Exodus: 3: 9-12

The impact of our Journey

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Rev. Susan Cartmell

The Congregational Church of Needham

                During March our worship services will focus on spiritual journeys. As modern people in our culture, we travel - for business and for fun. We believe these journeys enrich our lives. They broaden our horizons, and enrich our perspectives. A church full of people who have traveled is a congregation with a broad worldview that affects our mission and our ministry.

                We also are talking about spiritual journeys because during Lent as Christians we have embarked on a journey of faith with Jesus. In this season we think about the journey of Christ's life and the way it took him from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. Today the group of us embarking on the Holy Land trip will try to follow the path of Christ's life. Tomorrow night we will stay on Manger Square in Bethlehem, and next Sunday we will be in Jerusalem visiting the Garden of Gethsemane and the Church of the Holy Seplechre, built on the spot we think was Calvary. So we hope to literally follow the path that Jesus took, as a way to better understand his faith journey and our own.

Last week we talked about the way that God often comes to us on the ordinary trips and travels of our lives. So often in the Bible and in our own lives we never expect to be on a spiritual journey, but we discover that an ordinary trip has taken on new meaning. Suddenly, what seemed like a journey of duty or necessity takes a deeper turn, and we recognize that we have embarked on a spiritual journey. Often we don't see God coming. Our ordinary journeys take on spiritual significance.

But not all spiritual experiences take us by surprise. Sometimes we can volunteer for a spiritual journey, or choose a pilgrim's path. We can make decisions that enable us to walk with God in new ways. Each week the Confirmation Class sits in the front of the sanctuary because we honor the fact that they have embarked on a spiritual journey. Every Monday night they eat together, talk and ask questions, confer with their mentors, worship together and seek to deepen their faith.  They are traveling on this road as a group even though individually they may have different stories, and various experiences of God. But signing up for this program they have chosen to take a spiritual journey.

 Today's sermon is based on one of the most famous journeys of all time - the Exodus from Egypt. When Moses was a shepherd in Midian, he was watching his sheep  in the desert one day. He saw a bush that appeared to be burning but it was not consumed. The bible says that Moses turned aside to see this thing. Once he had decided to investigate this curious bush, Moses heard God's voice. God told him that God had a mission for Moses. But in many ways the choice about whether to listen to God and go to Pharaoh was Moses' to make.  Moses had to choose this path. The journey began when he decided to investigate the burning bush. Then he had to choose to accept the assignment.  Moses has a lot to tell us about the choices we make, and how we make ourselves open to the spiritual journeys in our lives. Let's take a look at what Moses can tell us about spiritual journeys on our lives, today.

In the first place, if you want to get the most out of life you have to have a sense of adventure. Most of us understand that this is true in our education and our careers. We know from the time we are young that if we are not ambitious and disciplined we won't make the most of our potential. Many of us go on recreational trips with that same kind of ambition. We hope to push the envelope. We see experiences that test us and push us beyond our comfort zones. We try snorkeling or scuba diving. We try rock climbing; some of us even try hang gliding. Sometimes we do these things to see if can or to prove we can. But most of us push ourselves on this trips because we sense that we won't be back here again; we will only come here once; we want to get the most out of the trip. So we strive to suck the marrow out of our trips.

The same can be said of our spiritual life. We have to live with a sense of adventure spiritually, if we want to get the most out of life. You have heard that Robert Frost poem, "I saw two paths diverge in the woods, and I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference." The reason this piece of poetry has found a lasting place on the world's shelf of literature is because we know Frost is not just talking about hiking. He is describing  life's choices. He is talking about those times we can all remember, when we have had two paths and we chose the difficult one, and how it changed our lives.

 When God called to Moses at the burning bush, and told him he should go to confront the Pharaoh and demand that the emperor set his slaves free, Moses was dumbfounded. The journey was dangerous to the point of folly. Talk about the road less travelled!  Moses had more questions than answers.  No one in their right mind would go to Pharaoh and ask him to free the slaves. Yet, it was just daring enough to be intriguing. Moses had to confront his fear. So, when Moses took this journey he learned to trust God.  Once the slaves escaped, it just got more confusing. But by that time, Moses had begun to trust in his own ability to find his way.

With most spiritual journeys the first step is the hardest. That first step he took toward the burning bush was the moment when he realized he was more curious than afraid. That decision changed his life forever.  Choosing the road less travelled made all the difference. That is always the impetus for a spiritual journey. It is the sense that there must be more to life. There must be things that you have yet to see. For our travelers to the Holy Land we all shared a sense that this trip was calling to us. We decided that we would not be content until we had gone to see these places where Jesus lived and walked. Each one told me that this was a trip they were determined to take.  It is a sense of adventure that drives a spiritual journey.

In the second place you make deep connections on a spiritual journey. You share life in new ways. The man known on public television as the host of "The Savvy Traveler" is Rick Steves.  Beginning with his book - Europe through the Back Door, Steves has built a career inviting Americans to explore local culture when they travel. A committed Lutheran, Steves believes that travel is a spiritual experience. He says, that there is a difference between being a tourist and a pilgrim. That difference is the ability to listen to the people along the way. He says, "Americans are often guilty of economic prejudices. We tend to think that people who are dirty and don't have nice clothes have less value and are more expendable. By now so many dirty, miserably dressed people have impressed me with their strength and spirituality that I am not going to discount them." {"Travelers' Blessings: An Interview with Rick Steves" by Amy Frykholm. Christian Century February 9, 2010 p. 20.}

These connections that  deepen our understanding of other people expand our horizons. They give us confidence. New understanding is the best antidote to fear.  When you extend yourself to a stranger they are no longer strange. You recognize that they are simply fellow travelers on other journeys. You see behind the stereotype.  When I went to Israel three years ago I did not know much at all about the people living in Palestinian refugee camps. All I had had to go on was what I had read in the media. But when we visited a woodworking school for Palestinian boys from a camp, it was clear that these young men were not angry, as the newspapers portrayed them. Instead they were shy, and eager to please. They were awkward at times, and curious about Americans. Seeing these boys gave me a chance to get to known, however briefly, the people behind the headlines in the Middle East. Hearing them talk about their lives, their school, and their hopes for the future is an experience I won't forget.

When you embark on a special journey, or even when your life takes a deeper turn, the people God puts on your path have the potential to make a deep impression on you. I have never known for sure, if that happens because of who God sends us in these moments, or because we are more ready. Somehow, we have been cracked open and so we see people with new eyes. I suspect God sends special people every day, but ordinarily we miss these gifts and we just ignore them.

Finally, a spiritual journey will transform your life. The journey Moses took from Midian back to Egypt to confront Pharaoh changed him from a shepherd into a leader. Then the path he took from Egypt to the Promised Land really changed Moses into a man of history, and a prophet for all time. The trip changed the Hebrews too. They learned how to find food and realized that they did not have to be afraid about surviving. They learned how to live together and discovered they could make decisions as a community. They morphed from people who took orders in Egypt to people who determined their own destiny. They went from slaves who were scared to stay and afraid to go into a nation that was much more confident. The very word Hebrew means scattered people. So while they started as a group of refugees, on that trip they became one people. The reason that Jews still celebrate the Exodus experience every year at this time at the Passover meal is because this trip defined them as a people of faith. It gave them an identity. They learned to trust Moses. They learned to trust one another. They learned to trust God.

Every day whether we are going to the super market or to Jerusalem, we have the chance to hear God's voice calling us to draw near. One of the lessons you learn when you go to the Holy Land is that the land is unique and special it is also simple, dry, dusty and remarkably unchanged after all these centuries. You cannot go there and remain sentimental because the place has its own political issues and contemporary confusion. When you consider all that happened there and all the lives that are still affected by this place you cannot help but draw closer to God. Three years ago, I went thinking that I would meet God in Israel, and God would be especially present there. But I came home realizing that God is very much alive on all the paths I travel everywhere I go. That truth is worth the whole trip. What I learned was the difference is in me. Am I a tourist in life or am I pilgrim.  Tourists in life stay above the fray. Pilgrims ask questions. Tourists worry about themselves. Pilgrims reach out to other people. Tourists stay clean. Pilgrims get dirty. Tourists try not to think about how the trip affects the indigenous people. Pilgrims wonder about justice. Tourists rely on their own guides and their maps. Pilgrims travel with God.