Light Show

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 26, 2016

Light Show

Selected Texts

Jesus said,

“I am the way,

and the truth,

and the life…”

(John 14:6)

Jesus did not say that any particular ethic,

any particular doctrine,

any particular creed,

or for that matter,

any particular religion or church

was the way,

the truth,

the life.

(Buechner)

Jesus said he was the way,

he was the life;

and he calls us to follow him

to live as he lived,

our lives reflecting as best we can

Jesus’ life.

That’s what it is to be a follower of Christ.

That’s what it is to be a disciple of Christ.

It is to live as Jesus lived,

as he calls us to live.

To be a disciple is to be a learner –

that’s what the word “disciple” means:

one who learns.

So that means we are to spend our lives learning,

learning how to be faithful followers,

learning about Christ,

learning the way, his way,

learning life.

We will have questions

about how to live faithfully,

how to follow,

how to learn.

We will never get it 100 percent right;

in fact, we will often get it wrong.

We’ll even ignore Jesus

when we want to do what we want to do.

Still, it’s there before us:

the life we are called to live,

Jesus’ life –

that’s the life we are called to live

as we learn,

as we follow,

as we build our own lives.

The apostle Paul always had someone at his side

to write down what was on his mind,

what he had to say,

someone to capture his words for others.

As a result, we have

quite a few of Paul’s letters,

faithfully written down by his scribes,

Paul telling us what to do, what to think.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah

had Baruch at his side

to write down his words.

When King Jehoiakim took the scroll

 that Baruch had labored over

with all Jeremiah’s words

and proceeded to shred it with a knife,

and throw the pieces onto a fire,

Baruch started all over again,

writing down all of Jeremiah’s words.

(Jeremiah 36:20ff)

Jesus had no scribe,

no secretary.

He never asked any of his disciples

to write down what he had to say,

never said to Peter, James, John,

Andrew, any of them,

“I am about to give what history will call

my Sermon on the Mount.
I want you to write down every word I say,

capture it all so not a word is lost.”

Yes, Jesus taught by and through words –

his teachings, his parables;

but more important,

Jesus taught by example,

by how he lived,

by his life.

“Follow me.

Live as I live.

I will show you.

Do as I do.

For I do God’s will.”

Those are our Lord’s words to you and me.

Look at Jesus’ life

and we’ll see he lived with grace,

lived by grace,

his big carpenter hands

opened wide in welcome

to all who came to him,

who approached him,

from the tax collectors and prostitutes,

to Roman soldiers,

even to Samaritans –

and if you were here last week

you’ll recall that we learned

that Samaritans and Jews

lived in mutual contempt and disdain

of one another.

But that didn’t matter to Jesus.                                                      

It is in the summer

that I always return to the works

of Frederick Buechner,

his wonderful books, stories, and sermons.

Buechner lives in Rutland Vermont,

a town a few minutes up the road

from where I stay each year

when I vacation in Vermont.

In one sermon he talks of our being called

to “let Jesus show”.

Let Jesus show.

Let Jesus show through your life,

through your actions

and yes, your words.  

We let Jesus show,

by letting our light show,

by remembering our Lord’s words:

“You are the light of the world…

let your light shine before others.”

(Matthew 5:14)

We are to be light shows,

each of us, in all we do.

Not glaring spotlights,

calling attention to ourselves,

trying to blind others

with the brilliance of our holiness.

No, ours is to be warm, even light,

a light that soothes,

that comforts,

that chases away fearful shadows

as it welcomes,

drawing friend and stranger alike.

All of our VBS teachers and helpers

will let their lights shine this coming week

as we welcome dozens and dozens of children

to our Vacation Bible School.

Our teachers and helpers will welcome all,

to come and spend the week

in joyful community

all,

every child welcomed

as Jesus would welcome them.

Here in God’s house,

all are welcome.

That’s what our Lord teaches us by his life,

and by his words,

all are welcome,

and especially children.

                                   

You remember our Lord’s words, don’t you:

“Let the little children come to me

and do not stop them;

for it is to such as these

that the kingdom of God belongs.”

(Mark 10:14)

But do you remember what Jesus did

after saying those words?

“He took them up in his arms,

laid his hands on them

and blessed them.”

Words and actions together make light.

Jesus shows us how to live and

how to be light in the story

I go back to repeatedly,

a story I’ve used in many a sermon,

the story of the adulterous woman,

the story we find in the gospel of John.

(John 8:1)

A woman had sinned –

she didn’t deny it.

Jesus and her accusers knew

what punishment Scripture called for: death.

But Jesus showed us that

God’s grace must always prevail

even at the expense of the written word,

Jesus’ light of mercy,

of forgiveness,

of compassion

shining brightly,

an example to you and me.

In the wake of the Orlando killings,

there have been more than a few preachers

who’ve stood behind pulpits

and preached a message

that the killings were God’s work,

the killings a good thing,

the world a better place with fewer sinners.

Really?

Is that what our Jesus would have said?

Where is the grace?

Where is the light?

Frederick Buechner has written:

“Holy: 

That is what you are going to be

if God gets his way with you.”

If God gets God’s way with you;

If you surrender yourself to God,

letting God shape your life

letting the Spirit show you

how to follow Jesus

how to model his life,

that your light might glow.

That’s a big “if”.

We struggle with God -

we often resist God’s best efforts

to lead us to holiness.

Buechner recalled looking at an

advertisement for cigarettes some years ago.

It was typical of the time and type:

a handsome man, a beautiful woman,

young, vibrant,

the grass green, the sky blue,

a shimmering pool in the background,

life at its best waiting for you

when you smoke this brand of cigarette!

But there, in the lower corner of the ad

were the words that reflected the reality

that smoking kills.

We are our own worst enemies

Buechner wrote,

as he pondered the ad.

We are so quick to act in ignorance;

so quick to act against our own

better judgment.

So quick to act in defiance of how

we are called to live.

Our Lord reminds us that

it isn’t just coming to church

or even professing one’s faith in Christ

that matters;

It is “doing God’s will”,

and our Lord shows us how to do God’s will

by living as Jesus lived.

In the words of Reverend Buechner,

“we were created to love one another

despite all the differences between us,

that way God loves us

despite all the differences between us….

If only we could see

that the very faults we find so unbearable

in those we are one way or another at war with

are versions of the same faults

we are blind to in our ourselves.”

God made us out of light

to dwell in light, and

then be light…

light for the all the world

that always seems to be on the edge of darkness.

We are called to be

the light of grace,

the light hope,

the light of peace,

the light of love,

the light of Christ.

We are called to be light shows

that we might let Jesus show.

AMEN  

Reduced To A Single Story

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 19, 2016

Reduced To A Single Story

Luke 9:51-56

When the days drew near for him to be taken up,

he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

 And he sent messengers ahead of him.

On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans

to make ready for him;

but they did not receive him,

because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

When his disciples James and John saw it, they said,

“Lord, do you want us to command fire 

to come down from heaven

and consume them?”

But he turned and rebuked them.

Then they went on to another village.

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

The young woman began to unpack

in her dormitory room.

She had arrived early, eager to get settled,

eager to begin her studies at college.

She’d traveled a long way,

a very long way from her home

in the African nation of Nigeria;

a long way to come to attend college in America.

As she put her clothes in the dresser

her roommate arrived,

the roommate the college’s housing office

had assigned to her,

a young woman whose hometown

was just an hour’s drive from the college.

The two struck up a conversation

each of them eager to become friends.

The roommate was full of questions:

“What is life like in Africa?

Is it mostly jungle?

Can you hear the sounds of

wild animals at night?

Do you have tribal music on your phone?

How did you learn to speak English so well?”

It was clear to the Nigerian woman

that her roommate thought of Africa as a country,

rather than as a continent

composed of 54 different countries,

with hundreds of cultures and languages.

While much of the continent was

wild and beautiful,

many people lived in urban areas,

as she and her family did,

living a very middle-class life,

not all that different from her roommate.

English was her native tongue,

just like her roommate.

And no, she didn’t have tribal music

on her phone;

she had songs 18-year-old women

throughout the world

tended to have on their phones,

including many songs her roommate

had on her own phone.

Her roommate had reduced

the Nigerian woman to a single story,

when in fact the woman from Nigeria

had a rich story,

deep and broad,

as did the roommate.

                 

In time, they learned each other’s stories;

In time they learned that though

they came from different parts of the world,

different countries, different cultures,

they had much in common,

in fact more in common than they had things

that separated them, set them apart.

In time they became friends.

We find it so easy to reduce individuals,

strangers,

even groups,

to a single story,

based on what we think we know.

Even two of Jesus’ disciples

found it so easy to go down that path.        

They knew,

or at least they thought they knew,

all about people from Samaria,

the region between Galilee in the north

and Jerusalem in the south.

Jews and Samaritans did not get along;

Jews looked on the Samaritans as

hostile, immoral,

basically no good.

In one instance, when a group of Pharisees

tried to condemn Jesus,

the worst insult they could think of

was to call him a Samaritan.

(John 8:48)

So the two disciples were not surprised

when the people of the Samaritan village

failed to welcome them,

showed them, as Jews, no hospitality.

But the two apparently had forgotten Jesus’ lesson

about simply shaking the dust off their sandals

and moving on,

when they said to Jesus,

“Lord, do you want us to command fire

to come down from heaven

and consume them?”

We can almost picture

the eager look on their faces:

“Come on Jesus, let’s pay these people back

for their rudeness.

Who cares about a few Samaritans.

The world will be a better place without them.”

Our text tells us simply that

Jesus rebuked them.

But a footnote tells us that

in some ancient manuscripts of Luke’s text

Jesus responded to James and John

with these words:

“You do not know what spirit you are of,

for the Son of Man has not come

to destroy the lives of human beings

but to save them.”

The disciples didn’t understand

that Jesus had no interest in payback,

in vengeance,

in violence;

He’d come to bring peace to the world,

reconciliation,

forgiveness;

peace not just to his own Jewish community,

but to all the world.

Hateful words.

Hate-filled actions.

Prejudice,

bigotry,

ignorance.

We are still writing the same chapters

we’ve been writing for centuries,

for most of human history.

When will we write a new chapter

in our human history?

When will write the chapter

that our Lord has been calling us to write

for 2,000 years?

When will we stop reducing people to a single story:

Mexican equals bad.

Muslim equals bad

Gay equals bad.

Black equals bad:

It was just a year ago a young white man

walked calmly into a Bible study class

in an African American church

and shot and killed the participants

because they were black.

They were each children of God,

each with stories:

mother, father,

grandmother, grandfather,

brother, sister,

neighbor,

co-worker,

friend.

Each was loved.

But the killer had reduced them to a single story:

Black…bad.

The killer in Orlando appears to have done

the same thing:

Gay….bad.

In the first letter of John we read,                       

“Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’,

while hating a brother or sister,

is still in darkness.”

(1 John 2:9)

The letter goes on to teach us:

“How does God’s love abide in anyone

who has the world’s goods and

sees a brother or sister in need

and yet refuses to help?...

Let us love not in word or speech,

but in truth and action…

Whoever does not love does not know God,

for God is love…

There is no fear in love,

but perfect love casts out fear.”

(1 John 3:17- 4:18)

The member of the British Parliament

who was shot and killed this week,

said in a speech in Britain’s House of Commons,

“While we celebrate our diversity,

what surprises me time and time again

as I travel around [my] constituency

is that we are far more united

and have far more in common with each other

than things that divide us.”

(New York Times, June 18, 2016)

We learn this lesson

when we make the effort

to learn one another’s stories.

We learn that the Mexican woman

works two jobs

and has three children,

the oldest of whom

is at the very top of her high school class.

We learn the Muslim man served in our Armed Forces,

and is now an oncological radiologist

at the local hospital

where he treats people with inoperable cancer.

We learn the gay man is a prominent attorney

who lives three doors down from you,

and who will be happy to collect your mail

and look after your home

while you are on vacation.

As Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners,

has observed,

“Hate is not only the antithesis of love;

hate is the antithesis of God.”

And hate comes in many forms,

not just active, violent emotion.

Hate is stereotyping,

it is indifference,

it is apathy,

it is tolerating another person’s hatred.

“The consequence of the single story is this:

It robs people of dignity.

It makes our recognition of our

equal humanity difficult.

It emphasizes how we are different

rather than how we are similar.”

(Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)

What have we learned this past week?

What will we do?

Surely we must do more

than offer a moment of silence!

What will teach Christopher, Caden,

 and all our children? 

Will we teach them that,

“God is love

and those who abide in love abide in God

and God abides in them”?

For that is God’s story….

for us.

AMEN

(The theme of this sermon

came from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"The Danger of a Single Story")

Words Without Knowledge

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 5, 2016

Words Without Knowledge

Selected Texts

For 35 chapters they talk.

They talk, and talk, and talk.

Job and his three friends,

Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

They talk about God,

They talk to God;

They talk knowingly, assuredly.

For 35 chapters, Job complains:

“Why did I not die at birth?”;

“Though I am blameless,

God would prove me perverse”,

his friends responding to his complaints

that Job must have done something truly awful

that he just won’t admit to,

that Job is in what today we’d call denial.

On they go, words spilling out,

a torrent of words, back and forth,

all talking, no one really listening.

On it goes, until finally God boils over

exploding on the scene,

his voice booming,

the very ground shaking with God’s fury,

“Who is this that darkens counsel

by words without knowledge?”

(Job 38:2)

God heard their every word,

their every complaint,

their every response,

and it was too much,

too much even for the

infinite patience of the Lord God.

“Who is doing all this talking

without knowing what in heaven

he is talking about?

So much blather, prattle,

bloviation,

words, words and more words,

words without knowledge. ”

God aimed his anger most forcefully at Job,

confronting Job with his

shameful ignorance,

God firing off one question after another:

“Do you know?

Do you understand?

Tell me if you understand!”

God’s questions boring into Job,

burning right through him,

Job cringing,

shrinking with every question.

“Answer me,” demands God.

But Job cannot.

He sees that God is right,

that he has spoken without knowing

what he was talking about,

so many empty words;

just as God said,

words without knowledge.

God’s fury usually is unleashed for faithlessness,

for disobedience,

for idolatry;

but here God’s fury is unleashed at Job

for his blistering ignorance.

And finally, Job,

reduced to a puddle of a man,

squeaks out his response to God,

“I have uttered what I did not understand.”

(Job 42:3)

God has given us minds.

God has given us the ability to learn,

God has given us the ability to grow in knowledge

and through knowledge grow in wisdom.

And having given us the ability,

God surely has an expectation,

an expectation that we will learn,

that we will grow,

and that when we talk,

we’ll know what we are talking about;

that before we talk,

we will have done our homework.

The Word of the Lord in the

Book of Proverbs teaches us,

“An intelligent mind acquires knowledge,

and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.”

(Proverbs 18.15)

And, as is typical of the Proverbs,

there is a counterpart to that saying:

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding

but only in expressing personal opinion.”

Put another way, a fool takes pleasure in speaking

words without knowledge.

Certainly when we hear those words,

politicians and media talking heads come to mind.

But we know that from the very first false prophet,

religion has been fertile soil

for those who are quick to speak

words without knowledge.

And we know that we,

every one of us,

has had our own moments

when we’ve spoken words without knowledge,

when we have spoken words

that revealed no insight,

that revealed only our ignorance.

It is easy to talk;

learning takes work.

There was a reason that Jesus taught

through parables,

rather than by simply laying out rules,

rather than by posting his teachings

on a first-century listicle.

Jesus wanted us to think,

to learn,

to figure things out.

As our Lord explained it in the gospel of Matthew,

“The reason I speak … in parables

is that ‘seeing they do not perceive,

and hearing they do not listen,

nor do they understand.’

...For this people’s heart has grown dull,

and their ears are hard of hearing,

and they have shut their eyes;

so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart …”

(Matthew 13:13-15)

Krista Tippet, the host of the podcast

“On Being”

has just published a new book entitled,

“Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery

It is a book devoted to learning,

a book that helps us to understand

that learning leads to wisdom,

and wisdom leads to stronger faith.

Tippet writes that becoming wise

is so much more than

simply becoming smart.

We need to grow in knowledge in order to be wise,

but knowledge alone won’t make us wise.

Wisdom is knowledge applied in life

and through life.

Wisdom begins with words;

it begins with our being aware of words,

knowing when to speak;

knowing when not to speak.

Tippet writes,

“Start with the attention you give

to the words you speak.

This is one of the simplest things we do

every day all the time,

to realize what power our words have.”

Wisdom requires humility, as well,

humility, which she describes as,

“approaching everything and everyone else

with a readiness to see goodness

and to be surprised”.

To walk and live in humility

is to be open-minded,

which, sadly, has become such

a rare trait these days.

Humility is a recognition

that we don’t have all the answers;

that what we have – or should have –

is a readiness,

an eagerness to learn.

Wisdom helps us to understand

that the art of living

is not to find answers as much as it is

to live fully into the questions –

Tippet agreeing

with the German writer Ranier Maria Rilke.

And she goes on to explain

that when we live into the questions

we understand that wisdom is to be found

in the tension

between competing arguments,

in the interstices between the differences.

Through wisdom we learn that we were created

not just for ourselves,

but for community,

and not just the exclusive communities we create

through family, friends, church, social groups.

Wisdom helps us to understand that we are part

of God’s community,

all God’s children.

Through wisdom we learn to be

kind,

compassionate,

accepting,

forgiving,

loving,

embracing;

quick to listen,

slow to speak,

careful with our words.

“Where shall wisdom be found?

Where is the place of understanding?

…God understands the way to it”

(Job 28)

And God will show us the way,

the way to wisdom,

the way to understanding.,

so that when we do speak

we’ll have something worth saying.

AMEN