Less is More

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

August 28, 2016

Less is More

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to

the house of a leader of the Pharisees

to eat a meal on the sabbath,

they were watching him closely…

When he noticed how the guests

chose the places of honor,

he told them a parable.

“When you are invited by someone

to a wedding banquet,

do not sit down at the place of honor,

in case someone more distinguished than you

has been invited by your host;

and the host who invited both of you

may come and say to you,

‘Give this person your place,’

and then in disgrace

you would start to take the lowest place.

But when you are invited,

go and sit down at the lowest place,

so that when your host comes,

he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’;

then you will be honored in the presence

of all who sit at the table with you.

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,

and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who had invited him,

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner,

do not invite your friends or your brothers

or your relatives or rich neighbors,

in case they may invite you in return,

and you would be repaid.

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor,

the crippled,

the lame, and the blind.

And you will be blessed,

because they cannot repay you,

for you will be repaid at

the resurrection of the righteous.”

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

We watched in awe as they mounted the podium,

one great athlete after another

one champion after another:

Michael Phelps,

Simone Biles,

Ashton Eaton,

and of course, Usain Bolt:

3 Olympics,

3 events,

gold all 9 times.

Each stood in the spotlight,

each basked in the applause and adulation.

Each bent forward

as the gold medal was put around their necks.

And then came that glorious moment

when each stood up,

shoulders back,

head high, beaming,

an Olympic champion for all the world to see.

Every athlete who stood on that platform

had earned the right to be called a champion.

They had earned the applause,

the adulation,

the respect.

They’d earned the right to be proud,

proud of their accomplishment,

built on hard work,

determination,

dedication,

and surely more than a little pain along the way.

And those of us who watched

comfortable on our couches,

shared in their pride;

and perhaps for even just the briefest moment,

we tried to image what it would be like

to stand on that platform,

to be the best, the champion,

to hear the thunderous applause,

see the cameras flashing;

we imagined what it would be like

to exult in greatness.

And then, along comes our Lord Jesus Christ

with our Gospel lesson,

telling us not to seek honor,

not to seek glory

but instead walk humbly through life,

live a life of humility, our Lord tells us.

Hearing this lesson feels like our Lord

is throwing a bucket of cold spiritual water on us,

cold water that isn’t the least bit refreshing

even in the swampy heat and humidity of deep summer.

Jesus is not telling us anything new,

we know that.

He’s simply reinforcing lessons that can be found

throughout the Bible,

including all the books that Jesus knew as Scripture,

the books we call the Old Testament.

We’ve heard them,

many times,

lesson after lesson,

especially those found in the Book of Proverbs:

A person’s pride will bring humiliation,

but one who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

(Proverbs 29:23)

When pride comes, then comes disgrace;

but wisdom is with the humble.

(Proverbs 11:2)

and of course,

“Pride goes before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall.

(Proverbs 16:18)

which many of us learned

in the conflated King James version,

“pride goeth before a fall.”

We hear the calls to walk humbly,

to walk and live with humility,

and, truth be told, we find them tiresome.

Eventually we simply close our ears to those lessons,

close our ears as we often do

with Biblical lessons we don’t like,

lessons, texts that don’t fit our lives,

that make us uncomfortable.

We don’t even like the words

humility,

humble.

It makes it sound like we have to walk

with our shoulders stooped,

head down,

obsequious, servile,

not the walk,

not the stride of a champion.

But that’s not what is asked of us;

that’s not what we are being taught to do,

called to do;

Jesus certainly walked and talked

with confidence,

assurance,

his head held high.

Another rabbi,

not our Lord Jesus,

but a British rabbi named Jonathan Sacks,

captured the notion of humility just right

when he wrote that

“humility is not holding yourself low,

it is holding others high.”

In the context of our lesson,

to live in humility

is be concerned for where others sit

before you grab a chair for yourself.

It is to be concerned for others;

It is concern for others;

It is compassion.

It is that word, empathy,

which means trying to walk in another’s shoes

so we can better understand their thinking,

especially if they differ greatly:

come from a different country or culture,

have different skin color,

speak a different language,

follow a different faith or set of beliefs.

It is, as our lesson teaches us, hospitality

at its most foundational.

Rabbi Sacks uses Moses as an example,

Moses, the one whom God called

to lead the children of Israel

out of bondage, through the wilderness,

into the promised land.

Moses was, the Bible tells us,

“… very humble,

more so than anyone else

on the face of the earth.”

(Numbers 12:3)

Moses the great leader,

was renowned for his humility

because of his concern for all those in his charge.

He took on responsibility for

the hundreds of thousands

and never shirked that responsibility,

his concern for others,

even when all he heard from them

was endless complaining;

even when God was ready to turn against them

and just carry on with Moses,

saying to him,

“I have seen this people,

how stiff-necked they are.

Now let me alone,

so that my wrath may burn hot against them

and I may consume them;

and of you I will make a great nation.”

“Turn from your wrath,” Moses implored;

“Change your mind.”

Moses was concerned for everyone in his care,

even those he considered a thorn in his side.

(Exodus 32:ff))

For Rabbi Sacks,

“Humble does not mean diffident,

self-abasing,

timid, bashful, demure

or lacking in self-confidence.

Moses was certainly none of these.

It means honoring others

and regarding them as important,

no less important than you are.”

C. S. Lewis called “pride” the great sin,

great because in pride we are never satisfied.

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something,”

Lewis wrote.

“only out of having more of it

than the next man.”

Pride puts us into a life of competition.

Now, competition is fine on the running track,

the swimming pool,

the basketball court,

but we as children of God

and disciples of Jesus Christ

are called to lives of cooperation,

lives of community,

of reconciliation,

of caring for one another.

For Lewis, humility, as the opposite of pride,

is “not thinking less of yourself”

rather it is “thinking of yourself less.”

(Mere Christianity)

Putting others first – as Jesus has taught us,

time and time again.

“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled,

and those who humble themselves

will be exalted.”

When our Lord said in his Sermon on the Mount

that the meek shall inherit the earth,

the Greek word we translate as “meek”

can also be translated as “humble”.

Our Lord was saying the humble –

those who know how to care for others

those who know how to build community,

those who use their gifts to glorify God,

they are the ones who will prevails.

Those who understand that in the Kingdom of God

no one will have a preferred seat,

an exalted seat;

we will all sit together,

all of us equal around the table.

When Jesus went back to his hometown in Nazareth

he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath

and read from the book of the prophet Isaiah,

read words which today we find in chapter 61:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

(Luke 4:16ff)

The Spirit of the Lord was upon Jesus

to look after others,

to put the needs of others first,

to think not less of himself,

but to think of himself less,

and think more of others.

Writing in the Christian Century,

the Reverend William Lamar said,

“Humility can rearrange our relationships

and make our world more just and more beautiful….

We are called to be the vanguard of a new world

where humility is the means of exultation.

(Christian Century, August 17, 2016)

We can still excel,

still stand on that top step of the podium,

still bask in glory as a champion,

but we are called to live with humility,

true humility,

humility that guides us as we go through our days,

thinking of ourselves less,

and thinking of others more,

especially those who don’t have the blessings we have.

That’s Kingdom life,

the life that awaits us,

when we are all gathered around the table

in God’s heavenly kingdom,

all of us having our seats,

the only one in an honored seat

the One who came not to be served,

but to serve.

AMEN  

Disillusioned

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

August 7, 2016

Disillusioned

Selected Texts

“Sunrise found Jesus and John the Baptist

sitting above the Jordan

in the hollow of a…rock.

…[John’s] face was severe and decisive;

…[Jesus’] face was tame and irresolute,

his eyes full of compassion.”

“‘Isn’t love enough?’ Jesus asked.

‘No!’ answered the Baptist angrily.

‘The tree is rotten.

God called…me and gave me the ax,

which I then placed at the roots of the tree….

Now…take the ax and strike!’”

This scene doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible;

it flowed from an author’s imagination

to his pen and onto paper.

But it feels like it should have been included,

included somewhere in one of the gospels,

telling us more about Jesus and John together.

Jesus and John were, after all,

related through their mothers,

perhaps first cousins, we’re not sure.

They were about six months apart in age,

both of them filled with the Holy Spirit,

yet so different in temperament,

demeanor,

so different in how they went about

the work God had called them to do.

John, the one God had called

to prepare the way,

to make straight the path for the Messiah.

John, so colorful, wild,

in his camel’s fur,

his diet of locusts and wild honey,

and, more than anything else,

his sense of outrage, fury.

John, knee deep in the mud

of the Jordan River,

eyes and hair as though aflame,

spitting out his anger

to those waiting along the banks,

waiting with such eager expectation,

waiting to be baptized:

“You brood of vipers!

Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Bear fruits worthy of repentance….

Even now, the ax is lying at

the root of the trees;

every tree therefore

that does not bear good fruit

is cut down and thrown into the fire…

[The Messiah’s] winnowing fork is in his hand

and he will clear the threshing floor

and will gather his wheat into the granary;

but the chaff he will burn

with unquenchable fire.”

(Luke 3; Matthew 3)

For John it was obvious:

“The tree is rotten.”

And so he was adamant with Jesus:

“God … gave me the ax,

which I then placed at the roots of the tree.

Now…[you] take the ax and strike!’”

John, feeling he’d done all he could,

all God had called him to do.

He’d prepared the way,

the way for the Messiah.

Now it was up to the Messiah

to take it from there,

finish the job:

winnow,

clear,

chop,

burn.

Jesus looked at John

in the dawn’s brightening light,

John looking so thin, so worn,

almost frail,

his olive skin sunburned

scoured rough by the winds.

Softly Jesus said to John,

“‘If I were fire, I would burn;

if I were a woodcutter, I would strike.

But I am heart, and I love.’”

John was quick with his response,

“‘I am heart also;

that’s why I cannot endure injustice,

shamefulness,

or infamy.

How can you love the unjust,

the infamous,

and the shameless?

Strike!…

“…How can you wipe out falsehood,

infamy and injustice from the world

if you do not eradicate the liars,

the unjust, the wicked?

The earth must be cleansed!

Don’t pity it!

It must be cleansed,

made ready for the planting of a new seed.

…We watch the heavens,

expecting a thunderbolt –

and you give us a white dove….’”

John, looking at the one

in whom he had put his hope,

his life,

looking at Jesus with disappointment,

frustration;

feeling defeated by the world,

and betrayed.

This scene comes from the mind of the author

Nikos Kazantzakis

in his book The Last Temptation of Christ.

It is so plausible;

it helps us to understand why the gospels tell us

that John, after his arrest by Herod,

felt compelled to ask Jesus,

“Are you the one who is to come,

or are we to wait for another?”

(Matthew 11:3)

As though John had all but given up on Jesus,

that Jesus had let John down

one time too many.

John, eager for the Messiah

to usher in a new world,

a world clean and holy,

pure,

purged of evil;

and yet there was Jesus

eating with sinners and prostitutes,

responding to John’s question

in a way that only added to John’s pain:

“Go and tell John what you hear and see:

the blind receive their sight,

the lame walk,

the lepers are cleansed,

the deaf hear,

the dead are raised,

and the poor have good news brought to them.

And blessed is anyone who take no offense at me.”

(Matthew 11:4-6)

Jesus left John dismayed,

disappointed,

defeated,

Why wasn’t he doing more?

“If you are the One I’ve been waiting for,”

he finally says to Jesus,

“you have not come in the form

I imagined you would.”

(The Last Temptation of Christ)

Jesus left John disillusioned.

Disillusioned.

John, having created an image in his mind

of who the Messiah would be,

and what the Messiah would do,

found his illusion shattered.

We all have our illusions,

illusions we build in our minds

of the Jesus we want in our lives,

the Jesus we want in our world.

We, like John, want a world rid of evil

a world rid of injustice and unrighteousness,

and we like John can find ourselves

feeling disappointed

when all we hear our Lord say to us is:

“the blind receive their sight,

the lame walk,

lepers are cleansed,

the deaf hear,

the dead are raised,

and the poor have good news brought to them.”

“That’s all well and good,” we respond,

“but what about evil,

what about war,

what about poverty,

what about injustice,

what about unrighteousness?

How can you allow such things?

Where’s your ax?

Your winnowing fork?”

But Jesus is no action hero,

Jesus is love.        

And with love in his voice

Jesus turns the question right back at us:

How can we allow such things,

we who call ourselves disciples of Christ.

We are called to build a world of peace,

a world of justice,

a world of righteousness,

with our Lord teaching us, guiding us;

no axes, no fires, no winnowing forks,

just grace and love as our only tools,

tools that can be frustratingly slow

in their effect perhaps,

but tools that are unmatched in power.

And when we, like John find ourselves

exhausted, frustrated, spent,

our Lord is there,

inviting us to come to his Table

to be renewed, refreshed.

This Table is no illusion.

It is our Lord’s Table.

Here we can find renewal,

respite,

community.

Here we can be fed, nourished,

our deepest thirst quenched.

all so we can continue to follow,

continue to serve

so we can build the foundation

of God’s kingdom,

So come,

come to this Table,

come and be fed

by the one who is heart,

the one who is love.

AMEN  

This sermon was inspired by

“The Gift of Disillusionment”

by Barbara Brown Taylor