About
10 years ago I was living on the other side of the pond, studying at the
University of Wales in Swansea. My buddy
Eric and I decided to take the train through the Chunnel and visit Paris. Early Friday morning, we took the train to
London and headed to the famous Waterloo station. We were much younger, more flexible, and didn't abide the typical rules. We had
our backpacks, passports, and nothing else.
Oh and a sense of adventure. We
had no reservations, no ideas where to stay, no books or travel guides. This
was before the era of smart phones. All
we knew is that we wanted to go to Paris.
We
bought our round trip tickets. There was
a special price (which might have been why we chose to go). And we hopped on the train. When we arrived at the Charles de Gaulle
train station, we stepped off with our backpacks and just stood there in the
open rotunda looking lost, taking in the excitement of energy.
“Excuse
me. Excuse me. Hello.
Excuse me,” a little laid said, her voice getting louder with each
word. We found out later that she was
from Korea. “You, you two stay with
me.” “Huh.” Yes, you come live with me. Twenty Euro a
night. Internet. Breakfast. Close to
downtown. Come with me. Now.
Yes. Good deal.” My friend Eric and I just stood looking at
each other silent.
Finally
Eric broke the silence. “10 Euros.”
“Fifteen”
she responded as if she had been waiting for his reply. Eric smiled at me, “It is fine John. I read about it in a book. It will be
fun.” I had stayed in hostels and
hotels, but this idea of a sleepover at a stranger’s house was new to me. I hadn't heard about couch surfing or
ridesharing yet. And so we followed her
to the subway.
And
it didn't take long to realize that she knew just enough English to convince us
to stay with her, but no more. She had
used her entire vocabulary in the exchange in the station. We kept asking her questions. And she was unable to give us the answers we
desired. She smiled blankly, shrugging
her shoulders, and kept offering, “Almost there. Yes.
Almost there.” “Where is a good place to eat?” “Yes almost there.” Are others staying with you? “Almost there. Yes.
Almost.” Where is the Louvre? “Yes, almost there.”
Oh. The crazy things you will do at
twenty-two.
This
week we hear a commentary on Abraham and Sarah from the author of Hebrews. If you recall from Genesis, Abraham and Sarah
are called by God to leave their land.
Because of their faith, they pick up and move everything. The
author of Hebrews says, by faith, and not just once but three times, imploring
that it is by faith that Abraham moves, lives, and is. He leaves the land he knows, Mesopotamia, to
be heirs of a new land, unseen and unknown, because of faith. He steps out.
He takes an enormous risk.
Do we
ever feel that we are blindly stepping out?
Do we feel we have been promised something in life that is intangible,
unknowable, and unseen? Our adult Sunday
school gathered to talk about a book which acknowledges that we try to talk
about God, but to some extent, we are blindly stepping out, and our language
and experience has certain limitations.
Do we really always know what we are talking about? And is it possible they we are off the mark
sometimes?
Our
reading from Hebrews reminds us that if you are feeling lost, you are not
alone. Abraham and Sarah, our parents of
faith, stepped out and it resulted in a lifelong trial of feeling lost. They were not only pilgrims on a journey, but
strangers and foreigners in their earthly existence. The author pushes this theme of being a
perpetual stranger, suggesting that all of Abraham’s life is as foreigner but
his vision is not strictly earthbound.
He has his eyes on the full reality of what God has promised.
The
promise made by God would imply that Abraham would become the inheritor of much
land, but if you recall, he never owns more land than the burial ground for his
family. He labors as a nomad (we know
this because he lives in ‘tents’) and his heirs follow suit. His son Isaac, his grandson Jacob – continue
to live in tents as well. Abraham and
his offspring’s realization of the homeland is not what we initially imagined,
it is so much more. They still
wander.
Maybe
this is why we never wake up saying I have learned all I have to learn. Or I have all the answers about God. I know just what God is calling me to do, or
I know just where God is leading me. Or
I have figured exactly who God is and how to talk about this God. Three years of seminary education won’t even
give you those answers. Instead, each
step forward leads to more questions, and even more searching. And the experience of being a foreigner on
the quest means we can have a pretty hard time finding those answers in the
world.
“Almost
there. Yes. Almost there.” “Where is a good place to
eat?” “Yes almost there.” Are others
staying with you? “Almost there. Yes.
Almost.” “Where is the
Louvre?” “Yes, almost there.” “Am I going to make it home after this trip
to Paris?” “Yes. Almost.”
Yet
we don’t do it alone. That is the
remarkable thing about our faith. I
wonder if Abraham and Sarah were one of the earliest models being sent out two
by two. The disciples went out two by
two, the animals left the arc two by two (actually we know how many got on, but
I guess some of the animals have less than a forty day gestation period) –
that’s not the point. And when I think
of my trip to Paris – I am sure glad I had my partner in crime.
That is
because our faith wandering is not just an individual quest, but the task of
our community. It is here that we can
ask those difficult questions. It is
here that we can wonder about the nature of God, the pain of life, the joy of
faith, and the need for help, redemption, and salvation. It is hear we can ask the questions, because
as the author of Hebrews reminds us, our faith will mean we are always
strangers and foreigners, unable to understand the voices of what is around us
because we seek something much more.
Which
brings me to my last point. We all need
bread for our journey. We are all
hungry. We need something to do with our
questions, a way of being able to be foreigners. It can be exhausting to wander and wander
without a way of living into the questions.
I shared with the men’s Bible study a few weeks ago the words of Dom
Gregory Dix who captures so eloquently the beautiful rhythm and meaning of the
Holy Eucharist. It is one that has
shaped my formation.
“Was
ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to
every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been
done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need
from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle
of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the
earth. Men [and women] have found no better thing than this to do for kings at
their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph
or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation
of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the Parliament of a
mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an
examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of
whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my
father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return
to fetich because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of
Vienna; for the repentance of Margaret; for the settlement of a strike; for a
son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war;
while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk;
while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the
windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary
of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison
camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonization of S. Joan of Arc—one
could fill many pages with the reasons why [people] have done this, and not
tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by
month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly,
across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make
the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God.”
Yet
there is something else that is not captured in this text which I believe our
Epistle can offer us. At each
celebration of the Eucharist, 100,000 successive Sunday’s, we have marched
forward with our questions, with our doubts, with our concerns, lost in the
world, yet taking a step of faith. Our
faith does not mean that we lack questions or answers, but our convictions (the
convictions of things not seen) drive us forward to open our hands. Joining with the communion of saints, we
stand to offer up a mystery. Each
successive Sunday, the act of Eucharist becomes more of a mystery, but it also
becomes more central and foundational in our own lives and our life as a
church. We feast together on what we
cannot truly understand. We have faith
of what is not seen. Just bread and wine
to the outside world, but with our faith something much, much more. A taste of a better country, of a better city,
that is a heavenly one. A taste prepared
by the master architect alone, and intended for us. A taste to carry us forward. Bread for our journey. Awareness that we are foreigners and strangers
destined for someplace else. Amen. Are we
there yet? “Yes, Almost there.” Will we have our question answered? “Yes.
Almost there.”
Sermon Preached on August 11, 2013
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