Don’t Run Away

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

May 15, 2011

Confirmation Sunday

Don’t Run Away

Jonah 1:1-17

“Be very careful how you answer this question.”

That’s the warning I give every year to

the students in the confirmation class

when we get to question 13 on their final exam.

Each year, as part of our Closing Retreat,

Mary Langley and I lead the class

through a 50-question final exam.

We do the exam together as one last learning opportunity.

Everyone passes, so there is no anxiety about the exam,

but the questions cover a year’s worth of learning,

and some of them are designed to be difficult and challenging.

Question 13 is the only one which merits a warning to the students

about how they respond, though.

Here’s the question:

“Churches are often dull, stuffy, and boring because”

a. The rules under which they operate are 500 years old.

b. The officials who govern churches never change the rules.

c.  Ministers are dull, stuffy and boring.

d.  The people within the church get complacent

     and don’t change.

I’ll give you all the same warning I gave the students:

be very careful about choosing “C” as your response!

There’s no question though:

ministers can be dull, stuffy and boring.

From time to time we are; I won’t argue that.

But that’s not why churches are dull, stuffy and boring.

Once they realize they’d better not choose C

students tend to lean to A as their response:

“Because the rules under which churches operate

are 500 years old.”

I think there is a perception among younger folks

that most churches operate under ancient, cobwebbed rules;

rules written with quill pens on parchment in florid language,

heavy on the “thous”, “thees” and “thines”.

To young folks, the machinery of the church

can often seem rusted, creaky,

groaning with age.

But still we do manage to clank ahead with the times.

After all, when was the last time you heard of a church

having a trial for heresy?

                          

When I was in Confirmation Class

and faced the 24 Elders who sat on the Session of my church

as I went through my final examination,

there wasn’t a woman among the group.

The PCUSA  was in the middle of a contentious struggle

over whether to allow women to be ordained

to the offices of elder, deacon or minister.

Happily, we’ve long since removed that barrier.

The answer to the question, though, is D:

Churches grow dull, stuffy, and boring

because the people within the church grow complacent

and resist change.

They resist God’s Holy Spirit, God’s ever present call,

just as surely as Jonah resisted God’s call.

Churches grow dull when the people within

grow less interested in opening themselves

to the transforming power of God’s Holy Spirit,

than in reshaping Jesus to suit themselves.

The dull church eventually becomes little more than

a group of individuals satisfied with themselves,

a blanket of self-righteousness and certainty covering them;

no longer a community that is one in Christ,

no longer the Body of Christ.

                                                                                                  

God is always tapping us on the shoulder,

each of us, all of us,

calling us to new ways to build the Kingdom,

even the smallest part of it.

God is always calling us out of complacency.

And God calls us whether we want to be called or not.

God hopes, and even expects that

we will respond to his tap on the shoulder as Isaiah did,

proclaiming boldly, “Here I am, Lord,”

just as we will sing in a few minutes.

“Here I am, Lord. Send me.”

Of course, we can respond as Jonah did,

running from God’s call.

Look at the effort Jonah went to

to avoid serving God:

racing off to the port of Joppa,

and then grabbing the first boat headed

as far from Nineveh as possible.

Jonah was so adamant in not wanting to do what

God was calling him to do,

that he was even willing to die,

to be thrown overboard

into the crashing waves of a fierce storm.

We must not be Jonahs, any of us.

We must not, and we cannot, run away from God

especially from God’s call to build the church,

to build the church as a faithful body of Christ.

so that it doesn’t become dull, stuffy and boring.

We are called to build a church

which is vibrant, spiritual, faithful,

where we understand the importance of humility,

of intellectual honesty and openness,

of graciousness and genuine friendship

all in the name of the head of our church,

Jesus Christ.

As we welcome our newest members,

it’s as good a time as any to ask ourselves

what kind of church are they joining.

What kind of church have we invited them to be part of?

Dull?

Stuffy?

A place in need of a fresh breeze to blow away the stale?

The tired?

The worn-out?

                 

A few months back I was reading the memoirs 

of an Anglican priest named Charles Raven.

He served the church in the early years of the 20th century.

One sentence in his story grabbed me

and has stuck with me since:

“[I have found] the church is a poor advertisement for its Lord.”

“The church a poor advertisement for its Lord”,

for the head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Raven, a man of the church,

condemned the church for being

complacent, dull,

anti-intellectual,

bordering on the irrelevant.

The road to becoming a poor advertisement for Christ

is the same road Jonah took – the road away from God,

the road away from work,

service,

commitment,

faithful response to God’s call.

The road God calls us to walk,

to making the church a bright, inviting reflection of Jesus Christ

isn’t as hard as we sometimes think it is:

The test is to ask ourselves: are we focused on

following the Christ of the gospels:

the Jesus who reached out to the poor,

the friendless,

the sick, the hopeless,

who welcomed the children;

the Jesus who calls us to love even our enemies

to work for peace,

to walk humbly,

to hunger for righteousness

to hunger for justice?

Are we modeling Christ in our work,

our words,

what we say and do, each of us?

Are we setting our newest members

and the young people who follow them

the best example,

showing Christ in how we talk and work

both within the church, and even more important

outside the walls, in the world we’re part of each day?

The great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick

provided us with excellent advice when he wrote,

“The younger generation does not so much need critics

as it needs examples.”

Are we a welcoming people?

Truly welcoming, or selectively welcoming?

                 

Are we compassionate people?

Truly compassionate or selectively compassionate?

        

Are we gracious and grace-filled to all,

or are we selectively gracious,

just to those with whom we are comfortable?

Charles Raven argued that,

“The ultimate evidence for Christianity

is … the type of personality

it produces in its disciples.”

What kind of disciples do we produce

here within this church?

Loving or judgmental?

Faithful and obedient?

Or “fair-weather” disciples,

quicker with the “not now, I’m busy”

than with the “Here I am Lord, send me”?

I agree with the Reverend Peter Marty

with his observation that

“People have seen enough judgmental Christianity

and heard enough baloney-filled expositions of the faith

to be permanently wary [of any place called ‘church’].”

(Marty, “Betting on a Generous God”)

You and I have a responsibility:

a responsibility to the six young women and men

we welcome today,

a responsibility to one another,

to serve as examples of discipleship modeling Christ,

as together, united in Christ,

united through Christ,

united with Christ

we build a vibrant, spirit-filled, spirit-led Church

that is anything but dull and boring.

                          

It is a responsibility we can try to run away from;

you and I always have that choice.        

Or we can take on that responsibility,

embracing our call eagerly and joyfully.

The words Joshua spoke to the children of Israel

so long ago are still so timeless:

“Choose this day whom you will serve.”

And you remember Joshua’s response:

“As for me, I will serve the Lord.”

AMEN