Forever

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 26, 2017—Fourth Sunday in Lent

Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant

Forever

Selected Texts

As many of you as were baptized into Christ

have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is no longer Jew or Greek,

there is no longer slave or free,

there is no longer male and female;

for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  

(Galatians 3:27-28)

Do you hear Paul’s word to us?

We are one in Christ Jesus;

one with one another,

one with all followers of Jesus Christ;

all followers of Jesus Christ,

men and women from east and west,

from north and south,

different cultures,

different languages,

but all of us clothed with Christ.

We are one,

made one through baptism.

Barriers of race, gender,

status, and age are transcended.

Barriers of nationality, history

and practice overcome.”

(Book of Order, W-2.3005)

“In baptism, God claims us and seals us

to show that we belong to God.

God frees us from sin and death,

uniting us with Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection.

By water and the Holy Spirit,

we are made members of the church,

the Body of Christ,

and joined to Christ’s ministry of love,

peace, and justice.

In baptism, we die to what separates us from God

and are raised to newness of life in Christ.”

(W-2.3002)

Those are the words you hear me say

each time we have a baptism,

words I say along with Paul’s words to us,

each time we celebrate this Sacrament.

Together, they are the promises made

to each of us in our own baptisms.

In our baptisms,

we are claimed by God,

sealed by the covenantal act of baptism

to show to all the world that we belong to God,

that we belong to Christ,

that we belong to Christ forever,

forever:

in this life and the next.

Forever.

With even just a few drops of water,

we go under the water symbolically,

die to the old ways, the old life,

and come up out of the water

born anew,

born to new life in Jesus Christ.

We become part of the

holy catholic church of Jesus Christ,

catholic with a small “c”,

the church universal.

All those who profess faith in Jesus Christ,

regardless of denomination

are our brothers and sisters in faith.

We become one in Christ,

one through Christ.

                                                              

“Baptism signifies the beginning of life in Christ,

not its completion…”

(W-2.3007)

From the moment we rise up out of the water,

until we take our last breath,

“we are between the river of Eden

and the river of the heavenly city

at the end of time,”

as Professor Laurence Stookey has put it.

This place,

this place in between,

is a place called hope,

where we live out our new lives

as disciples of Jesus Christ.

                   

As we go through our litany in a few moments,

pay attention to the words we say;

listen to the them;

think about what you are saying and why.

Baptism is something we do in community,

but the litany is quite personal.

You will have the opportunity

you probably did not have when you were baptized:

to speak for yourself,

and respond to God’s grace,

God’s love.

When you come up and put your hand

in a bowl to retrieve a stone,

feel the water:

the water that gives life,

the water that washes you clean,

the water from which you have been given new life

in Jesus Christ.

And then take your stone,

your stone that says, “Hope”,

and remember the words

God spoke through the prophet:

“For surely I know the plans I have for you,

plans for your welfare and not for harm,

to give you a future with hope.”

(Jeremiah 29:11)

A future with hope,

a future that is yours,

mine,

ours,

in Christ,

through Christ,

with Christ.

May the God of hope

fill you with all joy and peace in believing,

so that you may abound in hope

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

(Romans 15:13)

AMEN

Feed My Sheep

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Wednesday Lenten Series

at Trinity Episcopal Church

March 22, 2017

“Feed My Sheep”

Selected Texts from Isaiah

“Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth;

for the Lord has spoken:
I reared children and brought them up,

but they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows its owner,

and the donkey its master’s crib;

but Israel does not know,

my people do not understand.

Ah, sinful nation,

people laden with iniquity,

offspring who do evil,

children who deal corruptly,

who have forsaken the Lord,

…who are utterly estranged!

…Wash yourselves;

make yourselves clean;

…cease to do evil,

learn to do good;

Seek justice,

rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,

plead for the widow…

Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be like snow

though they are red like crimson,

they shall become like wool.

If you are willing and obedient…”

(Isaiah 1:1-19, selected verses)

We are indicted, you and I,

and rightly so.

The voice of God,

thundering through the prophet Isaiah,

hurling words directed at us,

as much as at our ancestors in faith

some 2700 years ago.

Do we dare deny it?

Do we dare say,

“Oh, God can’t be talking to me.

Not like that.

I may not be perfect,

but if it’s sinners God wants,

well surely there are others worse than I;

even here,

even in the pews around me,

even up in the chancel.”

But God isn’t interested in comparing.

God is not concerned with how we

stack up against our neighbors.

                 

What God cares about is,

are we—you and I, each of us—

are we each living by God’s word,

God’s will,

each of us doing our best,

striving, working to build the foundation,

the foundation of God’s kingdom?

We know God’s words to us

through the prophet Micah:

“He has told you, … what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?”

(Micah 6:8)

Could God be any clearer?

Seek justice,

Love kindness,

walk humbly.

Rescue the oppressed,

Defend the orphan,

Plead for the widow…

Feed the hungry;

care for the sick;

welcome the alien.

“What you do to the least of these

you do also to me”

“Blessed are those who hunger

and thirst for righteousness;

Blessed are the merciful;

Blessed are the pure in heart;

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.”

These are God’s words,

our Lord’s words,

to you, to me, to us,

each of us.

And taken together,

they help us understand God’s hope

for all God’s children,

God’s dream for all God’s children.

What God wants for us

what God wants from us,

even, what God expects from us.

But we dash God’s dreams.

We spoil and corrupt God’s vision.

To the hungry we say,

“I’ve got mine; you get yours.”

To the poor we say,

“Work harder.”

To the sick we say,

“You are not my responsibility.”

To the alien we say,

“Stay out; you are not welcome.”

To God’s creation we say,

“You are mine to do with as I please.”

“In days to come [says the Lord]

the mountain of the Lord’s house

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be raised above the hills;

All the nations shall stream to it.

Many peoples shall come and say,

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob;

that [the Lord] may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.’

“…[for]He shall judge between the nations,

and shall arbitrate for many peoples;

they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

and their spears into pruning hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more.

“On this mountain

the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food…

And he will destroy on this mountain

the shroud that is cast over all peoples,

the sheet that is spread over all nations;

he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,

and the disgrace of his people he will take away

from all the earth.”

(Isaiah 25)

Do you hear?

Do you hear God’s word to us,

God’s hope for us,

God’s vision,

God’s dream?

Here in this place our Lord Jesus Christ

is saying to us even now,

“Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

(Mark 4:23)

Listen.

God speaks to us time and time again

through the prophets,

the psalmist,

through the apostles,

through the wind and the rain,

and of course,

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

God’s words fall down upon us like the spring rain.

But like the rain,

so many of God’s words just run off, lost.

But some get in.

We take them in,

we hear them,

and then our minds go to work

and we process God’s words;

we filter them,

we reform them,

we reshape them

to suit ourselves, our lives,

what we like,

what we don’t like.

And as we go about our reforming,

our reshaping,

the Living Word,

our Lord Jesus Christ

is just a few feet away,

quiet,

bent over,

tracing his finger in the dust and dirt on the ground,

letting us think,

letting us ponder,

letting us process,

letting us filter,

letting us reform and reformulate.

No haranguing, no shouting.

But then, our Lord stands and looks at us

and he can see it in our eyes;

we can hide nothing from him.

He knows our hearts;

He knows we resist.

And his look changes;

only a little, but it’s there.

it is now a look that mixes

sadness with hope,

heartache with love.

And then he speaks,

“Feed my lambs.”

“Tend my sheep.

“Feed my sheep.”

(John 21:15ff)

That’s all our Lord says.

And then he turns then to walk away,

down a road,

a road that leads…where?

It doesn’t matter;

it is the road our Lord walks.

Will we follow?

Why won’t we follow?

AMEN

Don’t Tell Me What To Do!

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 5, 2017—First Sunday in Lent

Don’t Tell Me What To Do!

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

The LORD God took the man

and put him in the garden of Eden

to till it and keep it.

And the LORD God commanded the man,

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

you shall not eat,

for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

Now the serpent was more crafty

than any other wild animal

that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman,

“Did God say,

‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent,

“We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;

but God said,

‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree

that is in the middle of the garden,

nor shall you touch it,

or you shall die.’”

But the serpent said to the woman,

“You will not die;

for God knows that when you eat of it

your eyes will be opened,

and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil.”

So when the woman saw that

the tree was good for food,

and that it was a delight to the eyes,

and that the tree was to be desired

to make one wise,

she took of its fruit and ate;

and she also gave some to her husband,

who was with her,

and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened,

and they knew that they were naked;

and they sewed fig leaves together

and made loincloths for themselves.

*******

After hearing our lesson,

we might imagine God thinking,

“I never should have taken the day off.

I put all that work into creating the earth,

the sun, the moon, the stars,

the plants, the trees, the seas,

the fish, the animals, and the birds.

All that time and energy;

all that imagination and effort!”

“My final task was to create

man and woman in my image.

And I did;

and it was good,

all good,

very good.”

“That’s how I left it at the end of the sixth day.

So I rested on the seventh day.

I blessed that day and I made it holy.”

“And, since I’d given the man and the woman

a beautiful place to live,

food to eat,

and work to keep them busy

caring for my creation,

I didn’t think I needed to look after them.”

“So, in the cool breeze of the evening,

I went for a walk in my garden.

I was enjoying the sweet fragrance

of the trees and flowers.

I was listening to the birds singing in the trees,

every bird singing a different melody.

I was watching the animals frolic and play.

I took in all the beauty that I had created.

It was good…

very good.”

“But then I heard a rustling sound in the bushes

and I thought that it might be

the man and the woman,

so I called out, ‘Where are you?’

My heart sank when I heard the man’s response:

‘I heard the sound of you in the garden

and I was afraid…’”

“At first I wondered what

I might have done wrong.

Could I have been any clearer

when I said to the man and woman,

‘You may eat freely of every tree in the garden,

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

you shall not eat, …’?”

“So why did they eat?

Why did they disobey me?

The woman tried to blame the serpent;

The man tried to blame the woman.

The man even tried to blame me:

‘the woman whom you gave to be with me,

she gave me fruit from the tree..’”

“But the simple fact is this:

the man and the woman disobeyed me.

They had a choice,

a choice to listen to me,

and live obediently by my word;

or follow another path.”

        

“They had a choice:

listen to my voice,

or listen to other voices,

including their own.”

“They made a choice;

they made their choice:

they chose not to listen to me.

‘Don’t tell us what to do;

don’t tell us what not to do,’

is what they said to me

Why?

Why?”

We have larded this story with mythology

over the centuries;

we have barnacled it with evil,

temptation,

seduction;

we’ve made the woman the villain;

And in the 4^th century Augustine hung the term

“the Fall” on the story,

throwing a dark curtain over

what God had called “good, very good.”

Strip all that away, though,

and what we find is a story

of a man and a woman

who had two options before them.

two choices,

two roads they could take.

They’d heard what God had said

about one path,

and they heard what the serpent had said

about the other.

And then they made their choice.

For as old as this story is,

it is as contemporary as if

it had been written yesterday.

Your life, my life, everyone’s life

is filled with choices,

choices we make from the moment we get out of bed

to the moment we drift off to sleep at night;

simple choices, like what to have for breakfast

or whether to wear the red or the blue sweater.

And more difficult choices:

Choices that reflect on our discipleship,

on our godliness,

moral choices,

ethical choices,

faithful choices.

Inevitably, as hard as we try to make good choices,

we, just like Adam and Eve,

make poor choices as well,

bad choices,

faithless choices.

God has given us commandments,

his Word to guide us,

his Son to teach us.

But we are such stubborn creatures,

we humans,

and we, like Adam and Eve,

want to do what we want to do.

We don’t want anyone,

even God,

telling us what to do,

telling us what not to do,

telling us how to live our lives.

And so in our stubbornness,

we can’t help but go down the wrong path,

we can’t help but make bad choices,

too easily,

too frequently.

Lent is the time of year

when we should look deep within,

deep within ourselves,

to see,

to acknowledge where we’ve made bad choices,

wrong choices,

faithless choices,

where we’ve gone astray.

                 

We should look at ourselves –

at ourselves, not others-

and see where we have chosen the wrong path,

which is any path that leads us away from God.

Lent is the time of year

when we are to acknowledge our sinfulness,

remembering that the word “sin”

simply means “to turn away”.

where and when we have turned from God,

so that we can repent,

which means so simply “turn back”,

turn back to God.

                                   

Lent is the time of year for us to acknowledge

how quick we are to blame others;

how quick we are to make excuses –

just like Adam and Eve:

“it isn’t my fault –

it’s his fault,

her fault,

their fault.”

Why are we so quick to resist taking responsibility

for our actions, our words, our deeds?

Why are we so quick to blame others?

Why are we so quick to make excuses?

Lent is the time of year

for us to seek forgiveness,

knowing, without a doubt,

that forgiveness is ours

from God through Jesus Christ.

                          

Here’s how we might re-write this story for Lent

to teach us, guide us:

the woman saying to God,

“You are right, O Lord,

I disobeyed you;

I did what you told me not to do.

It wasn’t the serpent’s fault;

it was mine!

I was wrong.

I am sorry.”

The man falling in right behind the woman:

“I too acknowledge my disobedience, O Lord.

I do not deny it.

It wasn’t the woman’s fault,

and it certainly wasn’t your fault.

I chose not to listen to your voice,

I chose not to live by your word, your will.

I was wrong.

I am sorry.”

“Wash me clean,” sings the Psalmist.

That is the song we should sing all year round,

but especially during Lent:

“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you alone, have I sinned…

Wash me clean.”

(Psalm 51)

Lead us, O Lord.

Teach us.

Wash us clean

and then guide us,

that we might walk more faithfully in your light.

AMEN