Sunday, March 30, 2014

Born Anew


The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 30, 2014
Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant

Born Anew

Ephesians 4:1-6


 

4There is one body and one Spirit,

just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,

5one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

6one God and Father of all,

who is above all and through all and in all.

1I therefore beg you to lead a life worthy of

the calling to which you have been called,

2with all humility and gentleness,

with patience,

bearing with one another in love,

3making every effort to maintain

 the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.


These words written to the new Christians in Ephesus,
words attributed to the apostle Paul,
are filled with passion;
they are also filled with a sense of hope,
hope for those who heard them 2000 years ago,
hope for you and me here and now.

“I beg you: Lead a life worthy of the calling
to which you have been called.”
Lead a life worthy:
Lead of life of humility;
Lead a life of gentleness;
Lead a life of patience;
Lead a life bearing with one another in love.
Lead a life of Christ.
This is the life we’ve been called to, you and I,
followers of Christ, each of us,
just like the men and women of Ephesus.

This is the life we’ve been called to by the Holy Spirit.
This is the life we’ve been called to
through our baptism.

It’s remarkable, when you think about it:
all it took was a few drops of water,
a few drops on our foreheads,
and it was as though we had plunged in,
gone down deep,
and then came back up,
breaking through the surface,
water spraying everywhere
as we expelled the breath we’d held,
expelled the last remnant of the old life,
and then took our first deep breath
of the air of new life –
filling our lungs with holy air,
godly air,
as the warmth of God’s sunshine played upon us.

In that second or two we were under the water
everything changed.
We went down one person,
and came back up another.
We went down living in one world, this world,
and came back into another world, God’s world.

We went down beneath the waters in our baptism
and broke through the water’s surface reborn,
born anew,
not born again –
a term that has become weighted, freighted
and misunderstood.
No, born anew –
that’s the better way for us to think about it:
born to new life,
new life in Christ,
new life following Christ.

Paul put it perfectly in his letter to the Romans
when he wrote that when we came up out of the water
we  “entered a new country of grace.”
That’s what happened to each of us in our baptism:
We were lowered into the water, …
[and then ] each of us was raised into a light-filled world
by our Father.”
(Romans 6:4, The Message)

It doesn’t matter where it was
or when it was.
It doesn’t matter who baptized us,
or how much water he or she might have used,
or whether the water came from the tap,
or came from the Holy Land.
Whenever it happened,
wherever it happened,
whoever presided,
from that moment we were born anew,
born into God’s light-filled world –
a land of grace,
a land of peace,
a land of love.

Of course, we are people who
like to plot our own courses,
like to go our own way;
and so, as we journey through life we stray,
stray from that new land
that grace-filled land.
We stray from God’s light-filled world.
We find the shadows too intriguing,
tempting, exciting,
and then, off we go.

But God always provides us with the opportunity
to return to the light,
to turn back from the shadows,
to repent;
that’s something God assures us 24/7.
And Lent provides us with a special opportunity
for us to acknowledge our waywardness,
acknowledge how we have strayed,
where we’ve strayed,
remembering that if say we have not strayed,
if we say we haven’t turned from God,
if we say we haven’t lost our way,
we deceive ourselves,
…and only ourselves.

When you come forward in a few minutes,
come forward with a sense of
repentance and humility,
but also come with a sense of expectation,
excitement,
hope, and
gratitude.

For in an act as simple as putting your hand
in a plastic bowl filled with ordinary tap water,
you can know the joy of forgiveness,
forgiveness offered you by
the grace of God through Jesus Christ,
every bit of you washed clean.

And then, having repented,
you can take your stone that says,
“Born Anew” and embrace anew the life given you,
the life you were called to by your baptism,
the life you were called to through your baptism;
as Paul wrote to Timothy,
“the life that really is life.”
(1 Timothy 6:19)

Baptism is a gift given us by God;
but baptism is also a summons from God,
a summons to you and to me to respond –
to respond to God’s gift of grace
in calling us into his world, his kingdom
as we follow his Son.

Baptism is a summons to let God’s grace,
God’s love, the goodness and compassion of Jesus
flow through us,
not as a trickle, or even an occasional stream,
but as a healthy, steady, flowing river,
a river of grace,
a river of love,
a river of generosity and compassion,
of mercy and forgiveness,
a river with God as its source,
the Spirit keeping it flowing,
and Christ charting its course.  

Take a stone to remind you of the gift you’ve been given.
Take a stone to remind you of God’s summons,
and your need to respond.
Take a stone to remind you of the godly, holy air
that filled your lungs as you came up out of the water
born anew and
marked as Christ’s own forever and ever.

In our baptisms,
“we died to what separates us from God
and were raised each of us, to newness of life in Christ.”
(Book of Order W-2.3002)
So, “lead a life worthy of
the calling to which you have been called,”
called by your baptism,
called by God as a follower of the one who is
“the foundation stone,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone,
[our] sure foundation”
(Isaiah 28:7)

Praise Father, Son and Holy Spirit!!

AMEN

Sunday, March 23, 2014

It Isn’t A Suggestion


The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 23, 2014
The Third Sunday in Lent

It Isn’t A Suggestion
Deuteronomy 15:11
Since there will never cease to be
some in need on the earth,
I therefore command you,
Open your hand to the poor
and needy neighbor in your land.

“The poor should stop being poor.”
It is as simple as that.
At least according to a business commentator
I heard recently on television.
He was simple, direct, to the point:
“The poor should stop being poor.”
(Todd Wilemon interviewed on The Daily Show,
March 6, 2014)

That really should put an end
to the long and contentious debate
we’ve been having in this country
the last couple of years,
the debate we’ve been having
throughout the world,
about the growing gap between rich and poor,
the fact that the rich are  growing richer,
while the number of poor continues to grow.
“The wealthiest 10% now take a larger slice
of the economic pie than they did in 1912,
the peak of the Gilded Age.”
(The New York Times, March 12, 2014, Page B4)

The facts of income inequality aren’t debated;
they’re clear.
What do to about it, though,
or even whether we should do anything about it,
that’s what has been contentious.

So it’s good to have some certainty
injected into the debate:
“The poor should stop being poor.
They should work harder,
lift themselves out of poverty,
stop being lazy,
dependent,
takers,
willing to let others take care of them.”

This is what we are hearing more and more frequently
from voices loud and strident,
even indignant,
voices sure of themselves.
“This is just capitalism at work”, they say,
“the poor can have their share,
if they’d only work harder.”
                                            
What are we to do,
we who are, before we are anything else,
disciples of Jesus Christ?
What are we to do,
who are we to listen to,
we who want live by the Word of God
as we follow Jesus Christ?

Jesus seemed to have muddied the waters when he said,
“You always have the poor with you,”
(Matthew 26:11)
a comment that has been interpreted over the years
as meaning that there really isn’t
a lot we can do, you and I,
that poverty is just a part of life as we know it,
so while, yes, we should help,
we don’t need to lose sleep over it;
there is only so much we can do.                         

But was that what Jesus was really saying?
Was that what Jesus wants us to hear?

Of course not.

When he said those words, he was echoing
the words we heard Moses speak in our lesson,
words Moses spoke to the children of Israel
at the end of their time in the wilderness,
as they were preparing for their new lives
as a covenant community in the Promised Land.

Moses was stating life’s sad reality:
“there will never cease to be
some in need on the earth.”
We know that’s true now,
just as it was in Moses’ time.
But we can’t stop there,
because Moses didn’t stop there;
he kept speaking, with a call to action:
I therefore command you,
Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor
 in your land.”

“I command you.”
Moses didn’t say to the children of Israel,
“Here’s a suggestion;
here’s something for you to ponder;
let me share my thoughts with you for your consideration.”
He said,
“I command you:
Open your hand to the poor
and needy neighbor in your land.”

That’s the simple,
the concise statement we are looking for;
we who are followers of Jesus Christ.
We are not to “tell the poor to stop being poor;”
we are to open our hands to the poor;
open our hands to the needy.
Open our hands to our neighbors.

Moses’ words are God’s words
to the children of Israel,
and to you and me,
and they set our course,
give us our basic operating instructions.
It is a message that we find repeated again and again,
so consistently throughout the Bible,
a book that is often filled with
frustrating inconsistency.

God makes clear through Moses,
God makes clear through the prophets,
God makes clear through the psalmist and the teachers,
and God makes clear through our Lord Jesus Christ,
that we are called to share God’s
heartfelt concern for the poor:
“If you close your ear to the cry of the poor,”
says the Lord,
“then when you cry out, you will not be heard,
for those who oppress the poor insult their Maker.”
(Proverbs 21:13 and 14:31)

The stranger, the man, the woman, the child,
those who struggle to make ends meet,
who worry about food, shelter, clothing –
that person, those people, that family:
they are our neighbors,
and aren’t we called to love our neighbors?

We are not to condemn.
We are not to criticize.
We are not to judge.
The man who lost his job,
the single mother who juggles two jobs
and still can’t quite make ends meet,
the biblical widow or orphan:
they are all our neighbors,
all with needs.

Are there some who choose not to work,
who try to take advantage of
programs created to help?
Of course there are,
just as there are “wolves on Wall Street”;
just as there are drugs in sports;
just as there is corruption in police departments;
just as there is cheating among the students at Harvard.
We cannot condemn the whole for the larceny of the few.

Dr. Mark Rank, a professor at Washington University,
wrote in the New York Times last November,
Few topics in American society
have more myths and stereotypes
surrounding them than poverty,
misconceptions that distort both our politics
and our domestic policy making.
They include the notion that poverty affects
a relatively small number of Americans,
that the poor are impoverished for years at a time,
that most of those in poverty live in inner cities,
that too much welfare assistance is provided,
and that poverty is ultimately a result of
not working hard enough.
Although pervasive, each assumption is flat-out wrong.”
(“Poverty in America is Mainstream”,
The New York Times, November 2, 2013)
Each assumption is flat-out wrong.

Poverty knows no bounds –
geographic, cultural, ethnic: 
poverty is everywhere,
in the inner cities, and in the rural countryside.
I’ve seen it in inner city Buffalo, New York, Philadelphia.
And I’ve seen it in the rural countryside:
Drive the roads of Sullivan county in the Catskill region
of New York State or some of the back roads
near where I vacation in Vermont each summer
and you’ll find as many people
living in rural poverty as you will in any inner city.

John the Baptizer put it so simply:
“Whoever has two coats must share
with anyone who has none;
and whoever has food must do likewise.”
(Luke 3:11)
If we want clarity as disciples of Christ,
an answer to how we are to help those in need
in a way that is faithful, there it is.
To stand with arms folded,
a judgmental look on our face is faithless,
faithless: there is no other word.

Lent is a time for us to turn our minds,
our hearts to repentance,
repentance for all our sins,
including the sin of pride,
the sin of arrogance,
the sin of judgment,
the sin of self-righteousness,
the sin of hard-heartedness.

In the first letter of Timothy we find advice
that can help us repent and find a new direction,
advice that was directed at the rich,
but which is good for us, too:
As for those who in the present age are rich,
command them not to be haughty,
or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches,
but rather on God …
They are to do good,
to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,
thus storing up for themselves
the treasure of a good foundation for the future,
so that they may take hold of the life
 that really is life.
(1 Timothy 6:17ff)

“Do good”
“Be rich in good works”
“Be generous”
“Be ready to share”

Do not judge or condemn
the child who would otherwise
go to school hungry;
feed him.

Do not judge or condemn
the single mother with three small children;
help her find a a job that pays a living wage;
help her find a place for her and her children to live
that is clean and safe;
help her to care for her children.

Do not judge or condemn the man left behind
in a part of the city abandoned by businesses;
Help him to learn new skills,
and then help him to find work that will not only
set him back up on his feet again,
but restore his sense of self,
his pride as  the child of God he is.
                 
Yes, the poor will always be with us…
here in this world,
the world we have created.
But not in God’s world,
not in God’s kingdom.
In God’s kingdom, all are fed,
all are cared for,
because all are loved.

“Your kingdom come, O Lord,
Your will be done,
on earth,
as it is in heaven.”

AMEN