The Promise is Sure

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 30, 2011

The Promise is Sure

Selected Texts

Music from Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem

All Saints Day is one of those days

that comes round each year on the liturgical calendar,

but it is a day we often overlook,

a day we let slide by.

Part of the problem is that

All Saints Day always falls on the first of November,

which means it typically does not fall on a Sunday.

This year it is on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday.

But the greater struggle we have

is that the very word “saint” confuses us Protestants.

We don’t have saints as other traditions do,

men and men we have set apart,

put up on pedestals as particularly holy.               

We have no Saint Patrick,

no Saint Christopher,

not even a Saint Nicholaus.

In the Reformed tradition all are saints.

You and I: we are saints,

we are the community of saints.

And all those who have gone before us,

all those on whose shoulders we stand,

they too are saints,

part of the communion of saints.

All Saints Day has become for Presbyterians a time to remember:

a time to remember those saints

who have completed their journey on this earth

and now live with Christ in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.

Death has been an all too frequent visitor

to this congregation over the past year:

members of this congregation both young and old;

members of our extended church family:

mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles,

grandmothers, grandfathers, dear friends.

With the death of each saint comes grief,

sadness,

a deep sense of loss,

a profound awareness of the presence of their absence.

We reflexively dial a telephone number

before we remember that the familiar voice,

that beloved saint,

is no longer on the other end of the line.

And yet, with the passing of every saint

even in our grief we are reminded of the promise

that is given us by God in Jesus Christ,

in Christ’s resurrection,

that each beloved saint now knows the promise of eternal life,

the very same promise each of us will know… in time.

The passing of every saint fills us with grief,

and yet also fills us with hope

as we remember that in Jesus’ resurrection,

God vanquished death,

as Paul said to the Corinthians,

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

(1 Cor. 15:26)

The 16^th century English poet John Donne

captured this promise in his famous Sonnet,

“Death be not proud,

though some have called thee mighty and dreadful,

for, thou art not so

for, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,

die not, ….…poor death,

nor yet canst thou kill me.

… why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

and death shall be no more,

death thou shalt die.”

 

Introit et Kyrie

“Grant eternal rest to them, Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them.
A hymn befits you, God in Zion,
and a vow to you shall be fulfilled in Jerusalem.
Hear my prayer,
for unto you all flesh shall come.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.”

The theologian Jürgen Moltmann has written,

“We die a natural death,

just as everything that is born someday dies.

But we die in solidarity…

with the community of all…

[with the communion of saints].

…Our natural death brings us into the earth,

and together with this earth

we [look with all the saints to] the resurrection

and the springtime of eternal life….

(The Coming of God, 90ff)

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord

for they rest from their Labors”

(Revelation 14:13)

Pie Jesu

“Merciful Lord Jesus,
grant them rest,
eternal rest”

In his poem “Go Down Death”,

written in 1927, James Weldon Johnson,

an African-American lawyer, educator, and poet,

captured so picturesquely the hope that is ours,

even in grief:

“Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She’s only just gone home.
Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell on Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.

And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death!--Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.

And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horse struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.

And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
…and find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired--
She's weary--
Go down, Death, and bring her to me.

And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,

and the foam from his horse was like a comet in the sky;
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight on down he came.

While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death.

She saw Old Death coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.

And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And Death began to ride again--
Up beyond the evening star,

Out beyond the morning star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.

And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.

Weep not--weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.”

         (from God’s Trombones)

 

In Paradisum

“May angels lead you into Paradise.
At your coming
may martyrs receive you,
and may they lead you
into the Holy City, Jerusalem.
May the chorus of angels receive you,
and with Lazarus, who once was a pauper,
may you have eternal rest.”

In his letter to the Romans Paul wrote,

We do not live to ourselves,

and we do not die to ourselves.

If we live, we live to the Lord,

and if we die, we die to the Lord;

so then, whether we live or whether we die,

we are the Lord’s.

(Romans 14:7-9)

For Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and Life.

And all the saints who believed in Christ live

even though they died.

And all we saints who live and believe,

we will never die.

(John 11:25)

This promise is sure,

for it is the Word of the Lord.

AMEN

Standing on Shoulders

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 16, 2011

Standing on Shoulders

Isaiah 45:1-7

You can’t tell, can you?

Here, let me step out from behind the pulpit.

You still can’t tell, can you?

You cannot tell that I am standing on shoulders.

I am standing on the shoulders of all those pastors

who came before me

and served God and this church:

all those pastors who preached from this pulpit

over the past 144 years:                    

Called pastors, interim pastors,

temporary supply pastors,

guest pastors,

senior pastors, associate pastors.

I am standing on other shoulders as well.

I am standing on the shoulders of those

who have taught me over the years,

my many professors from Princeton Theological Seminary:

those who taught me to preach;

those who opened up the world of the Bible to me;

those who walked me through the often confusing maze

that is theology;

those who help me to understand

the rich history of our faith and other faiths.

I stand the shoulders of other teachers as well

– those from the other schools I attended over the years,

and those from whom I have learned in less formal settings.

We all stand on the shoulders of those

who have gone before us;

those who have shaped us,

helped us to grow,

opened up new vistas for us,

helped us to see and hear in new ways,

different ways.

        

All of us stand on shoulders

of the great cloud of witnesses who came before us.

And in time it will be on our shoulders

that those who follow us will stand.

That’s community,

that’s the history of our church as the Body of Christ.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about history

the past few months,

ever since I accepted an invitation to serve on the

Bicentennial Committee of Princeton Theological Seminary.
Next year, the school will mark its 200^th birthday,

two hundred years as the oldest

and largest of the ten seminaries

affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Princeton has wonderfully exciting and ambitious plans

as it prepares to enter its third century,

In particular the school is in the midst of

building a new library

that will be so much more than a building

that houses books and journals,

even one that is the second largest collection

of theological materials outside of the Vatican library.

It will be a library that will be digital,

that will make its collection available to anyone,

anywhere, anytime,

the scholar, the pastor, the layperson

in Princeton, in Manassas,

in Nairobi,

in Shanghai.

It is an extraordinary project,

one that I am particularly delighted to be part of,

because it builds on the rich history of the school

even as it looks boldly forward.

It’s been nice to get back up to Princeton

without having to spend my time in classrooms!

I spent a total of 8 years there

working on two different degrees:

first my Master of Divinity degree,

and then my doctorate.

Over those years, I learned from so many men and women:

not just the professors in the classroom,

but also from classmates and colleagues,

from those who preached in chapel,

those who came to the campus as guest lecturers.

I stand on all their shoulders.

You stand on their shoulders, too.

Not just because I am an alumnus of the school.

You’d stand on their shoulders just as much

even if I had attended a different school.

You stand on their shoulders

because the Bible we read from each Sunday,       

the New Revised Standard Version,

was assembled by a committee

chaired by a professor from Princeton,

and which included other faculty from the school.

The Bible commentaries that I use,

books that are standard resources for most pastors,

include many written by Princeton professors.

It is almost impossible not to be touched by Princeton

not to stand on the shoulders of the tens of thousands

of men and women who have been part of the school

over the past 200 years.

    

We all stand on shoulders, every one of us,

of those who have taught us in and out of classrooms,

those who encouraged us, nurtured us,

coached us, inspired us,

pushed us, honed us,

praised us, loved us.

We stand on the shoulders of all those

who have been part of this church over the past 144 years.

Those who helped establish the church

in the roiling years following the end of the Civil War;

those who provided the vision, the money,

the time and the labor to build the beautiful building

that still stands in Old Towne.

We stand on the shoulders of those who realized

some 40 years ago that the church had outgrown its building

and that it was time to build a new building, to find more space,

those who said, let’s move to a patch of farmland

a few miles outside of the city,

where there isn’t much development,

where we will have a lot more room to grow.

This was back in a time when the word “develop”

made a person think of Kodak film

rather than real estate.

                                   

We cannot possibly count all the shoulders we stand on.

But just as we stand on the shoulders of those who

came before us, they too in turn stood on shoulders,

back in time,

linear history back,

back,

even as far back in history as the time of our lesson,

some 2500 years ago.

Yes, you and I stand on the shoulders

of a man named Cyrus.

Who was this man in our lesson,

this man called Cyrus?

Our lesson tells us he was the Lord’s anointed,

the Lord’s anointed just as David had been

five hundred years before.

Our lesson is set around the year 520:

520 years before the birth of our Lord.

If you remember your Sunday School history,

you’ll remember about 70 years before,

the Babylonian army had come roaring into Israel and Judah

killing, destroying, pillaging

and then forcing the remnant of Israel

into exile back in Babylon.

For three generations,

the children of Israel lived in captivity,

lived in exile,

wondering whether they would ever return to the land

Yahweh, the Lord God had given to them.

History teaches us that powers come and powers go,

empires come and empires go,

and just as Babylon had crushed the mighty Assyrians,

so in time came the fierce Persians

to crush the Babylonians,

At the beginning of the sixth century before Christ,

it was Babylon which was the dominant power,

but before the century ended,

Persia’s mighty empire stretched as far west

as modern Turkey, as far east as India.

This was Cyrus’ empire.

Now you may find this confusing.

Was the King of Persia,            

a follower of the Lord God?

Did he even know of the Lord God?

Our lesson gives us the answer:

we hear God say

“I call you by your name,

I surname you, though you do not know me;…

I arm you, though you do not know me.”

God chose to act through Cyrus,

calling him his “anointed”,

even though Cyrus did not know the Lord God,

did not know the Lord God was working through him.

Cyrus knew nothing of Yahweh,

the God of the Israelites.

His god was Marduk, a pagan god.  

                          

But still, God choose him to free the children of Israel

from captivity and restore them to their land.

Cyrus sent them back to their land              

back to resume the life their grandparents had known

in the land given them by God.

And then Cyrus took one more surprising step:

he told the children of Israel to rebuild their Temple,

the great Temple that had been for the Israelites

the symbol of God’s very presence,

that great gilded Temple

which had been reduced to ashes and charred stone

by the Babylonian army.

Build a new Temple, came the order from Cyrus,

with money coming from Cyrus’ own royal treasury.

(2 Chronicles 36:22ff)

Cyrus helped our ancestors in faith

to live their faith once again

We stand on Cyrus’ shoulders.

                 

We are about to begin our Stewardship campaign,

that time when we look to the year ahead

and plan with hope and anticipation for all the work

God will call us to do next year in the name of Jesus Christ.

Stewardship is our way of maintaining faith with

those on whose shoulders we stand,

those who so faithfully built and cared for this church

and then entrusted it to us.

And it is our way of maintaining faith with those

who will stand on our shoulders,

who will lead this church into the future.

Our plan is similar to last year’s:

Everyone will get a pledge card in early November,

which we will ask you to complete

and bring to church with you

on Heritage Sunday, November 20.

It is as simple as that.

Our Elders are leading our Stewardship effort this year.

Our Book of Order tells us that among the responsibilities

our Elders have is

“to challenge the people of God

with the privilege of responsible Christian stewardship

of money and time and talent,

developing effective ways

for encouraging …the offerings of the people.”

(G-10.0102(h))

Over the next five weeks, each of our 15 Elders

will take a few minutes before we take the Offering

to share with you what our Church means to them

and their own joy in responding to the privilege of stewardship,

as they lead us from yesterday to tomorrow.  

When we gather on Heritage Sunday,

we will honor our long time members,

and we will consecrate our pledges

as we look ahead to our 145^th year.

We will celebrate our past

as we stand on the shoulders of those

faithful stewards who came before us.

And we will look confidently to the future

knowing that those who will fill this space

twenty, thirty, fifty years from now

will themselves be standing on shoulders

faithful and strong:

your shoulders and mine.

AMEN

Anything But Ordinary

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 9, 2011

Anything But Ordinary

Philippians 4:1-9

The 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time:

that’s how our liturgical calendar marks today.

Last week was “World Communion Sunday”.

A few weeks before that we had Genesis Sunday;

but today is called simply,

the 28^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Could we come up with a less interesting way

to refer to this particular Sunday in our liturgical year?

Throughout the year

we have our special Sundays

like Easter, Pentecost,

Reformation Sunday,

and monthly Communion Sundays.

We also have our special seasons:

Advent, which is just 7 short weeks away,

and the six weeks of Lent

which begins with Ash Wednesday.

We add in our own special Sundays,

unique to our church:

in addition to Genesis Sunday

we have Youth Sunday,

Heritage Sunday,

Ordination Sunday,

Music Ministry Sunday,

and Confirmation Sunday,

among others.

Still, even with all these special days,

our Liturgical Calendar refers to most Sundays as “Ordinary”.

In fact, 33 of 52 Sundays each year are termed “Ordinary”.

Perhaps it’s time we turn the Liturgical Calendar over

to a marketing and advertising agency.

It hardly sounds like an exciting invitation

to say “come to church next Sunday;

for the 29^th Sunday in Ordinary Time.”

How much more exciting if we said,

“Come and join us next Sunday

for an all-new premillennial Lord’s Day celebration!

Join us and don’t get left behind.”

We’ve been looking at worship the past few weeks

in our Bible Study classes,

both the Wednesday and the Thursday groups,

and one of things we’ve learned is that

no Sunday is ordinary;

every Sunday is special,

every Sunday is extraordinary.

Every Sunday is extraordinary

because every Sunday is the Sabbath,

the day the Lord commands us to honor and keep holy,

the day blessed by our Lord,

the day consecrated by God.

Every Sunday also has a bit of Easter in it.

Easter without the lilies and the chocolate bunnies,

but Easter just the same,

because every Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection.

Every Sunday we remember that

the Risen Christ is with us,

that God did more than just give us his Son,

he raised his Son from the grave,

raised him for you and for me,

defeating death in the bargain,

so that you and I would be assured of

God’s love for all eternity.

The liturgical calendar uses the word “ordinary”

not in the sense of common,

not in the sense of “everyday”;

It uses the word in the context of “in order”:

the next Sunday in order

as we go through the Liturgical year,

a year that begins with Advent,

a full month before our secular calendars

turn the page to a new year.

Because every Sunday is extraordinary,

even those we call “ordinary”,

we should fill them with our rejoicing,

just as Paul tells us to,

our hearts filled with joy as we come to worship.

We should enter this Sanctuary every Sunday

rejoicing,

knowing that we have the potential, each of us,

to leave this room an hour or so after we walked in

different,

transformed,

transformed by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

We should come into this Sanctuary rejoicing

because we have the potential

to have something extraordinary happen

to each of us.

If, of course,

always the “if”,

if we come here open to God’s transforming power,

if we come in with hearts and minds open

to the prospect, the potential,

the possibility, that if we let God,

if we step out of the way,

God will transform us in heart and in mind.

Even on the most ordinary of Sundays,

if you come into this Sanctuary

filled with a sense of expectation,

filled with a sense of anticipation

that something extraordinary

could happen to you,

You could walk out of here

looking much the same as when you walked in

but feeling different inside,

tingling with the Spirit,

knowing that somehow, someway

through the power of God’s Holy Spirit

you became a little more Christ-like

a little more godly.

It’s simple:

If you come into the Sanctuary,

come into worship with ordinary expectations,

then nothing extraordinary is likely to happen.

You won’t be open to God’s power;

you’ll block the way – even to God –

with a closed mind, a closed heart,

                      

But if you come rejoicing,

filled with a sense of expectation

that the extraordinary could happen,

then don’t be surprised when it does.

If you come in rejoicing,

you are sure to go out rejoicing with even more Spirit

and enthusiasm.

“Rejoice in the Lord always,

again I say rejoice!”

Paul’s words to his brothers and sisters in Philippi

were instructions not just for worship, of course.

They were instructions for how Paul wanted them,

wants us,

to go through life,

all of life: the good times and the bad,

the ups and the down.

Paul himself was well acquainted with the bad,

just read through Acts

and you’ll marvel at all Paul went through

as he traveled throughout the Mediterranean

sharing the gospel.

Still, for all he went through

he found it easy to write “rejoice”.

He found it easy to write,

even though the letter was written

as Paul languished in a dank, dark prison cell

far from family and friends.  

Rejoice, Paul wrote,

rejoice so you can take hold of the extraordinary life

to which you have been called through Jesus Christ.

Let go of the tedious ordinary things

that control you and shape your life:

fear, worry,

self-indulgence,

pettiness, greed,

quarreling, anger, resentment.

Embrace the elements of the extraordinary life,

Paul then tells us,

the honorable, the noble:

compassion, kindness,

charity, patience,

acceptance.

Let your gentleness be known:

your forbearance, your openness,

your compassion,

your concern for the needs of others,

for these are the characteristics

of faithful disciples of Jesus Christ,

those who model their lives on his.

        

The great theologian Karl Barth wrote,

“On Sunday morning when the bells ring

to call [us all] to church,

there is in the air an expectancy that something great,

[something] crucial,

… [something] even momentous is about to happen.”

(The Word of God and the Word of Man,

104, italics in original)

The cause may or may not be the sermon;

it may or may not be a choir anthem;

it could be the silent prayer you lift up,

it could be the person you greet

during the passing of the peace,

it could be the expression on the face

of a child sitting near you,

a youngster completely enthralled by the lights,

the sound, the people, the place,

a youngster who finds the whole experience

truly extraordinary.

If you are filled with a sense of expectation,

then you will be ready for it to happen:

the momentous.

If you are filled with a sense of expectation

you will participate fully and completely

in every part of worship

ready to sing out,

even if you cannot sing;

more attentive to prayer,

even if your mind is filled with concerns from work and home;

listening with open mind and heart

as the word of God is read

and then interpreted.

What makes an worship service extraordinary

is not whether we have some festive music

or some other special celebration is woven into the service.

What makes it extraordinary is

how actively you engage yourself in worship.

The worship leaders – me, Deborah, our liturgists,

our role is to prompt, to teach;

but your role is to respond,

respond to God, respond for God,

joyfully, enthusiastically.

If you sit as still and stolid as an ebenezer,

that wonderful Old Testament word

that means a large rock,

you may well miss the momentous,

the extraordinary.

You may walk out perhaps with some new knowledge,

humming music from the service,

but you will not be transformed.

    

Our Directory for Worship

describes worship as a time when

“The people call God by name,

invoke God’s presence,

beseech God in prayer,

and stand before God in silence and contemplation.

They bow before God,

lift hands and voices in praise,

sing, make music, and dance.

Heart, soul, strength, and mind, with one accord,

they join in the language, drama,

and pageantry of worship.”

Do you hear how active worship should be?

The people of God don’t sit

while worship leaders read, lead and plead,

The people of God are fully engaged,

actively participating in the extraordinary,

filled with anticipation,

filled with a sense of expectation.

Steve Jobs, the chairman and co-founder of Apple Computer,

who died this past week of pancreatic cancer,

was a man who sought the extraordinary as he built his company.

He sought the extraordinary and expected the extraordinary,

and over the years, he and his company gave us

one extraordinary product after another

beginning with the Macintosh computer;
I am on my seventh or 8^th over the past 20 years.

He gave us the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad

each an extraordinary product

from a man and a company that sought nothing less.

His passion wasn’t fueled by a desire to make money;

that would have been too common, too ordinary

His passion was fired by his desire

to build extraordinary products.

I remember reading a story of how Jobs went about

hiring a senior executive from Pepsi Cola

The man was among the top executives at Pepsi

and had no reason to leave:

he was paid extremely well,

and had all the trappings and perks

that came with top management position.

But Jobs captured him for Apple when he said,

“Look you can either spend the rest of your career

selling flavored sugar water to people,

or you can come to Apple and change the world.”

It was nothing less than an invitation

to leap from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

This is the invitation we each have

as we live out our lives as disciples of Jesus,

an invitation renewed each Sunday morning

as we enter this Sanctuary for worship:

an invitation to embrace the extraordinary

in every part of worship

in anticipation of a transformative encounter

with God’s Holy Spirit.

So come rejoicing,

come rejoicing each Sunday as you come for worship,

festival Sunday or ordinary Sunday.

Come filled with expectation and anticipation,

participate with enthusiasm,

passion,

opening yourself to the one you are here for,

the one you are worshiping.

Demonstrate to God through your worship

that you think of him as extraordinary.

And then leave rejoicing,

for you will be transformed,

filled that much more

with that extraordinary peace,

that peace that is wholeness, completeness,

that peace that truly surpasses understanding.

To God be the glory!

AMEN