The Eleventh Sunday
after Pentecost - August 12, 2007
Traveling Home
The Rev. Robert B.
Wood, St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, Alpharetta, Georgia
With my recent trip to Vermont, I have
some thoughts of a traveler to share. The first thought: I wondered
just how much preachers are like flight attendants. In some ways I
hope they are…in other ways, maybe not. No offense Corrine and Karen.
On one side, we both have uniforms. We both want you to arrive at
your final destination safely. We feed you along the way, and are
called on to manage occasional disturbances in the aisles, from crying
babies to cell phones being on when they shouldn’t. I for one am glad
that I don’t have to worry about your seats going back—particularly
during the sermon.
All that’s okay. But, on my recent
flight back from Vermont, I did wonder how preachers are like flight
attendants as they deliver those safety instructions as no one seems
to listen to the words bouncing around the cabin. You know, before
the flight takes off, when they talk about emergency exits, oxygen
masks, and seat cushions that become flotation devices. It’s for our
own good. However, I noticed this last time just how much everyone
went on about his or her business—ignoring those life-saving
instructions.
Is redundancy the issue? Or lack of
concern? Maybe it’s faith that all will be well. Either way, I truly
hope that sermons are not like those instructions. I can see even now
that you are not just going about your business, but that you are
listening. So thank you, and please do listen with all your heart…not
just to the sermon…but to the readings each Sunday…to the faithful
words of our hymns…to the grace-filled prayers of the Eucharist…so the
message of the gospel truly sinks in. It’s for your own good.
Yes, the good news…really our attention
to it, is exactly what Jesus means when he teaches us to “stay alert,”
to be “dressed for action and have our lamps lit.” And it’s not just
your attention on Sundays that Jesus wants. He wants you to be
dressed for action at all times…being about His business…and not just
going on about your own business while his words bounce around over
your heads.
My second thought as a traveler has some
to do with survival and more with homeland security. As you know,
safety warnings used to be given just on the plane…but now they start
days (even weeks) before. Airline travel can be a little unnerving in
the first place—even though statistics show that auto travel is more
dangerous. But emotion can trump logic—not only with being off the
ground inside a big piece of metal but also about terrorist forces out
there. We have to be aware that travelers are at risk.
For that reason, we have to give up
lighters, or pen knives…even water bottles at security. Or like the
couple on my recent trip who were traveling with a young baby found
out—you have to give up the forty cans of baby formula that you wanted
to take back to Canada with you. You feel for someone caught in that
bind, but they had been warned. There are rules. It’s just what you
do.
This extra layer of preparedness and
warning from Homeland Security reminds me a bit of Jesus’ teaching on
heavenly Homeland preparedness. Sell your possessions. Be ready and
willing to give them away. Make purses that do not wear out. When
traveling to the heavenly kingdom, travel light. Remember what is
really valuable in my homeland, says Jesus, thieves cannot
steal and moths cannot destroy. Not that I (Rob) think that angels
and archangels will screen our bags and ask for boarding passes, but I
do believe that our journey with Jesus to the Kingdom of God requires
giving up earthly treasures that are potentially destructive to us.
The fact of the matter is that Jesus and
the grace of God have made our ultimate homeland secure. Nothing we
carry aside from faith, hope, and love makes a difference.
Therefore, our traveling with Jesus means learning to practice now the
pattern of life that we’ll have to live by then and there. And that’s
a challenge…a profound challenge.
We humans like our things and the
security they bring, but as one of my favorite biblical scholars says,
“There is no time when humans are likely to grasp more tightly to what
they have than when there is an overt threat to their lives.” By that
I think he means the hoarding and storing instinct. “[Jesus’]
teaching the disciples on lack of fear before death and [today’s
gospel] teaching on lack of anxiety about possessions are all of a
piece [of a] profoundly challenging” teaching. (Luke Timothy
Johnson) So, my point is: in terms of traveling with Jesus, how much
to we try to sneek by or sneek through...how much to we fight it, or
how much do we wise up and comply?
A third thought on traveling—not so much
related to the gospel as to the Letter to the Hebrews that speaks of
Abraham setting out from home, not knowing where he is going. His
faith that God would provide a place was strong, and that type of
faith is commended. Most of us don’t travel that way. We have plans
and reservations with Orbitz or something. We’ve scouted out our
destination, or maybe we’ve been there before, and there is comfort
when you walk in to the house or resort that you’ve come to love.
That comfort is true for travel…and, I’d
guess, for retirement. Yes, Sara and I are only in our forties, but
we do think about retirement a bit, particularly as we travel to
favorite places like we have some this summer. And we wonder, will it
be Vermont—where her parents live and where we met. Green Mountains,
beautiful corn fields and cool lakes not to mention great biking and
golf. Or maybe we’ll retire to Sewanee, TN, where I went to college.
Winters are more mild than Vermont’s, and it’s got mountains, hiking
trails, a school and Episcopal Church setting. No rush of city life.
There’s also Georgia…the coast or the mountains. And being close to
friends.
Who knows where it will be—we can only
wonder and hope — but likely it’s some place we already have roots and
connections. A place that already has a sense of home. A place we
treasure. Now, in terms of our ultimate homeland, why should it be
that different? Well, we have not been there, that’s true, but it’s
not so difficult to plant roots in heaven if you think about it.
Every time we have communion, we connect
with God and heaven. When we love our neighbors, forgive our each
other—we scout out and practice heavenly ways of life. When we pray
“thy will be done” or read the Bible we connect with the will of God
and prepare our souls for our heavenly homeland. For, as we hear in
Hebrews, people who “confessed that they were strangers and foreigners
on the earth…[that earth was not their final destination, made] it
clear that they are seeking a homeland…. But as it is, they desire a
better country, that is, a heavenly one…. Therefore God…has prepared
a city for them.
And not just prepared a city, but God
has prepared to be there too. So when we hear Jesus’ invitation, “Do
not be afraid, [because] it is your father’s good pleasure to give you
the kingdom…to give you the kingdom…and that he is preparing a
place for us, and that, as Jesus says, “God will fasten his
belt and have [faithful disciples to] sit down to eat, and he will
come and serve them…serve them!... then we know that our heavenly
home is not going to be a brand new place, but it’s a place that our
faith and our practices have helped to scout out.
Heaven is a place where we can plant
roots…even now. And God is tending to our roots…asking us to build a
treasure there, so that our hearts will be there too…even now. For
where our treasure is, where our roots are—there our hearts and souls
will be also. So travel with Jesus. Listen to what he has to say;
heed his instructions. Know that your homeland is secure, that your
final destination is a place…a way of life…that you can build roots
for and live in even now.
© The Rev. Robert B. Wood. All Rights
reserved.
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