Praise

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

December 29, 2013

Praise

Psalm 148

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;

praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon;

praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,

and you waters above the heavens!

We are born to praise God,

to sing “Glory be to the Father,

and to the Son,

and to the Holy Spirit.

Amen and Amen.”

Our Westminster Confession of Faith tells us that

“the chief and highest end of humankind

is to glorify God and fully to enjoy him forever.”

Glory to God!

Praise the Lord!

Yet “praise” is one of those

suspect words for us as Presbyterians,

one of those words we know,

but prefer to leave to others,

rather like “evangelism”.

We’re comfortable having the choir sing an anthem

praising the Lord,

but that’s about as far as we prefer to go,

about as far as our comfort level allows.

If we are going to sing praise to God,

better to obscure the fact

by calling what we sing

a “Gloria Patri” or a “doxology”.

But the Psalms are full of calls to us to praise God,

to shout out our praise,

to sing out our praise.

For us, for you and me,

what better way to start the new year

than to join with all creation

praising the Lord our God!

Praising God for our Christmas present:

our Lord Jesus Christ.

Didn’t praise fill the earth and sky

on that first Christmas?

Luke tells us that

“a multitude of the heavenly host

sang out in praise,

Glory to God in the highest heaven

and on earth peace and goodwill to all.”

After the shepherds visited the stable

and had seen what God had done,

they returned to their flocks.

But did they return quietly?

Contemplatively?

Fearful and shaken?

No! They returned, “glorifying and praising God

for all they had heard and seen.”

(Luke 2:20)

And it isn’t just we humans

who are called to praise God,

whose voices should be raised in praise to God.

All creatures, all creation,

all the heavens,

the universe itself is called

to sing out in praise to the Lord God:

Praise him, sun and moon;
   praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
   and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
   for he commanded and they were created.
He established them for ever and ever;
   he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

The theologian Walter Brueggemann has written,

“Praise is a daring departure

from all things rational,”

and he’s right.

Praise should be loud, clamorous, joyful;

something to be done with abandonment,

excitement,

passion.

The psalmist calls us to praise God with

trumpet,

with lute, with harp,

with tambourine, with dance,

with strings and pipe,

with clanging cymbals,

with loud clashing cymbals.

(Psalm 150)

There’s no place for subtlety in our praise!

It should be noisy,

it should be joyous!

It’s something that can be done alone, of course,

but it is best done in community,

here, together, all of us responding to

the psalmist’s call,

“let everything that breathes praise the Lord!”

(Psalm 150)

Even if it is a departure from what seems rational.

Even if it is a departure from what seems comfortable.

Even if it is a departure from what seems

“decent and in order”.

The psalmist seemed to have understood our hesitancy,

seemed to have understood that

he would have to take us gently by the hand at first

saying, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord,

to sing praises to the name of the Lord Most High.”

(Psalm 92:1)

But once the psalmist gets started,

once he opens the door,

he pushes on,

pulling us, urging us:

“O come, let us sing to the Lord,

let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation…

O Sing to the Lord, all the earth!”

(Psalms 95, 96)

The psalmist ratchets up the energy,

the volume,

the enthusiasm,

leading to shouts of joyful praise:

“Let the heavens be glad

and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

let the field exult, and everything in it,

then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy…”

(Psalm 96:11)

Still we hesitate.

Praise that is too ebullient,

too excited,

too passionate seems like a gateway

to more extreme behavior.

Praise done with abandonment might lead to

speaking in tongues,

or even snake handling!

But the Westminster Confession of Faith is right:

we live to glorify God.

We live to praise God.

We live to join our voices with all creation

to praise the Lord:

Praise the Lord from the earth,

 you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost,
   stormy wind fulfilling his command!

Mountains and all hills,
   fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle,
   creeping things and flying birds!

Kings of the earth and all peoples,
   princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike,
   old and young together!

Praise the Lord!

To praise the Lord is to put God

where God belongs in our lives:

first,

most important,

the focus of our lives, our beings.

To praise God is to speak up and speak out

for what concerns God:

love and grace,

mercy and kindness,

justice and righteousness,

human dignity,

health for the creation.

(Brueggemann)

“He raises the poor from the dust,

and lifts the needy from the ash heap.”

(Psalm 113:7)

“He executes justice for the oppressed;

and gives food to the hungry;

he lifts up those who are bowed down,

watches over the stranger,

and upholds the orphan and the widow.”

(Psalm 146)

“Righteousness and justice

are the foundation of his throne.”

(Psalm 97:2)

To praise God is turn from all those other things

that too often receive our praise,

things like money, comfort, material goods.

To praise God is to refocus,

to center our lives as they should be centered,

where they should be centered.

Let them praise the name of the Lord,
   for his name alone is exalted;
  his glory is above earth and heaven.

He has raised up a horn for his people,
   praise for all his faithful,
  for the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!

To praise God isn’t simply to enjoy a feel-good moment;

to praise God is to submit to God,

to bow, kneel in humble obedience,

to turn our lives over to God.

To praise God is to let go

and in the “glad letting go

find everything generously shared

and richly available.”

(Brueggemann)

“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and exult in you;

I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.”

(Psalm 9:1-2)

To praise God is to be in

“extravagant communion” with God.

(Brueggemann)

In his Christmas poem, “For the Time Being”,

W. H. Auden wrote,

“…As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision

and failed To do more than

entertain it as an agreeable Possibility,

once again we have sent Him away,”

It is easy to pack Christ away with the decorations,

tuck him away once the season is over

as we turn our thoughts from Christmas

to all the things that await us in the new year.  

But our praise can help us to keep Christmas,

keep Christ,

keep our focus on God,

on the future that God wants for us,

the future God has planned for us,

the future we heard Isaiah point to

in both text and song:

“Nature reordered to match God's intent,

nations obeying the call to repent,

all of creation completely restored,

filled with the knowledge and love of the Lord.”

(The Dream Isaiah Saw)

Our future is one in which all creation

is praising God!

Our future is one with all creation

praising God!

So let us end this year and begin the new year

by praising God.

Praising God for Christmas;

Praising God for Christ;

Praising God for love, for life,

for hope, for mercy

for forgiveness,

for second and third chances;

for hands and hearts,

for eyes to see and ears to hear,

for voices to shout and sing our praises,

for minds to take it all in and

marvel at it all.

The whole world was filled with praise

on that first Christmas,

and we are called to continue the singing,

continue the shouting,

continue the joyful praise:

“Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord from the heavens;

praise him in the heights!

Praise him, all his angels

Praise him, all his host….

…Kings of the earth and all peoples,

princes and all rulers of the earth!

Young men and women alike,

old and young together!

Let them praise the name of the Lord

…for his glory is above earth and heaven.

…Praise the Lord!”

AMEN

Far From Perfect

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

December 22, 2013

Fourth Sunday in Advent

Far From Perfect

Matthew 1:18-25

I watched carefully, studying every move.

How she tore the paper from the roll;

where she placed the box on the paper;

how she folded and creased,

and then taped.

She did it so quickly, so effortlessly,

and so perfectly.

In less then two minutes she had taken

the ordinary box I had handed her

and wrapped it beautifully, topping it with a bow,

a present I could be proud to give.

Gift-wrapping was part of the service

large department stores once provided for free,

usually in a separate area of the store,

with an expert staff behind the counter –

precise, creative, quick.

They could take even the most modest gifts

and make them look fit for royalty.

I’ve always tried to wrap gifts myself –

but even after all these years,

and after having watched,

even studied, the techniques of professional wrappers,

the gifts I wrap still look more like unmade beds,

like boxes that fell off the back of a truck

on I95 in rush hour traffic.

I always tried particularly hard as I wrapped my gifts

for my maternal grandmother, my mother’s mother.

My gifts for her were always simple,

gifts bought on a youngster’s budget.

She was one of those people who,

when you gave her your gift,

would spend a full minute, even more,

admiring the package, the wrapping,

the bow, the ribbon.

“It’s too pretty to open,” she’d say.

She would never tear into a package,

as my sisters and I might have.

She’d peel away the tape

so she wouldn’t rip the paper.

She’d lived through the Depression

so she would save every bit of wrapping paper

folding and pressing each piece.

We fuss over so many things at Christmas time.

We want everything to be perfect:

The gifts we buy;

how they are wrapped;

the table setting;

the way we decorate our homes;

the food we prepare for Christmas dinner.

We want things to be perfect

even as we grumble about all the work

all the stress,

“the unendurable dullness of Uncle George,

the shrillness Aunt Adelaide,” (Chesterton)

the sugar-induced destructiveness of the twins.

Our desire for perfection may be partly grounded in nostalgia,

that gauzy film we play each year as we age,

of Christmases past,

Christmases we remember

from our childhood, our youth.

I know that’s true for me.

Even before Thanksgiving,

the movie of Ferguson Christmases Past,

especially from the early 1960s,

begins running in a continuous loop.

The film shows me as the first one up on Christmas morning,

sneaking downstairs quietly in the darkness,

flashlight trained on my corner of the living room,

the place where my presents always were.

I’d take a quick inventory,

trying to shine the light through the paper,

always without success.

I’d then start to turn on the lights,

plug in the tree lights,

plug in the outdoor lights,

turn up the heat,

get a fire started in the fireplace

all for a Christmas morning in Buffalo.

If I didn’t hear my sisters and my parents

rousing themselves by 7:15,

I’d get progressively noisier.

At 7:30 I’d stack Christmas records on the stereo

and start the music –

my parent’s bedroom was directly above

and Mitch Miller singing

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

was better than any alarm clock.

By 8:00 am we were in full rip-and-tear mode,

my sisters and I stripping every package of wrappings,

admiring each gift we opened for a few seconds,

perhaps showing it around the room

before we were on to the next gift.

Dad would film the whole scene

with his 8 millimeter movie camera

and the bright floodlights,

while Mom would excuse herself to fix breakfast,

breakfast we would eat in the dining room –

a treat we enjoyed only on Christmas morning.

Before long it was time to clean up the living room,

then time to get dressed and get ready

to go to my grandparents’ house –

the Ferguson clan gathering,

where we’d have more presents, more food,

more fun.

We’d return home after dark, all of us exhausted,

my sisters and so tired

we didn’t have the energy to squabble in the car

on the drive home.

We’d climb into bed full, happy,

the end of a perfect day.

Things could hardly have been less perfect

for Joseph and Mary on that first Christmas Day.

Months before the two of them had been

nervous but excited about their planned marriage,

a marriage arranged and contracted for,

as was the custom in those days.

But then, shortly before their wedding,

Joseph learned to his dismay

that Mary was with child,

pregnant!

This was not just scandalous; this was a crime,

punishable by death.

Joseph could have turned Mary over

to the religious authorities

and asked that she be stoned to death

for her obvious adultery.

But Joseph didn’t do that.

He knew that he could not marry Mary

under the circumstances,

but he found no reason to be harsh and vindictive,

so, as we learned in our lesson, Joseph,

“being a righteous man and

unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace,

planned to dismiss her quietly.”

Then, as Matthew tells us, an angel spoke to Joseph.

In Luke’s gospel the angel Gabriel visits Mary,

but Matthew tells us that

“an angel of the Lord appeared to [Joseph] in a dream”

telling him that he should go ahead

with his marriage to Mary:

‘do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,

for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus,

for he will save his people from their sins.”

The Hebrew word Jesus meaning,

“one who saves”.

And because Joseph was a righteous man,

faithful and obedient to the Lord God,

he did just as the angel asked,

no questions asked.

He took Mary as his wife.

It was hardly the beginning of married life

either of them had expected,

a far-from-perfect beginning.

It is in Luke’s gospel that we find the story of

Joseph and Mary then journeying from

Nazareth to Bethlehem,

an arduous, dangerous journey,

especially for a woman “heavy with child.”

It is also Luke who tells us that

once they arrived in Bethlehem

they could find no place to stay,

and were forced to settle in a stable

to take refuge from the night

in a bed of straw with donkey and cattle

as companions,

a bed of straw for Mary to give birth to her son,

a bed of straw as a crib for the newborn Jesus.

And then Matthew tells us that

they were forced to flee to Egypt,

Joseph taking Mary and the baby out of the country

away from the murderous Herod

who planned to kill “all the children

in and around Bethlehem

who were two years old or under.”

(Matthew 2:16)

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus –

homeless,

aliens in a foreign land.

A far from perfect first Christmas.

A far from perfect second Christmas,

perhaps even third Christmas.

What is it that makes a perfect Christmas?

Is it a perfectly decorated house?

A perfectly prepare meal?

The perfect gift wrapped perfectly?

What makes Christmas perfect is Christ.

What makes Christmas perfect

is making sure that Christ is present

in our celebrations,

remembering that it is his birth we celebrate,

God’s gift to us.

The perfect Christmas begins with putting up

a stocking for Jesus,

and then filling it with those things

we know matter to Jesus,

things our children helped us to remember last week:

love, kindness,

charity, compassion,

forgiveness, patience.

Gifts that don’t require a trip to the store,

a click on the Internet;

gifts that don’t need wrapping;

gifts that simply come from our hearts.

The perfect Christmas continues with

a place at the table for Jesus,

as the honored guest.

The perfect Christmas continues

by assuring that everyone else around the table

is made to feel welcome, wanted,

even dull Uncle George,

shrill Aunt Adelaide,

and the destructive twins.

The perfect Christmas is grounded in grace,

grounded in peace,        

grounded in goodwill to all.

The apostle Paul never celebrated Christmas;

the birth of Christ was not something

that was part of the church year,

not a celebration until almost 500 years

after the birth of our Lord.

Still, he tells us how to have a perfect Christmas:

“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness,

humility, meekness, and patience.

Bear with one another and,

if anyone has a complaint against another,

forgive each other;

just as the Lord has forgiven you,

so you also must forgive.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love,

which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts”

(Colossians 3:12-15)

This is how to keep Christmas;

This is how to have a Merry Christmas;

This is how to have a perfect Christmas.

Glory to God in highest heaven!

AMEN