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