SAIL THE SOUL
Rev. Dr. Kathy Fuson Hurt
FBC, September 13, 2009
Readings: Hebrews 13:8-14 and The Journey by Mary Oliver
Like the other churches in the center of Granville, like many churches throughout this county, this area, this country, today is a celebratory time when our usual Sunday schedule resumes. Those of you who prefer worship in the sanctuary are no doubt celebrating that we have returned to this space; those of you who prefer a customary worship service with hymns and a sermon are no doubt relieved that our time of summer experimentation is done. Today, for us, for many churches, everything returns to normal. And normal is good, right? Normal is the way our church experience ought to be: predictable, familiar, with the same order of events, the same people, the same space.
Yet alongside all that celebration of normality that we and other churches are enjoying this morning, another feature in our church, in many churches, on this particular Sunday, when normality returns, is reference to the theme of a journey: a faith journey, a life journey, the journeys we make through time, the journey this congregation has embarked on, the journey that God calls us to. And I find that curious, on a Sunday when all around I hear sighs of relief and pleasure at the return to normality, that the air is also filled with talk of journeys. Normality to me suggests a kind of staying put, staying home, not going anywhere—whereas journey conjures up all kinds of contrasting images of movement, leaving home, experiencing unfamiliarity, wrestling with unpredictability.
Such contrasts are, of course, typical of our spiritual lives, where truth is likely to be paradoxical. But I would guess that for most of us, while the paradox may be true, that we are both staying put and moving on, savoring familiarity and anticipating newness, we nonetheless favor one side of that paradox more than the other.
So, a quick survey: how many of you are glad our summertime mode is finished and that we have returned to business as usual, here in the sanctuary? How many of you are already missing something about summertime, whether your travels or your different routines or even the different way we functioned here during the summer? How many of you would characterize your spiritual lives in terms of a journey? How many of you would characterize your spiritual lives in images of home, of being rooted, of knowing where you stand? How many of you have seen your faith perspective change significantly in the time you have been part of this church? How many of you have seen your faith perspective change significantly in the last year? How many of you come into the sanctuary this morning feeling like you are in a very different place in your life than when you last joined in worship here? We are a study in contrasts, some rooted, some restless, some moving and some staying put. Our souls seek a safe harbor where life storms cannot disrupt us; and yet we search the horizon and repeatedly set sail for destinations we can scarcely articulate or imagine. The ship of our souls is safe in a harbor—but that is not what ships are for.
My own journey over the summer brought predictable challenges: the changes that inevitably come with time’s passage and aging are requiring my extended family to develop new ways of relating and functioning; the changes that keep coming in our church, as we wrestle with new ways of relating and functioning that are better suited to the culture, the people who seek us out, and our own resources, kept me busy tacking back and forth; the changes that God continually invites in my understanding of the Holy and of myself ensured that I spent very little time spiritually kicking back and taking it easy. Though journeys may have periods in which less effort is required for navigating, when even time spent on automatic pilot is possible, still the very act of journeying means constant movement and constant attention.
The author of Hebrews, in the scripture passage read earlier, lays out the same contrasts we experience, of constancy and rootedness alongside, in the midst of, movement and journeying. The author begins with an affirmation of sameness in the image of Jesus Christ “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Nothing especially remarkable in that image: I suspect many of us include qualities of sameness, of constancy, of abiding presence, in the ways we understand God. And the author of Hebrews is writing at a time when the early church had concluded that while Jesus had clearly been a human person, there was something divine, something of God, about him. That divinity made it possible to affirm that Jesus, like God, remains the same, abides forever.
But the Hebrews author then switches gears following that assertion of sameness to discuss significant changes in worship practices that the church had been wrestling with almost since its beginning. The problematic practices were ones that had been central in Jewish faith and worship, but were being questioned as being appropriate for the new Christian faith. And the author of Hebrews knew, like every pastor before and since knows, like I discovered yet again this summer with our experimental services: people do not take easily to changes in their churches, most of all when those changes appear in worship. To defuse the unhappiness, the Hebrews author shifts from his previous focus on sameness to remind his audience that nothing stays the same, and that we should especially recognize that our spiritual lives will unfold like a journey, a journey that is not likely to end anytime soon: “For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). In other words, get used to it, folks; things change, worship changes, faith perspectives change, congregations change, and that is all par for the course. We do not live in a lasting city, not literally, not spiritually.
The same struggle and resistance to change, this time on a personal rather than a congregational level, forms the subject of Mary Oliver’s poem The Journey. I think of this poem often when I find myself living into a decision that everyone around me opposes, when I have no affirmation for my decision except, as Oliver puts it, the knowledge that “it is the only thing I could do.” There are some decisions that seem supported by the universe itself, and all goes amazingly smoothly—and then there are the decisions that cost us everything, where we meet obstacles at every step, with the hardest obstacles being those that rise up inside us. When support is nowhere to be found, when affirmation does not come, when the winds blow against us and the stars themselves are obscured, when all around voices object and criticize and insist what we are doing is wrong and they will have no part of it, and they turn away from us in a swirl of righteous indignation: at such life-altering times, how do we keep going? And how do we chart a course without help?
I have a friend who regularly relies on a GPS system (Garmin?) to make her way around town. Apparently Mapquest was too unpredictable with its directions and time or distance estimates, and she wanted options whenever she came upon traffic gridlock or road construction. So she now has a GPS that never fails to get her to her destination—even when despite its directions, she makes a mistake.
For the beauty of the GPS system is that it is intended to work with even the most directionally challenged, distracted by talking on a cell phone, driver. It provides a step-by-step outline to the desired destination, includes prompts to “turn right here” or “turn left at the next block,” so clear that it would seem nobody would miss a direction. Yet when a direction is missed, despite the clear guidelines the GPS provides, it simply adapts. With one word, “recalculating,” the GPS takes into account the driver’s error and comes up with a new set of directions that still promise to guide to the desired destination. And apparently the GPS will recalculate again and again, as often as needed, to get you where you need to go.
Ever since hearing how this system works, I have been fascinated by that wonderfully patient, nonjudgmental response, “recalculating.” How much more typical would it be to have a GPS system that reacts to mistakes and changes of mind the way we do. My own internal GPS system is far more likely to yell out, “You dummy, you missed the turn back there.” Or, when I make the same mistake over and over, still not learning, my GPS may very well throw up its hands and quit, pronouncing me hopeless.
How does your personal, spiritual GPS system respond when you take a wrong turn, make an unwise choice, get distracted and overlook something important, stubbornly persist in doing something that is hurtful to yourself and others? Does it berate you, criticize you, abandon you? How forgiving are you able to be of yourself? And how forgiving of others—family, friends, neighbors, church members, fellow citizens, political leaders, pastoral leaders, community leaders—when you are quite certain they have made a wrong move? The forgiving response would be the one the GPS offers, “recalculating.” Are we able to offer “recalculating” to one another, to ourselves, when we blow it—especially when we have what seem to be clear guidelines and a sure way to reach our goals, and somehow we manage to miss the turn anyway?
Having grown up in a Baptist church, and having spent most of my adult life around churches, I had become accustomed to hearing talk about “doing God’s will.” I believed that it was my job to discern what God wanted of me, to follow the signs God offered. And when that divine will seemed obscure, when no signs were forthcoming, I stayed put, sort of like remaining home and not driving in heavy fog until the fog lifts.
So it came as a surprise to me when I heard from a spiritual director that God does not set the direction for a life journey; rather, we determine where we want to go, and God provides help in getting there. I plug into my spiritual GPS system my desired destination first. Then I get the directions, the support and guidance, for reaching that destination.
And of course it is not a straightforward, easy journey, this life journey, this spiritual journey, not simply a matter of getting from one place to another. We get distracted, miss a turn, head down a wrong path, forget to consult the GPS system God offers, or misread it. But God does not condemn us nor abandon us, but replies, in the same endlessly patient fashion as a literal GPS system, “recalculating.” No matter how long it takes, no matter how far off course we wander, God never gives up on us, never. Always God’s response will be, “recalculating.” For God will stop at nothing until we arrive safely home.
Welcome back to church this morning, those of you who have been away for the summer. Welcome to our church this morning, those of you who have joined us for the first time. And welcome once more to those of you who remained here all summer long. We set out this morning on a new journey, not the same congregation nor the same individuals who sailed together last year. May our journey separately, together, be a joyous one, as we sail with soft breezes behind us, healing rains about us, through waters sometimes peaceful, sometimes stormy, knowing that God travels with us, guiding our journey, recalculating whenever we wander, drawing us ever in the safe harbor we seek.
