Sunday, August 25, 2013

Improbable Possibilities

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
August 25, 2013
Improbable Possibilities
Mark 10:17-27

The image is almost absurd, isn’t it?
Pushing a camel through the eye of a needle?
Could we push a goat through the eye of a needle?
What about a cat?
A mouse?
It cannot be done;
It is not possible.
It is utterly impossible.

We’ve tried to explain Jesus’ illustration in other ways,
rationalizing his words.
Some have argued that the word we translate as camel
really should be translated as rope;
others have said there was a gate that led into Jerusalem
that was called the “Needle” 
which was a tight squeeze
but which still allowed a camel to get through.

But no, Jesus meant it just as it sounds:
he is talking about something impossible,
something that cannot happen.

We are dealing with hyperbole,
exaggeration,
a favorite teaching technique of our Lord:
“If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble and sin,
cut it off and throw it away;
If your eye causes you to stumble and sin, tear it out.”
(Matthew 18:8)
These are the words of our Lord,
not meant for us to take literally, of course,
but for us to learn from – Jesus the teacher,
using different ways to get his points across.

In our lesson, Jesus exaggerated
so his listeners 2000 years ago,
and we today, would understand:
An elephant, a camel, a blue whale –
the most enormous of animals
stand a better chance of squeezing through the eye of a needle
than a person with money does of getting into heaven.

So much for the wealthy!
Aren’t we glad that none of us is wealthy,
no Donald Trumps here in this congregation.
The message our Lord teaches and preaches is chillingly clear:
If you’ve got a big pile of money, enjoy it now,
because when you draw your last breath,
that will be that, the end.
As our Lord said in the gospel of Luke:
“Woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.”
(Luke 6:24-25)

Mark tells us “the apostles were perplexed at these words.”
Or, as the apostles said of another of Jesus’ illustrations,
“this teaching is difficult.”
Who can be saved?
Who is lost?
How do we define “rich” or “wealthy”?
What is the cut-off?
Is it just the 1% who need to be worried?
The top 10%
The top 53%?

This is difficult teaching;
it is perplexing.
After all, in this country we admire wealth.
We admire those who are financially successful.
We admire them and, if we are honest,
we are envious.
Who among us wouldn’t want even a little more
in their bank account,
in their retirement account?

How much nicer my vacation in Vermont would have been
if, rather than having to spend 10 hours in a car on Interstate 95,
I could have driven to our local airport,
boarded a private jet,
and landed in southern Vermont an hour later,
a limo standing by to whisk me away,
a private chef waiting in the kitchen with lunch ready,
the refrigerator full of favorite foods.

What happened to the good old days,
those Old Testament times when having wealth
was thought to be a good thing,
a sign of God’s blessing?
“The blessing of the Lord brings wealth”
we read in Proverbs,
capturing what most thought,
even in Jesus’ time
(Proverbs 10:22)

The problem with wealth is that we become attached
to what we have –
our money and our possessions.
Our money and our possessions define us,
begin to rule us, govern our lives.
Our lives become more and more focused
on enriching ourselves materially and financially,.
That’s not the life our Lord calls us to, though,
when he says to you and me, “Follow me.”
He calls us to lives spent enriching ourselves spiritually.
                          
But who among us would have responded any differently
from the young man in our lesson?
He sounds like any of us:
a person of faith,
trying to live with integrity, goodness,
studying Scripture,
striving to follow,
taking his call, his faith, his religion seriously.  

He abided by the word of God,
God’s teachings and Commandments:
You shall not murder – Check!
You shall not commit adultery – Check!
You shall not steal – Check!
You shall not bear false witness – Check!
You shall not defraud – Check!
Honor your father and mother – Check! Check!

But then Jesus added this new commandment,
one the young man had never anticipated,
never even thought was a possibility,
much less a requirement:
“Go, sell what you own,
and give the money to the poor.”

We can picture the look on the young man’s face –
the smile, the look of eager hopefulness
suddenly gone,
like air let out of a balloon,
the young man stunned into silence,
thinking to himself,
“Did Jesus really say what I think he said,
‘Go, sell what you own,
and give the money to the poor?’
Is he serious?
He can’t be!”

But the young man knew Jesus was serious,
and so he turned slowly, sadly,
and walked away,
for he had many possessions.

What if that was the standard for joining this church:
that we required anyone wanting to join,
wanting to become a member,
to demonstrate their faith by selling all their possessions
and giving the money away –
How many people do you think I’d be talking to
on Sunday morning?
                                                              
It isn’t that Jesus is against money or ambition or success,
but he knows what happens to us as we accumulate more:
money becomes more and more the idol we fix ourselves on.
                          
Jesus wants us to put all our trust in him,
not in what we have, or who we are,
or where we live,
or the job we have.
He wants us to store up treasure in heaven,
not treasure on earth.

He tells the story of a foolish wealthy person
who had so much
he needed to build a larger barn to hold all he had.
But the very day his new barn was completed,
the man died.
The lesson Jesus wanted his listeners to draw from the story,
the lesson for you and me is that,
one’s life does not consist
in the abundance of possessions, …
Instead, Jesus tells us, be rich toward God!
(Luke 12:13ff)

The story of Zacchaeus, Jericho’s chief tax collector,
shows us that Jesus was not laying down
a hard and fast rule in our lesson.
After Jesus dined with Zacchaeus at his home,
the man who had grown wealthy through corruption
stood up and announced
that he would immediately give away
half his possessions to the poor.
Half, not all.
Half.

Did Jesus bang his fist on the table and shout,
“Not good enough; Try again”,
like God’s unspoken response to Cain’s offering?
No, Jesus responded with joy,
“Today salvation has come to this house.”
(Luke 19:8)

Jesus isn’t interested in an accounting of what we have
in our bank accounts.
He hasn’t set a cut-off at a certain level of wealth.
What he cares about is what we care about:
are we more concerned with our treasure on earth,
or treasure in heaven?

Jesus wants our all,
every part of us,
body, mind, heart and soul.
He doesn’t want our minds elsewhere,
distracted by things, by possessions
by worries, by money.

He wants us to embrace fully the life he calls us to
as his disciples, lives of endless riches:
riches of peace,
of contentment,
of love,
of grace,
of hope.

It is a life not only of endless riches,
but of endless possibilities:
possibilities not dependent on how much we’ve saved up,
or the limit on our credit card,
but possibilities grounded in God,
endless possibilities,
because with God all things are possible.

With God, the improbable becomes possible.
With God, the impossible becomes possible.
And so, with God, all the hungry can be fed.
With God war can cease and we can live in peace.
With God we can live in and with racial justice.
What may well sound like the idle musings of the naïve
are in fact grounded in the words
we stamp on our money: “In God We Trust”.

And here is one more improbable idea,
as improbable as a camel passing through the eye of a needle:
life eternal.
Yet, we believe in that promise we’ve been given
by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Peace, justice,
righteousness,
compassion,
acceptance.
No war,
no hunger,
no want,
all humanity living together in harmony.
These are all things our Lord teaches us to work for,
all things Scripture tells us are the foundation
of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Yet they all seem beyond our grasp,
things we think we’ll find only in Heaven,
things that on this earth are improbable,
impossible.

And yet, there is our Lord speaking such an eloquent,
simple,
hope-filled truth:
“With God, all things are possible.”

AMEN

Sunday, August 04, 2013

The Bible Condensed

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
August 4, 2013

The Bible Condensed
Genesis 4:1-16

You can find a copy on Amazon.com;
Just nine dollars and four cents,
two hundred twenty pages.
Easy to read, easy to understand.
It will save you time;
it will save you frustration and boredom.

It is the CliffsNotes version of the Bible.
Short, pithy, concise, simple to read,
something to help you understand the word of the Lord
without having to trudge through all those “begats,”
without having to slog through the tedium of Leviticus,
the endless haranguing and finger-wagging of the prophets,
Paul’s lengthy lists and often patronizing tone.

But if two hundred twenty pages still sounds overwhelming to you,
too much to read, especially in the heat of summer,
there is another option,
the Bible condensed even further,
down to a little more than a handful of Tweets.

It’s the sixteen verses we heard in our lesson,
sixteen verses from the fourth chapter
of the first book of the Bible,
the story of Cain and Abel.
In these 376 words, 1500 characters,
we have as good a distillation of the Bible,
both Old and New Testament,
as we could ever hope to find.

Our sixteen verses give us sin, lies, deceit,
disobedience, violence, punishment;
and they also give us love, kindness, faithfulness,
generosity, mercy, and forgiveness.
In his novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck wrote,
“in these sixteen verses are a history of mankind
in any age or culture or race.”

It is a story that starts out so simply,
so wonderfully,
on a note of hope grounded in love:
Adam and Eve, having been banished
from the Garden of Eden for their disobedience,
begin life anew,
begin it in the most joyful way,
with the birth of their firstborn, their son Cain.
Cain is soon followed by younger brother Abel.
Two sons, who in time grow up to be men,
Cain becoming a farmer,
and Abel a shepherd.

As the story continues
we find that the two young men
seemed to have understood the importance of worship,
of returning to God a portion of what they had been given,
of bringing their offerings to the Lord:
Cain with his offering of “the fruit of the ground”
and Abel bringing “of the firstlings of his flock,
their fat portions.”

It’s here the story takes a unexpected turn
when we learn that God was pleased with Abel’s offering,
“but for Cain and his offering God had no regard.”

Why?
Why did God have no regard for Cain’s offering?
Was God just being difficult? Grumpy?
Could it have been that Cain’s offering
was not the first and best from his harvest?
The book of Exodus provides us with these instructions:
"Bring the best of the firstfruits of your soil
to the house of the LORD your God.”
(Exodus 34:26)
And the Book of Proverbs tells us
to “Honor the LORD from your wealth
And from the first of all your produce.”
(Proverbs 3:9)

But of course, Cain had no scripture to guide him,
no priest to teach him,
no prophet to help him.
And when God rejected Cain’s offering,
God offered no explanation.
We can speculate, but we will never know
why God had no regard for Cain’s offering.
But God always reserves the right to be inscrutable;
if you have any doubt about that, just read Job.

God does, though challenge Cain
when Cain reacts with rage,
asking him, “Why are you angry?”
God then reassures Cain:
“If you do well, will you not be accepted?”

God seemed to be saying to Cain,
“You may not have done well this time,
but try again.
Try again.
And next time, if you do well –
if you bring your gifts with a generous heart,
you will be accepted.”

God, even in his inscrutability, offers Cain a second chance,
another opportunity:
try it again.
Implicit in this is God’s belief in Cain,
God’s faith in Cain.
                                                     
But Cain was too angry to hear.
His anger burned within him,
a fire that would consume him,
consume him when he killed his brother,
consume him when he compounded his crime
with his response to God – the sarcasm,
the dissembling.
almost sneering, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Of course God knew what had happened,
so in asking Cain, Where is your brother Abel?”
God was offering Cain a chance to confess,
a chance to acknowledge his sin.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.”
(1 John 1:8)
And oh, how good we are at deceiving ourselves,
a trait that ties us with Cain, with Eve, with Adam:
our eagerness to deny we’ve done wrong;
our ready refusal to take responsibility for our actions;
our willingness to set ourselves up as victims,
with someone else, anyone else,
even God as the one to blame.

God metes out punishment,
as God knows he must,
for what Cain did was horrific.
Cain is to be banished,
banished not just from the land near the Garden
but banished from very earth itself,
doomed to spend the rest of his life as a fugitive,
a wanderer,
a man who would never know peace.

And with the punishment,
Cain reveals himself for what he truly was: a coward,
as he reacts with fear,
fear that he might face Abel’s fate:
a senseless, violent death.

We need not stop to wonder just who Cain
might have been afraid of;
a literal reading of Genesis would leave us scratching our heads,
wondering who else was there,
out in the newly-created world besides Adam and Eve.
But we read these stories
not for the accuracy of their history,
but for the lessons they teach us
about our relationship with the Lord our God,
seeing ourselves in every story.

It is here the story turns yet again,
from violence,
from willfulness
from anger,
from punishment,
to mercy,
to forgiveness,
to the faint glow of redemption just over the horizon.

God reassures Cain that he will be Cain’s keeper,
marking him to let all the world know that God was with him,
even as he wandered the earth.
God: the keeper even of an unrepentant murderer.

Cain would know what the psalmist would write many years later:
The Lord is your keeper;
   the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
   nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
   he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
   your going out and your coming in
   from this time on and for evermore.
(Psalm 121)

God kept Cain,
just as God keeps us, you and me,
and all God’s children:
including the angry, the violent,
the cowardly, the disobedient,
those who turn from God,
those who hide from God,
those who run from God;
Those who refuse to live in God’s world on God’s terms,
which means you and me.

These sixteen verses tell us a story
that begins with grace and love,
and fittingly ends with grace and love;
New chances,
new life,
the story mirroring all of human history,
mirroring our own history,
each of us,
reminding us, assuring us
that God is with us,
keeping us,
watching our going out
and our coming in,
now,
and always.

Cain’s story,
your story,
my story,
our story.
This is the Bible - condensed.

AMEN