A Week in the Life

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The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 28, 2012

A Week in the Life

Psalm 34 (selected verses)

It looks like a framed letter.

It hangs on the wall behind my desk.

The type is too small to read unless you are right in front of it.

At the top it says very simply:

“What is a Pastor?”

It was given to me by a good friend from Seminary

when I was first ordained.

I don’t know anything about the person who wrote it,

but the words have always resonated with me,

which is why I keep the document visible, prominent.

It is a reminder to me of the vocation

to which God called me.

The document speaks of the usual things we think of

when we hear the word, “pastor”:

Someone who leads worship and preaches;

Someone who presides at weddings, baptisms and funerals;

Someone who teaches;

Someone who counsels;

Someone who prays for himself and others.

But it is these words that I find most meaningful:

A pastor is someone who is “welcomed into people’s lives.”

Welcomed into people’s lives.

To be there, present,

at the birth of a child;

at a marriage;

at a graduation;

a retirement party;

a golden wedding anniversary:

the many different joys that fill our lives.

To be welcomed into a person’s life isn’t limited, of course,

to the joyous times.

It is also includes times of struggle,

of sorrow,

of grief:

a job loss,

the unraveling of a marriage,

a serious illness,

the death of a loved one.

To be a pastor is to be present,

present in such a way

that in time we learn a person’s worries,

fears,

regrets,

frustrations,

as well as those things they are most proud of,

that fill them with contentment,

satisfaction,

happiness,

peace.

To be a pastor is to walk into one hospital room

where the news is good,

the sense of relief and joy palpable;

and then walk into another hospital room

where the prognosis is dire,

where hope has left the room.

To be a pastor is to open the pages of the Bible to all,

to lead men and women,

young and old,

faithfully through the pages of God’s written word

as tour guide, teacher,

interpreter, translator,

even at times re-enactor,

helping the readers to find understanding,

to make sense of the words,

to hear God’s voice,

to see their own lives in the pages, the stories.

It is to remind each reader how essential it is

that we read the Bible through the lens

that is the Living Word,

our Lord Jesus Christ,

so that the grace and mercy of God always comes through.

To be a pastor is to help readers and listeners

look beyond the obvious in the stories,

that, for example, when we hear

that Jesus cured someone of blindness,

the story may well be about a miraculous physical healing –

eyes that had never seen color or shape or light before

suddenly opened to all the world –

but that the same story also surely is teaching us

that we all suffer from some degree of spiritual blindness,

that even those with perfect vision

fail to see what God wants us to see,

what is so often right in front of us.

To be a pastor is to be a “myth-buster”,

to take stories and myths that have been built up over

more than two thousand years

and separate them from what we know,

from what the written word truly reveals.

It is, as just one example,

to take even great works of art,

as I did this past week with the Bible Study class,

paintings by master artists from the 14^th, 15^th, 16^th centuries,

paintings commissioned by the church

to help the faithful learn Bible stories,

paintings I viewed last week when I was on Study Leave,

and point out where the artist strayed from the Bible,

where the artist took license and where, from that,

myths and misunderstandings have arisen.             

To be a pastor is to marvel at the world,

to stand in awe of God’s creation in the earth

the oceans, and the heavens above.

It is to stand in awe of the sheer power of nature –

as we all surely will the next few days –

to stand in awe of the sheer beauty

of all that God has entrusted to our care.

To be a pastor is to acknowledge that life can be difficult,

life can be profoundly unfair,

even to the faithful.

It is to acknowledge with Job,

that there are things we don’t understand,

thing which we don’t know,

can’t know,

will never know or understand.

To be a pastor is not to live an easy life

but it is to live a joy-filled life;

It isn’t to live a lucrative life,

but it is to live a rich life.

To be a pastor is to go through life

singing the psalmist’s song:

 “I will bless the Lord at all times,

his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord;”

It is then to invite others to join in the singing:

“…O magnify the Lord with me,

and let us exalt his name together.”

It is to sing the psalmist’s song of confidence and trust:

“I sought the Lord and he answered me,

and delivered me from all my fears.

…Many are the afflictions of the righteous

but the Lord rescues them from them all.”

It is to sing the psalmist’s song with all the faithful,

         “O taste and see that the Lord is good;

         happy are those who take refuge in him.”

These are all the things a pastor does,

all the parts of a pastor’s life,

the things that fill up the days, the weeks.

But of course, these are all things that every one of us does,

all things every one of us is called to do,

in different ways and in different times,

for aren’t we ALL called to ministry

in the name of Jesus Christ?

My name may be the one listed as the pastor,

but our bulletin reminds us

that every member of this church is a minister,

that the roster of ministers here in this congregation

is more than 400 strong.

And we cannot overlook our dedicated, committed staff –

they too are ministers:

Deborah Panell through the ministry of music;

Melissa Kirkpatrick through the ministry of learning;

Krista Brocker through the ministry of hospitality and outreach;

Russell Jackson through the ministry of

care and property stewardship;

Lisa Faust through the ministry of financial stewardship;

And Chris Fox and Jody Ritner through the ministry

we offer to the children of our community.

It doesn’t matter that you haven’t gone to seminary

or been through ordination exams –

you are a minister,

part of the staff of this church.

Remember: the first group of ministers

had no seminary training, either!

As Frederick Buechner has observed of the twelve men Jesus called:

“There is no evidence that Jesus chose them

because they were brighter or nicer than other people.

In fact…they were continually missing the point,

jockeying for position,

and when the chips were down,

interested in nothing so much as saving their own skins.

Their sole qualification seems to have been

their initial willingness

to rise to their feet when Jesus said, ‘Follow me’.”

You, I, every one of us here

have done the same thing:

we have each responded to Jesus’ call to follow him,

said yes to Jesus,

said yes to his invitation: “Follow me.”

Said yes to his invitation to minister in his name

as we share the gospel.

Barbara Brown Taylor was right when she wrote:

“Somewhere along the way

we misplaced the ancient vision of the church

as a priestly people –

set apart for ministry in baptism,

confirmed and strengthened in worship,

made manifest in service to the world.

…Somehwere along the way we turned

clergy into purveyors of religion

and lay people into consumers.”

I am no purveyor of religion,

and I am guessing none of you think of yourselves

as “consumers of religion.”

The full time staff of this church is just two;

but the staff of ministers numbers almost 500 –

all of us called to be present in one another’s lives,

sharing joy and sorrows,

the good and the bad,

the ups and the downs,

nurturing one another,

learning with one another,

caring for one another,

praying for one another,

building each other up as we build this body,

together, all of us singing the psalmist’s song:

“I will bless the Lord at all times;

his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord;

O magnify the Lord with me,

and let us exalt his name together….

O taste and see that the Lord is good.

Come, O children, listen to me…

Magnify the Lord with me

and let us together exalt his holy name.”

AMEN

The One Who Showed Him Mercy

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

October 7, 2012

The One Who Showed Him Mercy

Luke 10:29-37

Jerusalem and Jericho are not that far apart:

only about 18 miles,

but the road that connected the two cities

back in Jesus’ day was a winding, twisting road,

that went through mountains.

You could walk from one city to the other in about 8 hours,

but it was a difficult walk,

up and then down more than 3,000 feet.

It was also a dangerous walk,

the road notorious for the countless places

where bandits and thieves could hide,

waiting to accost unsuspecting travelers.

It would have surprised no one to hear a story

about someone being attacked and robbed on the road.

But the attack that Jesus tells us about was particularly brutal.

The thieves didn’t just rob the man,

stealing his money and his goods;

 they savagely beat him.

And then they stripped the man of his clothes,

leaving him for dead,

battered,

bleeding,

naked,

along the side of the road.

Along comes a priest;

he sees the man lying there.

Even from a distance

the priest could see the man’s skin purple with bruises,

his chest, arms, legs smeared with blood.

The priest has traveled this road many times,

and he knows that robbers will often

have one of their gang lie along the road looking injured,

as a ruse to pull some unsuspecting stranger into a trap.

The priest knows the brutality,

the sheer viciousness of the robbers along this road.

He knows they never hesitate to kill

if it will make their job of robbing easier.

So the priest lets caution be his guide

and he walks quickly past the man.

Not long after, another traveler walks by,

this one a Levite, like the priest, a holy man,

one who assisted in the work of the Temple

back in Jerusalem.

He too is wise to the dangers along the way,

and he too is suspicious of the form lying on the road

just up ahead,

“It’s the perfect place for an ambush,”

the Levite thinks to himself.

He walks quickly, looking left and right,

alert to the sound of footsteps.

But he does take a moment

to look at the inert form lying there.

He sees that the wounds are real,

and concludes that the man is probably dead.

Hopefully that means the robbers are long gone,

having fled with their spoils.

The Levite knows that if he had stopped

and ministered to the man,

he would have been rendered ritually unclean.

The Levitical Code was very clear on that:

that touching the body of a dead person

would have rendered him unclean for a full week,

and unable to do his work at the Temple.

(Numbers 19:11)

Finally comes the Samaritan.

He is a man of commerce,

and travels the road regularly,

taking goods from Jericho to Jerusalem

to sell them in the marketplace.

Samaritans were looked upon with disdain and contempt

by the Israelites back in Jesus’ day.

Samaritans worshiped the same Lord God as the Israelites,

and they claimed to be descendants of the Twelve Tribes,

but the Israelites considered them outsiders,

brought in to settle the northern part of the country

following the Assyrian invasion

more than 700 years before.

When the Samaritan sees the wounded man,

he stops.

He kneels down,

fully aware that it might be a trap,

but the man’s injuries look real.

The Samaritan is horrified by what he sees:

 the bruises, the gashes,

dried, caked blood everywhere,

“He is moved with pity”,

and after cleansing the wounds with wine and oil,

he bandages them tenderly.

Then the Samaritan carefully lifts the man

onto the back of his donkey

and continues west.

When he arrives at Bethany,

the small village to the east of Jerusalem,

he finds an Inn and stops there

to care for the man overnight.

The next morning

the Samaritan gives the innkeeper two denarii

to care for the injured man.

Two denarii – that was two days’ wages –

surely enough to see to the injured man’s needs.

But just in case, the Samaritan tells the innkeeper,

“Take care of him,

and when I come back,

I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Three days later and the Samaritan

has finished his business in Jerusalem

and is on his way home to Jericho.

He stops at the inn in Bethany

and finds that the innkeeper has taken

good care of the injured man:

the man’s wounds are healing

and he is ready to go home.

The injured man has had plenty of time the past few days

to think of the Samaritan,

a man he doesn’t know,

a man who found him beaten unconscious,

a man who bandaged his wounds,

who brought him to the inn,

who paid the innkeeper to look after him.

The injured man has prayed that the Samaritan would return

so he could see his face,

so he could say to him,

“Thank you.”

“How can I ever repay you?”

“May God bless you forever.”

But then, on that day when they do meet,

when the injured man finally looks upon the Samaritan,

the first word out of his mouth is, “WHY?”

And then a torrent follows:

“Why did you stop and help me?

Why did you risk your life to save me?

Why did you spend almost a week’s worth of your pay,

your own wages,

to care for me,

to feed me,

even to pay for new clothing?

Who am I to you?

What am I to you?

Why were you moved with pity for me?

Why did you not leave me to die?

Why did you care for me?

Why do you care for me?”

The man looks at the Samaritan,

desperate for answers to his questions.

                 

The Samaritan is quiet for a moment,

and then with warmth in his eyes,

and gentleness in his voice,

he says,

“I helped you because it is what I knew I should do;

it is what we should all do,

for the Lord our God tells us that we are to care for the poor;

that we are to leave a part of our field unharvested

for the hungry;

that we are to look out for the widow,

the orphan,

the helpless,

the oppressed.

We are called to live with mercy and compassion,

for we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And the Lord God teaches us that our neighbors

include the stranger and the alien,

as well as those we know.”

“You are a stranger to me,

as I am to you,

but we are one another’s neighbors,

for so says the Lord God.”

“Others may have walked by you,

may have failed to do anything for you,

but I could not do so,

for if I had failed to do anything for you,

I would have failed the Lord our God.

I showed you mercy

because God shows me mercy,

and teaches me to show mercy to all.”

“Do not praise me, my friend,

for doing what God has taught us both to do,

for living as God has taught us.

Do not praise me or honor me.”

Instead, praise God,

and glorify him as you leave this Inn and return home.”

“My friend,

my neighbor,

God has taught me to love my neighbor as myself.

Go and do likewise.”

AMEN