Sunday, October 17, 2010

What To Do

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 17, 2010

What To Do
1 Chronicles 29:1-9

You don’t live in Orchard Park, New York if you don’t like winter.
Orchard Park is a beautiful suburb of Buffalo,
about 10 miles south of the city.
It is also in the snowbelt,
the region that gets most of the snow
you see and hear about whenever Buffalo is hit by a blizzard.
Suburbs north of the city may get an inch or two of snow
while towns in the snowbelt get hit with
six inches, eight inches or more. 

I lived in the town for 9 years back in the 1980s.
I chose to move there because I loved winter,
I loved to ski; I loved the snow.
My life in Orchard Park wasn’t all that different from
the lives we have here in Manassas:
Monday through Friday I was out the door in the morning,
behind the wheel of my car to commute to my job
in downtown Buffalo.
On Saturday I would work around the house,
and on Sunday I would go to church in the morning,
and relax in the afternoon.

Orchard Park had a lovely Presbyterian church right in town,
just a ten-minute walk from my house.
Many of my neighbors were members there,
and it was a lively congregation.
When I first moved to town,
I remembered thinking how nice it would be
to attend a church I could walk to,
a church right in the neighborhood.

But after visiting the church a few times,
I realized that it was not the church for me.
I didn’t find anything I didn’t like:
the preaching was good,
the music lovely and stirring,
the opportunities for learning and service many and varied,
the people warm and welcoming.

But it wasn’t home.
It wasn’t where I was supposed to be;
God made that so clear.
Home for me was the church
you’ve heard me talk about so regularly:
Westminster Church in downtown Buffalo.

Worshiping there meant getting back into the car on Sunday morning,
driving back into downtown Buffalo.
It was actually a longer drive,
the church a couple of miles north of city center.
Still, I did it:
got into the car each Sunday
and drove to church,
to Westminster,
to home.

This was the church my grandparents had joined in 1926
when they moved to Buffalo from Iowa,
a young couple newly married,
my grandfather just starting his career as an electrical engineer,
drawn to what was back then a vibrant, growing city,
one of the first to harness electricity from Niagara Falls,
a city with endless opportunities to power up
businesses, factories, and homes.

My parents met at the church in the late 1940s,
at what was called Fireside,
the group for young singles which met each week
for fellowship and fun.
My mother was a member of Trinity Episcopal church
just down the street from Westminster,
and the twenty-somethings from that church
were always invited to join the larger crowd at Westminster,
especially because Westminster had two bowling alleys.
My parents married at Trinity, my mother’s church,
but then made Westminster their church home.

I was baptized and raised in the church,
went through Sunday School,
Confirmation Class,
participated in Youth Group.
Like most children, I was often not enthusiastic
about being at church, especially as I got older.
A Sunday spent at church in the winter
was a Sunday not spent on the ski slopes.
        
I don’t remember much about Sunday School,
but I still have vivid memories of worship
in the large oak-beamed Sanctuary.
What stirred me even as a youngster
was the sound of the pipe organ,
and Westminster had a massive Aeolian Skinner instrument,
with an organist who never hesitated to open all the stops,
playing as though he wanted the people in Orchard Park
to know that Westminster’s pipes ruled.

In most other ways, though,
Westminster was like other churches:
It had its strengths
and it had its weaknesses,
things that were wonderful,
and other things that were annoying.

Still, it was home.
It was the place that figured more prominently
than anywhere else,
anyplace else,
in the pages of my book of life,
even if I wasn’t aware of it as I wrote the pages,
and as I turned the pages.

I still recall my year in Confirmation Class –
it wasn’t as dull as a I feared it would be,
but what I remember more than the curriculum
was that it was a nurturing
and comforting place for me to spend an hour each week
during a turbulent year in my life.

Freshman year in high school is stressful enough,
but shortly before my ninth-grade year started,
my parents’ marriage fell apart in a rather ugly way.
Divorce is always traumatic, tearing apart a family
and back in the 1960s it was that much worse
because divorce was hushed up, not talked about,
considered a shameful thing.

But in that Confirmation Class I found a quiet place,
a sunny place,
with teachers and classmates who were caring
supportive, encouraging, nurturing.

The church became my anchor
as I moved on through high school,
and then college and post-graduate study.
I spent four years in college,
and five years doing post-graduate work
and over the course of those 9 years,
I lived in more than a dozen different places,
including one summer in downtown D.C,
while I was in law school.
                          
Yet even with my nomadic life,
the church was there, solid, strong, welcoming,
the big oak doors on Delaware Avenue reaching out to me,
even before I entered the building,
speaking “welcome back; you have been missed.”

Of course, church is not a building;
church is not an institution.
You and I: we are the church.
It is the people in the pews who make a church.
And it was the people of Westminster who touched my life
time and time again,
in high school, college,
in good times,
and in terribly difficult times.

When I moved to New York City in 1994 to take a new job,
I knew I could not replace Westminster,
but still I eagerly sought a new church home.         
For a good six months I worshiped alternately
at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
and Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church.
I liked them both, but neither felt like home.

Then one Sunday I found my way to
the Brick Presbyterian Church,
way up on the Upper East side,
farther from my apartment than either of the other churches.
As soon as I walked in the door, though,
I knew I had found my new church home.

Brick remained my home even after I left New York
for Princeton Theological Seminary.
In the Presbyterian Church, those in seminary
who seek ordination as ministers
are referred to as “under care” of their home church
and home Presbytery;
and so I was under care of the Brick Church for three years.
The prayers, the interest,
the words of encouragement and support
from the people of Brick Church
lifted me, strengthened me, and energized me.

There’s no question:
Churches can be places filled with pettiness, meanness,
narrow-minded thinking, stubbornness –
all kinds of things that distract us from the life Jesus calls us to.
But they can also be places of extraordinary love,
goodness,
kindness, caring,
places that are homes,
places that are anchors,
places of stability,
calmness, peace,
renewal.

Yet churches are struggling as never before.
Management professor Gary Hamel recently told
a group of religious leaders that churches are trying to compete in a
“a consumer-driven society
where the size of someone’s paycheck counts for more
than the quality of their character”,
a society filled with a virtually
“infinite number of distractions
in a media-saturated culture
which crowds out time for spiritual reflection.”
(as quoted in the WSJ online)

Churches, including this church, cannot hope to survive,
cannot hope to build on even the most glorious heritage and history
without the commitment of every single member
to building the church as a place of grace.

The churches that will survive and even thrive
will those with consecrated congregations,
congregations with women and men of all ages
who come forward with the commitment and conviction
the leaders of the twelve tribes showed
when they came to establish the first Temple
more than 3000 years ago.

It was not just money they gave in response to David’s urging;
they gave themselves;
consecrated themselves for the glory of God.         
This is the theme of our Stewardship Campaign this year:
that while a pledge of financial support is necessary,
we are asking you to consecrate yourself anew
to service in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In one of his charming “Home to Harmony” books,
Quaker pastor Philip Gulley writes of God as the one
who points “the divine finger our way, saying,
‘You there, …, it’s you I want.’"
God has pointed his finger at each of us;
Called us by his grace;
called us to follow Christ,
called us to lives of discipleship and service,
called each of us to this church, to be part of this church,
to build it up, make it a place that you and I,
the first-time visitor,
our children, their children,
can call home.

The answer to the question “what to do” is simple:
consecrate yourself.
Consecrate yourself to the Lord,
to love the Lord
with all your body, your mind,
your strength, your soul,
just as Jesus teaches us.
Consecrate yourself to serve the Lord
with conviction and commitment.
Consecrate yourself,
and you’ll find yourself home.

AMEN

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Searching for Answers

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 10, 2010

Searching for Answers
John 10:10
“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

He was a good Christian,
a man who went to church regularly,
a lawyer by vocation,
a family man, with a wife, four daughters and a son.

His life was humming along when tragedy struck:
a devastating fire destroyed property he had invested in,
all but wiping him out financially.
Then two years later, a ship carrying his wife and four daughters
collided with another ship
and sank in the frigid waters of the Atlantic;
only his wife survived.
Tragedy struck yet again when their young son
died of scarlet fever.

We can almost picture this man raising his voice,
even raising his fist to heaven,
raging at God,
“Why? Why? WHY??”
“What have I done to deserve such sadness, such grief?
Have I done something so wrong, so truly awful, so sinful
to deserve such pain?”

But this man didn’t do any of that.
He didn’t raise his fist or his voice.
Surely he shed tears and plumbed the very depths of grief,
but he knew that God had not afflicted his son with disease;
he knew that God was not the one who struck the match
that burned his buildings;
he knew that God was not the one who steered the ships
on their fatal collision course.

He also knew that God would not answer his question, “why?”
He knew that God in his own inscrutable way,
would be silent.
But it didn’t matter, for his faith was his strength;
God was his strength.
He knew the Psalmist’s words and trusted them,
“God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.”
(Psalm 46:1)

This man knew that God would help him work through his grief;
he knew that God would bear him up
so that he could keep walking forward in life,
as scarred, as deeply wounded, as he was,
as scarred and as deeply wounded as he always would be.

One day the man sat down with a pencil and piece of paper
and scribbled out some words
as he tried to give voice to his emotions.
He wrote,
“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.”

This is the hymn we just heard,
the words of a wounded man,
a man named Horatio Spafford,
a man who even in spite of his wounds, his scars, his grief,
still knew that God’s everlasting, everloving arms
were wrapped around him,
so firmly lifting him up that he could say,
“it is well with my soul”
not just in good times,
but also in times of tears and turmoil,
“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,”
as well as “When sorrows like sea billows roll;”

Can any of us feel confident that if we had to endure
all the things Spafford endured,
we’d be singing,  “it is well with my soul
whatever my lot”!
Even the most faithful among us
might find ourselves struggling not to ask, “why”,
struggling not to demand some answers from God
when things seem so obviously wrong,
even unjust.

Job wasn’t the only one who wanted answers,
who demanded that God answer his question, “why, God, why?”
When tragedy strikes, when calamity blows through our lives
it is so easy to confront God:
“Where were you?
Why didn’t you stop it?
Are you that callous?
That uncaring?
Or perhaps you are not as powerful
as we think you are,
perhaps there was nothing you could have done.
Well, God, what do you say to that?”

And it doesn’t have to be something we suffer personally;
We ask why when we see tragedy on television
or read about something in the newspaper,
flood, earthquakes, hurricanes, war.
The question “why”, “why”
comes so easily, so naturally.

Rabbi Harold Kushner addressed the question
in the classic book he wrote back in 1981:
“When Bad Things Happen to Good People”
as he wrestled with a very personal tragedy –
the death at age 14 of his own son,
death from a rare disease,
a disease no doctor could do anything about.

All Kusher could do was sit by his son and watch him die.
How easy, even natural and normal
it would have been for him to have shouted out,
“why, Lord, why?”,
to have shaken a fist at the heavens,
to have turned to another verse from the Psalmist,
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
(22:1)

It clearly wasn’t well with Kushner’s soul in the months
that followed his son’s death.
As he said in the book, his son’s illness and death
contradicted everything he had been taught about God.
So, like Spafford, Kushner picked up a pencil to try to put in words
what he was feeling,
wondering why the answer to the question, “why”
was so elusive.

But in writing the book, he realized
that he would not know “why”,
that for as many times as he might put the question to God,
he would never hear God’s response.

Writing the book didn’t eliminate the pain,
didn’t cover up the deep scar within him,
but it did help make well his soul
as he found a sense of peace through acceptance,
as he came to understand the simple truth that,
“no one ever promised us a life
free from pain or disappointment.”

Read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation
and you’ll find Kushner is right:
neither God nor Jesus ever promises us a life without pain,
a life without disappointment, setbacks,
even calamities.

What God does promise, as Kushner learned,
is that God is with us even in the midst of the most searing pain.
God’s promise to us is that
“we would not be alone in our pain, …
we would be able to draw upon a source outside ourselves
for the strength and courage we would need
to survive life’s tragedies and life’s unfairness.”

This is the promise that God gives us,
even as God is eternally silent in the face of the
raging river of “why’s” flowing incessantly toward God. 

This is the promise that is ours in Jesus Christ,
the grace and love of God made flesh,
the promise bound up in the word Emmanuel,
that word we hear only during Christmas,
which is a shame because the word is Hebrew for
“God with us”.
It is a word we should use year-round,
to give us comfort,
to remind us of God’s presence in our lives
even in the midst of terrible tragedy. 

Listen to how the poet Emily Dickinson tried to capture
her struggle with the “why”.
She understood that the question would gain her no answer,
but even then, the anger that partnered with her pain
was enough for her to say to God,
“I will know why, perhaps in your time God,
rather than mine, but I will know why.”
She wrote,
“I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

The reality is that life has its times of disappointment,
sadness, tragedy, grief, pain, devastation;
We will be scarred by life,
wounded, knocked down,
sometimes hard,
sometimes with mindboggling frequency.
                 
But God’s promise to us is that
we will get through whatever life hands us,
because we will not be alone,
because we will never be alone:
God is with us, always with us,
suffering with us,
for God knows pain;
after all, he too suffered the brutal death of a son,
his only son.
And the Son knows our suffering, too,
for he suffered.
Jesus is empathy;
Jesus is compassion.
In Jesus we have the answer the Psalmist found
when he asked the question,,
“From where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord…”
(Psalm 121).

Through Jesus, our pain can be transformed into assurance,
assurance grounded in the promise that what Jesus wants for us
is a rich and abundant life,
not richness and abundance in money and possessions,
but abundance in grace, hope, peace, and love,
the resources that will help us navigate even the stormiest seas.

Barbara Brown Taylor has written,
Jesus “dares us to believe that
God is at the bottom of everything,
especially the things we cannot understand,
with strong arms waiting to catch us when all our nets break,
with loving arms to cradle us…”
(B.B. Taylor, God in Pain, 94)”

Taylor reminds us that it was Jesus’ triumph over
that Roman tool of execution,
that crude device we call the cross
that teaches us,
“come hell and high water;
come affliction and hardship,
persecution, hunger, nakedness,
peril and swords;
come whatever may,
nothing can separate us from the love of God
in Jesus Christ our Lord”,
who has promised us that everything finally will be,
as the anthem teaches us, “well with our souls.”
(B.B. Taylor, God in Pain, 94)

You and I are called to believe this
that it can be well with our souls on good days and bad.
You and I are called to trust in this
so that we can share assurance with one another,
so we can be the love of God,
the peace of Christ
with each other as we each go through times of struggle,
our arms the arms of God reaching out in support,
hope and encouragement

Through us, - you and me –
we can help those who suffer
understand that God doesn’t prevent suffering;
God understands it and is with us in it;
and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
is there to take even the most tragic situation
and make something holy of it.
(B.B. Taylor, 118)
                          
Make something holy of it,
to give us life,
to give us abundantly
that it will be well with our souls.

AMEN

Sunday, October 03, 2010

A Symphony of a Billion

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
October 3, 2010
World Communion Sunday

A Symphony of a Billion
Matthew 6:9-13
Luke 11:1-4

A small chorus assembles,just four voices:
a soprano, alto, tenor, bass.
The soprano lifts up her voice and sings a note;
it’s lovely, pure, ethereal.
The alto joins her, singing the same note,
just an octave down.
Then the tenor and the bass add their voices,
and together they build the sound,
four different voices, all singing the same note,
all together, a vocalise,
no words, just one note sung by four voices
rising up……up and out,
the sound carried as though on a gentle breeze.

Then other voices sing out:
more sopranos,
more altos,
more tenors and basses.
Such a range of sound,
each voice distinctive, unique,
but all together sounding glorious.
        
Children’s voices join in, their voices so light,
you can almost feel the innocence in them,
and imagine them looking at each other,
trying not to giggle as they hold their notes.

The sound continues to rise up
and grows outward in all directions,
washing over you.
Then suddenly the singers join their voices
to sing a word,
the same note,
but one word, clear, distinct:
“PRAISE!”
“PRAISE!”

Even more voices join in now,
at first sounding as though they are singing a different word,
something other than “PRAISE”,
but then you recognize that they are singing “PRAISE”
but they are singing it in Spanish.
Other languages join the choir:
French, German, Russian, Polish,
Swahili, Akan, Sesotho,
Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese,  --
dozens and dozens of different languages,
hundreds of dialects,
yet all the voices together,
all singing the same note, the same word:
“PRAISE!”

A thousand voices,
ten thousand,
a hundred thousand,
a million,
hundreds of millions,
a billion:
A symphony of voices!
A symphony of a billion;
no, two billion,
even more!
All singing “PRAISE!”
“PRAISE!”
        
And then, just as suddenly as they
began to sing the word “PRAISE”,
they sing another word, followed by another,
again, all the same note,
the distinction in the voices so clear,
the languages and dialects
adding a richness to the symphony.

You lean forward to listen, to hear what they are singing,
two billion voices all making a joyful noise,
all singing, “Our Father”
“Our Father”!

Yes, our Father,
the one whom Jesus called “Abba”,
that Aramaic term of endearment,
like “Dad”, or even “Pop”,
reminding us of the intimacy of our relationship with God,
the one who is both Father and Mother,
whose everlasting arms are always around us,
who stands with open arms
ready to welcome us each time we stray from him.

Our beloved Abba,
PRAISE to you!
“Hallowed be your name,” the voices sing out.
“Hallowed be your name!”
And you add your voice to the choir.

You all sing together:
“Your kingdom come,
your will be done”:
Yes, beloved Abba: your will be done through us,
for when we do your will,
we will establish your kingdom here on earth,
just as it already is in heaven.
Oh, if only we’d let you work through us;
If only we’d sing together as you call us to,
rather than so stubbornly insisting on singing our own songs.

But at this moment we do sing together,
lifting our voices in song to you,
the song your Son taught us to sing,
for the prayer is a song – a lovely melody to you,
and every song we sing to you a prayer.

We sing so joyfully
knowing you watch over us,
feeding us with your love,
and seeing to our most basic needs,
even our daily bread.

We sing joyfully and confidently
for we know you set a table for us
even in the valley of the shadow of death,
even in the presence of danger.
Our cup runs over.

We sing joyfully, confidently,
and we also sing filled with peace,
for we know that even as we lift up our voices to you,
we are washed clean by your mercy,
forgiveness is ours,
new life is ours through the One
who taught us the song we sing.

Whatever we call them, those words on the score –
“sin”, “debts”, “trespasses” –
they matter no more than the languages we sing them in
for the word that does matter is “forgiveness”,
that you in your mercy offer us forgiveness,
that’s what matters.

But even as we sing filled with peace,
we also know that in gracing us with your forgiveness,
you call us to offer our forgiveness:
forgiveness to all,
for sins, debts, trespasses,
forgiving as we ourselves are forgiven,
forgiving so we can sing together,
all of us reconciled, at peace, grounded in love,
our voices in glorious harmony.

And then as we sing the coda of our prayer,
our song of our praise to you,
we look to you to help us,
for we know we give in to temptation so easily;
we know we are so easily distracted from you,
from the songs you call us to sing;
songs of forgiveness,
songs of reconciliation and peace,
songs of kindness and compassion.

Test us and we are likely to fail.
Our eyes drift from the page;
our minds drift from song;
our hearts drift from you.
We sing our own songs,
songs that reflect selfishness more than selflessness,
greed more than sharing,
worry more than hope,
indulgence more than compassion.
How quickly one sour note can turn
even a symphony of a billion voices discordant.

Deliver us beloved Abba from all those distractions,
not just the bad,
but anything that leads us from you,
so we can sing together, harmoniously. 

Our Father in heaven,
our beloved Abba,
we sing praises to your name,
for your name is hallowed.
We sing for your kingdom to come
and your will to be done
here among us
just as it already is in heaven.

We sing praises that you feed us,
praises that you forgive us,
praises that you lead us and
give us strength through your Spirit
to turn from anything that distracts us or turns us from you.

And we sing praises that you graced us with your Son
who calls us to sing,
who teaches us the song,
so we are ready,……                 
ready to join the glorious choir,
each of us singing in our own distinctive voice,
our own unique language,
each of us adding our voice to the symphony of a billion,
the symphony of two billion,
all of us together singing,
“PRAISE!”

AMEN