Brand ME

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 26, 2010


Brand ME
1 Timothy 6:6-19

It may be the most frequently misquoted verse in the Bible:
“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
You might have learned it as,
“money is the root of evil”,
or “money is the root of all evil.”
But do you hear what Paul is saying to Timothy,
what Paul is saying to us:
For the love of money
is a root
of all kinds of evil”

Money is a thing.
We decide its value.
We hammer out a piece of shiny gold metal,
or take silver and pour it into a mold,
and when we have given form to our creation,
we say, “This is worth a dollar,
or twenty dollars,
or a hundred dollars.”

Back in Jesus’ day,
each Roman emperor struck his own coins,
bearing his own image.
A coin bearing the image of an emperor
lost its value the moment a new emperor ascended the throne.

Over time we learned paper is much lighter
and easier to carry than metal coins,
so we learned to take paper,
print some words and numbers on it, and call it money.
Here in this country we print on our money,
“This note is legal tender for all debts”,
the money backed by our federal government.
You put a five dollar bill in the plate,
and the men and women who count the offerings
following the service, won’t have any doubt
about the value of that piece of paper.

The piece of metal with an image of
George Washington stamped on it;
The piece of paper with a solemn
Abraham Lincoln looking at us,
by themselves, they are neither good nor bad;
neither holy nor evil.

We determine whether money is good or bad,
by how we look at it, how we think about it,
by how we use it.
If we love money,
view it as something to covet,
something to horde,
something to accumulate in great quantities,
something to idolize,
we give truth to Paul’s words.
Our focus on money,
our preoccupation, even our obsession
sows the seeds that will take root
and, as Jesus warned, tangle and strangle
God’s word to us.

View money as a resource, however,
something that not only can put food on your table
and a roof over your head,
but can also be used for the common good,
a resource to be shared with others who are less fortunate,
and we view money in a way Paul would approve of,
in a way that would make Jesus smile.

If Paul were to write to his young protégé today,
he would be astounded by the temptations
that surround us,
so many different ways for us to spend our money:
buy this, buy that,
buy, buy, buy:
It’s hard even for the clergy
not to get pulled into rampant consumerism.

The message in our consumer society is,
if you buy this product,
people will think you are more attractive,
sexier, smarter, more successful.
If you buy this, you will be happier.
And so we succumb to the temptations,
reaching for the glittering images
that we think will somehow make us feel better about ourselves.
As the ad goes, “because I’m worth it.”

We’ve become such a ferociously consumer society,
but along with consumerism comes selfishness,
self indulgence,
buy this for you, spend money on yourself
to make yourself feel good.
Build yourself as a brand,
just like Coca Cola, or Nike, or Mercedes:
Brand “me”, represented by
the house I live in,
the clothes I wear,
the car I drive
the restaurants I go to.
Brand “me”,
Brand “you”,
Brand each of us.

In the process, we become a more selfish,
self-centered society;
A society slowly losing its sense of community,
slowly losing its sense of compassion for others,
slowly losing its empathy for others;
empathy: that word we often confuse for sympathy
but means simply “identifying with another’s situation;
understanding another’s feelings.”

A recent study from the University of Michigan
came to some disturbing conclusions:
they found that the generation just starting careers,
families, those who in another 10, 15, 20 years
will be leading businesses, government, churchs,
are markedly less empathetic, less compassionate;
more selfish, more self centered than previous generations.
(The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research;
http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=7724)

Now if we accept the results of the study even in part,
we cannot even think about pointing a critical finger
at the younger generation
without first asking the questions:
Who shaped them?
Who guided them?
Who have been their teachers, coaches, clergy,
and role models?
Whatever they have learned,
they have learned from us.

The Reverend Frederick Buechner argues
that the very essence of any religion, including our own,
is compassion:
“compassion – that capacity for feeling
what it is like to live inside another’s skin,
knowing that there can never really be peace and joy for any
until there is peace and joy finally for all.”

This is what we should be teaching our young people,
that there can never really be peace and joy for ourselves,
until there is peace and joy for all.
But we cannot teach that lesson to anyone
if we haven’t learned it ourselves,
if we haven’t learned how to live it.

And we live it by living our lives as Paul urged Timothy:
pursuing “righteousness, godliness,
faith, love,
endurance, and gentleness.”
It is learning to live a life of compassion for others,
a life built on empathy,
on understanding that whatever we have,
including whatever money we might have,
God calls us to share with those who don’t have enough.

We’ve barely begun the Bible before we find
God teaching all his children,
including you and me,
that life lesson:
Once the children of Israel were established in their new land,
the land of milk and honey,
the land they journeyed for 40 years to find,
once they settled and began to grow crops,
God taught them just what to do at harvest time:
“When you reap the harvest of your land,
you shall not reap to the very edge of your field
or gather the gleanings of your harvest.
You shall not strip your vineyard bare,
or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard;
you shall leave them for the poor and the alien.”
(Leviticus 19:9)

Put another way:
you shall have compassion for the poor,
all the poor,
and always set aside something for them.
We cannot even begin to imagine following such a command now;
we want to maximize our yield,
maximize our profit:
It’s my land,
my hard work that led to such a good harvest;
I deserve all the fruits of my labors.
Isn’t that the thinking now?
We are rapidly becoming a society that seems to prefer
the oath uttered by John Galt in the novel Atlas Shrugged,
the bible of the accumulazzi:
“I swear – by my life and my love of it –
that I will never live for the sake of another man,
nor ask another man to live for mine.”

When the rich young man confronted Jesus
and asked what he needed to do to have eternal life,
you remember Jesus’ response:
“Go, sell your possessions,
and give the money to the poor,
and you will have treasure in heaven;
then come follow me.”
(Matthew 19:21)
Jesus said this to the man not because he wanted to teach us
that we are to give away everything we have.
Jesus said this because he knew the young man
was too attached to his possessions,
to his comfort, to his money
to himself, his own wants and desires
to give away anything.
To give away even one thing would have been
to have given away a part of himself.
His possessions defined him, branded him.

Jesus doesn’t expect us to give away everything we have;
but he warns us
“…the cares of the world, and the lure of wealth,
and the desire for other things come in
and choke the word, and it yields nothing.”
Mark 4:19

The love of money,
the idolization of money,
the worship of money,
the focus on money,
the emphasis on money,
even just the preoccupation with money:
they are the root of all kinds of sin,
because they distract us from God
from living as God commands us,
as Jesus teaches us.

Do you remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus:
We find it only in Luke’s gospel. (16:19)
It is a story about a different Lazarus, not Jesus’ friend,
the brother of Mary and Martha
whom Jesus raised from the dead.
This Lazarus was a starving man, a sick man
who lay in filthy, tattered clothing,
by the gate of the home of a wealthy man,
hoping for even just a few crumbs
from the rich man’s table.

We can only imagine what the wealthy man thought
when he first saw Lazarus near his home.
“Can’t the authorities do something about this?
I don’t want this filthy beggar hanging around my home.
He’s probably just lazy,
too lazy to work,
content to steal a few coins from my purse
rather than putting in an honest day’s labor.”

But as time passed, the rich man
paid less and less attention to Lazarus,
less each day,
until Lazarus all but disappeared in the eyes of the rich man.
Oh Lazarus was still there,
but the rich man simply turned a blind eye to him –
“if I don’t see you, then you are not really there.”
The rich man no longer even noticed the smell
from Lazarus’ filthy clothing, his unwashed body.
The rich man had no compassion;
no empathy.

He may have gone to the Temple
and offered sacrifices each day;
He may have tithed;
He may have been honored by the leaders of the religious community.
But he didn’t love his neighbor as himself.
He loved only himself.
He didn’t pursue righteousness;
He didn’t pursue gentleness;
He didn’t pursue godliness.

The great fourth century theologian Augustine
once wrote, “By lusting after something more,
we are made less
(Augustine: NPNF 1.III.160)
We are made less
as we try to accumulate more,
building brand “me”
rather than seeking the life Christ calls us to,
the life Paul urges Timothy to seek
the real life,
the life where we can find true contentment,
true satisfaction and true peace;
A love grounded in love,
love of God, love for ourselves,
and love for our neighbor,
including the poor, the sick, the weak,
and the stranger.

It is life in which there is nothing wrong with material success,
but it is a life in which our goal, our priority, our focus
is on pursuing righteousness,
godliness,
faith,
love,
endurance, and gentleness.

This is how we will take hold of real life,
true life,
the life that Jesus calls us to.
the life that Paul wants for Timothy.
This is eternal life,
for it is life in the presence of the eternal.

Augustine began his Confessions
with this observation,
“Our hearts will be restless,
until they come to rest in God.”
The irony is that even our money knows that,
perhaps better than we ourselves do,
for our money reminds us,
“In God we trust.”

It isn’t just the wealthy,
but all of us who are called by Jesus,
to do good,
to be rich in good works,
to be generous,
and ready to share.
For in living this kind of life,
living this way
we will have the life that really is life.

AMEN

Myth Busting

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 19, 2010

Myth Busting

Revelation 9:1-12

Well, what in the world do we do with our text?

Is what I read really “the Word of the Lord”?

If it is, how are we to interpret it?

What are we to learn from it?

Locusts dressed up like horses equipped for battle?

Crowns of gold resting on their little locust heads?

Their faces with human features,

long locks of hair flowing from crown to chin,

lion’s fangs for teeth.

This may be more than we can handle on a Sunday morning.

Is it any wonder that the Lectionary detours around Revelation?

Is it any surprise that when John Calvin

wrote commentaries on all the books of the Bible

almost 500 years ago,

he pointedly omitted Revelation,

believing that it should never have been included

in the canon in the first place?

If this were a different church,

with a different approach to the Bible,

interpreting this text would be easy.

You would hear me say in no uncertain terms that

this passage paints a vivid picture of what lies ahead,

what will happen, soon, very soon.

It will be awful,

the end times,

bringing pain and suffering beyond imagination,

but only for those who are not among the elect,

those who don’t have God’s seal on their foreheads.

And then I would tell you what you need to do

to assure that you are part of the elect,

part of the 144,000 an earlier chapter in Revelation

tells us will be the saved.

(Revelation 7)

We’d all breathe a sigh of relief,

and then turn our attention to more important matters:

working to assure the salvation of those around us,

those we know are not part of the elect,

those we know are not part of the elect

because we can tell,

because we just know.

The Revelation to John –

and that is the book’s correct title,

not “Revelations” with an “s” –

is the most widely and wildly

misinterpreted and misunderstood book in the Bible.

Luke Timothy Johnson, an eminent New Testament scholar,

once said of the book, “Few writings in all literature

have been so obsessively read

with such generally disastrous results.”

It is this book, and passages like our text

that remind us why education and life-long learning

are so important to us as Presbyterians;

why we put so much time, energy and effort

into our Christian Education programs

here at MPC.

We want to understand God’s word to us

as we read the Bible.

But Revelation isn’t the only book in the Bible

that can be confusing, confounding,

elusive more than illuminating.

We need help, we need guidance.

Otherwise we risk misunderstanding and misinterpreting.

We risk getting caught up in myths,

the things we think we know

about the characters and stories in the Bible.

It is through our commitment to Christian Education

that we work at being myth busters,

cutting through the misunderstandings,

so we can find our way to God’s word,

so we can truly learn.

It would be so much easier for us

if we read the Bible as the literal word of God,

as some denominations do.

We could read each sentence,

each paragraph, each book,

and say, “that’s that.”

                 

But that’s not what we do,

not here in the Presbyterian Church.

We read the Bible as the “inspired” word of God,

and that means we have to work at understanding.

We have to read the words and then ask ourselves

what is it that God wants us to learn

from the book, the paragraph,

the sentence;

what is it that God wants us to take from the story

and weave into our own lives

so we become part of the story.

The Bible is filled with difficult passages

that we need to read,

and then read again,

and then read yet again to find a sense of understanding.

We need to read them in worship services on Sunday mornings,

but even more so, we need to read them in classrooms,

living rooms, retreat centers,

any place where we can gather with one another,

and someone who can teach us,

guide us,

lead us,

help us to find understanding.

It isn’t just Revelation that gives us trouble.

Even the Gospels are filled with confusing verses and texts.

What are we to do, for example, with Jesus’ adamant teaching:

“If your right eye causes you to sin,

tear it out and throw it away…

and if your right hand causes you to sin,

cut it off and throw it away.”

(Matthew 5:29ff)

Pair this teaching with what we read in the first letter of John,

“if we say we have no sin

we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”

(1 John 1:8),

and we ought to conclude

that the seats in our Sanctuary should be filled with

one-eyed, one-handed disciples.

As we dig, as we read with deeper eyes,

with open minds,

learning that Jesus often used hyperbole to make his point.

He doesn’t expect us to take him literally;

he does, however, expect us to take him seriously,

and to work at understanding what he’s saying to us

and what he wants us to do with his teaching.

The Bible is filled with word paintings,

lessons taught through illustrations,

through metaphor, analogy, allegory

Jesus often spoke in parables,

many of which confound us and confuse us

“Tell us what to do” we say to Jesus,

and his response is maddening:

“Let me tell you a story,”

and then he relates to us a vignette

something about how we are all like dirt,

different kinds of dirt,

leaving it to us to figure out

just what kind of dirt we are.

And oh how quick we are to conclude

that we’re the good dirt,

the good soil Jesus talks about,

while everyone else around us is rocky and thorn-ridden.

(Mark 4)

But Jesus doesn’t give us time to grow smug

before he tells us another story about

how we have planks,

veritable logs, in our eyes.

How absurd it sounds to us to hear Jesus tell us

that the meek will inherit the earth.

living as we do in a society that prizes achievement,

wealth, and power.

The news this past week that the number of Americans

living in poverty has never been greater,

forty-four million men, women, and children

one in seven Americans,

was greeted with a yawn.

How can they inherit the earth?

It is the strong we focus on,

and the bigger story this past week

was how and why we should cut taxes for the wealthy.

                 

We gather in classrooms

and open our Bibles and our minds

as we lift up our prayers:

“Teach us, O Lord.

Help us to understand your Word.

Help us to find ourselves in the pages of the Bible,

in the stories,

for we know the Bible is neither

history nor science,

but a love story,

a drama about you and your children,

a story that is unfolding still,

a story in which we all have a lead role.”

The powerful play “Inherit the Wind”

was based on the famous Scopes trial of 1925,

the trial that pitted the teaching of evolution

against the creationist dogma of fundamentalist Christians.

In the play the lawyer Henry Drummond,

in his defense of the teacher Bertram Cates,

asks in exasperation the lawyer for the prosecution,

the great Matthew Harrison Brady,

“Why did God plague us with the power to think?

Why do you deny the one faculty

which lifts us above all other creatures on this earth?”

We do have the power to think,

to reason,

to unpack, parse, compare, contrast.

We’ve been given these gifts by God

and God expects us to use them fully;

we cannot hope to grow in faith otherwise.

Is there imagery more powerful

than what we find in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel,

where the prophet finds himself

in a valley littered with bones, human bones,

bleached in the harsh desert sun,

the only remnants of what had once been vibrant human life.

It is a hopeless scene,

more Halloween than hallowed.

But then into that scene comes God,

telling Ezekiel that the bones will rise up in new life.

And before Ezekiel’s very eyes they do just that,

the bones clattering and rattling together,

the ankle bone connected to the leg bone,

the leg bone connected to the knee  bone,

the knee bone connected to the thigh bone

as they hear the word of the Lord.

We are not meant to read this scene literally, of course.

But we are called to study this scene

and draw lessons from it.

And we are to take the same approach

to everything we read in the Bible,

including the wildest passages from Revelation.

We have so many learning opportunities here within our church:

the Sunday School classes for our children;

Adult Education opportunities;

Women’s Circles;

the two Bible Study classes I lead each week.

Now that Melissa has joined our staff,

we are hoping to expand learning opportunities.

Find your place to learn,

find your place where you can read with deeper eyes.

Frederick Buechner calls the preacher

 a “fabulist extraordinaire”

because so much of what we preach on makes no sense,

sounds so wild:

a talking snake;

a woman almost 100 years old having a baby;

a giant 9 feet tall taken down with a rock

slung by a skinny teenager;

a king known throughout the world for his wisdom

who also manages to find time for 700 wives.

And wildest of all is the story of a child born out of wedlock,

who, as a man, leaves his livelihood behind

to strike out as in itinerant preacher

in a world filled with people claiming to be prophets,

whose efforts result in his arrest

and then execution as common criminal,

a man who we say without a moment of hesitation,

has risen from the dead and is with us even now,

our Lord and King.

These are the stories that fill the book

we call the Word of the Lord.

Find your way into the story.

For you are there within those pages,

within those stories.

That’s no myth,

but the revelation that matters most:

the revelation of God’s love for you, me,

for all the world, not just 144,000,

the Word of love revealed in

that itinerant preacher,

our Lord, our King, Jesus Christ.

AMEN

Never in the Dark

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 12, 2010

Never in the Dark

John 8:12

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying,

“I am the light of the world.

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness,

 but will have the light of life.”

You slip into the room and the door closes behind you.

You stand motionless in the dark,

feeling the void all around you.

You’d been challenged:

go into a darkened room

and in one hour or less,

find the light, the only light

that’s somewhere in the room.

It sounded simple,

it even sounded fun,

a game to play on a cool autumn evening.

But you hadn’t expected such complete darkness,

utter darkness.

Even after you’ve given your eyes a few minutes to adjust,

you see nothing,

absolutely nothing but pitch black all around you.

Not so much as a sliver of light anywhere:

nothing from under the door,

nothing through the heavy curtains covering the windows.

Not even the tiniest light glowing from a DVD player

or some other electronic gadget.                                   

Nothing……..You are in utter, complete darkness.

You take a breath and collect your thoughts

as you stand there by the door,

your back to the wall.

You’re methodical, rational, logical.

so you’ll find the light – the room can’t be that big

and you’ve got a full hour.

The first thing you do is listen,

listen to the sounds that give the darkness life:

Hissing steam venting from a radiator

off to your left,        

sounding like an annoyed cat.

Straight in front of you, across the room,

the ticking of a clock,

a small clock, probably up on a shelf.

Windows on either side of you rattle in the wind,

the sound muffled by heavy curtains.

You begin your search,

begin by sliding your hands around the doorframe

and the wall where you stand,

feeling for a switch.

What room doesn’t have a light switch right by the door?

But that would be too easy, too obvious,

and you find nothing,

not a toggle switch, an old-fashioned push-button,

a slide, a plate – nothing.

You start to move, move right – exploring the wall.

Three steps forward and you hit your first obstacle,

something solid: a table,

a good-sized table pushed up against the wall.

You run your hands over the surface –

perhaps there’s a lamp on it,

but all you find are three books,

what you guess is a picture frame,

and what feels like a small china figurine.

Slowly you inch your way forward,

finding the corner of the room

and moving along the next wall.

There you find a large bookcase,

a chair,

a desk.

But still no lamp, no light,

nothing on tables or shelves or floor.

        

Now you move along the third wall,

the one facing the door where you came in.

You feel the cold smoothness of the marble mantel

that outlines the fireplace.

You can smell the smokiness from the last fire.

As you run your hands along the mantel,

you find the small clock that’s been ticking,

chiming the quarter hours.

Just then it chimes yet again,

telling you you’ve spent 30 minutes searching already,

30 minutes without success,

30 minutes in the dark.

You move forward to the fourth wall,

and again find a table, a chair,

a door that’s locked,

but still no lamp, no switch,

no light of any kind.

You finally return to the door where you came in.

Now comes the more difficult part,

now you have to search the middle of the room,

to step forward into the void to see what’s there.

With a deep breath you step once, twice, small steps,

hands outstretched,

the radiator hissing,

the clock ticking,

the windows rattling,

and now the floorboards creaking with your every step.

                 

On your fourth step you bump into something.

It’s a couch, a large couch,

a leather couch,

the leather is worn and smells of woodfire.

You explore to the left and find an end table next to the couch.

Nothing on it, not even a magazine.

You move around in front of the couch

and work your way to the other end.

There, next to the couch

you find what feels like an upholstered chair,

a wing chair judging by its shape.

This must be such a comfortable room in the light!

But still, no floor lamp,…no table lamp,

no “itty-bitty booklight” lying on the chair

waiting to be used.

You sit down on the couch.

You can’t see it, but you know you are facing the fireplace.

How nice a fire would be right now,

its warmth to take the chill out of the night air,

the soft glow of the firelight filling the room.

Firelight! That must be it!

Not electric lights, but firelight –

that must be the light!

You step forward cautiously, but excitedly,

and find your way to the fireplace.

You run your hands over the mantel again,

down the sides, around the base of the hearth.

You can feel the logs on the grate,

kindling underneath, ready to be lit.

A match, a lighter of some sort –

must be somewhere.

You can feel the grit of the soot on your hands

as you explore every inch on your hands and knees,

but you find nothing, not even a spent match.

The clock above chimes to tell you 45 minutes have passed;

45 minutes in the dark.

You have just 15 minutes left to find the light.

You pick yourself up from the floor        

and find your way back to the couch,

just a couple of steps.

Was it desperation, or maybe just a need to laugh

and keep things in perspective

that caused you to stop in the middle of the room

and clap your hands?

“Clap on, Clap off”,

and possibly light a chandelier on the ceiling?

But again, nothing.

        

You were told there was a light in the room,

one light, a light that would fill the room,

easily accessible, easy to find.

Where, where could it be?

Even the night sky outside has the moon and the stars

to keep the world from descending into total darkness.

And then you know,

you know where it is,

where to look for it,

where to find it.

It was always there, right in front of you:

The light given you by the grace of God

in Jesus Christ.

“I am the light of the world,” says our Lord;

“Whoever follows me

will never walk in darkness.”

That’s the light,

the light that shines so brightly

that no darkness can ever overcome it.

(John 1:5)

The clock on the mantel chimes the hour

and the door to the room opens,

The light from the hallway floods the room

and you squint your eyes.

You walk out of the room into the hallway,

where the others wait,

wondering if you found the answer,

if you found the light.

And from the look on your face,

the look of peace that radiates from every pore

even after having spent an hour in a darkened room,

they know you have,

they know you understand now

that you were never in the dark.

“You are the light of the world,”

our Lord says to us, each of us,

“Let your light shine before others”

(Matthew 5:14ff)

Jesus calls us to let our light shine,

the light that comes from him,

the light that reflects him:

the light of grace,

the light of compassion and goodness,

the light of tolerance and acceptance,

…the light of love.

So let us do just that – let’s share the light of Christ

with one another,

and as you share it, receiving and then giving,

re-commit yourself to sharing the light

not just here, not just now,

but everywhere, everyday,

all times, all places.

“The people who walked in darkness,

have seen a great light;

… on them,

[on us],

light has shined.”

The light of life.

The light of the world.

Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen