Not One of Us

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 30, 2012

Not One of Us

Mark 9:38-41

The index finger of the right hand said to the thumb,

“Aren’t we lucky to be part of hand?

And to be part of the right hand, no less!

Can you imagine what life would be like if we were toes?

Stuffed all day in hot, uncomfortable shoes.

You and I are important.

A hand does so many wonderful things:

It is the hand that makes strangers friends;

It is the hand that makes beautiful music on a piano;

It is the hand that paints a picture

filled with color and emotion.

It is the hand that allows one person to embrace another

to comfort, to assure, to show love.

What can a foot do?

Any of these things?

Of course not!

Kicking a ball is probably the foot’s biggest claim to fame.

And what’s so great about that, I ask you?

To kick a ball into a soccer goal?

I’d like to see a foot try to put a basketball through

that little hoop.

Hands are so much better than feet!”

Meanwhile, not far away,

the ear was thinking to itself,

“I am so glad I am an ear and not an eye.

I can hear all the beautiful sounds

God has filled this earth with:

the sound of birds singing,

children laughing;

thunder rumbling,

waves crashing.

People can talk to one another because of me.

Sure they need a tongue,

but they’ve got to have ears to hear,

and with me they can hear words that teach them,

nurture them,

help them grow in love,

even protect their lives.

Can the eye do any of the things I do?

Eyes – if they’re not near-sighted, they’re far sighted;

if they are not far-sighted, they’ve got astigmatism;

they itch in allergy season;

they need protection from the sun;

and they are all but useless in the dark.

I am so glad I am an ear and not an eye!”

These two absurd conversations

have their roots in the apostle Paul’s letter

to the new Christians in Corinth.

(1 Corinthians 12:12)

He was trying to help them understand

their need for one another,

that no one was more important than another,

no one less important;

that the very essence of Christianity is community.

You remember his metaphor:

that the community of disciples is the body,

the body of Christ.

And just like a human body,

the body of Christ is made up of many members.

And in the same way that the hand does need the foot,

and that the ear does need the eye,

so too in the body of Christ,

we need one another.

As Paul concluded his lesson, he wrote,

“God has so arranged the body…

that the members may have

the same care for one another.

If one member suffers,

all suffer together…;

if one member is honored,

all rejoice together….;

Now you are the body of Christ

and individually members of it.”

(1 Corinthians 12:24-27)

We are the body of Christ,

each of us and all of us within the

Manassas Presbyterian Church.

And we are members of the larger body

that is the Presbyterian Church (USA),

and the still larger body

that includes all followers of Christ.

And I don’t think there is any reason

why we cannot take Paul’s metaphor

all the way to its logical conclusion

and say that we are part of the body

that is all humanity,

for we are all God’s children,

all bearing the image of God.

It’s that word “member” that trips us.

We’re fine being part of a community,

but once we start thinking of ourselves as “members,”

it is all too easy to think of ourselves

as being part of something exclusive,

that we are part of this community,

while others are not,

as though there was a sign over

the entrance to the building

that said, “Members Only”.

When I lived and worked in New York City

back in the mid-1990s,

I was a member of a club,

The Penn Club.

Membership was exclusive:

it was open only to those men and women

who were graduates of the University of Pennsylvania.

I qualified because of my MBA from

the University’s Wharton School.

If you came knocking on the door

as an alum of Harvard or Yale,

North Carolina or Duke,

JMU or Virginia Tech,

you would have been sent away

with the same response: No admission;

Admission is exclusive to graduates of Penn.  

You would have had to have found a different club

that might admit you.

The doors of the Penn Club

would have been shut to you.

Churches are not like that,

or at least they are not supposed to be.

But the reality is, churches often are.

We are called to be inclusive,

yet we often act in ways that exclude,

exclude those who are “not like us”,

those who don’t think like us or act like us.

The point Jesus was making in our lesson

was the importance of inclusiveness.

Someone was trying to exorcise demons,

doing so in the name of Jesus,

presumably to help those afflicted

with illness to be healed.

John saw the healer and

immediately complained to Jesus:

“we tried to stop him because he was not following us.”

Do you hear what John was complaining about?

The healer was not “one of them,”

not part of their group of apostles,

not part of the inner circle,

and so, in John’s opinion,

the healer should have been stopped.

Jesus’ response is so refreshing:

“No, I won’t stop him, and neither should you.

Who cares whether he is not part of our group?

He is trying to do the will of God

and that is all that matters.

In fact, that makes him one of us,

because “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

“Whoever is not against us, is for us,”

We’ve turned that phrase on its head,

as we have with so many of Jesus’ teachings,

turning it into,

“If you are not with us,

you are against us.”

That’s not the same thing,

not at all:

To say, “If you are not with us,

you are against us”

is to draw boundaries,

to create exclusive groups.

to say, “If you don’t come into our group,

and become one of us,

then you are on the other side of the fence,

and at best we’ll look at you as

someone we want nothing to do with,

and at worst, we will look at you

as a threat, a danger, an enemy.”

To say, as Jesus does

“Whoever is not against us, is for us,”

is to say that everyone is for us,

everyone is with us,

part of the group,

included,

unless they have pointedly, clearly,

excluded themselves by saying,

“I am against you.”

Our default position is inclusion,

everyone in,

part of the group,

one of us.

Jesus was not at all interested

in building an organization,

much less an institution.

As he said repeatedly, he came

to do the will of the one who sent him.

And that is our calling, too: to do God’s will,

with one another,

as part of the body,

all of us working together,

inviting the newcomer to join us,

to work with us,

as a new and necessary member of the body.  

The great Scot preacher Peter Marshall,

who was the pastor of the

New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

in downtown D.C. through most of the 1940s,

spoke of Jesus standing at the door of the church

“with his big carpenter hands opened wide in welcome.”

This is the Jesus we should follow,

we should model:

open, inclusive,

welcoming newcomers

not to add to our membership roster,

but to strengthen the body.                       

        

The hands may well argue,

but they need the feet;

the ears may well speak disdainfully

but they need the eyes.

And we need one another,

members all,

members of the body,

called by Christ,

called by grace,

called to serve.

All together,

all for God,

all in the name of Jesus Christ.

AMEN

A Difficult Path to Walk

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 23, 2012

A Difficult Path to Walk

James 4:1-3

James clearly was not happy with his

brothers and sisters in Christ.

He speaks to them like an exasperated parent:

“Don’t you see?...

Don’t you get it? …

Why do I have to explain this to you?

Isn’t it obvious?”

Listen to the passage again,

this time from Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”:

“Where do you think all these

appalling wars and quarrels come from?

Do you think they just happen?

Think again.

They come about because you want your own way,

and fight for it deep inside yourselves.

You lust for what you don’t have

and are willing to kill to get it.

You want what isn’t yours

and will risk violence to get your hands on it.

You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you?

And why not?

Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to.

You’re spoiled children,

each wanting your own way.”

These are harsh, powerful, biting words,

made even more powerful by the one who was speaking them.

James was the leader of the church in Jerusalem

in those formative, foundational years

shortly after the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord.

James was also the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ;

yes, the real brother.

The gospels make a number of clear references

to Joseph and Mary’s other children,

Jesus’ real brothers and sisters.

(e.g., Mark 6:3)

After Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection

James chose not to follow

the peripatetic pattern of Peter and Paul,

traveling as they did throughout the region

spreading the gospel.

Rather, he stayed put in Jerusalem.

His letter to other Christians

is a powerful exhortation

to the new life Jesus calls us to,

the life we’ve been calling the “Beatitude Life”.

His letter is filled with wisdom,

which is no surprise

since it is a letter that calls us to a life of wisdom,

wisdom grounded in faith.

                 

“Be doers of the word,

and not merely hearers,” James says to us.

“Curb your tongue for it can stain the whole body.”

“Do not speak evil against one another.”

These sound like the teachings of a wise man,

a faithful man,

one who listened carefully when his brother spoke.

But in the verses we heard from our lesson

he seems to lose his temper, barking at his listeners:

“You are spoiled children,

each wanting your own way.”

“You covet something and cannot obtain it;

so you engage in disputes and conflicts.”

What is at the root of most disagreements,

whether they are in the church,

in our homes,

or in the halls of government?

One person or group wants things one way,

while another person or group wants things another way.

Neither side will budge;

both sides dig in their heels.

Each side is convinced they are right,

the other side wrong.

Quarrels, arguments,

fighting are the inevitable result.

But doesn’t Jesus teach us to work for peace,

for reconciliation?

Doesn’t Jesus teach us to put the needs of others first,

to serve and not be served?

But oh, how difficult that is!

That’s almost like giving in.

As one writer puts it,

“In a society that is centered on self-gratification,

often at the expense of others,

words like ‘compromise,’

‘reconciliation,’

and ‘shared interests’

sound alien and counter-cultural.”

Don’t we try to teach our children

not to want their own way all the time?

It is certainly something we try to teach

in our Early Learning Center programs.

We want children to learn to share,

to learn to work cooperatively with others,

that they cannot expect to get their own way all the time.

Every teacher teaches every child,

“No, you cannot swing on the swing for all of playtime

if others also want the swing –

it doesn’t matter whether you don’t like slides,

the teeter-totter,

or the other playstations.

You have to learn to share.

You have to learn to think of others.”                                             

What is the term we use for the child

who refuses to cooperate,

refuses to share,

who has a tantrum when he doesn’t get his own way?

It is the same word James used two thousand years ago

to refer to his quarrelsome brothers and sisters:

“spoiled”.

                                   

We teach these lessons to our children,

but then as we get older

we seem to unlearn them.

New lessons replace the old:

look out for number one,

beat others,

get your own way,

be first,

win at all costs.

But the Christian life you and I are called to,

the life James’ brother Jesus calls us to:

isn’t it built on sharing, on community

on looking out for others,

on looking after others?

James teaches us:

“Show by your good life

that your works are done with

gentleness born of wisdom.

The wisdom from above is pure, peaceable,

gentle,

willing to yield,

full of mercy and good fruits,

without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

(James 3:13)

This is the life we are called to,

a life grounded in divine wisdom

that teaches us not to cause quarrels,

but to work for reconciliation.

But as we build our lives on material success,

on affluence, on acquisition,

on looking out for number one,

it is easy to lose sight of the Beatitude life.

Envy and cravings for things we want

take over and control us.  

The Reverend William Sloane Coffin

puts things in perspective

 with his wonderfully simple question:

 “Why should we want all things to enjoy life,

when we have been given life to enjoy all things?”

There is no question

that our Lord calls us to a difficult path to walk,

a path that often seems counter-cultural.

It requires at times “upside down thinking,”

to use Barbara Brown Taylor’s term,

for it is a life that requires humility on our part,

a character trait we don’t embrace easily.

The wisdom of James guides us, though:

“Submit yourself, therefore to God…

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

…Humble yourself before the Lord.”

(James 4:7ff)

“These conflicts and disputes among you,

where do they come from”

James asks the people of Jerusalem.

James ask the same question of us, too,

for the words of scripture are directed at us.

The answer we want to provide is always the same:

“The conflicts and disputes

are caused by those other people,

the ones who refuse to get along with us.

They are the ones who are causing all the trouble.”

But if we are honest with James,

honest with ourselves,

and honest with God

then we’ll admit:

we are the cause of the conflicts and disputes,

for in our stubbornness we have forgotten our call

to be peacemakers,

to humility,

to work for reconciliation as we build God’s Kingdom.

A few years back I made this suggestion:

The next time you have an argument with someone,

get in the car and drive to the nearest store.

Go inside and buy a package of popsicles

and then sit down with your adversary

and eat your popsicles together.

After about ten minutes, compare your tongues

and see whose is more raspberry red,

or orangy orange,

or purpley purple.

Laugh at each other,

laugh at yourselves.

Do that and watch your differences melt away.

Do that, and you’ll be back on the path

our Lord calls us to,

the path of peace that leads us to the Kingdom.

The path that leads to that day,

that place, as improbable as it sounds, where,

“The wolf shall live with the lamb,

the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together,

and a little child shall lead them.”

AMEN

How Do We Know?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 16, 2012

How Do We Know?

Proverbs 1:20-33

Drive east on State Route 100A in central Vermont

and you’ll see a sign for Coolidge Memorial Road.

Turn left onto the Road and head north

and in just a few minutes you’ll find yourself

in the tiny hamlet of Plymouth Vermont.

It’s the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge,

our 30^th president, who served from 1924 to 1929.

Plymouth is a classic Vermont village,

and just as you’d expect,

right in the center of town

is the Plymouth General Store.

It is a white clapboard building with green shutters

and a single gas pump out front,

just to the right of the steps

that take you up to the store’s front porch,

with its benches and a table ready for a checkerboard.

Pull the door open and step over the worn threshold

and you’ll likely be greeted by the store’s proprietor,

Homer Biggs.

        

Homer has run the store for the past 32 years,

keeping the same schedule six days a week,

Monday through Saturday:

opening the store at 7:00 am

and closing up at 7:00 pm.

At age 77, he still has all his hair,

white as Vermont snow.

His faced has been etched by years of Vermont winter winds,

and summer sunshine.

He dresses each day in a flannel shirt –

cotton in the summer, wool in the winter- 

and khaki trousers

held up by both belt and suspenders.  

His store carries all the things you’d expect:

Milk and bread;

Vermont maple syrup,

cheese from nearby Grafton,

red longjohns -- the old-fashioned scratchy ones,

jumper cables, anti-freeze,

those sorts of things.

After Homer closes up the store each evening,

he stays for about an hour

cleaning and straightening up his merchandise.

And while he goes about his work,

he usually sings,

softly,

as though he was singing to his dustcloth and broom.

He won’t sing if he thinks anyone is nearby listening,

but if you sneak up quietly

and stand by the window on the east side of the store,

you can hear him.

His voice is a rich tenor,

perfect for ballads like,

“Love Me Tender,”

“Are You Lonesome Tonight,”

and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

As you listen to Homer sing those ballads

from 40, 50, even 60 years ago,

you are likely to think that he sounds a lot like Elvis Presley.

Well, there is reason for that:

it isn’t because Homer is fan of Elvis,

practiced in singing Presley’s songs.

It is because Homer is Elvis.      

Homer Biggs is Elvis Presley.

All that business back in 1977 about Elvis dying?

Not true.

It was all staged, 

staged by Elvis

so he could escape the life he had grown to despise,

the life that had exhausted him.

He staged it all so he could escape to a simpler life.

Much like Tom Sawyer, he witnessed his own funeral,

and then vanished.

He spent three years in a remote village in Switzerland

where he underwent cosmetic surgery

to alter his appearance.

Then, in 1980 he returned to this country as Homer Biggs.

He settled in Vermont as the proprietor

of the Plymouth General Store,

and he’s never left Plymouth since.

He sings for himself now,

sings for the sheer joy of it,

sings all the old ballads.

And every now and then,

when he’s feeling particularly energetic,

you can even hear him sing,

“you can do anything,

but lay off of my blue suede shoes..”

Now some of you look like you don’t believe me.

Others may be wondering,

“Is it true;

Is Elvis really alive?

Is what we just heard for real?”

Have I told you fact,

or fiction?

When I was in law school

I was taught: never assume anything;

always check.

Check the facts, check the information.

Do the work – do the digging;

know your facts.

We hear something that sounds plausible;

It comes from a reliable source:

from a pulpit,

from someone on television,

a writer for a newspaper,

even a tweet or a blog

and there is an aura of credibility

so we accept what we hear as truth.

But Elvis alive, the proprietor of a store in Vermont?

Most would scoff.

But there are some who would say I am right,

at least in part:

Elvis is alive, but he’s not in Vermont.

One website documents his post-1977 career

as an undercover agent for the federal

Drug Enforcement Agency.

It is up to us, each of us, to discern,

to learn,

to dig out facts,

to separate fact from fiction,

truth from lies.

And the sad reality is that

it gets more and more difficult to do that.                     

The Book of Proverbs calls us to a life of knowledge,

a life of learning,

a life of wisdom so that we can discern truth,

so we can grow in faith,

confident that we are firmly grounded in God’s will,

rather than the will of someone

who has enticed us with lies.

In our lesson from the first chapter of Proverbs,

we heard Wisdom, personified as Woman Wisdom,

calling us in a prophetical voice,

speaking to us sternly, even harshly:

“You’d better listen to me.

You’d better listen or otherwise your life

will be one calamity after another,

because you won’t know how to live.

You won’t know how to tell right from wrong,

good from evil,

fact from fiction.”

Wisdom demands to know from you and me:

“How long will you love being simple?”

She laments,

“I have called and you ignored me;

I have stretched out my hand and no one heeded.”

Certainly we are reminded every year in the fall

that politicians of all persuasions

have a difficult relationship with the truth.

Businesspeople,

Celebrities,

news reporters,

sports stars,

yes, even clergy –

there is no group immune

from dissembling, distorting.

“Spinning” is the preferred term these days;

it sounds so harmless,

almost like a game.

“Beware that no one leads you astray”

warns our Lord Jesus Christ

(Mark 13:5)

reminding us that even the most persuasive voices,

the most appealing voice,

may not be telling us the truth.

Many of my Bible Study classes have been entitled,

“What the Bible really says about…”

this topic or that.

What we do in those classes is dig into the Bible

to separate the myths we’ve learned,

that we’ve thought were biblical,

from what the Bible actually teaches us.

This is the first step to wisdom.

Given the current debate about marriage that is raging

in churches of every denomination,

it is clear it is time for class entitled,

“What Does the Bible Really Teach Us About Marriage.”

Watch for that class later in the Fall.

John Calvin spoke of his faith

as imbuing him with a “teachable spirit,”

a spirit open to God’s guidance,

a spirit that helped him

to understand the Psalmist’s words,

“Teach me your way, O Lord,

that I may walk in your truth.”

(Psalm 86.11)

We all have teachable spirits,

but the very term reminds us

that we have to nurture and nourish our spirits constantly

through study and learning.

Find your place in our Education program;

find your place to nurture and nourish your teachable spirit

so that you can grow in knowledge,

that you can grow in wisdom,

so that you can grow in discipleship

following our Teacher, our Master,

and not being led astray

by compelling voices that do not speak the truth.

Stand outside the General Store in Plymouth Vermont

some evening and listen,

listen for that familiar voice,

that voice that is still so distinctive

even after all these years.

But don’t be surprised if some night

you hear a slight change in the words:

“Well you can knock me down,

Step in my face,

Slander my name all over the place.

Do anything that you want to do,

but uh uh honey

don’t listen if it ain’t true.”

Words of wisdom
from the sage of Plymouth Vermont.

AMEN