
Led Zeppelin.

Page was my first guitar hero.
No one could play the guitar like he could:
electric, acoustic, 12 string, double neck.
He was master of them all.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say
that virtually every hard rock band since
has roots in Led Zeppelin.

By the time I graduated from high school, though
my musical tastes had changed and evolved.
I still listened to Led Zeppelin but
Eric Clapton had replaced Page as my guitar hero.
Clapton first came to fame
a few years earlier with the band Cream
but in the early 1970s he fronted his own band
called Derek and the Dominoes.
It wasn’t Zeppelin’s hard rock;
it was somehow cleaner, lighter,
more precise,
less crash, smash, and bang.

By the early 1980s Pat Metheny had moved to the top
of my pantheon of guitar heroes.
He made his guitar sing so sweetly
fusing jazz and rock
with boundless creativity and energy.

All three guitarists are still active -,
Clapton and Page both in their 60s,
Metheny my age.
But I no longer think of them as guitar heroes.
I see them now as just otherwise ordinary men
with extraordinary gifts and skills
they have honed over the decades,
singular artists younger guitarists
now model themselves after.

Of course, I can be my own guitar hero now.
All I need is the video game by that name,
and I can rock on in the privacy of my own family room.

Hero is not a word we normally equate with guitar players,
especially rock guitarists.
Hero is a word we are more inclined to use to describe
someone who has shown valor and bravery
in the face of great danger,
someone who has even faced death:
a soldier in combat,
a police officer pursuing a dangerous criminal,
a firefighter groping through dense smoke
to find a person trapped by flames.

But heroes aren’t only those we pin medals on,
or whose pictures are on the front page of the newspaper.
There are heroes all around us,
men and women, young and old,
all different backgrounds,
quietly living heroic lives,
lives built on courage,
strength,
and most important: selflessness,
a deep caring for the needs of others.

The woman in our story was a hero.
As Jesus points out, the wealthy were doing nothing heroic;
they gave money they could easily afford.
The woman, though,
gave “all she had to live on.”

She was a widow,
which back in Jesus’ day
meant that she had no means of support.
Luke used the word “poor” twice in this short passage,
and tells us she lived in poverty.
And yet her piety, her devotion,
her concern for the needs of others,
was so powerful that even our Lord himself was struck.

In her heroic act, she set an example of selflessness,
faithfulness,
complete trust in God.
She must have known the words of the Psalmist,
“Be strong and let your heart take courage!”
(Psalm 27:14/31:24)

Heroes are strong,
but their real strength is not physical;
their real strength is in their heart.
They are able to look beyond themselves
to the needs of others.
And the more they do,
the stronger their heart becomes.
The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick once said,
“the strong heart makes itself felt everywhere,
and lifts up the whole of life and ennobles it.”
(Sermons to Young Men, 64)

This is what heroes do:
through small heroic actions
they “lift up the whole of life
and ennoble it.”

We commissioned heroes a few minutes ago:
the volunteers who will welcome more than 100 children
to our Vacation Bible School starting tomorrow -
all those who will play, laugh, create,
teach, and share joy with every child
they will all act in love,
act selflessly,
act heroically.

Our Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers
who will spend a week of their summer vacation
helping others in the July heat,
who will reach out in friendship
to new faces in new places:
they will all be living heroic lives.

The folks who will wield hammers and saws
in the West Virginia sunshine
for Habitat for Humanity
to help people in a community far from here
have homes that are little more comfortable
a little safer, a little nicer,
to help them have things we take for granted:
they’ll be acting heroically.

And we have other heroes all around us:
knitters,
volunteers in our Nursery and ETC,
those who prepare grace meals,
anyone and everyone who responds to Christ’s call
to reach out beyond themselves,
to give of themselves
to remember our call to serve,
and not be served.

You and I are called to live heroic lives,
heroic lives grounded in Christ,
grounded so we draw strength
and courage from our faith,
remembering Paul’s words:
“I can do all things through him who strengthens me..”
(Philippians 4:13)

Come and find strength at this Table.
Come and find courage in this meal.
For our Lord invites us to come to his Table
to eat this meal he has prepared for us,
a meal that will renew and refresh us in Spirit,
so we can go out and live heroic lives
as disciples of Jesus Christ. 

AMEN

Taxes are Due, but Jesus is Lord

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

July 4, 2010 

Taxes are Due, but Jesus is Lord

Luke 20:20-26

It was an ordinary day, mid-morning, twenty years ago.

I was in my office at the consulting firm

I worked for in Buffalo

before I moved to New York City

and joined The Economist.

The telephone rang, and when I picked up the receiver

I heard the familiar voice of a classmate from high school.

He was a lawyer in town

and we bumped into one another regularly.

We chatted for a couple of minutes,

typical small talk: how’s business,

how’s the family,

and then he said,

“I’ll tell you why I called.

I am planning to run for Congress,

in the district just south of Buffalo where I live.

I want you to be part of my advisory team

and help me plan my campaign.”

I was surprised by his request.

My involvement in politics up to that point had never gone

beyond the voting booth.

I had never gone to a political rally or meeting,

never put a bumper sticker on my car,

or a sign on my front lawn.

I wasn’t even a member of a political party.

                                   

My friend said, “Let’s have lunch tomorrow

and I’ll tell you why I want to run for Congress.

We met and over the next two hours,

he shared his vision, his hopes, and his dreams with me.

I liked what I heard and agreed to help,

only part-time,

helping with strategy and planning,

as well as advising on business and economic matters,

my areas of expertise.

For the next two months, we did a little planning,

a little strategizing,

but most of my friend’s time

was spent on doing what all those

who seek elective office need to do:

he worked the telephones to raise money.

He was proposing to challenge an incumbent,

and we knew that it would take a lot of money.

After eight weeks of furious effort,

we sat down and looked at where we were.

We agreed that he was not likely to raise the money

he’d need to mount a competitive campaign.

He decided to end his brief campaign then and there,

and my foray into politics came to an end.

Or so I thought.

Jump ahead four years.

I was still in Buffalo, still at the consulting firm.

Once again, an otherwise ordinary morning,

once again, the telephone rang.

This time it was a voice I didn’t know.

But I recognized the caller’s name.

He too was a lawyer,

and he too was considering a run for Congress,

this time in a district just north of Buffalo.

A mutual friend had recommended me to him

as someone who might help him organize a campaign.

We met a couple of days later,

and he shared with me his vision, his ideas,

his hopes and his dreams -

why he wanted to serve in Congress.

Once again, I liked what I heard

and once again I agreed to help, again just part-time. 

He asked me to help build his organization,

and we agreed that the best way for me to start

was to fly down here to Washington,

and go through “Campaign Manager’s College,”

an intensive week-long program

offered by the candidate’s political party.

It was a fascinating five days,

even in the drab setting of a hotel in Crystal City.

At the end of the week,

a dozen of us who’d come together for the program “graduated”,

and went back to the candidates we were working with

to prepare for our campaigns.

But once again,

the lawyer was planning to challenge a long-time incumbent,

a Congressman who had piles of money.

Once again, after eight weeks of furious effort trying to raise money,

the lawyer called a halt to his campaign,

concluding that he could not hope to raise the funds he’d need

to mount an effective challenge.

This time my swim in the pool of politics really did come to an end.

Two months after we shut down the campaign,

I moved to New York City to take a new job,

and then a couple of years later moved to Princeton

to begin my studies at Seminary.

There are few subjects we love to discuss as much as politics,

especially here in the shadow of our nation’s capital.

Passion runs deep in politics,

regardless of party affiliation,

and that’s just as true, sometimes even more so,

among followers of Jesus Christ.

                          

Over the last 30 years there have been a growing number of voices

arguing that disciples of Christ should be actively involved

in every level of politics.

The Dobsons, Perkins and Robertsons

stand firmly behind pulpits or

in front of cameras in their television studios and

call on all Christians to demonstrate

a muscular faith in all settings

but especially in the voting booth.

It has been principally churches

that embrace the term conservative

that have been at the vanguard of this political activism,

many going so far as telling their congregants

who they should vote for,

and just as important, who not to vote for.

They are not bashful:
“a vote for so-and-so is a vote for Jesus”

On the surface, our lesson seems to teach us, though,

that we should keep politics and faith separate and distinct.

Jesus’ quote is so familiar:

“Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s

and to God the things that are God’s.”

Or as many of us learned it,

“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s

and unto God that which is God’s.”

                                   

Matters of the state,

political matters:

they should be kept on one side of a solid wall,

and matters of God, our faith, our discipleship,

they should be kept on the other side -

it sounds like that’s what Jesus is saying.

“Bring your tithe to the Temple,

as Scripture demands,

but when Rome also requires a tax,

pay that, too, just as willingly.”

Jesus was not politically active during his ministry;

he never shined a bright light

on the rampant corruption found everywhere

in the layers of governance imposed by Rome

throughout Judea and the surrounding nations.

He wasn’t trying to overthrow the government,

even though he was seen as a rebel.

He was certainly aware that most of the taxes

collected by Roman authorities

were used to support Rome’s military might,

which was often brutal and oppressive.

But he was also certainly aware that tax money

also went for civic improvement and services;

that taxes back then as now were also a source

of things that benefited the common good.

The Romans built roads,

brought clean water into cities,

and improved sanitation.

But Jesus wasn’t interested in confronting the civil authorities.

His focus was on God,

on obeying his Father in Heaven,

and calling on all who would listen

to obey his Father in Heaven, their Father in Heaven.

He knew that even the Roman emperor,

as powerful as he was,

was still nothing more than a mortal man.

Jesus knew what Scripture taught:

“A king is not saved by his great army,

a warrior is not delivered by his great strength;

The war horse is vain hope for victory.”

(Psalm 33:16)

For God rules over all.

God rules over all.

It is God to whom we owe our primary allegiance,

our primary loyalty.

The King, the state, the nation

any civil authority,

are always secondary.

It was the preacher Fred Craddock

who put it in such a “homey” way:

“Taxes are due,

but Jesus is Lord.”

We live within a civil society,        

and are governed by civil leaders whom follow,

but God is King,

Jesus is Lord.

Today we joyfully celebrate our nation’s birthday.

We are all proud Americans,

patriots every one of us.

But sometimes it is easy to forget that patriotism,

love of our country, as important as they are,

are secondary to our obedience to God in Jesus Christ.

We are first, last, and always followers of Jesus Christ.

        

Peter put it directly and bluntly

as he began his preaching ministry

following the first Pentecost:

“We must obey God

rather than any human authority.”

(Acts 5:29)

From a practical standpoint

that means that try as the Robertsons, the Dobsons

and their colleagues might,        

no political party can claim to be the favored of God,

the party of Jesus.

It was Abraham Lincoln who so wisely reminded us

that the question is not

“…is God on our side,

but are we on God's side?"

We are called to live our faith,

live our lives of discipleship in all places

and all times,

and that includes in the civic arena,

whether we are working to elect a candidate

to a political office,

or simply filling out a ballot on election day.

But living our faith isn’t always easy,

especially when the path our civic leaders call us to follow

doesn’t feel like it is the path Jesus calls us to walk.

War,

care of God’s creation,

helping the homeless, the jobless, the hungry:

These are all issues that call us to exercise our faith in the civic arena.

The issue of immigration reform, which is again

front page news, is only the most recent example

of how challenging it can be to live our faith.

There is legitimate concern among people of all political leanings

about how to handle the problem of illegal immigration.

Everyone agrees that we need comprehensive reform

of our immigration system.

We are a nation of immigrants,

but things are vastly different from the days

more than 100 years ago

when my ancestors came here from Scotland,

got off the boat without going through Ellis Island,

Customs, or needing to apply for a Green Card.

They just found a place to live,

found work, and built a life.

I don’t know what the answer is,

but however we shape reform,

we Christians should speak loudly in favor of reform

that is compassionate,

that is humane,

that is grounded in the grace and love God gives us in Christ.

Scripture tells us,

“When an alien resides with you in your land,

you shall not oppress the alien.

The alien who resides with you shall be to you

as the citizen among you;

you shall love the alien as yourself,….”

(Leviticus 19:33)

Jesus teaches us to “welcome the stranger”.

(Matthew 25:35)

We cannot respond,

“Yes, but this is different.”

Either we live our faith, or we don’t.

The Barmen Declaration,

one of our Confessional statements in our Book of Confessions,

puts so clearly the life we are called to:

“As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins,

so in the same way and with same seriousness

is he also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life.

Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance

from the godless fetters of this world

for a free, grateful service to his creatures.”

(Book of Confessions, 8.14)

This is the life Jesus calls us to:

of free, grateful service to all,

following the one who came not to be served,

but to serve,

at church, at home, at school,

and in the civic arena,

all of us grounded in faith that is free of

dogma, ideology,

imposed creeds,

partisanship, a quest for uniformity.

Rather it is a faith grounded in

compassion, grace,

mercy, love,

and yes, liberty and justice for all.

That made it easy for me twenty years ago

to work with a man who planned a run for Congress

on the Democratic ticket,

and made it just as easy four years later

to work with a man who planned a run for Congress

on the Republican ticket.

For us, even as we go off to picnics today

and watch fireworks tonight
celebrating proudly the 234^th birthday of our nation,

we go as disciples of Jesus Christ,

the one we follow first and last,

the Alpha and Omega,

and our true freedom.

AMEN