Let It Go

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 25, 2012

The Fifth Sunday in Lent

Service of Wholeness and Forgiveness

Let It Go

Matthew 18:21-22

It was my 10^th grade English teacher.

He told me he had intentionally

lowered my grade one point

to keep me from being on the Honor Roll

for the marking period.

“I couldn’t see you getting Honors,”

was the way he put it.

He spoke sneeringly, disdainfully.  

        

I was furious;

I couldn’t believe he’d done something

so mean-spirited,

so petty.

I was all of fifteen at the time;

my dreams of revenge were wonderfully creative,

but of course they remained nothing more than dreams.

He never apologized

and I never forgave him.

Some years later when the school honored him

as he retired after more than 30 years of teaching,

I silently wished him a short, miserable, retirement.

I’d hung onto my anger all those years.

Who among us hasn’t been offended,

humiliated,

injured,

lied to,

stolen from,

hurt,

by someone?

We, all of us, have had someone do something,

someone say something

that hurt deeply.

Perhaps it was something someone failed to say,

or failed to do,

a promise made,

a promise broken.

The pain was real,

and we refused to forgive,

refused twice over when the other person

showed not the least bit of repentance –

the bully who beats you up

and then laughs as you stand there with a bloody nose.

We hold onto our anger,

we hold onto grudges,

we do not forgive.

And why not – aren’t we justified?

After all, aren’t we innocent victims?

And don’t victims deserve something?

My English teacher did something that was petty,

nasty,

completely inappropriate for a teacher.

Surely Jesus wouldn’t have faulted me for my anger.

What the teacher did was not fair;

it was not right;

What the teacher did was wrong.

But we know, don’t we,

what Jesus would have said to me.

He would have said, “I agree- it was not fair,

it was not right.

It was mean, nasty, wrong.

Still, you must forgive him.”

Forgive him?

Why?

Especially when he wasn’t the least bit sorry for what he’d done.

The snide tone told me he was rather proud of himself.

And still Jesus would have responded,

“You must forgive him.”

Forgive.

Such a simple word,

so easy to say,

and yet such an incredibly hard thing to do.

Speaking through the prophet Isaiah,

God said,

I am He who blots out your transgressions

for my own sake, 

and I will not remember your sins.

Isaiah 43:25

This is our model for forgiveness:

we are to blot out in our minds

the transgression of another

as we forgive,

and remember it no more.

We are called by Jesus to forgive

because we are called by Jesus to lives of grace,

lives of peace,

lives of reconciliation,

lives of love in community.

No passage puts this teaching before us more bluntly

than when Jesus said as part of his Sermon on the Mount,

You have heard that it was said,

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.

But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek,

turn the other also;

Matthew 5:38

An eye-for-an-eye seems so much fairer:

If someone hits me, I will forgive him

after I’ve hit him back.

Fair’s fair.

You hit me, I get to hit you.

Then we will reconcile.

A cartoon I shared with the group

that’s been part of the Thursday evening Lenten series

captures our struggle, our mindset, so perfectly:

“I’ve found that the secret to forgiveness

is to get revenge first.”

But Jesus teaches us to let go,

let go and forgive.

Forgive even if the person isn’t repentant,

Forgive even if the person never says “I’m sorry”,

Yale theologian Miraslov Wolf has written,

“Forgiveness is the beginning of a

transformational relationship.

It is the beginning of reconciliation.

It is what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ

It doesn’t just relieve us from bitterness and resentment,

it enacts love,

laying the foundation for love,

yes, even between enemies.”

Jesus calls us to forgive:

To forgive the family member,

forgive the neighbor,

forgive the stranger,

forgive the friend,

forgive the enemy;

Jesus calls us to forgive the humiliation,

forgive the lie,

forgive the theft,

forgive the destruction,

forgive the injury,

forgive the death.

Jesus calls us to forgive.

To forgive the transgression small or large,

intentional or purely accidental,

forgive and

remember no more.

Henri Nouwen, the Jesuit priest,

acknowledges just hard this is:

“Forgiveness from the heart is very, very difficult,”

But,” Nouwen writes, “it is through forgiveness

that we become more like our Father in Heaven.

God’s forgiveness is unconditional;

it comes from a heart

that does not demand anything for itself…

It is this divine forgiveness

that we should practice in our daily lives.”

Jesus calls us to forgive and let go.

But we can’t do that by saying the words,

“I forgive you” through gritted teeth,

while we still hang onto anger.

To do that isn’t to forgive,

it is to hold a grudge,

and to hold a grudge is to carry a weight,

a weight that Jesus calls us to let go of,

that the Holy Spirit will help us get rid of.

As Henri Nouwen has observed,

we may think we are holding a grudge,

but the reality is that it is the grudge that holds us,

for holding a grudge drags us down into anger,

resentment, and bitterness.

It is telling that the word “grudge”

comes from the same root as the word “grouch”.

To forgive is to let go a deep seated pain;

it is to find peace,

to find the wholeness that Jesus

wants us to know,

wants us to have.

There is healing in forgiving,

for there is love in forgiving.

Last week we put our hands in water

to remind ourselves of the covenant promise

made by God in our baptism.

We put our hands in the water

to remember that we’ve been washed clean,

graced with the Holy Spirit,

and called to be part of the universal church

of Jesus Christ.

The stones we took from the bowls

were tangible reminders of that covenant promise

God has made with each of us.

Today we’ll do something similar:

In a moment you’ll be invited to come forward

to the stations set up at the base of the chancel.

At each station you’ll find a bowl of water,

and next to the bowl a basket of stones.

The stones are engraved with the words, “I Forgive.”

Take a stone from the basket and hold it in your hand

and then immerse your hand in the water,

as you forgive someone whom you need to forgive.

It could be a family member,

a work colleague,

a friend,

a stranger.

And as you forgive another,

make sure you also forgive yourself,

for we are often most unforgiving of our very selves.

As you forgive,

feel the water wash away anger,

resentment,

and pain.

You can leave your grudge behind in the water

as the Holy Spirit heals you,

and graces you with peace.

The take your stone with you as a reminder that today

you forgave:

you forgave someone you’ve been angry with

for a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade;

and you also forgave yourself,

for we all need to forgive ourselves our own shortcomings.

The Reverend Frederick Buechner has written,

“When somebody you’ve wronged forgives you,

you’re spared the dull and self-diminishing throb

of a guilty conscience.   

When you forgive somebody who has wronged you,

you’re spared the dismal corrosion

of bitterness and wounded pride.

For both, forgiveness means

the freedom again to be at peace …

and to be glad in each other’s presence.”

To forgive is to love,

to know God’s mercy,

to know the peace of Christ,

to be healed.

So come, forgive.

For just as you have been forgiven,

so you also must forgive.

AMEN

Why Did They Do It?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 18, 2012

The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant

Why Did They Do It?

Mark 1:4-5

“John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness

proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

And people from the whole Judean countryside

and all the people of Jerusalem

were going out to him,

and were baptized by him in the river Jordan,

confessing their sins.”

Why did they come?

Why did people flock to the waters of the Jordan,

slog through the silt and the mud along the bank,

and then walk into the arms of a man whose expression,

whose words all seemed to scream “madness”?

Why would they let him plunge them under the water,

and then just as quickly yank them up

and push them away,

back to the riverbank,

back to their lives as shepherds, soldiers,

carpenters, stonemasons, tax collectors.

It’s not hard to picture them:

the newly baptized making their soggy way back to town,

dripping with doubt, as well as water,

not sure about what they had just done,

not understanding.

Those who passed them,

who were on the way out to the river,

out to John,

looking at them closely

looking to see if those drenched men and women

had been somehow transformed,

changed by their immersion

changed by John

changed in a way that would be obvious to the eye.

Where in Scripture had this ever been done,

this baptizing?

Had Moses baptized?

Had David baptized?

Had Elijah or Jeremiah or Isaiah

called anyone to the banks of the Jordan,

to the shores of the Sea of Chinnereth,

or even to the beaches of Joppa on the Great Sea

to be baptized?

Where did this practice come from?

Who first thought of it and did it?

What did it symbolize?

What was the point?

God had provided his children with various signs

of the covenant over the centuries:

The rainbow that arced over Noah,

his family and all living creatures

as the flood waters receded.

Circumcision from Abraham’s time.

And then, following the exile to Babylon,

what seemed like the final sign of the covenant,

when God seemed to put aside

both the heavenly sign and

the physical mark,

as he said through the prophet Jeremiah,

this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel:

… I will put my law within them,

and I will write it on their hearts;

and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

^…I will forgive their iniquity,

and remember their sin no more.  

(Jeremiah 31:29 )

“I will forgive their iniquity

and remember their sin no more.”

This was God’s promise;

This was God’s covenant.

So why was John shouting out “Repent!”

Why was John, “proclaiming a baptism of repentance

for the forgiveness of sins”

(Mark 1:4)

if God had forgiven his children,

if God had promised so long ago

to remember their sin no more?

They may not have understood,

yet the people flocked to John,

“people from the whole Judean countryside,

and all the people of Jerusalem”

coming by the scores, the hundreds,

something drawing them,

capturing their hearts and minds.

Perhaps it was because the people thought John was Elijah

and had come, as Malachi had prophesied,

to proclaim that the kingdom of God was at hand.

(Matthew 3:2 and Malachi 4:5)

But even if John was not Elijah

there was something so compelling about this new act,

this baptism that they came from every corner of Judea.

There was something wonderful, uplifting,

freeing in repenting as John demanded of those he baptized,

of confessing one’s sins

before being plunged under the water.

The mysterious Sibylline oracles

written before the birth of Jesus

seemed to capture the premise:

“Ah, wretched mortals, change these things,

…wash your bodies in the perennial rivers.

Stretch out your hand to heaven

and ask for forgiveness…

and God will grant repentance.”

(Sibylline Oracle 4.163)

The practice of sacrifice as an act of contrition

had become rote and devoid of meaning;

pay a few coins to buy a pigeon,

hand it over to the priest,

and be on your way.

But baptism: to be washed clean,

to go down into the water and come back up,

a new person, born to new life:

this was a gift from God,

something worth the cost of confession and repentance.

Two thousand years later we still baptize,

baptize as a sign that we have been washed clean,

As the great Reformer John Calvin wrote,

“It is a token and proof of our cleansing from sin….”

And then, as though Calvin had anticipated this very service,

he went on to write,

“As often as we fall away,

we ought to recall the memory of our baptism

and fortify our mind with it,

that we may always be sure and confident

of the forgiveness of sins.”

(Institutes 4.15.3)

We can be sure and confident

of the forgiveness of our sins;

that’s the gift God gives us in Christ through our baptism.

So, confident in our being forgiven,

we should not hesitate to repent of our sins,

should not hesitate to be repentant

of all those things that turn us from God.

                 

We should repent,

that we can be washed clean all over again,

not in a new baptism,

but because of the promise made in our baptism.

So as you come forward,

come with penitent hearts and minds,

come repenting, confessing,

so that when you dip your hand in the bowl

and feel that refreshing, pure water

cover your hand,

you will feel yourself cleansed anew of sin.

“Return to me” says the Lord,

“Return to me, and know forgiveness”,

“Return to me know my love.”

A promise God makes to each of us,

all of us,

symbolized so simply, so elegantly

in the waters of our baptism.

AMEN

The Healer

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 7, 2012

Trinity Episcopal Church Lenten Series

The Healer

Luke 5:12-16

The lights burn bright on the stage.

The preacher stands there expectantly,

the congregation buzzing with excitement and anticipation.

One-by-one they move forward,

lining up by the stairs that lead to the chancel,

that lead up to the lights,

that lead up to the preacher,

…that lead to hope.

One-by-one they are brought forward to the preacher,

who asks them,

“What is it that you want to be healed of sister?”

What is it that ails you brother?”

And then the preacher looks up

as he places his hand on the forehead of the afflicted,

and with a mighty shout

that rivals the hosannas of the heavenly host

the preacher cries out,

“IN THE NAME OF JESUS HEAL!”

And in one explosive second,

the afflicted man, the ailing woman,

falls back into the waiting arms of attendants,

who then turn the person to the crowd:

LOOK: the sinner has been healed,

the affliction gone!

Let all God’s children shout, “Praise the Lord!”

That’s how we often picture a healing service;

as straight out of “Elmer Gantry”,

or more recently, “Leap of Faith”,

a service that is more about theatrics than faith,

more about the preacher than about God.

It is easy to be skeptical of such services,

but still there is that question that lurks:

Could there be something to it?

Is there a possibility that a person could be healed:

healed of blindness, of deafness,

of crippling arthritis,

even of cancer by nothing more than a touch,

a prayer?

It’s what Jesus did in our lesson.

He healed a leper of his horrible disease,

just as he had healed Peter’s mother-in-law of fever;

just as he would go on to restore sight to the blind,

hearing to the deaf,

give the crippled the ability to get up and walk.

Jesus healed.

Jesus healed -

not because he wanted to be the center of attention;

but because he knew that his Father in Heaven,

our Father in Heaven,

wants us to know healing,

wants us to be healed.

An apocryphal book –

a book that is found in the Bibles

of some denominations

but not most Protestant denominations -

tells us that God gave us medicine and medical practitioners

so that we would know healing.

In a book entitled Sirach,

written almost 200 years before the birth of Christ

we read:

“Honor physicians for their services,

…for the Lord created them;
for their gift of healing comes from the Most High,
 …The Lord created medicines out of the earth,
 …By them the physician heals and takes away pain;

 the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.

… from [God] health spreads over all the earth.”

(Sirach 38:1-8)

We may not consider Sirach canonical,

but we probably would not disagree with this passage.

God wants us to know healing and wholeness,

not pain and infirmity,

and God uses any and all routes to our healing.

You and I turn to the medical profession 
for healing of our physical maladies, our illnesses.

And certainly miracles abound

in what the medical profession can do these days:

artificial joints, heart bypasses,

organ transplants,

more and more effective treatments for cancer.

Leprosy, the scourge in Jesus’ day,

is all but nonexistent in this country

and where it does still appear in other parts of the world

there are drugs to treat it,

to effect a cure as complete as our Lord’s touch.

But there are afflictions that affect us,

wounds that abound in almost all of us,

wounds that are present,

but which the eye cannot see, 

which even the most complete physical exam

might not reveal;

Wounds that fester;

wounds that resist healing;

wounds that may have been inflicted upon us,

or which we may have inflicted upon ourselves.

Wounds that weaken us,

wounds that can drain the very life from us.

These are spiritual wounds,

spiritual affliction and illness

that come from hopelessness,

frustration,

guilt,

loneliness,

anger,

depression,

grief,

fear,

failure:

wounds that can have their root

in any of a thousand different sources,

a thousand different causes,

and which eat away us

as surely as leprosy attacked the body.

These are wounds which the medical profession

may try to heal in us,

but the promise is sure:

for these kinds of afflictions, these kinds of wounds,

no one can heal us more effectively,

more completely

than our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus will heal us with “gospel medicine,”

to use Barbara Brown Taylor’s term.

Gospel medicine:  the Word of God in Jesus Christ

The Word of God in Jesus Christ that can

“mend broken lives, and revive faint hearts.”

Think of the healing power in the words:

“fear not.”

Think of the healing power in the words:

“your sins are forgiven.”

Think of the healing power in the words:

“I have redeemed you; you are mine,

precious and honored in my sight.”

        

There is healing power in the words:

“I am the bread of life.”

        

There is healing power in the words:

“whoever follows me will never walk in darkness

but will have the gift of life.”

    

There is healing power in the words:

“I am the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in me,

even though they die, will live, and

everyone who lives and believes in me

will never die.”

These words are gospel medicine,

words that can bind up our brokenness,

words that can heal even the deepest spiritual wound,

for they are words of grace and love.

                 

The prophet reminds us

that our Lord was “a man of suffering,

and acquainted with infirmity.”

(Isaiah 53:3)

And so he comes to each of us

with empathy,

with understanding

with compassion;

He comes to you and me ready, willing,

eager to heal.

He comes to the “the disappointed,

the doubtful,

the disconsolate,

to those who have given up,”

to help them find hope,

to help them find healing

to help them know wholeness.

Where do you hurt?

Where is the pain?

Where is your wound – what is it?

Is it an injury that someone else inflicted upon you?

Something someone said or did to you?

Jesus can heal you.

Is it pain you have inflicted upon yourself?

Something you said or did?

Or perhaps it is something you know

you should have said or done, but did not.

Jesus can heal you.

Our Lord Jesus Christ can and will heal you

with Gospel medicine,

words of assurance,

of comfort,

of hope,

words of grace, words of love.

For ultimately, it is love that heals,

love that is ours,

love given us by God,

not through a bottle of pills,

but through the one who invites you to come to him

for healing,

for wholeness:

our Lord Jesus Christ.

AMEN

How Much?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 4, 2012

The Second Sunday in Lent

How Much?

Mark 8:31-38

Are you truly a follower?

A follower of Jesus Christ?

Or are you really more of an admirer,

a fan,

an avid student of his teaching?

There is a difference,

a profound difference,

between being a follower

and being even the most ardent of admirers.

You and I: we are called by Christ to be his followers;

Followers, following him,

living our lives as he teaches us to live them,

walking in his very footsteps,

following him wherever he might lead us.

        

His call to his disciples 2000 years ago

is also his call to you and me:

“If you want to become my follower,

then you must deny yourself,

take up your cross, and follow.”

We can profess our faith;

We can join a church;

We can worship on Sunday;

We can say to others, “I am a Christian.”

But doing any or even all of those things

doesn’t necessarily mean we are followers,

truly following our Lord Jesus Christ.

                 

To follow Christ is to go all in,

nothing held back.

Utter and complete surrender of our lives

to God through Christ.

Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat what this means:

he lays it right out:

“if you want to be my follower,

then you too will have to take up your cross.”

Two thousand years later

it’s almost impossible for us to grasp fully

just what Jesus meant by that.

For the disciples, a cross wasn’t the

sign of salvation as it is for us now;

the cross was the executioner’s cruel tool.

In his call to take up your cross Jesus was saying,

“If you want to follow me,

you’d better be ready for a path that may well include

pain, privation,

ridicule, scorn,

loss of friends,

even the loss of family.

If you want to follow me,

you’d better be ready for a path

that may even cost you your life.”

Jesus’ stinging rebuke to Peter

reinforces the point Jesus was making,

that if we want to follow, truly follow Jesus,

then our minds must be on divine things,

and not on human things –

things like our comfort, our success, our possessions.

This is a difficult passage,

but so appropriate for Lent.

We tend to get stuck on Jesus’ words to Peter,

“Get behind me Satan.”

But if we want to understand this passage in its entirety,

we need to set aside that outburst,

and focus on what Jesus is saying to all,

what Jesus is saying to you and me.

How fully committed each of us is,

is up to each of us;

Jesus leaves that to us.

We can each create our own definition of “follower”:

A Sunday follower;

A follower-as-long-as-it doesn’t-otherwise-interfere-

with-more-important-things-in-my-life;

A follower as long as it isn’t too difficult or demanding;

A follower as long as you don’t ask too much of me,

too much of my time,

too much of my treasure.

Do you remember the parable of the sower?

We can find the parable in Matthew’s, Mark’s,

and Luke’s gospels.

“A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed,

some fell on the path and was trampled on,

and the birds of the air ate it up.

Some fell on the rock;

and as it grew up,

it withered for lack of moisture.

Some fell among thorns,

and the thorns grew with it and choked it.

Some fell into good soil,

and when it grew,

it produced a hundredfold.”

(Luke 8:5)

Aren’t we all, if we are honest about it,

a combination of the second and the third types of soil?

The second, where the seed fell on rock

and withered for lack of moisture:

God’s words, Christ’s teachings,

falling on our hard hearts,

not nurtured,

withering,

faded,

lost.

The third, the word choked off

by all the other things that fill our lives,

the cares, the concerns, the distractions.

It’s the fourth kind of soil that should be our goal, though;

the fourth kind of soil nurtures

the receptive hearts and minds

of true followers.

“A follower is one who strives to be like the one he follows”,

This doesn’t mean you and I are called to copy Christ;

We are to emulate him.

We are to be ourselves,

the individuals God created each of us to be,

but we are to model our lives on Christ’s life.

In this Lenten season of repentance,

who among us can say that we do this well?

Lent is the time for us to acknowledge

that we fall short,

that if we model our lives on Christ’s

it is selective modeling

a bit here, a bit there,

a little more on Sunday,

a little less on Monday.

Soren Kierkegaard was right when he said

Christ’s life is a demand on our own lives.

We are being asked to step up and step out

from the comfort of our own lives

and live as Jesus calls us to live,

without asking how much it might cost us,

living fully as God’s word in both Old and New Testament

teaches us to live.

    

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’,

and do not do what I tell you?”

(Luke 6:46)

Jesus asks this of his disciples and

Jesus asks the same thing of you and me.

Put another way, Jesus asks us,

“Why do you say you are my followers,

but not follow?”

Jesus knows how hard what he is asking of us is,

but Jesus also knows we have help,

help every step along the way throughout our lives,

help from God through the Holy Spirit.

As we said in our Affirmation of Faith

at the beginning of the service,

the Spirit binds us together,

feeds us,

and gives us courage and strength

so we can more readily and faithfully

deny ourselves,

pick up our crosses,

and follow our Lord Jesus Christ.

“Do not be conformed to this world”

Paul tells us,

but be transformed.

(Romans 12:3)

Be transformed into a follower.

It is the work of a lifetime,

but as the first letter of Peter reminds us,

“to this you have been called, ….

that you should follow in Christ’s footsteps”

(1 Peter 2:21)

Even the original disciples struggled to be faithful followers.

We all know what happened when Jesus was arrested:

the disciples scattered with the wind,

filled with fear for their own lives,

Peter so notoriously denying he even knew Jesus.

But they all repented of their weakness,

and with the power of the Holy Spirit helping them,

they all later picked up their crosses

and followed,

followed faithfully,

fully.

fearlessly.

Lent calls us to look within ourselves

to see where we have fallen short as followers.

And the Lord’s Table is the place for us to come

to be fed and nourished by the Spirit,

to be strengthened and renewed

so that we can pick up our crosses and follow.  

As you come to the Table,

I invite you to ponder in your hearts and minds

the words Joshua said to the children of Israel

before they crossed the Jordan

and entered the Promised Land:

“Choose this day whom you will serve.”

Just change the words slightly:

“choose this day whom you will you follow”:

whom you will follow with all your strength,

all your mind,

all you heart,

all your soul.

And then respond with your renewed commitment:

“As for me, I will follow Christ.”

AMEN