Today's Sermon

"Not Meant for Narrow Places"

 

            This will be my last contribution to the “On the Road” series until we resume it in the new year.  That’s alright; journeys come and go, and there’s always another around the corner. 

            I was on the road a couple weeks ago, teaching and preaching in Virginia. There I told them much of what I have said here before.  I spoke of the Celtic image of John the Beloved leaning so close to Jesus at the last supper that he could hear his heartbeat and therefore hear the heartbeat of God as is attested in John 13:23.  As John Philip Newell often teaches, the Celts believe the image is a model for us, listening for the heartbeat of God in all things.  A number of us will enjoy his teachings firsthand on our pilgrimage to Iona Scotland next month.

            I love the expansiveness of that image, that we’re not simply to listen or look for the divine in our people, or people at all, but rather in all things. We’re meant for broader thinking. The great German theologian Friederich Schleiermacher said, “Religion is the natural and sworn foe of all narrowmindedness, and of all onesidedness.”  He said the heart of religion is a “sense and taste of the infinite.”[1]In our Wednesday class, we discussed the difference between spirituality and religion and there were such negative connotations to the word “religion”, many around narrowness.

            Today’s sermon is “We Were Not Meant for Narrow Places” and I was ready to delve right into a critique of the narrow, but as I was refining my talks for the Virigina teachings, I realized we all get our start in a narrow place. We are born from the womb.  I think it’s Robert Fulghum, who in one of his Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten-type books, tells of someone witnessing a moth struggling to emerge from its cocoon.  Thinking they’re helping, they crack open the chrysalis only to find out, somewhat tragically, the creature needs the narrowness of the passageway from its tight cocoon to move fluid through its body and allow its wings to fill so it can fly free. 

            We get our start from narrowness, from definition, and boundaries. Our spiritual ancestors tell their formative story in terms of emerging from the narrow place.  That’s what the word “Egypt” means, “the narrow place.”  Slavery is a place to leave, yet when they do, they need some structure, some shared agreement of how they will try to live together.  God gives them the gift of the law.  The law provides them the structure on which they can build their common life.  We need that.  This building wouldn’t be standing without some rigidity.  Neither would you.  We need form, structure, even periodic narrowness so that we can manage the freedoms of this life well.  Ask any parent.

            The mistake is never leaving it, never emerging from the cocoon. We are called to emerge and take flight, which requires a new set of structures, so we form and reform over and over again.  If we do that well, and if we are deeply connected to the Spirit, to God, we can manage that journey, without trying to run back to a home we can’t inhabit. Listen to one excerpt from the Exodus story:

Exodus 13:17-22
17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought, ‘If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.’ ¹⁸So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness towards the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle. ¹⁹And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had required a solemn oath of the Israelites, saying, ‘God will surely take notice of you, and then you must carry my bones with you from here.’ ²⁰They set out from Succoth, and camped at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness. ²¹The Lordwent in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night. ²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

            Joseph so knows he is meant to leave the narrow places, he wills his bones to be taken out of Egypt.  We are living in a moment where some are clinging to an old narrowness, thinking if they just clamp down tighter, they can get back to the way it was, even though it rarely ever was the way it supposedly was.  And, when folks talk about how better it used to be, the immediate next question has to be, “better for whom?” 

            We are not meant to go back to Egypt.  God goes with us from narrowness to expansiveness.  It comes with growing pains and it takes time.  Notice in the passage, the people must go through wilderness, the confusing place, where we’re not sure of where we are, what’s around, and the way forward.  For some the wilderness is exhilarating, full of intrigue.  For others it is frightening, full of danger.  How do we manage that together?  Each of these perspectives has some wisdom.

            Next, notice the people camp “on the edge of the wilderness,” not quite in it.  We face decision points in life when we have to decide if we’re ready to step into the unknown.  It’s okay to camp on the edge of the wilderness for a stretch.  These are critical places of transformation because they give you the opportunity to become not someone else but some new and evolved version of yourself.  Think of the power of rites-of-passage.  A number have just taken their kids to college, a very literal leaving home, but that’s just one of the times we enter new territories.  How do we do this well?

            In the story, God leads the people “by the roundabout way of the wilderness” so as to avoid the Philistines, a foe to mighty to face, at least at that point.  God is wise (obvious point) to lead the people away from those who would do them harm – sometimes you have to avoid people or circumstances, at least until you are in a better position to face them.  Otherwise, you are more likely to resort to narrowness, either returning to the strange safety of captivity or embrace narrow thinking. 

            The lesson - we don’t have to take all our steps at once, and we don’t have to take the toughest road right out of the gate.  We can find our stride, build our strength, start small.  Again, we don’t want to turn around and run back to the narrow place at the first sign of challenge.  The Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans:

Romans 8:14-17
(¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.) ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

            Christ is expansiveness, yet sometimes people who profess Christ choose narrowness because they fear the unknown of a wider view. I met a wonderfully gentle man recently. He had been a pastor in another branch of our tradition and he was beloved.  Then one of his children came out as gay.  Both his congregation and members of his extended family urged him to abandon, denounce his child.  They fell back into narrowness rather than brave new territory.  Can our love not handle expanding?  Schleiermacher says we are to be the sworn foe of narrowmindedness, not of each other. 

            The pastor and his spouse chose expansiveness, chose their son, and actually have continually tried to choose their family.  The choice has not been reciprocated except by a new community of faith.  You may not have faced that particular choice, that wilderness edge, but you have faced your own narrow places and members on the road who wanted to turn you back to the land of captivity.  How do you make your choice?  What do you need to make it faithfully?  How can we be there for one another such times?

            When I was back in Virgina, since the topic was about listening for the heartbeat of God in all things, about how creation was flowing with blessing rather than fallen from grace, I spoke with them about my beloved childhood summer camp. As I’ve spoken about many times here, that was the place my faith came alive, became my own.  I also told them why I ultimately left that place, which I don’t know if I ever have told you except in pieces.  For a time I thought I would do that for my life.  I went from the time I was 8 years all the way up into high school and college, even a couple of years year-around.

           Ultimately, I needed to part ways, and those times come.  It was feeling too narrow.  Two examples come to mind.  I was at breakfast the morning of September 12, 2001 when someone at the table said, “If we only prayed more as a nation, this wouldn’t have happened.”  She wasn’t talking about being a better, more Christlike global neighbor.  She was talking about what we would now call Christian nationalism, the imposition of a narrow form of Christianity.  Second, they would not hire gay people.  This was 2001.  I just knew I needed to move on to a more expansive field.  It’s okay.  Sometimes we need to part, to move on.

            Well, fast forward a little over 20 years, and I have a child of my own, age 10 at the time, and we wanted him to have a place to instill and support faith in him.  He had his church here, but you need places beyond church too.  We probably knew about one family (maybe two) who had any kind of religious affiliation.  Around here, you see someone adhere to any tradition and say, “Close enough!”  So, we sought another place, and thought when we go to visit my family, we should send him to camp.

            What’s more, I was on sabbatical and wanting to study how they did faith formation so successfully.  With that we all piled in the car and headed up for a week of camp, not without some trepidation.  How narrow would we find it?  Would the rigidity or structure be supportive of a good foundation or would we need to knock some walls down immediately before the paint dried?  I was pleasantly surprised at how much this place had also evolved.  Some things had been let go of that needed to be and likewise some helpful new things had been picked up along the way. 

            The week went really well and it culminated on the last night at closing campfire, this really special time.  Campfire always starts with loud and sillier songs and skits, laughter, then follows an arc to settle down into more serious and sacred portions. Well, it was all done.  They’d finished this nice ritual they do, shades of the old, shards of the new, and they start singing to the kids as they dismiss them cabin by cabin, age group by age group.  There are 600 kids plus counselors so it takes a while, a couple songs. Some I recognized and some were new, or new to me.

It was one of the latter that almost knocked me over when I heard the words:
Goodnight, dear children, goodnight and take your rest.
-Predicting the rhyme, can you see what’s coming next?-
Why don’t you lay your head, upon the savior’s breast?

            There we were at a place I had, in some ways, given up on for its narrowness (because I wanted to listen for God in all things), singing to my son about laying his head on the breast of Christ, listening, if you will, for the heartbeat of God in all things.

            We are not ultimately meant for the narrow places, and the narrow places are not meant to stay that way.  The hope comes from realizing more people are on the road than you might think.

            Amen.

 

[1]Friederich Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers