Psalm 23; Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8; John 14: 1-3
First Church of Christ, UCC, Woodbridge, CT
October 28, 2012 – Reformation Sunday
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| Wheat Field with Reaper and Sun, Vincent Van Gogh |
For the first time in a long time I am
diverging from the lectionary. Normally
I like to receive an assignment from the Holy Spirit: “Here, preach on this!” and then struggle
with what I’m given. In this way the scripture has a way of working on me even as I am working on the sermon. In spite of this,
the Holy Spirit seemed to have another idea.
Last
week I attended the funeral of a long time member of my church in Monroe. Marie had four sons, one of whom preceded her
into God’s glory. The other three spoke
in turn about their loving mother, of how she raised her boys into men who
loved their mother, each other and what it means to be a human being in this
world.
The
three scriptures for today’s worship came from Marie’s service. As I sat in the pew and read them in the
worship bulletin, I saw words and phrases that spoke to me of this church,
right now. “He restoreth my soul.” “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.” “Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou
art with me.” “Thou preparest a table
before me in the presence of mine enemies.”
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life.” “…a time to keep silence, and a
time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time
for peace.” “Do not let your hearts be
troubled. Believe in God, believe also
in me.”
And
then the sermon title came to me: “The
Undiscovered Country”. Some of you may
recognize this phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In his famous soliloquy that begins “To be or
not to be”, Hamlet contemplates taking his own life but cannot find the courage
to carry through—not because of any fear of divine wrath but because of the
great unfathomable unknown that awaits him.
“Who would Burdens bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.”
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.”
(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1, 76-82)
But
those few of you who may be Star Trek fans will recognize the phrase ‘the
undiscovered country’ from the sixth movie of the same name, where it refers
not to death, but to the future—itself a great unfathomable unknown that awaits
us all.
There
are times we human beings approach the future in the same way we approach
death. Both can make us feel more than
just uncomfortable but vulnerable, defenseless.
We’d rather not talk about it but if we do, we do so with some measure
of dread. Some days we do all we can to
forestall it. There are days that
thoughts of the future “make us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to
others that we know not of”. We fear
it because we don’t know what lies ahead, especially in this ever-changing
world. Yes, we have faith, we have trust
in God but in truth we really don’t know.
When the old mapmakers reached the end of the known world, they wrote “beyond here there be dragons”. No one
has traveled to the future or to death and returned to tell us what is there
waiting for us.
What
we do have is Jesus’ reassurance, that in God’s house there are many rooms and
that Jesus goes ahead to prepare a place for us, not only beyond death, but
also into our future. Jesus has gone
ahead of us, like a guide building and lighting a bonfire in the distance, so
that weary travelers can find him and come to the place that been prepared.
Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me
Walk with me, Lord
Walk with me
While I’m on this pilgrim journey
I want Jesus to walk with me
Meanwhile
we are on our pilgrim journey, looking for those still waters, that promised green
pasture in which to lie down just for a while.
We tend to wander off the paths of righteousness from time to time,
sometimes stepping off the path just so we can find it anew. Because it’s not an easy path, is it? Righteousness isn’t something we come by
naturally. Sometimes we stumble across
it like a gift. Most of the time it
comes from perseverance, from striving in our daily living to align our actions
with the will of God. And we need God’s
help to do this. All the time.
Hold my hand, Lord
Hold my hand
Hold my hand, Lord
Hold my hand
While I’m on this pilgrim journey
I want Jesus to hold my hand
In
order to sit at that table with our enemies that God has prepared, we need God
to help us stay at that table, to not leave until both we and our enemy have been
fed and satisfied, for that is what God intends. Rather than God helping those who help
themselves (which is not biblical), God does for us what we cannot do for
ourselves, even what seems impossible.
Even
when we cannot imagine the way forward through the valley of the shadow of
death, the place has not only been prepared, and the way, but Jesus promises to
come again, to take us to where he is, that we may be there also. Through the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus, through the surprising grace of the Holy Spirit, God is willing to do
whatever it takes to get us to where God is.
God is not yet done with us, for God is still speaking.
Be my guide, Lord
Be my guide
Be my guide, Lord
Be my guide
While I’m on this pilgrim journey
I want Jesus to be my guide
But
it doesn’t mean we get to walk around Good Friday and the time in the tomb,
that valley of death. Our way to that
future that Jesus has prepared leads straight through the way of sorrow. When Jesus said, “Pick up your cross and
follow me”, we knew where he was going but did we really think we were going
anywhere else?[1]
There
is a season for everything, and seasons mean that there are cycles, ebb and
flow, phases of light and darkness that are intended for growth. And growth includes dying as much as
planting, birth, and harvest. We can’t
have one without any of the others.
Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it
bears no fruit.” There is no growth,
there is no harvest if the seed does not die.
We are the Body of
Christ, something altogether different from another non-profit or an
organization or a club or even a family.
Jesus came to change human lives: to heal, to forgive, to love
unconditionally, to show justice, to be fearlessly generous with himself that
everyone would know the love of God that has the power to transform us into
something new. It doesn’t mean that the
way we are is bad or not good enough but that God is still creating us, shaping
us, renewing us because that’s what a Creator does.
The purpose of being
the Body of Christ is to be Christ in the world: a living, breathing body doing the work of
Christ—healing, forgiving, loving unconditionally, working for justice, being
fearlessly generous with ourselves that everyone would know that the love of
God has the power to change human lives.
And we are called continually to seek out how to live that purpose in
our own lives and in our life together as a community.
Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun and author, writes that “[seeking]
depends on the willingness to let God lead us through the deserts of a
lifetime, along routes we would not go, into the Promised Land of our own
lives.” How willing are we to be led to that yet
undiscovered country called the future?
How healthy is our trust in God?
For surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives
and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, yes? Then though we may have everything to fear,
we have nothing to lose and all to gain.
Nobody but
you, Lord
Nobody but
you
Nobody but
you, Lord
Nobody but
you
While I’m on
this pilgrim journey
Nobody but
you, Lord
Nobody but
you
Amen.
Lizz Wright, "Walk With Me, Lord" - live, Soho Revue Bar
Star Trek VI - "The Undiscovered Country" trailer
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