Going a Journey
(Rutgers, June 6, 1999;10th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A)
Genesis 12:1–9 (OT, pp.10-11); Matthew 9:9 (NT, p. 9)
1
trillion, 400 billion miles—a nearly incomprehensible distance.
Definitely not the number of miles Abram and Sarai journeyed
when, in response to God's call, they went, by foot and by donkey,
from Haran to Shechem, from Mesopotamia to Canaan.
Theirs, you see, was a trip of just 500 miles, roughly
the distance from Columbus, Ohio to New York City, albeit
they were traveling by foot + donkey, not by car or airplane.
Nor
was 1 trillion, 400 billion the number of miles journeyed
by Matthew when he left his tax booth and followed Jesus for a few
years around the relatively compact Galilean countryside,
which extended some 30 miles from east to west
and another 30 miles or so from north to south.
No,
1 trillion, 400 billion—that's the number of miles journeyed
collectively by us Americans each and every year—
which is to say that every day, we Americans, taken together,
travel a distance equal to that of 20 roundtrips to the sun.
Well,
it's now summer,
the time when traveling is most on our American minds.
And when I was recently sitting with a group of church folk,
before we knew it
we found ourselves talking animatedly and with deep feeling,
about the various vacations we're all longing to take.
So
when I read the Travel Section of last Sunday's NY Times, I was
tantalized by its description of two pilgrimages taken in Europe—
two spiritual journeys to which the quite secular Times devoted
an amazing three full pages of text and a dozen color photos.
One
was a 500-mile pilgrimage on foot across northern Spain from
the Spanish Pyrenees to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela,
a trip undertaken in medieval days by a half million people a year
+ still undertaken today by tens of thousands of people a year,
a journey by foot roughly the length of Abram and Sarai's trip.
The
other pilgrimage described in the Times
was taken by car and foot through an area of southwest Wales.
It traced an ancient route, dating back to at least the 6th century,
that now connects St. David's Cathedral with six churches
and a holy well, all located in the Pembrokeshire peninsula,
a territory roughly the same size as Galilee,
where Jesus and Matthew, and the other disciples walked.
That
was last Sunday's Times.
Then Tuesday I listened as Laura Jervis talked about the trip
she and her daughter DeYan will be taking this week to Italy,
to the mountains in the northwestern part of that country,
up along the French + Swiss borders, where Laura will enjoy
a three-month sabbatical of reading, and resting,
and reconnecting with her Waldensian roots.
And
then Thursday, I had to listen to Rob Doyle talk about
his vacation trip with Mark to London—those lucky stiffs!
So,
frankly, I need to confess to you this morning
that as I speak I'm breaking the Tenth Commandment.
I'm actively coveting my neighbors' vacations and sabbatical!
For
the only journey I'll get to take this month is a business trip
to the conflict-ridden 211th General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in hot, hot Fort Worth, Texas.
Going
a journey—
well, some journeys are definitely better than others,
and some are definitely harder than others—
and some are definitely more vacation-oriented than others.
When
God commanded Abram and Sarai, saying,
"Go from your country É to a land I will show you,"
God had quite a hard journey in mind,
rigorous travel from their ancestral homeland
to a new country,
a journey filled with danger, risk, and uncertainty,
but travel that would nonetheless make possible
for them a future rich with promise and hope.
And
when Jesus commanded Matthew, saying,
"Follow me,"
he had quite a hard journey in mind,
rigorous road travel, with no home to call their own,
a journey filled with danger, risk, and uncertainty,
but travel that would nonetheless make possible for
Matthew + others a future rich with promise + hope.
For
Abram and Sarai, and for Matthew,
there was also far more to their "journeys"
than just travel across the landscape.
For
God's command to "go a journey"
had to it an interior dimension as well as that exterior dimension.
God called them not only to journey outward across the landscape
but to journey inward as well—to move, aided by God,
from superficial belief to deep faith,
and to keep
progressing inward, with God's help, to ever greater depths
of wisdom, + insight, + creativity, + closeness to God,
+ ability to form and shape a society of greater justice.
This
interior dimension to the "journeys" to which God called
Abram + Sarai and Matthew is the one to which God calls us all,
no matter how stationary we may outwardly remain.
For
it's not necessary to move from Columbus, Ohio to New York City
in order to undertake a mighty "journey" with God.
It's not necessary to travel to the cathedral of
Santiago de Compostela, or to St. David's Cathedral, or to
the Waldensian towns in the mountains of northwest Italy
in order to embark with God on a significant "pilgrimage."
Have
you had a chance yet to read today's New York Times Magazine?
It's
entitled "Into the Unknown,"
a title that well suits this particular Sunday, when we Christians
are reading in church about Abram and Sarai, and Matthew—
all three of whom definitely journeyed "Into the Unknown."
The
articles in this marvelous issue of the Times Magazine focus both
on those who have journeyed to explore the exterior world
and on those who have journeyed to explore the interior world.
And then there's the article about Francis of Assisi,
who traveled along both roads at once—exterior and interior,
and I'll return to this article in just a few minutes.
Christianity
has always taught the importance of the interior journey.
And Pico Iyer writes in today's Times Magazine
(pp. 72,74) of
his
visits to an isolated Benedictine hermitage on the California coast,
on a cliff 1,300 feet above the Pacific Ocean,
where the "events" of the day are sunrise, nightfall, stars,
and eternal silence—a place where Iyer feels
as if he's "back in some pre- or post-millenial state of mind
described in a holy book.
Or in no time at all."
Yet there's one development of modernity in the hermitage:
these monks' blessings are now available by E-mail.
Contact: monks@contemplation.com
Buddhism
is another religion that teaches the importance of the interior journey,
and it
gave a highly visible demonstration of that
just yesterday, not on the California coast, but right here
in Central Park, on the Great Hill near West 98th Street.
There nine teachers from varying Buddhist traditions
led an event called "Change Your Mind Day."
There they were offering to all interested persons
free instruction in silent meditation and chanting.
The
world's most famous living Buddhist, the Dalai Lama,
himself practices an interior journey of meditation and chanting
for five hours every morning, from 3:30 to 8:30 a.m., as he works
on such inner tasks as creating and preserving peace of mind
and keeping his heart free from hatred for the Chinese regime
that's so sorely oppressing his people.
Of
course, meditation is not the only discipline to which we can turn
for help on our interior journey—as we seek to grow in faith,
in wisdom, in insight, in creativity, in closeness to God, and
in our ability to shape and form a society of greater justice.
There are also: Bible reading, and journaling, and praying,
and receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and
conferring with our companions along the road of life,
& there's still another way used by Abram + Sarai,
and by Matthew,
and by Francis of Assisi—
the way of letting physical, outward travel
and the interaction with people and nature
that attends such travel
effect needed transformations
in our minds and hearts.
This
way can be important for us as we approach
this summer season of travel
and as we make our choices about where to go, and how to make
purposeful use of some of those 1 trillion, 400 billion miles of ours.
Where
can we journey so that our physical, outward travel
and the interaction with people and nature that attends that travel
can work needed transformations on our minds and hearts?
I
urge you to read the article on Francis of Assisi by Gretel Ehrlich
in today's The New York Times Magazine
(pp. 90–96).
For Francis's life offers us vivid testimony to the effect
of persons' exterior journeys on their interior journeys.
Ehrlich
writes beautifully of the 22-year path of Francis's itinerant life
from the time of his conversion to faith in 1204 to his death in 1226,
a path pursued so that he could break
his habitual patterns of thought,
a voyage for him of continuing conversion
toward tenderness and compassion,
a journey of continuous conversation with nature + the world,
an open road that served as his teacher,
as a path along which going never ended
and arriving always happened.
"Each
[physical] step he took represented an inward [journey].
Walking and giving, walking and singing, walking and praying:
the path was the proving ground for sainthood.
the Umbrian landscape became the font of inspiration
into which he dipped.
Each footstep and heartbeat enlarged
his capacity to understand."
(pp. 92, 95)
"Instead
of taking on the monastic rule of the church,
he abandoned himself to God and the road.
He was God's vagabond.
(p. 92)
And
Ehrlich goes on to offer us the following magnificent description
of physical journeying as a metaphor for the seeker's inner life.
She says:
"To walk is to unbalance oneself.
Between one step and the next we become lost.
Balance is regained as the foot touches earth,
then it goes as the foot lifts.
A path is made of dirt and rock;
it is also a swath of light cut through all that appears
to be solid and unchanging.
It is a flesh wound that opens deep in the foot of the walker,
so that where we are, and where we are going,
and the way we've chosen to get there,
remains directionless;
the traveler is forever wounded and lost.
Pain, discomfort and groundlessness are the seeker's friends.
Being lost turns into a state of awakeness;
it is the same as being found."
(p. 92)
Brilliant
and profound. Read the whole article for yourself today!
From
Francis of Assisi, and Matthew, and Abram and Sarai,
we learn that life's "journey" is both an outward and an inward
road of growth on which, from birth to death, we travel with God;
we learn that life's pilgrimage is both a physical and a spiritual
path of growth on which we journey with God
from baptism to death.
A
story is told by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon
(Resident Aliens [Nashville: Abingdon, 1989], pp. 52–53)
of
a pastor who baptized a baby and then said to her + her parents:
"Little sister, by this act of baptism,
we welcome you to a journey that will take your whole life.
This isn't the end.
It's the beginning.
What God will make of you, we know not.
Where God will take you, surprise you,
we cannot say.
This we do know, and this we [do] say—
God is with you."
Our
life from baptism to death—
an inward and outward journey with God "into the unknown"—
a journey full of detours and surprises,
on which we often leave behind our "known world"
and head for "territory" not yet in view,
but always with the knowledge that God is with us!
Life—it's
"going a journey,"
with God.
Let
us pray:
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