The Lens

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 14, 2014

The Lens

Isaiah 55:8-9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts

nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

“I don’t know.”

“I might be wrong.”

“I was wrong.”

“What do you think?”

“Tell me more.”

(C. Platt, “10 Things Christians

Should Say More Often”,

Huffington Post, Sept. 1, 2013)

These are phrases we hear

all too rarely these days,

anywhere,

including in the church,

all churches, all denominations.

                 

A person admits he doesn’t know;

that she was mistaken.

A person is genuinely interested

in what another person has to say

wanting to hear,

wanting to learn from someone else.

For a people called to walk humbly,

for a people whose written word warns

time and time again against the sin of pride,

we Christians can be awfully full of ourselves,

awfully sure of ourselves.

Awfully sure that we possess truth

and that others do not,

others don’t know what we know.

Yet God’s very words to us

remind us that cannot know the mind of God.

We may think we do,

but as we heard, God warns us:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, …
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We followers of Jesus Christ

can be so strident in our faith,

so sure of ourselves to the point of arrogance,

even as the written word of God

calls us to walk humbly,

even as the Living Word of God

calls us to lives of service.

I have to believe that part of the reason

we fall into the trap of arrogance in our belief,

the trap of religious certitude,

is that we think we know more than we do.

We think we know the word of God,

we think we have understanding,

even mastery.

But do we?

                                                     

I’ve been a follower and student

of God’s word for most of my 60 years;

I can even make a claim to professional status!

But how many times have you heard me say,

the more I learn,

the more I realize there is to learn;

the more I realize how much I don’t know.

As we talked about last week,

how do we learn to love our enemies,

feed our enemies?

How do we, a people so quick to seek vengeance,

learn how to listen when God says to us,

“don’t seek vengeance,

leave that to me”.

In my pastor’s letter in our June newsletter,

I cited an article written by Nicholas Kristof,

a columnist for the New York Times

in which he began his column with a challenge:

Find the mistakes in the following paragraph:

“Noah of Arc and his wife, Joan,

build a boat to survive a great flood.

Moses climbs Mount Cyanide

and receives 10 enumerated commandments;

For all the differences among

religious denominations,

the Ten Commandments are a common bedrock

that Jews, Catholics and Protestants agree on.

Sodom and his wild girlfriend, Gomorrah,

soon set the standard for what not to do

and are turned to pillars of salt.

The Virgin Mary, a young Christian woman,

conceives Jesus immaculately

and gives birth to him in a Jerusalem manger.”

(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/opinion/sunday/kristof-religion-for-1000-alex.html?_r=0)

Kristof cited a study done by the

highly respected Pew organization

that found that acknowledged atheists were more likely

to find the mistakes than professed Christians,

that professed atheists tended to do better

on religious surveys than professed Christians.

He quoted the scholar Stephen Prothero

who had earlier conducted a study that concluded,

“Americans are both deeply religious

and profoundly ignorant about religion,

including their own.”

A harsh statement, but supported by data.

We may walk by faith and not by sight

but that doesn’t mean we should walk

with eyes, ears, and minds closed.

How often does the written word call us

to grow in wisdom,

grow in knowledge,

grow in learning?            

We Presbyterians have always taken learning

very seriously.

We call our pastors “teaching elders”

and many still wear academic robes in the pulpit,

as I do,

to reflect the emphasis on teaching,

and on learning.

        

As we learn,

our minds open,

open to understanding,

open to understanding why, for example,

we don’t read the Bible as the literal word of God,

why we read it as the word inspired,

inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.

We learn how to read the words of Scripture

as both inspired by the Spirit,

and as words which reflect times, places,

and social conditions

that differed markedly from ours.

So, then, when we read Paul’s words

to the Corinthians:

“women should be silent in the churches.

For they are not permitted to speak,

but should be subordinate, …

If there is anything they desire to know,

let them ask their husbands at home.

For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”

(1 Corinthians 14:4ff)

we understand that that was the prevailing attitude

2000 years ago,

but certainly not how we think now,

not what Jesus would want of us now.

                          

We learn to read and interpret the Bible

as the Confession of 1967 tells us,

“in light of its witness to God’s work

of reconciliation in Jesus Christ.”

(9.29)

We learn to read the written word

through the lens that is the Living Word,

our Lord Jesus Christ.

We read the written word through the lens of grace,

of reconciliation,

of love.

We read,

we study,

we learn.

                 

We learn not to judge one another,

or those of other churches, other denominations.

When we find ourselves feeling puffed up in our faith,

we hear Paul’s words that admonish us:

Welcome those who are weak in faith,

but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.

… Who are you to pass judgment…?

… Why do you pass judgment on

your brother or sister?

…For we will all stand before

the judgment seat of God.

…So then, each of us will be accountable to God.

(Romans 14:1-12)

We learn that in time,

we will all stand before God,

before Christ,

all of us held accountable for the lives we’ve lived,

for what we’ve done with

the gift of faith we’ve been given,

for how we’ve responded to the gifts of grace and love,

we’ve been given by God through Jesus Christ.

We’ve come to associate the word “disciple”

with one who follows;

we are disciples of Christ

because we follow Christ.

But the word “disciple” actually means, “learner”,

one who learns.

We are disciples of Christ and disciples in faith

because we devote our lives

to learning what it means to follow Christ,

learning what it means to live in faith.

As good a place as any

to renew your commitment to discipleship,

to learning,

is in the fourth chapter of the first letter of John

where we find these words:

God is love

and those who abide in love

abide in God

and God abides in them.

(1 John 4:16)

God is love,

Jesus is love,

so the lens through which we are called to learn,

called to discipleship,

is love.

We learn as Barbara Brown Taylor has written,

that “the cross Christ died on …

is not the way of violence against enemies,

or victory over those who do not believe in him,

but the way of transformational love

for God and neighbor.”

We learn what Taylor means

when she speaks of our call as disciples

to “holy ignorance,”

by which she means not a closed mind,

but a mind that understands

the danger of religious certainty,

of strident faith,

that we as disciples don’t know the mind of God,

can’t know the mind of God.

                                                              

We are all disciples,

all learners,

all called to learn in faith,

in humility,

reading and studying,

always through the lens of grace and love

that is the Living Word,

our Lord Jesus Christ.

AMEN