The Familiar and the Unfamiliar

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

December 27, 2015

The Familiar and the Unfamiliar

Selected Texts

It is a familiar story,

almost as familiar as the birth narratives.

It is the only story in the Bible that captures Jesus

between his birth and his ministry,

a charming story found in the gospel of Luke,

about Jesus as a 12-year-old boy,

an adolescent.

Do you remember the story?

“Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem

 for the festival of the Passover.

And when he was twelve years old,

they went up as usual for the festival.

When the festival was ended and they started to return,

the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem,

but his parents did not know it.

Assuming that he was in the group of travelers,

they went a day’s journey.

Then they started to look for him

among their relatives and friends.

When they did not find him,

they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.

After three days they found him in the temple,

sitting among the teachers,

listening to them and asking them questions.

And all who heard him were amazed

at his understanding and his answers.

When his parents saw him

they were astonished;

and his mother said to him,

“Child, why have you treated us like this?

Look, your father and I have been

searching for you in great anxiety.”

He said to them,

“Why were you searching for me?

Did you not know

that I must be in my Father’s house?”

But they did not understand what he said to them.

It is Passover,

a time of holiness and ritual

for the children of God

throughout the land of Judah.

And there was no more holy and special way

to celebrate the Passover

than to journey to Jerusalem

and celebrate the Passover there.

And that’s what Joseph and Mary did each year –

they and other faithful children of God

set out for Jerusalem.

It was a trek that would take them

about 5 days from Nazareth.

Along the way, others would join them,

the group of pilgrims swelling

as they got closer and closer to Jerusalem.

All of the faithful would gather to recall

God’s words to the Israelites

spoken through Moses

more than a thousand years before:

“This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.

You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord;

Throughout your generations

you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread;…

On the first day you shall hold a solemn assembly,

and on the seventh day [another] solemn assembly;

no work shall be done on those days;

…You shall observe the festival of unleavened bread,

for on this very day

I brought your [ancestors] out of the land of Egypt:

you shall observe this day throughout your generations

as a perpetual ordinance.”

(Exodus 12:14-17)

It was a time of holy observance,

but it was also a time of celebration,

as the children of Israel recalled how God

had freed their ancestors from slavery

and led them out of Egypt,

then through the wilderness

and on to the land where they now lived,

lived in relative freedom,

even if they lived under the iron rule

of the Roman Empire.

At the end of the week,

the Passover concluded,

all of the pilgrims would have

streamed out of Jerusalem,

heading east, west, south,

and for Joseph and Mary, north,

back to Nazareth.

In our story, a day into their return trip,

in a scene reminiscent of the movie, “Home Alone”,

Joseph and Mary realized

that their son Jesus was not with the group,

that he must have been left behind in Jerusalem.

Reading the story as Luke wrote it,

we can almost feel Joseph and Mary’s anxiety

as they raced frantically back to the city,

and then, once they were

inside the gates of Jerusalem,

desperately scouring the dusty alleys,

shouting out their son’s name – Jesus! Jesus!

searching for him everywhere,

their fear growing with every passing moment.

Could the boy have been abducted

and sold into slavery?

Could he have had an accident –

might he be lying bleeding and with broken bones,

perhaps even unconscious,

no one to care for him,

no one even noticing him.  

And then,

after three days of feverish searching,

Joseph and Mary finally found their son,

found him in a place

they never would have imagined he’d be,

a place they never imagined

he’d have any interest in –

the Temple!

But there he was: a 12-year-old boy,

sitting among the Elders and Teachers

“listening to them and asking them questions.”

Exhausted by worry,

Mary blurted to her son,

“Child, why have you treated us like this?

Look, your father and I

have been searching for you in great anxiety.”

Surely any child would have responded

with some form of apology,

some form of the words, “I’m sorry”,

some acknowledgement that he recognized

that he’d done something wrong in staying behind;

that he’d been wrong

not to say anything to his parents;

that he understood that he had

caused his parents painful anxiety.

But Jesus didn’t respond that way.

His was almost a dismissive, unconcerned response,

“Why were you searching for me?

Did you not know that

I must be in my Father’s house?”

(Luke 2:41-52)

Jesus seemed to be saying to his mother and father,

“If you knew anything about me,

you would have known where to find me;

you would have known that I’d be here,

here in my Father’s house.”

We read this passage from Luke’s gospel

usually on the Sunday right after Christmas

to help us transition,

to help us make the jump from Jesus’ infancy,

which we celebrate each year

with such joy on Christmas,

to Jesus’ ministry as an adult,

as a 30-year-old man.

We race through this story,

eager to get on to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry,

without stopping to ponder the story,

to ask questions about it,

to read it closer,

to read it with deeper eyes,

as one writer puts it.

Why, for example,

is this the only story we have

in the four gospels

that captures Jesus as a boy?

Why didn’t Matthew, Mark or John

tell us anything about the years

between Jesus’ birth and

the day he stepped into the waters of the Jordan

to be baptized by his cousin John?

Why are those years otherwise a complete blank

in the Bible?  

As Jesus sat in the Temple,

was he truly aware of his divinity,

as the story seems to suggest?

When he spoke of God as his Father,

did Jesus think of himself as the Son of God?

What questions could Jesus have possibly

asked the Teachers?

What could they have taught him

that he did not already know?

What was it that he sought to learn?

Here’s where screens would be helpful

because I’d show you how some of the great artists

of the Renaissance imagined the scene,

artists like Durer, Veronese, and Rembrandt,

artists who could not imagine

Jesus learning from the Teachers,

painting the scene instead

with Jesus clearly in charge,

Jesus teaching the teachers.

Was that how it was?

Why did he stay behind?

He’d been in Jerusalem for a full week –

hadn’t he had ample time to sit among the teachers

and ask them his questions,

learn from them?

What did Jesus mean when he said,

“I must be in my Father’s house?”

In fact, is that the best translation of the Greek,

or should we read it as Jesus saying,

“I must be about my Father’s business,”

as some scholars argue?

Eugene Peterson’s The Message has Jesus saying,

“I had to be here,

dealing with the things of my Father.”

What things?

What business?

What was he thinking?

And of course,

why didn’t Jesus say something to his parents?

Surely he could not have been that uncaring,

that unkind.

Surely he must have known that his parents

would have been frantic with worry

once they realized he was missing.

We’re about to start the Year of the Bible,

many of us committed to reading through

the entire Bible over the course of the next year,

the next 365 days.

Actually, we will have 366 days –

we get an extra day’s bonus

because 2016 is a Leap Year!

We’ll read texts and stories that sound familiar,

texts and stories we think we know well;

but if we read with deeper eyes,

read deeply, closely,

we will surely find much that is unfamiliar

even in those texts and stories

that are most familiar.

Why, for example,

are the two birth narratives so different?

We have conflated the two stories over the centuries,

braided them together for Christmas,

but Matthew and Luke tell us

two quite different stories.

Why?

And why didn’t Mark and John tell us anything

about Jesus’ birth?

Every Sunday we join our voices together

in the Lord’s Prayer,

but when we get to the gospel of Matthew’s version

of the prayer,

it will look only somewhat familiar.

The same, too, for Luke’s version:

different from Matthew’s,

different from the familiar words

we say on Sunday morning.

Familiar, but unfamiliar.

You’ll read through stories about Adam and Eve,

Noah and the Flood,

Moses, King David, Solomon—

you’ll find much that is unfamiliar

even in the familiar.

The familiar portrayal of God in the Old Testament

is as an angry God,

the God the children of Israel feared so much

that they said to Moses,

‘You speak to us, and we will listen;

but do not let God speak to us,

or we will die.’”

(Exodus 19 & 20)

But you will also read passages in the Old Testament

that portray God as nurturing, tender,        

caring,

passages that will likely be be unfamiliar to you:

Who could imagine

the Old Testament God saying,

“As a mother comforts her child,

so I will comfort you.”

(Isaiah 66:13)

We begin on Friday,

We begin our journey through Holy Scripture,

God’s written word to us,

through the familiar, and the unfamiliar,

all the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN

Light Shining in the Darkness

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

December 13, 2015

Third Sunday in Advent

Light Shining in the Darkness

Matthew 1:18-25

 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph,

but before they lived together,

she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man

and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace,

planned to dismiss her quietly.

But just when he had resolved to do this,

an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,

“Joseph, son of David,

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.”

All this took place to fulfill

what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.”

When Joseph awoke from sleep,

he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him;

he took her as his wife,

but had no marital relations with her

until she had borne a son;

and he named him Jesus.

*************************************

Joseph stands in silent wonder

looking down at the feeding trough,

a box filled with hay,

where the midwife had just laid the baby,

a boy,

born in the dark of night.

Joseph’s arms ache from holding the lamp;

it was the only thing he could do,

to shine light as the midwife helped Mary

deliver the baby, the boy.

He hangs the lantern on a pole by the stalls.

The cow looks at him with curiosity,

but the donkey pays no attention,

dozing in his stall,

probably glad for the quiet

after all the noise and excitement.

Mary lies exhausted,

her face flushed and damp.

Still, though he can see her radiant joy,

even in the dim lantern light.

Her baby, her boy,

lies asleep in the hay,

exhausted by the journey he’s just completed.

Her baby, her boy.

Joseph says nothing,

but he wonders:

what to think, what to make of this.

His wife just gave birth to a boy,

a boy,

every father’s dream.

But what should he think?

What can he think?

Does he dare to think of the boy as his,

as his son?

He’s Mary’s son,

his wife’s son,

but will he be the boy’s father?

Things had started off with such promise

not that long ago

when he was first engaged to Mary,

when his father and Mary’s father

contracted their marriage

and their families celebrated the union.

But shortly after their engagement,

before they became husband and wife,

Mary learned that she was with child.

Joseph knew what the law said,

he knew what would happen:

the disgrace, the punishment;

adultery the only possible explanation,

which meant public accusation,

condemnation,

humiliation,

shame,

stoning;

stoning to death.

That was the law.

But Joseph could not imagine that

for the woman who was to have been his wife.

It may have been what the law said,

what the law commanded;

but that was much too cruel,

merciless.

He decided to quietly break off their engagement

and help Mary flee,

so she could have her child far away,

somewhere where she and the baby

would be safe,

where the baby could grow up.

But then came the dream,

that strange dream,

an angel of the Lord,

or was it even the Lord God himself,

saying so clearly, so vividly,

“Joseph, son of David,

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.”

A son!

A son named Jesus.

Jesus, a very common name;

Joseph knew so many Jesus’s.

He knew what the name meant:

“one who saves”,

But what did the angel mean

when he said that the boy would

“save his people from their sins”?

What people?

What sins?

How would he save them?

As Joseph stood in the silence

questions continued to race through his mind:

Should he raise the boy as his own son,

teach him, guide him;

discipline him when he needed discipline,

as all children do,

especially boys.

Would he, could he teach him his trade,

teach him how to be a carpenter,

a good carpenter, proud of his work?

Joseph knelt down by the trough

and looked at the baby, the boy.

The boy opened his eyes

and looked at Joseph.

Joseph picked up the baby

and held him close to his chest,

his heart and the baby’s heart beating as one.

He walked out of the stable,

into the narrow alley behind the inn,

and looked at the shadow

he cast on the ground,

as he held that precious little bundle,

a shadow so sharp and distinct.

In the night sky hung a star

brighter than any he’d ever seen before,

any he could even remember,

high above,

as though right above the stable.

Joseph held the boy tightly

in starlight and shadow.

Joseph held the boy tightly

in the night’s silence.

Soon enough, the silence would

give way to commotion.

Shepherds were already noisily

on their way to town.

Astrologers who lived in far distant lands

were making ready for their journey

to follow that bright star.

And very soon the angel of the Lord

would speak again to Joseph in a dream

and warn him to flee,

warn him to take Mary and the baby

down into Egypt;

to flee from their country

and settle in a foreign land,

to live there as refugees

far from the violence, the screams,

the murder in their own country.

But all that lay ahead.

For a precious moment,

as he stood in the starlight,

Joseph rocked the baby,

rocked him so gently,

and whispered to him,

“Jesus— my son.”

Joseph, about whom

the gospels tell us almost nothing.

Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Joseph, who disappears from the gospels

almost immediately after the birth of Jesus.

Stories abound, all apocryphal,

attempts to fill the void;

stories that portray Joseph,

more often than not, as old,

a widower with children from his first marriage,

uninterested in Mary;

taking her as his wife out of obligation

rather than love.

“I have sons and am an old man,”

he protests in one such story;

“she is but a child.

I do not want to become the laughingstock

of the sons of Israel.”

(The Proto Gospel of James)

Still, for as little as the gospels tell us of Joseph,

we know what kind of man he was:

righteous,

good,

compassionate,

obedient and faithful.

God spoke and Joseph obeyed,

even if he did not understand.

He lived his life by the words Luke tells us

Mary said to the angel Gabriel,

“Let it be with me according to your word.”

(Luke 1:38)

In one short paragraph we learn that

Joseph was a man who understood

God’s word through the prophet,

“I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice.”

(Hosea 6:6)

Clearly, Joseph would have understood

what Jesus would mean when,

many years later he would say,

“You have heard that it was said,

‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’

But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.”

Clearly, Joseph would have understood

what Jesus would mean when,

many years later he would say,  

“You have heard that it was said,

‘You shall love your neighbor

 and hate your enemy.’

But I say to you, Love your enemies

and pray for those who persecute you,

so that you may be children of

your Father in heaven.”

(Matthew 5:38-45)

Joseph understood love,

Joseph understood mercy.

Joseph understood grace.

It would be more than 400 years

before followers of Jesus

would celebrate his birth,

celebrate what we now call Christmas,

but Joseph understood what Christmas celebrates:

God with us,

the Hebrew word “Emmanuel:”

God with us,

Joseph understood

as he held that tiny baby

in the silence of the night.

Joseph understood as held that tiny baby

that there was light shining in the darkness.

AMEN

Make Ready

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

December 6, 2015

Second Sunday in Advent

Make Ready

Luke 12:35-40

“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit;

be like those who are waiting for their master

to return from the wedding banquet,

so that they may open the door for him

as soon as he comes and knocks.  

Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert

when he comes;

truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt

and have them sit down to eat,

and he will come and serve them.

If he comes during the middle of the night,

or near dawn, and finds them so,

blessed are those slaves.

“But know this: if the owner of the house

had known at what hour the thief was coming,

he would not have let his house be broken into.

You also must be ready,

for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

*******************************

What are we to do?

How are we to “make ourselves ready”

for our Lord’s advent,

for that day, that time, that moment

when our Lord comes again?

                 

We hear these passages,

the many texts that tell us to

fill our lamps with oil,

keep the flame burning brightly,

stand by the door,

be ready, be ready, be ready

for the knock that will surely come.

Don’t sleep!

Stay awake!

Stay alert!

Be dressed for action,

“for the Son of Man is coming

at an unexpected hour.”

Are we to spend our lives

here in this Sanctuary,

        

candles burning brightly,

all of us watchful, alert,

praying the final words of the Bible,

“Come, Lord Jesus”

as we wait expectantly, hopefully

and probably a little anxiously?

                            

Are we to live our lives this way,

twenty-four hours a day,

seven days a week?

Are we allowed any breaks –

to eat, to take a walk,

to relax,

…to text?

Surely Christ will let us know

when he’s coming before it happens.

After all, aren’t there passages in the Bible

that tell about portents and signs—

wars, earthquakes, massive upheavals—

something, anything,

that will alert us that the time is coming?

How easy it would be for Jesus simply to text,

“You’ve got one hour.”

And yet, here is our passage telling us,

“the Son of Man is coming

at an unexpected hour;”

or as Eugene Peterson words it in “The Message”:

“Just when you don’t expect him,

the Son of Man will show up.”

We sing “Santa Claus is coming to town”

only in December,

because we know he isn’t

coming to town in April or July.

How comforting it would be

to have the same assurance about Jesus.

But we don’t.

Try as we might,

we will never find anything

anywhere in the Bible,

any coded passages

that will reveal to us

when Jesus will come again.

Jesus himself makes that so clear,

so plain,

that even he himself didn’t know;

that only God knows.

And so we hear Jesus say

of his certain advent:

“You … must be ready”,

“be dressed for action”

Lamps lit,

as we stand by the door

waiting for his knock.

But still the question remains:

What does it mean to be

“dressed for action”?

What does it mean in 2015

to have “our lamps lit”?

How are we to make ourselves ready?

                          

Is it enough to profess our faith in Jesus?

To come to church on Sunday?

To put money in the plate?

To serve on a committee or team?

Just as Jesus tells us to be ready,

our Lord tells us how to

make ourselves ready.

He tells us in a number of

different ways in the gospels,

all of them simple and straightforward,

all of them grounded in how

we are to live our lives,

none of them grounded in creeds,

or denominations,

or being “religious”

or any of the other many things

we often think defines us as his followers.

Start with Jesus’ teaching in the 25^th chapter

of Matthew’s gospel,

where our Lord gives us

the very foundation of how

we are to live our lives:

“I was hungry and thirsty

and you gave me food and drink;

You gave me food and drink

without judging or condemning me

as lazy or dependent.”

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me;

welcomed me even though I looked different,

wore different clothes,

spoke with a different accent,

came from a different land,

had skin color different from yours;

still you welcomed me,

and I no longer felt like a stranger.”

“I was sick and you took care of me,

took care of me without concern for yourself,

or the illness I had,

without concern for costs or convenience;

You just took care of me.”

“You came to visit me in prison

and gave me hope.

You came to visit me

when I was imprisoned by locks and iron bars,

and you also visited me when I was imprisoned by

poverty,

by violence,

by hunger,

by want,

by lack of opportunity

by fear.

You visited me and helped me to see my way out.

You visited me and gave me hope for my future.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers”

our Lord tells us in the Beatitudes.

That tells us that

we are called to do more than pray for peace;

we are called to work for peace

in a world racked by violence,

violence that so often seems

savage and senseless,

so barbaric and horrific

that our rage and anger

lead us to seek vengeance, retaliation,

an eye-for-an-eye.

But again, our Lord calls us to a different way.

The Prince of Peace calls us to

walk a different road,

a road where we won’t risk

missing his knock.  

Our Lord teaches us that

it is by our love for one another

that we are known as his disciples;

it is by living in love and reconciliation

that we make ourselves ready,

ready for our Lord’s Advent,

love and reconciliation among Christian,

Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist

all in the same way Jesus reached out to

Jew, Roman, Samaritan, Greek—

anyone, everyone.

When our Lord comes,

as our text teaches us,

the door will open to the great heavenly banquet,

where our Lord will serve us!

He’ll tie an apron around his waist,

and he will serve you and me!

We get a powerful glimpse of what awaits us

each time we gather around our Lord’s Table

and share this Lord’s Supper,

this meal our Lord invites us to,

this meal our Lord prepares for us.

It is a glimpse of what awaits us.

It is a meal that nourishes us,

strengthening us in spirit

to help us ready ourselves,

prepare ourselves,

dress ourselves,

let our lights shine.

So come, come to this Table

as a way to ready yourself,

dress yourself,

nourish yourself,

prepare yourself

all in anticipation of that day

when our Lord will come again.

Come to this Table that,

in the words of the Apostle Paul,

“your love may overflow more and more

with knowledge and full insight,

to help you to determine what is best,

so that in the day of Christ

you may be pure and blameless,

having produced the harvest of righteousness

that comes through Jesus Christ

for the glory and praise of God.”

(Philippians 1:9-11)

Come Lord Jesus—

we await your advent.

We are dressed;

Our lamps lit and

we stand in your light.

Come Lord Jesus.

We are ready.

AMEN