Too Much Independence?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
July 6, 2008

Too Much Independence?
Deuteronomy 30:11-20
Luke 9:57-62

Who doesn’t enjoy celebrating the Fourth of July?
Independence Day, a day of picnics and parades,
firecrackers and family.
A day to relax and enjoy the sounds and smells of summer,
and a day, of course, to look back on
the proud history of our nation.

It’s been 232 years since those bold men gathered
to sign their names to the Declaration of Independence,
to stand up to the tyranny of the British king
and the wealthy aristocrats
who tried to impose their will on the colonists.
Two hundred thirty-two years
since we took that first courageous step
of what Abraham Lincoln would later call so simply
and yet so elegantly,
“government of the people,
by the people,
for the people”.
(Gettysburg Address)

We Presbyterians should take special pride in Independence Day,
since many of the men who created our nation
were Presbyterians.
Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence
was the Reverend John Witherspoon,
a Presbyterian clergyman who
was also president of a Presbyterian college in New Jersey
that would be later be known as Princeton University.
One of his brightest students
was a young Virginian named James Madison,
a Presbyterian would serve as the principal drafter
of the Constitution of the United States.

The very foundation of our democratic government,
with its system of checks and balances,
and the power residing ultimately in the people,
with the people,
and for the people,
borrowed liberally from the Presbyterian form of government.

For the influence the Presbyterians had though,
it was a wonderfully ecumenical group who established this nation:
Presbyterians working together with Anglicans, Catholics,
Quakers, Congregationalists, Baptists,
and others, all focused on forging a new nation.

It was their ecumenism that assured us
of one of our foundational rights,
the right to practice freely any religion.
Thomas Jefferson laid the groundwork for that freedom
right here in Virginia when he authored
the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1779.
It held that,
“…all men shall be free to profess,
and by argument to maintain,
their opinions in matters of religion,
and that the same shall in no wise diminish,
enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.”
(Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,
drafted in 1779 and adopted in 1786)

We have freedom and independence in this nation,
including the freedom and independence to pursue our faith,
whatever faith we feel called to,
including the many denominations of Christianity,
as well as Judaism or Islam, or other faiths,
or, if we choose,
the freedom and independence to pursue no faith.

This is truly a God-given freedom,
for it was God who gave us free will:
the ability to make decisions
and make choices for ourselves.
God could have created us differently,
without the ability to make decisions,
or make choices,
creatures that focused on little more than survival.
God could have imposed his will on us,
drawing us by fear to worship and praise him.

But God did not do that, of course.
God graced us with free will,
the ability to make decisions,
and the ability to make choices,
hoping that we would always choose him,
always choose his way,
always choose his love.

But of course, as soon as we learned that
we had the ability to make choices,
we also learned that we had the ability to make bad choices,
choices that would turn us away from God.
Adam and Eve had a choice:
either to listen to God and obey him,
or listen to the serpent,
and in the process exercise their free will,
and disobey God.
And in choosing to disobey God,
Adam and Eve chose to declare their independence from God.

From there as we read through the Bible,
it was like a snowball rolling downhill:
Example after example
of God’s children making bad choices
as they declared their independence from God,
choosing to pursue their own will
and their own way,
rather than following God’s will and God’s way.

More than 3,000 years ago,
as the children of Israel camped on the banks
of the east side of the Jordan River,
waiting to cross over and enter the promised land,
Moses spoke to them and warned them
that the greatest danger that lay before them
would come once they were settled on the land,
secure, prosperous, and content.
Then they would feel more willing
to declare their independence from God,
and pursue their own will, their own way,
whenever that path seemed easier than following the Lord God.
Moses put what lay before them in stark terms:
that they could choose either God or independence,
either life or death.

For the next thousand years
few of God’s children saw their choices as that clear.
It seemed to most that they could easily follow God at times,
and at other times, choose their own will and their own way.
But Jesus clarified that misunderstanding time and time again:
reminding us that it is an either/or choice for us:
either we choose God or we choose independence:
we can’t have it both ways.
Either we declare our independence
and turn away from God,
or we declare our faithfulness,
putting our trust completely to God.

And yet we still think we can customize our faith
to suit our own needs,
our own situations, our own desires:
faithfulness and submission some of the time,
and the path of independence
whenever that path looks a little more exciting,
a little brighter and inviting,
or even when we simply feel the need
to stretch our legs a little.

I just finished reading the book, “The Shack”
by William Young.
You may have heard about the book –
it’s become quite popular.
It’s a moving and poignant story
that focuses on a man named Mack
who spends a weekend in a shack in the backwoods
of a national park out in the Pacific Northwest
in the company of the Triune God:
Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Lord God.
The conversations the take place throughout the weekend
are insightful and thought-provoking,
especially when the author has God speak
with great frustration of humanity’s
stubborn independent streak.
That quality helped make us a nation 232 years ago,
but it gets us into trouble when we exercise it toward God.
Moses and Jesus teach us very clearly:
Even a little independence from God
is too much independence.

Now there’s no question that we don’t like the idea
of being “dependent” on anyone or anything.
The very word “dependent” suggest weakness,
an inability to stand our own two feet,
and we are proud of our independence.

What we have to remember is that dependence on God
does not make us weak;
On the contrary, it makes us stronger.
When we depend upon God
we turn to God, look to God,
put our faith in God, our trust in God,
our hope in God,
and in the process we become stronger,
our feet on firmer ground.
God is our partner,
Jesus walking with us,
the Spirit sustaining us.

We realize that God created us to be in relationship with him
and with one another;
not to be alone, independent.
There is a reason, a God-given reason,
why the Bible teaches us,
“two are better than one”
(Ecclesiastes 4:9)
It is independence from God
that makes us weaker.

It is hard step to take,
to turn from independence and
and fully embrace reliance and dependence.
It requires discipline,
and will,
desire and trust.
It requires deep faith.
it also requires another quality that we don’t readily embrace:
it requires humility, humbleness.

As you come to the Lord’s Table this morning
I invite you to bring your independence,
your fierce, proud, well-crafted independence,
and leave it on the Table.
I invite you to come to this table with your head bowed
humble,
not in weakness
but in reliance, complete reliance,
your trust completely in the Lord God.

Leave your independence here at the Table
and don’t be at all surprised as you walk away
if you should feel a whole new sense of freedom,
deeper freedom,
freedom you never knew.
For when you leave your independence here at this table,
you will be freeing yourself of the fetters and chains
we humans bind ourselves with:
worries, the anxieties,
our need to control the future,
our constant search for success, power,
prestige, money, security.

Leave your independence here on this Table,
and you will be set free to be fully immersed
in the grace and love that is all yours,
grace and love so freely given to you by God
through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who made a choice: a choice for each of us.
Leave your independence
and give all honor and glory
to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit:
our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
AMEN

Overwhelmed

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 29, 2008

Overwhelmed
Galatians 5:13-15
Luke 16:19-31

Your maibox is probably like mine:
filled with bills,
catalogues,
and of course, junk mail.
The bills go into one pile,
the junk mail goes into the recycling bin,
and the catalogues are sorted, some to keep,
and others, those in which we have no interest,
we now enter into the website at catalogchoice.org to stop them.
If you have not tried this, it does work;
we are now receiving far fewer catalogues,
and in the process saving at least a few branches,
if not a whole tree.

There is probably something else in your mailbox,
another pile of unsolicited letters,
letters you would not call junk mail -
one, two, perhaps even three or four a week,
the numbers reaching a peak in December,
each envelope in its own plaintive way
trying to draw your attention:
“open me, look inside!”

They are solicitations and requests from nonprofit organizations,
charities of every shape and size:
groups that feed the hungry;
that provide shelter for the homeless;
that provide medical care here and abroad;
that clean up the environment;
that look after animals;
that protect our national parks and wild lands.

UNICEF,
Doctors Without Borders,
The Red Cross,
Hospice,
the Humane Society,
the ASPCA,
the Nature Conservancy,
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation --
the list is endless.

Every piece of mail tells a compelling story;
every piece of mail asks the reader to respond to an urgent need,
a need we know is real.
But what do we do with all these requests,
what can we do with all these requests?
We are overwhelmed with them!
Life is overwhelming enough for all of us:
we put in long hours in jobs,
we’ve got traffic to fight,
family to look after,
escalating prices of everything.
We hardly have time to look after ourselves,
much less think about others.

There are times when life seems to throw more at us
than we can handle;
and then on top of everything else
come these relentless reminders
that the world is filled with
the hungry, the homeless, the hopeless;
that there are abused and abandoned animals
desperate for a safe home and a bit of food;
that our oceans, lakes and rivers,
along with the skies above us groan
with the poison and garbage we pump into them.

There is no respite, no letup,
these groups are relentless,
so effective at finding our guilt buttons
and then pushing, pushing, pushing.
There is no charityoptout.org website
where we can take cover and hide.

We can almost sympathize with the rich man
in our second Lesson.
There are times when we feel like we almost
have to turn a blind eye, a deaf ear
to the overwhelming needs,
even if they are just outside our doors.
For all we know, the rich man might well have
been faithful and generous with his tithe at the temple.
He may have thought he was doing all he needed to do.
He might have thought that living in the purple,
and eating his fill every day was a sign
that God was favoring him for his faithfulness.
It was only just a few years ago that the Prayer of Jabez
was on everyone’s lips,
and more than a few coffee cups:
“Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border”
(1 Chronicles 4:10)
“Oh that you would bless me with riches, Lord.”

We all do our part,
such as we can, right?
What else can we do?
But there is always more we can do,
more we should do,
because God calls us, Jesus calls us:
Outreach, inreach,
mission, ministry,
caring, compassion, looking after others,
nurturing, tending,
helping, healing:
this is the life of discipleship to which we are called
and to which we are expected to respond.

We’ve all been given different gifts by the Holy Spirit,
and we are all called to different missions and ministries
by the Spirit.
Some are called to serve at YouthWorks projects,
others are called to work on Habitat projects,
still others to serve at SERVE.
Every leader, teacher and helper
who was here this past week
with our Vacation Bible School
was part of our mission and ministry outreach
as we fed more than 100 children –
fed them with with love, laughter
and the Bread of Life.

We serve within the church,
as well as outside the church;
we serve as we work on a church-sponsored projects,
and we serve in other ways, through other groups,
groups that may not be faith-based, but are
grounded in God’s love and Christ’s teachings.

Paul’s writings are timeless,
and the counsel he gave to the new Christians
scattered throughout Galatia is
just as appropriate for us today:
that we have been given freedom,
but not freedom to indulge ourselves
and our every whim,
but, “to become slaves to one another,”
as Paul puts it so bluntly:
to look after our neighbor,
to live as Christ calls us to live,
loving neighbor as ourselves,
and showing our love through our selfless service,
self-giving service,
and yes, at times even sacrificial service.

This is hard to do in a world where we seem
every day to become more selfish and self-centered,
where we demand instant gratification,
where self-help is grounded in “retail therapy”,
where even our federal government is telling us
to take our tax rebate checks
and go out and buy something for ourselves –
“indulge yourself and your whims!”

The sad reality is that there will always be
more needs than we can respond to.
But that’s not a new development.
Go back more than 3,000 years
and listen to Moses speaking to the children of Israel
as they prepared to enter the promised land:
“…there will never cease to be some in need on the earth…”
(Deuteronomy 15:7)
And Jesus reiterated that when he reminded us
that the poor we will always have with us.
(Matthew 26:11)

But that’s not a green light for complacency,
for indifference,
for drawing the blinds as the rich man did,
or not paying attention to God’s teachings,
as the rich man’s brothers did.
We should be outraged that there are hungry people;
we should be outraged that there are children dying of illnesses
that we know we can cure;
we should be outraged that the elderly worry about
food, shelter, and medicine
especially in this country,
where the wealthiest 1% continue to grow wealthier
by the minute and the poor grow poorer,
the chasm between rich and poor growing ever wider.

Find your mission, your ministry,
what it is that God has called you to,
what will stir you,
and fill you with passion.
No mission and ministry is more important than another
none is less important.

Save a month’s worth of solicitations that come in the mail,
and then go through them and see if
you discern God speaking to you, calling you to respond.
There in that pile may well be an invitation --
an invitation from God to a new kind of service,
a new ministry, new mission.

Find a new ministry team here within the church.
Our Senior High Youth Group needs another couple
to work with Ann and Spence Curtis;
Our Middle School Youth still need leadership.

Would you like a relatively simple ministry to be part of,
a mission that is lying right at our doorstep as visibly as Lazarus?
We need volunteers to help out in our ETC,
our Extended Time with Children program on Sunday morning.
We are in danger of having to close the ETC program
for the summer for lack of volunteer helpers.
And if we close it,
that will probably lead some young families to decide
not to come to church.
Every member of this church made a promise
to every child in this church
to nurture and look after them.
One time a year, for 30 minutes would be a wonderful way
for you to honor the promise you made,
and at the same time reach out to the parents,
the young moms and dads who long for
the occasional Sunday
when they can immerse themselves in the Word
without interruption.

Even as we respond to new needs,
new services,
new missions and ministries,
we need never worry about feeling overwhelmed.
Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that
God always matches our gifts,
measure for measure,
so we can look at 5,000 people waiting to be fed,
and trust that God will help us do that
even as we stand there with just five loaves
and two fish.
With God, the crowd is never too big,
the odds are never too poor,
the work never too hard,
the situation never too hopeless.
(“Local Miracles”, from Mixed Blessings)
The promise is sure:
“Those who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
they shall run and not be weary…”
(Isaiah 40:31)

The ministry you are called to is there,
right before you.
It may be here in the church,
or it could be in a pile of unsolicited letters
sitting on the kitchen counter.

Open your heart,
and open your mind,
and be prepared to be overwhelmed:
not by exhaustion or frustration,
but by the powerful presence of God,
by the palpable presence of Christ at your side,
and by the Spirit filling you as you serve.
Be prepared to be overwhelmed by a sense of joy
in serving others.
Be prepared to be overwhelmed by love
pouring through you --
love that comes from God through
the one who came not to be served,
but to serve, our Lord Jesus Christ.
AMEN

Passing the Shoe

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 22, 2008

Passing the Shoe
Ruth 4:1-12
Matthew 19:1-9

Yesterday I had the honor and pleasure
of taking part in the wedding of
Jaime Patterson and Scott Fargrieve
at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church.
Weddings are such joy-filled events --
I love presiding at them and
I love participating in them.
It doesn’t matter to me whether it is a
formal ceremony held in large church,
or a simple, small service
held outdoors in a garden bower.

All weddings seem to have a wonderful consistency:
The bride and her attendants radiate beauty;
the groom and his groomsmen blend chiseled handsomeness
with charming nervousness.
The children who participate are adorable;
virtually every woman cries,
and at the reception every man
has the look of a hunted animal
once the dancing begins.

Marriage has come a long way since Ruth’s time
more than 3,000 years ago.
Did you realize as you were listening to the First Lesson
that you were witness to a marriage,
the marriage of Boaz and Ruth?

Boaz bought the property that had belonged
to Naomi’s late husband,
Ruth’s former father-in-law.
When Boaz bought the property,
he got Ruth as his wife in the bargain --
she went with the property!
There was a ceremony to mark the occasion,
but it did not take place in a church or temple,
there were no flowers or white dresses,
nor any vows or music.
The ceremony centered on the passing of a sandal,
a shoe,
from the man who had the first right
to the property, the next-of-kin,
to Boaz, symbolizing the transfer to Boaz:
the property, the land, the title,
and all that went with it,
including Ruth.

I think it is safe to say that this was not a high point for marriage.
The happy news is that there was genuine affection
between Ruth and Boaz.
They would go on to become the parents of Jesse,
and the grandparents of King David.

For most of human history,
marriage was a drab, business-like affair,
more contract than commitment
more merger than marriage,
more property and money
than husband and wife.
Up until the very recent past,
when a man and woman married
it was for economic gain,
political power,
and self interest.
Fathers would agree to merge sons and daughters
to bring about a larger combination of families:
the more people to farm or produce goods,
as well as defend a town or settlement.
Love was not a concern in marriage.

It was not until the 12th century
that the church became involved in solemnizing marriages
with couples standing before God and clergy
to exchange their vows.
Even then, the move from a strictly civil service
to a religious one had less to do with love
than it did with upholding laws
that discouraged marrying within family,
and assuring the legitimacy of children.

Given the history of marriage,
we should be neither horrified nor surprised
as we read through the pages of the Old Testament
and learn that men often had many wives;
and that they had children not only by their wives,
but also by their concubines.
Solomon represented either the peak or the trough,
depending on how you look at such things,
with his 700 wives, and 300 concubines.

Even in Jesus’ time, it was not uncommon
to have more than one wife.
This makes Jesus’ teaching in our gospel lesson
all the more remarkable.
Jesus was asked a question about divorce:
was it allowed, and under what circumstances.
For a thousand years, the law handed down by God through Moses
spoke to allowing divorce under some circumstances.
(Deuteronomy 24)
As we heard in the Lesson, the Pharisees wanted to test Jesus.

But as Jesus often did when questioned by religious leaders,
he did not answer the question directly.
Instead, he made a subtle but radical point:
that marriages were not about economic or political union,
nor were they mergers engineered by the parents of the couple;
they were unions formed by God and blessed by God.

Jesus quoted Scripture from the very beginning of the Bible
the second chapter of Genesis:
“Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother
and cleaves to his wife,
and they become as one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)
He reinforced the point with his own words:
“They are no longer two, but one flesh”.
And then he concluded with those words
we hear at the end of every wedding ceremony:
“Therefore what God has joined together,
let no one separate.”

No one had thought this way before:
that when a man and woman married
it was because God had called them to one another,
called them together in a holy bond,
two becoming one in marriage
and through marriage.
No one had thought of marriage as grounded in love before,
but if marriage was grounded in God,
then it must be grounded in love,
for “God is love”
(1 John 4:16)

Here in the Presbyterian Church,
we refer to marriage as a “gift given by God,
blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ,
and sustained by the Holy Spirit.”
It is a “covenant through which
a man and a woman are called to live out
together before God
their lives of discipleship.”
(Directory for Worship, W-4.9001)

We begin a wedding service in our church by explaining the gift:
that God gave us marriage,
“so that husband and wife may help and comfort each other,
living faithfully together in plenty and in want,
in joy and in sorrow,
in sickness and in health,
throughout all their days.”
Our Book of Common Worship tells us that
“God gave us marriage for the full expression of love
between a man and woman.
In marriage, a woman and man belong to each other,
and with affection and tenderness
freely give themselves to each other.”
Marriage is nothing less than “a new way of life,
created, ordered, and blessed by God.”
(Book of Common Worship, Christian Marriage)

There is a fascinating paradox in all this:
that while God gave us this extraordinary gift,
the Bible comes up very short with
examples of good marriages.
Adam and Eve get into trouble right away,
each trying to blame the other when caught by God
as they ate from the fruit of the forbidden tree.
Moses all but abandoned his marriage
to lead the Israelites from Egypt.
The prophet Jeremiah complained to God
that he was so busy doing all the work
that God told him to do
that he had no time for marriage or a family.
Jesus of course did not marry,
unless you believe “The DaVinci Code”,
and some of Paul’s writings suggest that he did not
think marriage an especially wise step,
that it distracted both husband and wife
from focusing mind, soul, heart, and body on God.
(1 Cor. 7:32ff)

Now the Bible may lack examples of good marriages,
but it is rich in wisdom and counsel
that can help couples through the years
as they go through life together.
One of the best examples comes from, of all people, Paul,
in his letter to the Colossians.
It is a text I share with couples
every time I preside at a marriage:
“As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness,
humility, meekness, and patience.
Bear with one another,
and if one has a complaint against the other,
forgive each other;
Just as the Lord has forgiven you,
so you also must forgive.
Above all, clothe yourselves with love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
And do not let the sun go down on your anger,
but let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
Be thankful,
and whatever you do,
in word or deed,
do everything in the name of our Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
(from Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4:26)

Paul was also the author of those words
we hear at so many weddings,
the powerful words that he wrote
in his first letter to the Corinthians,
“Love is patient,
love is kind,
love is not envious or boastful
or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way,
It is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoings,
but rejoices in the truth.
[Love] bears all things,
[Love] believes all things,
[Love] hopes all things
and [Love] endures all things.”
(1 Cor. 13:4)

Last week in her sermon Cheri Villa
used a word that I think is so vital to strong marriages:
it’s a word we don’t find in any of Paul’s writings,
a word that doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible:
The word, “empathy”.
To “empathize” is not the same as to “sympathize”.
It means to understand another’s feelings and situation.
Cheri called us to lives of empathy
so that we might try to understand – really understand --
what it would be like to live and eat
like those who need Food Stamps
for their groceries.
She called us to do that by stepping into the shoes
of those who live on food stamps
by living for three days
spending less than $4 per day on food.

Couples are called to lives of empathy,
called to step into the shoes of their spouses,
not to judge, not to criticize,
but simply to understand.
Step into their shoes and learn their hopes
their dreams, their fears, their concerns,
their joys, their sorrows.
Recognize their world on their terms,

It is hard work to empathize.
to step into another’s shoes,
to set yourself and your own concerns aside
so that you can learn
really learn, selflessly learn
about a loved one.
It is easier to pass the shoe,
than to step into it.
But that’s the life that God calls couples to in marriage,
that’s part of the two becoming one.

Our Christian Education Ministry Team is working on ideas
for programs, workshops, and seminars
on marriage enrichment that we hope to offer next year.
It is the start of what we hope will be a greater focus
on how we can all help nurture marriages,
from the newest to those celebrating 50-year anniversaries.

No couple who stand before God, their pastor,
family and friends, to exchange their vows,
are married;
They are “becoming married”
(Herbert Anderson & Robert Fite)
starting a process that they will work on
the rest of their lives.
And every marriage requires hard work;
No marriage is perfect.
As one writer observed, the only perfect thing
in any marriage is the picture taken of the couple
on their wedding day,
and even that has been retouched.

But if a couple makes God the foundation of their marriage;
If they open themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit that will help them step into the shoes
of the other to learn empathy;
if they recognize that they are constantly
becoming disciples of Christ
as much as they are becoming married;
If they seek to grow in faith together,
then they will grow in love together,
and they will understand the words of our Lord,
“that the two shall become one.”
AMEN

What Have You Learned?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 8, 2008

What Have You Learned?
Ezekiel 2:1-3:3
Luke 12:49-53

It’s hot, it’s muggy,
it’s the beginning of summer,
the time of year when we want to slow things down.
So I think it is the perfect time to… take a quiz!
Find a pencil and take your bulletin:
did you notice the extra space we provided
for you to write down your answers?

Ready? Here we go with the first question:
Why are we called Presbyterians?
What’s the meaning of the word?
Does it have to do with our theology and what we believe?

Second question:
How many sacraments do we have in the Presbyterian Church?
What are they?
Can you name something that is not a sacrament for us,
but is in the Roman Catholic Church?

Here’s the third question:
How many books are there in the Bible?
How many in the Old Testament?
How many in the New Testament?
If you attended a service in Roman Catholic Church,
would their pew Bible be the same as ours?
Would it have the same number of books in it,
or would you find a different number?

Question four:
We speak of the Old Testament as the Hebrew Bible.
If you went to a Jewish synagogue and looked at their Scriptures
would you find the same books that we have in our Old Testament?
Would the order be the same?

Five: We have two books that together make up
the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA),
the church of which we are a part.
Can you name each Book?

The sixth question is easy!
In the story of Noah and the Flood,
what was the name of Noah’s wife?

Question seven:
In which gospels can we find stories of Jesus’ birth,
the Christmas stories?
Are the stories all the same?
Do the shepherds and the three kings appear in all the stories?

Question eight:
Dance has been part of how we worship and praise God
since the days of King David more than 3,000 years ago.
In fact King David himself once led the nation in dancing with joy.
What was his reason for dancing with such enthusiasm?

Nine:
How many Psalms are there in the Book of Psalms?

Here’s your last question:
Here’s a verse from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,
"Women should be silent in the churches.
For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate,
as the law also says.
If there is anything they desire to know,
let them ask their husbands at home.
For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.”
(1 Cor. 14:34ff)
Do we read this verse, as well as the rest of the Bible,
as the literal word of the Lord?
Or is this another word we use rather than “literal”?

We Presbyterians have a history of being people of the book.
people who study so we can learn and grow in faith.
Learning has been so important to us that
historically the pastor in a Presbyterian Church
has been referred to as the Teaching Elder,
a term that had fallen out of use,
but appears to be coming back into favor.

Jesus was often called Rabbi,
a Hebrew word that means “teacher”.
I teach because Jesus taught,
and teaches us still.
I also teach because there is no better way to learn.

I teach when I preach each Sunday.
A sermon is the interpreted word of the Lord.
When a minister prepares a sermon,
he begins by learning what the biblical text
he is preaching on is all about.
This is called “exegesis”
which means analyzing the text,
studying it, and learning.
We read the text, along with the passages
that appear right before and right after,
to learn about the context.
We check other translations to see if there are differences;
we often will go back to the original Greek or Hebrew
to see how it was originally written.
Presbyterian ministers have to show a working knowledge
of ancient Hebrew and Greek in order to be ordained.
We will read commentaries from scholars
and dig into the history and the culture at that time and place.
And of course, we look to God to guide us
by the Holy Spirit as we are doing our work.
A standard rule of thumb for most ministers is that
we should expect to put in an hour of learning and preparation
for each minute we expect to preach.

We do all this to help us all understand the word as it comes to us
through the mouths and pens of prophets and apostles,
through the recorded history,
through poetry and song.
We do all this because the Bible demands it.

My teaching isn’t limited to Sunday mornings
in the pulpit, of course.
I also teach in other settings throughout the year.
Two Bible study groups,
the Confirmation Class,
and other occasional classes throughout the year.
Add it all up, and I spend about 30 hours every week
teaching, learning, and preparing to teach.

Learning has been woven into the fabric of the Presbyterian Church
throughout its history.
The very notion of Sunday School developed
within the Presbyterian church
and it was a Presbyterian who established
the American Sunday School Union
in the early part of the 19th century.
Presbyterians have established dozens of colleges
over the centuries;
Princeton University began its storied history
as a small Presbyterian school called
the College of New Jersey back in 1746.
In 1812 it split off its divinity school
as Princeton Theological Seminary,
which will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 4 years.

Here in our church, we take teaching and learning seriously,
from our Sunday School offerings,
through our Adult Education classes.
One of the areas where we hope to have an Associate Pastor
devote a portion of his or her time,
in addition to working with our Youth,
would be to help develop and lead
more Adult Education offerings.

Next week we will change our worship schedule for the summer.
I have to be honest here: I don’t like the idea
of changing times for worship in the summer.
Sunday is the Sabbath, the Lord’s Day,
52 Sundays a year,
and we should honor that
with a consistent time for worship.
Adapting God to fit our schedules
so we can get on with other activities
just doesn’t seem to be the right or faithful thing to do.
But beyond that, moving the worship time from 11 to 10
squeezes out the education hour for the summer,
squeezes out an important time for us to keep learning,
especially for Adult Education offerings.

We learn so we can understand,
and in understanding,
as you hear me often pray,
grow in faith, obedience and love.
We learn so we can understand even the more difficult
passages we hear in the Bible.

The second lesson, the passage we heard from Luke.
is a terribly difficult passage.
Last week we learned how Jesus calls us
to love even our enemies,
and now this week we hear him saying,
“I came to bring fire to the earth,
and how I wish it were already kindled!...
Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?
No I tell you, but rather, division!”
In Matthew’s version of this story,
Jesus says he has come not to bring peace,
but the sword!

What are we to do with this?
How can Jesus say in one place,
“blessed are the peacemakers
for they will be called children of God”
(Matthew 5:9)
and then in another say he’s come to wreak havoc?

Let’s start with Jesus’ talk about fire.
What is the purpose of the fire?
Is it to bring destruction?
Is there a violent intent to it?
Go back the beginning of Luke’s gospel
back to when John the Baptizer
was telling the children of Israel
that while he baptized with water,
another greater than he was coming,
one who would baptize with
“the Holy Spirit and fire”
Luke 3:16
The fire is a not a destructive fire;
it is the refiner’s fire
designed to purify,
to burn out the ungodly parts of a person
so that the good and the godly can radiate through.

In our Bible Study groups we have from time to time
read from texts outside the Bible
including apocryphal gospels,
The apocryphal Gospel of Thomas
records Jesus as saying,
“Whoever is near me is near fire.”
(Gospel of Thomas, 82)
near the refiner’s fire,
and not a destructive fire.

Now, what do we do with Jesus’ words about division?
Again, how do we reconcile this
with his teaching that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves?
Is he trying to break up our homes?
No, of course not!
He is reminding us is that following him
requires commitment,
such a strong commitment that if others in our family
get in the way,
we may need to turn away from them
so that we can turn fully to Christ,
Following Jesus comes before everything else.

How many different ways does Jesus say this:
"Let the dead bury their own dead," (Matt. 8:22)
"Sell all your possession and give your money to the poor”
(Mark 10:21)
"No, you cannot go back to say goodbye to your family
before you follow me." (Luke 9:62)
In each instance, Jesus uses hyperbole,
exaggerated teaching, to make his point so clear
that we cannot help but understand.

Following Jesus is not easy, it is hard work.
It isn’t a pleasant walk down a country road on a 70 degree day,
a soft breeze blowing at our backs.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases Jesus’ teaching perfectly:
“Do you think I came to smooth things over
and make everything nice?
Not so!
I’ve come to disrupt and confront.
I have come to change everything.”
(The Message, Luke 12)
“If you don’t go all the way with me,
through thick and thin,
you don’t deserve me.”
(The Message, Matthew 10)

You are probably familiar with the list of
the Seven Deadly Sins.
If I asked you where in the Bible we can find the list
would you know where to look?
The answer is that there is no list in the Bible.
It was Gregory the Great, a sixth century pope,
who devised the list,
which was later immortalized in Dante’s Divine Comedy.
One of the sins was sloth.
Now sloth is thought of as laziness,
the feeling that overwhelms us when
both the temperature and humidity race past 90.
But the word as it was used by Gregory
referred to spiritual apathy, spiritual indifference,
an unwillingness to do what was needed
to follow faithfully our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ difficult teachings were aimed at this spiritual sloth,
spiritual apathy,
spiritual summer vacations.
Jesus reminds us again and again
that with him it is all or nothing.

Summer is here and with it comes a tendency to let things go.
But don’t let your learning take a holiday.
Don’t become slothful in your spiritual journey.
The question really is not “what have you learned?”
The question is rightly,
“what are you learning?”
Work on your learning throughout the summer.
If you’d like help or suggestions, just ask.
Here’s a first step:
I won’t give you the answers to the quiz.
Instead, make time this week to find the answers.
We will print them in next Sunday’s bulletin.

Keep learning, keep growing.
Start with the Bible;
You don’t have to take in the words
the way Ezekiel did: that was a metaphor.
But when you read, you will find them “sweet as honey”.

What God wants us to do is learn.
Learn of me, says our Lord.
Learn with me;
Learn from me;
Learn: Fall,
Winter,
Spring,
and yes, Summer, too.
AMEN

Are You A “Luke 6-er”?

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
June 1, 2008

Are You A “Luke 6-er”?
Amos 7:7-8
Luke 6:27-38

There is something percolating out there,
bubbling, simmering…
Something’s happening, right before our eyes.
It may still be off to the side, out of our main focus,
but it’s there.
It is exciting, yet at the same time unnerving:
Exciting because of the energy and possibilities,
yet unnerving because challenges, uncertainty, and change
are all part of the mix.

What I am talking about is what is happening
among our younger Christians throughout this country
and in fact throughout the world.
These younger Christians are peers
of those young men and women
we recognized and honored today,
young men and women ages 18 to 29.
They come from all denominations, all ethnicities,
all backgrounds, from every corner of the globe.

This is a group that is hard to categorize,
precisely because they don’t want to be categorized.
This is a group whose focus is not on religion and church
as much as it is on faith and Jesus Christ.

They have little interest in what they see as
dated teachings, such as what Bishop John Robinson
of the Church of England
has called the “three-decker” model
that’s preached from most pulpits,
with heaven above, hell below
and a woefully earthy earth in between.
(Robinson, Honest to God)
They have a deep awareness that,
as we talked about last week,
God is not some deity beyond our reach,
sitting high above the clouds,
or off in some far distant galaxy,
but a living God, with us,
breathing his Spirit in and through us;
A God who revealed himself
and reveals himself still in the risen and living Jesus Christ.

They have no interest in coming to church
as a way to purchase fire insurance,
to keep themselves from being dropped into the lowest level.
They come to church to grow in faith and discipleship,
to do more than learn about Christ,
but instead learn Christ:
learn what he teaches so they can follow more faithfully .
The only word that begins with “h” that concerns them
is hypocrisy,
for what these younger Christians seek
is authenticity in their faith.
As a result, they are turning from ideology,
rejecting labels, such as conservative or liberal,
and even denominational labels if necessary.

This emerging movement is vastly different
from the last major change
we’ve seen in the church,
the one that began about 20 years ago
with the rise of the mega-churches,
those churches that draw thousands and thousands
to worship services each Sunday in cavernous auditoriums.
The halcyon days of the mega-church may in fact be in the past
as seekers look for something
that is more than just a visceral experience.
The effort to be more “contemporary”
too often dropped substance and depth in the process.
The loud, throbbing beat,
the flashing lights,
the pastor kitted out in Hawaiian shirt and headset,
have grown stale for many.
Interestingly, there has been a significant growth in
“house churches”, small, non-denominational groups
that take us back to Christianity’s first 300 years,
before Constantine turned the Christian church
into an institution.

We always look for terms to define groups;
it makes life easier for the sociologists and writers,
but it automatically categorizes and limits the group.
Still, we might call these younger Christians “Luke 6-ers”.
“Luke 6-ers” because Jesus’ message in this chapter of the gospel
is foundational for how they live their faith.

Did you hear what Jesus was saying in Luke 6,
what he is teaching us?
Love even your enemies.
Yes, love even your enemies.
And Jesus pushes the point so we don’t miss it:
“I am not impressed when you love those you like;
Find a way to reach out in love to even those you don’t like,
those you consider your enemies,
even those you fear.
But don’t do it in a patronizing, condescending way.
Be authentic; make it genuine.
That’s what I am looking for in my disciples.
Remember: it won’t be by your religion
that you will be known as my followers,
but by your love.
And, of course, Do good.
Do good through church,
but do good in the work you do, too.
You are my disciples Monday through Friday, 9 to 5,
just as much as you are on Sunday morning.
Do good because that is loving faithfully and fearlessly.

“And whatever you do,
Don’t judge.
And when I say don’t judge,
you know what I mean:
don’t criticize; don’t gossip;
don’t talk down; don’t talk about;
don’t sneer, don’t sniff:
‘he’s so lame,
she’s like, so not cool.’
How is that kind of talk loving?
And if your talk isn’t grounded in love,
then neither are you.”

Luke 6 is known as Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.
It is similar, but not identical to,
the Sermon on the Mount
we find in Matthew’s gospel.
Matthew’s version of the sermon has more to it
than what we find in Luke,
but Luke ends with Jesus asking a question
Matthew did not record:
“Why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you?”
"If you hear my words and don’t do what I tell you,
don’t live your life by my words,
you’ve built your spiritual house
on a foundation that’s sure to collapse."
Eugene Peterson imagines Jesus saying,
“These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life,
homeowner improvements in your standard of living.
They are foundation words,
words to build a life on. …
Work these words into your life.”
(Eugene Peterson, The Message).

And that’s what "Luke 6-ers" are trying to do.
Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine
sees this cohort as part of a Great Awakening,
as faith in America shifts from culture wars,
from ideology, from partisanship,
from right versus left,
even from denominationalism
to a new spirituality
deeply rooted in Christ.

This new Great Awakening,
which these young folks are part of,
perhaps even driving,
brings a new plumb-line to how we measure
our faithfulness.
It is not a plumb-line that someone else
uses to measure you;
and certainly not a plumb line for you to use
to measure the faith of another.
It is a plumb line for you to use yourself
to help you to true yourself,
and right yourself
as you build a strong foundation on Christ.

“Luke 6-ers” are not just limited, of course,
to young folks –
we should all be “Luke 6-ers”,
and “Matthew 25-ers”
and “John 13-ers”.

As you come to this table this morning
to share in this meal
which our Lord has prepared for us
and to which our Lord invites us,
think about the words we heard our Lord speak to us
in his Sermon on the Plain:
Love your enemies,
Do to others as you would have them do to you,
Do good,
Do not judge,
Do not condemn,
Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Take the words in,
Drink the words in,
work these words into your life,
make them your plumb-line.

Come to this table and be fed,
and then, regardless of your age,
go out, pledged anew to Christ,
that you too will be a “Luke 6-er”.
AMEN

No Worries

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 25, 2008

No Worries
Psalm 131
Matthew 6:24-34

The gospel reading is probably as familiar to you
as the reading we heard last week,
the reading from Ecclesiastes:
“for everything there is a season
and a time for everything under heaven.”
Jesus is speaking;
Jesus is teaching.
His lesson is clear:
no parables to try to decipher,
no riddles, no rules, no laws.
Simply: don’t worry.
Don’t worry about anything;
trust in the Lord.
God will look after you,
and watch over you.
So do not worry.
This sounds so wonderful,
so comforting.
To know that we can go through life
without a worry.

The problem is, we don’t buy it.
We don’t buy it for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, there is something about us that makes us
quick to worry, quick to be anxious.
Go back more than 3,000 years
to the time of Moses,
the time when Moses led the children of Israel
out of Egypt, out of slavery,
away from more than 400 years of bondage,
off to freedom in the promised land.
Did the children rejoice in God’s goodness?
No: they were barely past the gates of the city
when they began to worry,
began to be concerned about their safety,
their welfare, their comfort.
Time and time again God provided for them,
but nothing seemed to chase worry from their minds,
anxious words from their lips.
They spent the next 40 years worrying their way
to the promised the land.

In book after book in the Bible
we find that Worry and Anxiety
continued to be constant companions
for virtually all God’s children.
And now, more than 3,000 year later,
we still worry, still find anxiety gnawing at us
in countless ways.

Who doesn’t worry?
I have racked up lots of worry-hours over the years.
When I was in college, I worried about my grades,
in the same way our young folks do now.
When I finally finished all my post-graduate work,
I worried about getting a job;
and once I got my first job,
I worried about whether I’d be any good at it.
And of course, I always worried about money.

But Jesus is teaching us such a wonderfully simple lesson:
If you put your trust in the Lord,
then you will have nothing to worry about.
Trust in the Lord;
Have faith in the Lord;
Do not worry;
Fear not.

We hear those words,
we know them,
and we are quick to proclaim,
“we are men and women of faith,
and we do put our trust in the Lord.”
But then we are just as quick to give words to worry
about rising gas prices, and falling home values;
the economy and jobs;
the health and wellbeing of our children;
how to look after aging parents;
whether we will have enough for retirement;
We don’t deny; we can’t deny:
We worry.

And still, Jesus responds,
“Don’t worry;
Fear not.”
We are inclined to say to Jesus,
“that’s so easy for you to say;
you didn’t have a mortgage;
you weren’t the one trying to raise a family,
or look after elderly parents,
or find a new job.”

And Jesus still says, “don’t worry;
Fear not.
God is with you.”

Jesus sounds almost naïve in saying this,
as though he did not have a clue as to how the world works.
In our Confessions, we say with confidence
that Jesus was fully human and fully divine,
but here it does seem that
the human side of him has gone soft
and failed to grasp just how stressful life can be.

But Jesus is right,
we should not worry;
we should trust in the Lord,
put our faith in God.
Where we struggle with this
is that we think a life free of worries,
means a life free of problems.
But Jesus never makes any such promise.

Life comes at us with all its ups and downs;
illness, financial concerns, marriages that fall apart;
jobs that are lost, tree limbs that fall on cars,
these things happen;
life happens.
God doesn’t make a promise
that there will be no tornadoes
nor floods,
nor earthquakes.

What God does promise is the he will be with us always,
walking with us,
in bad times as well as the good,
especially in the bad times.
That’s the very essence of the most well-known Psalm,
Psalm 23:
“even though I walk through
the Valley of the shadow of Death,
you are with me.”
The Psalmist, even in the most dire of situations
feels such a strong sense of intimacy with God,
such a powerful sense of assurance,
that he didn’t say, “God is with me,”
or “He is with me.”
No, it is so much more intimate,
so much more assured: “you are with me.”
The Psalmist was still in the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
surely a place he did not want to be in,
a place that he was eager as can be to get out of.
But he had a quiet sense of assurance
that God was with him,
even there.

The psalmist in our First Lesson learned the same lesson.
He had calmed and quieted himself,
and put his hope and trust in the Lord,
“from this time on and forevermore.”
Come what may.
He had no worries.

Both Psalmists understood that there is no such thing
anywhere on the earth,
anywhere in life,
that could be called a “God-forsaken place”,
for God forsakes no place and no person.

We need never worry because our trust is in the Lord,
our faith is in the Lord,
our hope is in the Lord,
Hope is the very foundation of the gospel,
the very foundation of the message
our Lord Jesus Christ teaches us.
Think of how life would be if we had no hope:
no hope.
Dante Alighieri, the great 13th century Italian poet,
imagined that the sign over the portal
that led to Hell read,
“Abandon all hope, you who enter here.”
(Inferno, Canto 3.9)
Abandon all hope
because we’d be completely severed from God.

But with God, no situation is hopeless.
Which is why we need never worry.
For God is present.
That’s not a naïve statement,
it is statement grounded in the deepest faith.

Ever since Linda Lindamood,
the director of our Early Learning Center,
announced her intention step down from her post
so that she can go back to school in the Fall
parents, teachers, the ELC Board,
the Session and I have all been worried
and anxious about finding her successor.
And why wouldn’t we be: our Early Learning Center
has been a vital ministry of this church for 40 years,
and has an excellent reputation.
We want to continue our strong ministry
to the children of Manassas.
It is so easy to say, as I have been saying,
“Let’s not worry,
God will call a new person to that position.”
But that doesn’t answer the questions any of us have
here and now:
“yes, but will God let us know before September?
What if we don’t have a director in place before school starts?
Who will do all the work that comes with a new school year?”

Responding, “don’t worry” ends up sounding
a bit too much like a platitude --
and yet that is just what Jesus would say to us:
Don’t worry.
We still have to go through all the painstaking and
time-consuming work of doing the search for the new director.
That’s the only way we will be able to discern God’s will.
The harder part of our job will be to trust God,
to work on his timetable
and not to worry.

Ten years ago I worked as a staff chaplain at a hospital
in Somerville, New Jersey.
All of us who were new to the chaplaincy program
were filled with worry as we prepared to serve
patients, families, doctors, nurses and staff.
We worried that we’d find ourselves in a traumatic situation
and not have just the right Bible verse,
the well-crafted words of prayer to soothe and comfort.
What we learned was that the ministry
we were about to embark on
was not a ministry of prayer or the Word,
as much as it was simply a ministry of presence:
just being with someone,
our very presence as chaplains
a reminder that God was with them,
even in their pain and their trauma.

Do you remember how God answered Moses’ question,
as Moses stood by the Burning Bush and asked
by what name he should refer to God?
God responded, “I am who I am”
(Exodus 3:13)
God did not say,
“I am the great and powerful Yahweh,
who shall smite those who don’t bow down before me.”
God simply said, refer to me as “I am”
for God is and always will be,
And God’s self-revelation
and self-expression of love that is Jesus Christ
reinforced this teaching.
“I am”, the present God, always present.
In all our lives, fair weather or foul.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, the author of the classic book
“When Bad Things Happen to Good People”,
wrote in a later book
that as we grow and mature in faith
we learn that God is not there to protect us from pain and loss,
but to keep pain and loss from defining our lives.
(Harold Kushner, The Lord is My Shepherd, 98)

That’s a subtle lesson and it often takes a long time
in our faith journeys for us to grow to the point
where we can accept and understand that.
God is love, not protection,
and, as Paul taught us,
“love bears all things,
hopes all things,
and endures all things.”
Look closely at Paul’s life:
he traveled constantly, often at great risk to himself;
frequently had no idea where his next meal would come from
or even where he would find fresh water.
he was often arrested, thrown into jail, and beaten;
it is likely that one beating was so severe
that it left him permanently disabled.
Still, Paul persevered,
never worrying,
his faith, hope and trust in the Lord.

Life is filled with problems,
from the small and the petty
to the overwhelming and even-life threatening.
But God is there with us, walking with us,
nurturing us,
guiding us if we give him the chance.
The promise that we read in Deuteronomy is true:
underneath us are the everlasting arms.

I find that with every passing year I worry less.
Part of that may be due simply to growing in age:
I hope I have grown
and will continue to grow in wisdom
and not sweat the small stuff.
But I think most of it is due to my faith:
my trust in the Lord.
Yes, I still worry about things:
but I know all I need to do
whenever I get myself worked up
is close my eyes and say,
“Lord, are you with me?”
And the answer will always be,
“I am”
AMEN

The Times of Your Life

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
May 18, 2008
Confirmation Sunday

The Times of Your Life
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
John 8:12

The reading from Ecclesiastes is one of the most familiar
passages in the Bible.
I grew up singing the words back in the 1960s,
when I was in Confirmation Class:
the folk singer Pete Seeger had set the words to music
and the rock group The Byrds made a hit out of it
with their song, “Turn, Turn, Turn”.

“For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven.”
That’s the reality of life for all God’s children.
There is life and there is death.
There is good and there is evil.
There is peace and there is war.

The word Ecclesiastes is Latin,
a loose translation of the original Hebrew title of this book,
which was Qoheleth, or “Teacher”.
This book was a lesson from a teacher to his students,
students who were probably
about the same age as our Confirmands.
The book itself is part of the collection of books
in the Old Testament that we refer to as “wisdom literature”.
And there is a great deal of wisdom in these eight verses.

There is a time to be born
and a time to die.
That’s reality.
Each of us is born,
and each of us will in turn die:
Some from old age,
others from illness,
and still others from accidents.
The fact that our lives on this earth are finite
reminds us, even when we are young,
that each day is a gift given us by God,
a gift to be used in service to God.

There is a time to plant –
that time is right now - spring time,
the reawakening of God’s earth all around us.
And then comes the time to reap the harvest.
But I am guessing that Qoheleth, the teacher,
taught his students that
there is no such thing as instant gratification,
that reaping doesn’t follow planting
without a great deal of tending, watering,
feeding, weeding, and nurturing.
Whatever seeds we plant require patience and work
in order for there to be time of reaping.
And we are forever planting seeds:
seed of change, seeds of new ideas,
seeds of hope, seeds of peace,
seeds of love.

The next stanza is a tough one
for us as disciples of Christ:
There is a time to kill;
Of course there is a time to heal,
but a time to kill?
How do we reconcile this with the Sixth Commandment,
that we shall not kill?
And how do we reconcile this with Christ’s calling us to peace?
Perhaps the teacher was referring just to animals:
that there was a time to kill them for food, or for sacrifice.
But the reality was that war was all too common in the centuries
that led from Moses to Jesus.
Perhaps the teacher was thinking that
there was a time to kill enemies of the Lord God.
Certainly that is not what Jesus teaches us, though.
One of the most important lessons
I hope the Confirmands learned this year
is that the Bible is filled with difficult lessons
that require us to work them out.
The Bible is not a rule book with passages that we can point to
and say, “oh the meaning is clear.”
We read the Bible,
praying for guidance by the Holy Spirit,
and then we talk about it,
study it,
and try to learn from it,
because the BIble is a living book,
and it is always teaching us something new.

We’ve got a similar struggle with the next passage:
that there is a time to break down and time to build up.
Paul taught us that all things should be done to build up,
so what do we do with this verse?
I read it as reminding us that there is a time
to tear down the old, to turn from old ways,
ways that no longer work,
and think about new ways, new ideas.
We don’t like doing that:
we tend to be far more comfortable
with the ways things are, the status quo;
we don’t like change.
Of course, there are times when we are called to
build on the foundation that is already there,
but we must always remember that the Holy Spirit
is forever blowing through our lives
and the Spirit often is there
to blow away the stale and worn
and make way for the new.

Last week we talked about the need to break down
the barriers of sexism, and racism.
We need to break down the barriers of homophobia
and xenophobia, the fear of foreigners and foreign things.
We are called to break down barriers that trap people in poverty,
or in hunger, or in joblessness, or hopelessness.
We are called by Jesus to break down any barriers
that get in the way of our building up God’s Kingdom.

I have found that with age,
I have come more and more to appreciate the importance
of the lesson that there is a time to weep:
There is a time for feeling deep emotions.
We Presbyterians, especially those of us,
with Scottish heritage, struggle with this,
as though we are proud of the moniker,
“God’s frozen chosen”.
But there is a time to weep:
to weep for a loss, yes,
but there is also a time to weep for beauty,
for joy,
for love,
for the sound of a baby crying.

In the same way there is a time to mourn
when we suffer any loss,
not just when a loved one dies,
but when a friend moves away,
when a relationship ends,
when a job is lost.
Over time the Spirit helps us to pick ourselves up
and carry on with life.
We go on, filled with cherished memories,
and eventually find ourselves
once again ready and able to dance.

How should we read the next stanza:
“There is a time to throw away stones,
and a time to gather stones together”?
This is more than reminding us that there is a time
for clearing a field of stones
so we can plant it,
and other times to gather stones to build a building,
a wall, or a well.
I read in this passage a reminder of our responsibility
as stewards of God’s creation that there is nothing wasted
in God’s earth,
and that we are to use wisely
all that God has entrusted to us –
and that nothing should be wasted.

There is a time to embrace
and time to refrain from embracing.
In our multi-cultural society,
I think there is a powerful lesson here
of the need for us to learn about other people and their cultures,
to learn that in some cultures an embrace or a hug
might be welcome,
while in others an embrace is not welcome,
a handshake is not welcome,
even looking at someone in the eye is not welcome.
We are called not to impose our own cultures on other people
and other societies,
but to learn about other traditions
and respect them, so we will know when to embrace,
and when not to embrace.

The next two passages work together:
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep
and a time to throw away;
There is a time to seek new things and new ideas
but then there is a time to let go of things,
ideas, sometimes even people
if they are not helping you grow in faith.

There is a time to keep silent
and time to speak.
We talked this year about how we sin not only
in the things we say and do,
but also in the things we fail to say
or fail to do.
When we stand idly by without taking action
and without speaking out
when there is wrong right before us,
we are committing the sin of cowardice, of weakness.
We have a responsibility to speak up and speak out,
even if we what we say is unpopular,
even if we find ourselves in a minority,
even if bullies try to snuff our words and actions.
History is filled with too many stories of
hideous wrongs done as people stood silent,
whispering, “someone should say something,
or do something.”

And of course there is a time to love,
that is the life Jesus calls us to:
loving God with all our hearts and souls,
and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
But is there a time for hate?
Jesus certainly does not teach this.
But perhaps there is, if it is a hatred of things
that get in the way of God’s love, God’s mercy,
God’s righteousness,
Christ’s grace.
There may be times when we need to feel hate,
and outrage to help us summon up the courage
not to stand by silently in the face of an obvious wrong.

And, unhappily there are times for war,
It is fitting, however, that the Teacher ends with peace
for that is God’s hope for us,
and the life Christ calls us to.
It is the life our Confirmands have chosen
in professing their faith in Jesus Christ:
It is the life each of us has chosen
in our own professions of faith in Jesus Christ.

In an article I read the other day, a Methodist pastor,
Kelly Lyn Logue, put together another pairing
that should be a part of the times of our lives.
She says that as we go though life
we should have times that are “results-oriented”
where our goal is to accomplish something:
to feed the hungry, to pray, to teach, to sing.
But there should be others times that she says should be
“transformation oriented”,
when we quiet ourselves
and open ourselves more completely and thoroughly
to the Light of the world,
so that we might never walk in darkness.
(Christian Century, April 22, 2008, p. 19)

Let us welcome our newest members
as they join this community of faith
in this joyous time of their lives.
Let us welcome our newest brothers and sisters
with a warm embrace.
Let us welcome them with words of encouragement and love:
In the words Paul spoke to the Philippians:
“Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say Rejoice....
And may the peace of God,
the peace which surpasses all understanding
guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus
this very special day, and always.”
Amen