Sunday, January 31, 2016

Child of the Promise


The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
January 31, 2016

Child of the Promise
Genesis 21:9-21

But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian,
whom she had borne to Abraham,
playing with her son Isaac.
So she said to Abraham,
“Cast out this slave woman with her son;
for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”
The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son.
But God said to Abraham,
“Do not be distressed because of the boy
and because of your slave woman;
whatever Sarah says to you,
do as she tells you,
for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you.
As for the son of the slave woman,
I will make a nation of him also,
because he is your offspring.”
So Abraham rose early in the morning,
and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar,
putting it on her shoulder, along with the child,
and sent her away.
And she departed, and wandered about
in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
When the water in the skin was gone,
she cast the child under one of the bushes.
Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off,
about the distance of a bowshot;
for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.”
And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept.
And God heard the voice of the boy;
and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven,
and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar?
Do not be afraid;
for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.
Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand,
for I will make a great nation of him.”
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.
She went, and filled the skin with water,
and gave the boy a drink.
God was with the boy, and he grew up;

****************************************
It has to be one of the most dramatic stories
in the Old Testament:
Abraham and his son Isaac
climbing to the top of a high mountain,
called there by God,
called there to offer a sacrifice.
Abraham called to sacrifice Isaac, his son,
the son of his wife Sarah,
the son of their old age,
the son in whom they delighted;
their only son.

Isaac was still very much a boy,
with all his life before him
as he followed his father obediently,
as they journeyed into the wilderness,
as they hiked up the mountain;
Isaac trusting his father,
asking no questions,
even as his father bound him
and laid him on the crude altar
Abraham had built on that mountaintop.

Did the boy show any fear in his face
as his father raised his arm
high into the cobalt sky,
the dagger in his hand glinting in the bright sunlight?
Did the boy see the pain in his father’s face
as his father thought about what it was
that he was about to do?

Did the boy hear the voice of God’s angel
who called out before the knife struck,
“Abraham, do not lay your hand on the boy
or do anything to him,
for now I know that you fear God,
since you have not withheld your son,
your only son from me”?
(Genesis 22:12)

Isaac would grow up and grow old.
He’d become the father of two sons,
Esau and Jacob,
as well as grandfather to many.
Isaac was a child of promise,
God’s promise.

But there was another son,
another child of promise
in Abraham’s story:
his firstborn son,
his son Ishmael,
the son born of Hagar, Sarah’s maid,
the maid Sarah herself gave to her husband
that Abraham might have a son by her,
once Sarah realized that she would
never be able to provide her husband
with a son.

Four thousand years ago
there was nothing unusual about that –
a man having more than one wife,
a man having children by other women.

Jacob fathered twelve sons
who became the patriarchs of
the twelve tribes of Israel,
twelve sons by four different women.
Four thousand years ago,
that was what we would call
traditional biblical marriage.

Sarah gave her maidservant to her husband,
so her husband could have a son,
and Ishmael was born.

But then, a few years later, Sarah gave birth,
gave birth to a son: Isaac,
and with Isaac’s birth,
jealously reared its ugly head.
Sarah could not abide even the idea
that Ishmael, the son of her maidservant,
was the firstborn son,
the one who would stand ahead of her own son Isaac.

So, in anger, she demanded that her husband
send Hagar and Ishmael away,
away:
“Cast out this slave woman with her son;
for the son of this slave woman
shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”

Sarah’s demand sounds to us so cruel,
so vicious, so heartless –
no thought for her loyal maidservant Hagar;
no thought for the young boy Ishmael,
no thought for her husband, Ishmael’s father.

Sara was so filled with rage
that she couldn’t even speak their names,
her words coming out like the hiss of a viper:
“Cast out this slave woman with her son,
for the son of this slave woman
shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.”

Abraham did as his wife demanded:
he sent them away, Hagar and Ishmael,
Hagar and his son, Abraham’s son,
his firstborn son.

Abraham provided them with
almost nothing for their journey,
a bit of food and a little water,
only what Hagar was able to carry on her shoulder.
And off they went, into the desert,

The text tells us that they,
“wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.
[and] When the water in the skin was gone,
[Hagar] cast the child under one of the bushes.
Then she went and sat down
opposite him a good way off,
about the distance of a bowshot;
for she said,
“Do not let me look on the death of the child.”
And as she sat opposite him,
she lifted up her voice and wept.

Hagar wept, wept for her son Ishmael.
who was about to die of thirst in the desert.
The only thought that could have comforted Hagar
was knowing that she would shortly
follow her son in death,
that she too would die of thirst,
that the pain of losing her son would be short-lived.

But God was with Hagar
and God was with Ishmael:
“the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven,
and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar?
Do not be afraid;
for God has heard the voice of the boy
where he is.
Come, lift up the boy
and hold him fast with your hand,
for I will make a great nation of him.”
Then God opened her eyes
and she saw a well of water.
She went, and filled the skin with water,
and gave the boy a drink.”

Ishmael survived;
Ishmael grew up and grew old.
Ishmael would go on to have sons,
twelve sons,
and probably daughters,
as well as grandsons and granddaughters.
Ishmael would thrive, for,
as the text tells us,
“God was with the boy”.

Ishmael, a child of promise,
God’s promise to Ishmael,
God’s promise to Abraham,
…I will make a nation of him also,
because he is your offspring.”

Ishmael, son of Abraham,
child of promise,
who we, over the centuries,
have turned into an outsider,
even vilified as the patriarch of
of those we are quick to think of as enemies.

Yet, he was precious in the eyes of God,
precious in the eyes of God’s angels,
precious in the eyes of our
ancestor in faith Abraham.

We Christians can be so thoughtlessly exclusive,
as though we were part of a club,
a select few;
We on the inside,
striving to fortify the walls
to keep out those not already in,
letting in only those we approve of,
and sometimes even thinking about ways
to cast out those in with us –
so quick are we to judge.

But doesn’t our Lord Jesus teach us
that God is a God of love,
a God of welcome,
a God of inclusion?
Isn’t that why Jesus teaches us
to love our neighbors?
Isn’t that why Jesus teaches us
to define neighbor as anyone,
everyone?

It was the Reverend Peter Marshall
who described Jesus
in one of my favorite ways:
as standing at the doorway
with his “big carpenter hands”
opened wide in welcome,
teaching us to do the same:
Welcome to you,
welcome to me,
welcome to the tax collector,
welcome to the fallen woman,
welcome to the poor,
welcome to that motley crew of men
who became his first disciples,
welcome to the man from this country,
welcome to the woman from that country,            
“welcome,
sit with me;
be fed.”

The name Ishmael means “God has heard”
and God heard Ishmael’s cry,
Hagar’s cry,
even Abraham’s silent cry,
and God honored his promise to each
that Ishmael would be a child of promise.

In a book written some 150 years before
the birth of our Lord,
a book called Jubilees,
-- a book that is one of dozens, hundreds of books
written thousands of years ago that tell bible stories,
but were not included in the Bible –
the writer tells of how Moses spent his 40 days
on top of Mount Sinai,
how Moses spent those 40 days in history class,
an angel of the Lord teaching Moses
the history of God’s children,
the history of God’s promises.

In a very touching story within the book,
Abraham realizes that he is nearing
the end of his life,
and so he calls all his children to him –
not just Isaac,
but Ishmael, and all Ishmael’s children,
as well as all the children
Abraham had with Keturah
the woman he married after Sarah died.

And we read that Abraham,
“commanded them…
that they should guard the way of the Lord
so that they might do righteousness
and each one might love his neighbor,
and…that it should be thus among all men
so that each one might proceed to act justly
and rightly toward them upon the earth.”
(Jubilees 20:1ff)

Now these may not be words from Holy Scripture,
but it seems to me that
they capture God’s hope
for all God’s children,
that all are children of promise,
that God’s love knows no boundaries
and that we, God’s children,
are called to love our neighbors
and to act justly
and rightly
toward all,
…toward all.

AMEN

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Qualifying the Called


The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
January 17, 2016

Qualifying the Called
Numbers 11:16-17

“So the Lord said to Moses,
“Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel,
whom you know to be the elders of the people
and officers over them;
bring them to the tent of meeting,
and have them take their place there with you.  
I will come down and talk with you there;
and I will take some of the spirit that is on you
and put it on them;
and they shall bear the burden of the people
along with you
so that you will not bear it all by yourself.”
****************************************
The call came on a weekday evening
a long time ago.
I answered the telephone and
on the other end of the line
I heard a familiar voice,
a woman I knew from church,
the church in Buffalo where I worshipped,
the church where I grew up.

She said she was calling on behalf of
the Nominating Committee.
Those words were barely out of her mouth
before my brain kicked into
full defensive mode,
full refusal mode.
Every synapse was firing,
my brain running through
every possible permutation
of how to say firmly, but politely,
“no”.

I listened as the woman spoke,
She told me that the Committee
was asking me to consider service as a Deacon,
service on the Board of Deacons in the church
where I had been baptized 30 years before,
where I’d been confirmed,
where three generations of my family worshipped. 

I knew the caller well –
I had grown up with her children.
I knew that she had long been active in the church,
faithfully serving on many committees.
How could I say “no” to her?
How could I say “no” to the church?

But I did;
I said, “no”.
That was 30 years ago,
so I don’t recall my precise reasons,
but I probably used words like,
“I’m awfully busy”;
“work is crazy”;
“too much going on”;
“Now isn’t a good time”;
“overly committed already.”
                                                                                
Nominating Committees are nothing
if not resilient,
so I wasn’t surprised when
they approached me again the next year.
It was the same request,
but a different caller:
Would I consider serving as a Deacon?

“No” was still my response.
I was a little slower with the no,
but still firm,
resolute, adamant.
“No.”

The Nominating Committee left me alone
the next year- no call, no request;
but back they came the fourth year.
Only this time, they swooped in
and caught me off guard.
This time I wasn’t asked to serve as a Deacon.
No, this time I was asked whether I would serve
on the church’s Board of Trustees.

Back then, the church still had
three operating boards:
The Session,
the Board of Deacons,
and the Board of Trustees.
The Trustees oversaw building and grounds,
the maintenance and upkeep of
what was a large, historic facility.
The Trustees also supervised the church’s
investments in the endowment funds.

I said yes to that request.
I said yes without hesitating,
as busy as I was.
I said yes, because
I understood what the Trustees did:
they were the business-end of the church,
they were about dollars and cents –
the language I spoke fluently in my business career.

I knew I was qualified to be a Trustee;
I was not sure I was qualified to be a Deacon.
I knew I had the skills and knowledge
to be a good Trustee;
but I was not sure I had the skills and knowledge
to be a good Deacon.

I served on the Board of Trustees for three years,
and in my final year I was the Board’s president.
Subsequently, I said yes to other requests:
would I serve on the Stewardship Committee: Yes;
would I serve on the budget committee: Yes
would I serve on the space planning committee: Yes.

I said yes to requests that seem to fit my gifts.
Looking back, I wonder whether I ever
thought about God’s hand,
God’s role in my being called to service.
I’m not sure I ever thought of any of those calls
that came from the Nominating Committee
as calls from God,
calls from God to serve,
calls to serve God and serve the church.

It was many years later I realized
that what I had reduced to nuts and bolts,
dollars and cents,
buildings and grounds,
was really about serving God.
Every call from the Nominating Committee,
had been a call from God.

The work of the church is
too much for one person;
too much even for a handful of people.
We need to have lots of people,
teams of people working and serving together.
It is no exaggeration to say that we need everyone,
everyone to be involved in this body of Christ.

Our text teaches us that even Moses needed help;
even Moses could not lead
the children of Israel by himself.
So what did God tell him to do?
Something that should gladden
our Presbyterian hearts:
God told him to recruit a committee,
a team,
70 strong.

In re-reading this story,
I wondered how many people Moses had to ask
to get 70 to say “yes”;
Did anyone say “no” to Moses?
Did anyone say to Moses,
“You know, thank you for asking,
but now’s not a good time”?

The more important lesson
we glean from our text, though
is that when God calls us,
God also graces us with the gifts we will need
to do the job that God calls us to do,
whatever God calls us to do.
We read that, hear that
as God says he will put his Spirit in the 70
Moses recruits to serve.
As the saying goes,
God doesn’t call the qualified;
God qualifies the called.

Had I said “yes” to that first call
to serve as a Deacon,
God would have graced me with the gifts
I would have needed to serve faithfully,
to serve well.
Yes, I felt more comfortable serving as a Trustee,
but had I at the time put more trust in God,
I would have been fine as a Deacon.

God graces those who are called,
those who say “yes” to the call to service,
with the gifts they will need to serve,
to serve faithfully and well,
whether it be as an Elder,
as a Deacon,
chairing this Team
or simply serving on that Committee.

God graces everyone called to
leadership in the church with the ability to lead.
God teaches all those called to lead in service
that leadership is not about dash, intellect,
schooling, or charm;
Rather, leadership is about service
as we all follow the head of our church,
our Lord Jesus Christ.

Some 40 years ago,
a professor named James MacGregor Burns
wrote a book called, “Leadership”.
In the book he observed
that leaders tend to fall into one of two camps:
they are either “transactional” leaders
or they are “transformational” leaders.

When I served on the Board of Trustees,
I was a transactional leader:
I got things done;
I knew how to make things happen.

But in the church,
as much as we need to get things done
and make things happen,
those called to lead
are called to be transformational leaders
more than transactional leaders.
We should not call them Ruling Elders;
we should call them
“Transformational Elders”.

Leadership exercised by Deacons,
leadership exercised by Elders,
by chairs of Teams,
by chairs of Committees,
is all transformative leadership
because it is leadership
done in the name of Jesus Christ;
leadership guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Transformational leaders creatinge a culture,
a place where all can grow
and be nurtured and nourished
in the spirit of Jesus Christ.
                            
The year ahead promises to be an exciting year
as we begin to do the work
envisioned by our Capital Campaign.
We’ll need lots of people, teams of people
people involved in lots of different ways.
We’ll need leadership,
leadership through service.

Where is God calling you to serve?
What is God is calling you to do?
What is God calling you to help with?
Serve on Stewardship to build on
this past year’s success?
Serve on the newly formed Membership Team?
Serve on the newly formed Fellowship Team?

God may be calling you to something that fits you,
or God may be calling you to serve
in a way you never previously considered.
Either way, God is calling you to serve,
and God will enable you;
God will empower you;
God will qualify you;
God will even help you
to make the time you need,
but don’t think you have to serve.

Listen!
Listen for God’s call to service.
It will come;
And when it does come,
don’t hesitate,
don’t make excuses,
don’t worry,
Just say “YES!”

AMEN  

Sunday, January 03, 2016

Plans For You


The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
January 3, 2016
Plans For You
Jeremiah 29:11

“For surely I know the plans I have for you,
 says the Lord,
plans for your welfare and not for harm,
to give you a future with hope.”
**************************************************

“For surely I know the plans I have for you,”
says the Lord,
“plans for your welfare
and not for harm,
to give you a future with hope,
…to give you a future with hope.”

I cannot imagine better words for us to hear
as we begin a new year—
as we each begin the new year,
and as our church begins it 149th year.

“Plans for our welfare.”
“A future with hope.”
It is what we all want, isn’t it?
Every one of us:
a future with hope
as we look to the year ahead.

The young person who has sent off
college applications
and anxiously awaits word,
hoping for her first choice,
hoping for a future come fall
on a college campus she now dreams about.
“God, grant me a future with hope.”

The young couple talking about a life together,
talking about marriage,
talking about binding themselves
through promises of love,
such extravagrant promises
when we hear them:
“in plenty and in want,
in joy and in sorrow,
in sickness and health,”
through good times
and the inevitable bad times.
“God, grant us a future with hope.”

The middle-aged couple
watching grown children leave,
setting out on their own;
the couple thinking about
how quiet the house will be,
too quiet,
wondering what the years ahead will be like
for their children,
for themselves.
“God, grant our children a future with hope.
God, grant us a future with hope.”

The man, the woman looking back
at the end of a career,
looking back over 30, 40 years,
of working, living, striving;
now looking at a future
so different from the past,
a future filled with new possibilities,
but also new uncertainties,
the familiar, the routine,
forever changed.
“God, grant me a future with hope.”

Those of any age, struggling,
struggling in relationships,
struggling with illness;
struggling with worry;
struggling with anger;
struggling with guilt;
struggling to forgive;
struggling with what path to follow:
“God, grant me a future with hope.”

Hope: a feeling of expectation,
a feeling of anticipation.
It is the essence of our faith
– that we are filled with expectation,
anticipation as we walk through our days,
as children of God,
as disciples of Christ,
empowered, energized,
pulled,
and sometimes pushed
by the Holy Spirit.
Hope grounded in the promise
we hear at Christmas
that God is with us,
our Immanuel.

“Fear not” are words we read
time and time again in Scripture,
words spoken by Jesus,
spoken by angels
spoken because the future,
even with its possibilities
can freeze us with fear,
fear of the uncertain,
fear of the unknown,
fear simply of change.
“Fear not”,
for God graces us a future with hope.

We can walk into the future confidently,
God’s future.
for God is calling us,
saying to us,  
as Frederick Buechner has written,
“GO!
BE!
LIVE!
LOVE!”
Fear not!
        
And as we respond in hope and faith,
“God sends us on an extraordinary journey
for which there are no sure maps
and whose end we will never fully know
until we get there”
(Secrets in the Dark)

But God will be with us,
this we know,
with us on life’s journey
in both joy and sorrow,
sickness and health,
plenty and want
in this life and the next.
                                   
What do you hope for
as you look at the year ahead?
What is your hope for yourself?
What is your hope for your family?
What is your hope for your community?
What is your hope for your church
this body of Christ to which you and I,
all of us, have been called?

Many of you are participating in
the Year of the Bible.
As you read through your Bible,
look at each person’s story
and see how it is a story of hope.

Even Adam and Eve after they disobeyed God;
even Cain, after he so brutally murdered Abel;
even Moses after he killed the Egyptian in anger;
even David,
even Solomon,
even Jonah,
even Peter,
even Paul.  

Eleven months from now,
as this year comes to an end,
as we once again prepare for
Advent and Christmas,
we’ll begin our trek through
the Book of Revelation,
a book that one eminent biblical scholar
has called the most widely and
wildly misinterpreted
book in the Bible.

I could not agree with him more:
It is a book we tend to think is about
everything dark,
death and destruction all around,
fire, smoke, and ash rising from
the very pages as we try to read,
as we try to understand.

But it is a book about hope.
It is a message of hope
John wanted Christians to hear
even in the midst of brutal Roman persecution:
“Live in hope,” John wrote,
“God’s love will prevail.”

The very word apocalypse means simply,
revelation,
and what is revealed is God’s hope for us,
for all humanity,
that God will bring heaven to us,
and live among us,
as we, all God’s children, live in love.
That’s God’s hope for us,
That’s God’s plan for us.
        
Let us all live in hope as we begin this year;
as we walk through this year.
As we work,
as we serve,
as we pray,
as we worship,
as we feed the hungry,
as we reach out to welcome all,
as we grow in faith,
as we grow in discipleship
following our Lord Jesus Christ.

God hear our prayer:
grant us –
your children and this church –
a future with hope.

AMEN