Passing By On The Other Side

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

January 15, 2017

Passing By On The Other Side

Selected Texts

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

the words of the Amen,

the faithful and true witness,

the origin of God’s creation:

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot.

I wish that you were either cold or hot.

So, because you are lukewarm,

and neither cold nor hot,

I am about to spit you out of my mouth….

Let anyone who has an ear

listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”

(Revelation 3:14-16)

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“I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Those are God’s words…

God’s words to God’s children;

God’s children who were living their faith

more by convenience than commitment,

more by conformance than conviction;

going along to get along,

neither cold nor hot:

lukewarm.

God’s reaction was,

“Well, if that’s the way you are going to

go about your lives as disciples,

as followers of my Son Jesus Christ,

then I have no more interest in you

than you have in me.

“Don’t you remember the words of my prophet Elijah,

who roared in rage on my behalf so long ago,

‘How long will you go limping with two different opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him;

but if Baal, then follow him.’”

(1 Kings 18:21)

“Make your choice!”

God says to us time and time again

“and then live your choice!”

God says to us,

that if we choose to follow Christ,

-and the choice is ours, the decision ours;

if we choose to respond to the flame of faith

the Spirit has lit within each of us,

then God wants us,

calls us,

expects us

to do so with all our heart,

all our mind,

all our soul,

all our strength.

God isn’t interested in part-time disciples.

God wants us 24-7,

every bit of us.

All in, or nothing,

there’s no half-way.

Writing and preaching a century ago,

one of my favorites preachers,

the Reverend Harry Emerson Fosdick

picked out a bright thread that is woven

in so many of the stories we read in the Gospels,

a thread that’s easy to miss

if we don’t read with deeper eyes,

looking for deeper meaning:

that Jesus didn’t condemn evil

as often as he condemned uselessness,

tepidness,

lukewarm faith,

those who were neither hot nor cold,

men and women who,

while they certainly did no harm,

did little good.

Do you remember the story of the Good Samaritan,

that powerful story in Luke’s gospel

(Luke 10:30ff)

that helps us to understand

that our neighbor is everyone,

including the stranger, the foreigner,

the person with different skin color,

the person with a different accent.

Do you remember that before the Samaritan

came down the road and found the man

the robbers had beaten and left for dead,

two others had passed him by,

passed him by on the other side:

first a priest and then a Levite,

two men of God,

holy men,

two men who knew their prayers,

two men who offered their sacrifices

regularly and faithfully at the Temple,

two men who knew their scripture.

As Jesus tells the story,

the two were useless;

they were of no help.

They “passed by on the other side.”

We find it easy to pass by on the other side,

all of us, myself included,

to turn away,

to rationalize,

to say we are busy,

to excuse ourselves as having no time,

to feel we’ve done enough,

to let someone else step up and step in.

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus condemns those

who failed to act in the face of obvious need:

“I was hungry and you gave me no food,

I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,

naked and you did not give me clothing,

sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”

(Matthew 25:42)

Do you hear what our Lord is saying to us,

what the nature of his indictment is?

He’s not saying,

“You are bad;

you are corrupt;

you are evil.”

No, his indictment is more devastating,

more searing:

He is saying,

“You did not act;

you chose not to act.

You were unresponsive,

impassive,

unmoved,

indifferent.

Called to act,

you did no harm;

but called to act,

you did no good.”

In the words of Harry Emerson Fosdick,

“[Jesus] knew well that

[most of those who followed]

[were] not so much tempted

to fall away from positive service into destructiveness,

as they were tempted to fall between the two

into uselessness.”

How will you serve God,

respond to God in the coming year?

How will you respond to our Lord’s ever-present call

to serve,

to act,

to do

to give God your all?

How will you avoid the trap of uselessness?

Avoid being neither hot nor cold?

Avoid being comfortably lukewarm?

Avoid becoming conventionally faithful

rather than completely committed?  

William Allen White was editor of a newspaper

in a small town in Illinois

back around the same time

Harry Emerson Fosdick was preaching,

As he neared the end of his career as editor,

he made this observation:

“Passing the office window every moment

is someone with a story that should be told.

Every human life, if one could know it well

and translate it into language,

has in it the making of a great story.

…If each man or women could understand

that every other human life is as full of sorrows,

of joys, of base temptations,

of heartaches,

and of remorse as his own,

which he thinks is so peculiarly isolated

from the web of life,

how much kinder,

how much gentler he would be.

And how much richer life would be

for all of us!”

(In Our Town)

Here in White’s words is a thread that can help us

to live more committed lives,

more faithful lives;

our very recognition

that “every human life is as full of sorrows,

joys, temptations,

heartaches and remorse as [our] own”,

that in every human life there is a story

that should be told;

that every passerby is our neighbor;

that every passerby reflects the image of God;

that every passerby is part of

the great community God has created,

and called us to be part of.

White can help us turn our attention

to the passerby

and avoid the path the leads to uselessness

as we pass by.

If the Levite had thought that,

the priest had thought that,

then surely each of them of them

would have stopped,

would have helped the injured man,

dressed his wounds,

looked after him

as the Samaritan did.

Our new officers have made their commitment.

Each of our new Elders and Deacons

has said yes to God’s call to service,

none of them passing by.

All of our Elders have said “yes”

to God’s call to leadership,

to taking on “responsibility

for the life of this congregation.”

(Book of Order, G-2.0301)

And every one of our Deacons

has said “yes” to God’s call

to share in Christ’s ministry of love for

the “poor,

the hungry, the sick,

the lost, the friendless,

the oppressed.”

(Book of Order, G-2.0201).

As we talked about last week,

We are all called to say yes,

a strong yes,

a committed yes,

to God’s call to seek justice,

to work for justice

in our community,

in all God’s world.

                                            

We are all called to say yes

to our Lord’s call to be light,

a strong light,

a bright light

that reflects God’s love,

God’s grace

given us in Jesus Christ.

Lukewarm?

Neither hot nor cold?

Christian by convention,

rather than commitment?

God cautions us,

even as God loves us,

lest God should pass us by.

AMEN