I spent a lot of my adolescence on church mission trips. We called them work camps back then. Every time the church van was about to leave the parking lot, just after the driver had turned the ignition key someone would ask, “How long ‘til we get there?”
Now, when I’m behind the wheel I give the same answer, that was given to me’ “Over a few hills, around a few bends, we’re practically there.” I can repeat this answer more times than the asker repeats the question. I can be very patient. Back in the day, my evasive, non-answer would have sent the more curious travelers to the road maps in the glove compartment. I learned, “Over a few hills, around a few bends, we’re practically there,” from the pastor who led the trips I went on in high school. For him, it wasn’t evasion; it was the truth as he saw it! I’ll never forget the time I was riding shotgun, navigating as we headed for Sioux City, Iowa. We had written directions, but I couldn’t find the exit from the I-road that we were supposed to take. There was a simple reason for this, our destination was not Sioux City, Iowa, but Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My pastor had underestimated the number of hills and bends. The miscalculation meant that we had to drive about 90 miles farther than expected. It was really more though. Everyone knows that the Midwest expands in July and August. It felt more like another 200 miles!
Journeys are like that, even well-planned journeys have their share of unexpected twists in the road. That’s what makes travelling interesting and risky. Jesus told the scribe that his journey was nearly at an end, when he said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” Mark 12:34 (NRSV). That’s the phrase I tripped over this week. What did Jesus mean? Was this a compliment, a challenge, or an invitation?
Jesus engaged in many conversations with the religious authorities of his time. His message was often offensive to them. Earlier in this very important chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus told the parable about the wicked tenants and when those hearing the story “realized that he had told the parable against them, they wanted to arrest him,” but they didn’t because they were afraid of the crowd Mark 12:12 (NRSV).
When they asked Jesus whether they should pay taxes and he looked at a coin and said, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s” — they were utterly amazed at him Mark 12:17 (NRSV).
When the Sadducees tried to trap him by cleverly asking him about the resurrection, his response left them speechless.
Then along came the scribe from today’s passage. This is the only story in the whole New Testament in which a religious figure sincerely approached Jesus with a question. The scribe was not trying to trick Jesus or trap him in a battle of words and wits. He was genuinely curious and wanted to know what Jesus believed was the most important commandment. Jesus’ answer was what Christians today call “the summary of the law.” It’s a combination of verses from Deuteronomy and Leviticus that emphasized that love was — and is — the most important thing of all, love for the Lord and love for one’s neighbors. That is the essence of how God calls us to live. This passage is like an ancient story of a man who approached the great Rabbi Hillel and asked the scholar to teach him the entire Torah while he stood on one foot. The rabbi’s famous response was, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary.” (Rabbi Hillel, “Babylonian Talmud,” Shabbath folio 31a. http://www. judentum.org/talmud/trakate/shabbath/shabbath_31.html).
In our passage, the scribe agreed with Jesus and even went on to say that love was more important than sacrificial offerings. Jesus said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” It was as if Jesus was saying, “You’re on the right track, but there are a few more bends to go around and hills to go over, before you’ve really arrived.” The story left us hanging in mid-journey. We don’t know whether the man completed his journey and “arrived” or if he stayed “not far” from the kingdom of God.
Today is Reformation Sunday, the day when churches who trace their heritage to Martin Luther, John Calvin, and few other reformers remember and celebrate the roads that we have travelled through history. This is a day when we can look back to the thoughts and ideas that have guided us for over 500 years. One of the central concepts behind the Reformation is that the church should continually be reforming itself. As long as the Holy Spirit is at work in the world, the church must be prepared to follow where it leads. The church must always be ready to respond to the pain of the world and scripture is there to guide us as we try to discern God’s will in the present. The work of the church is to always be in the process of getting nearer to the kingdom of God. We are always dependent on God’s grace, so we know that no matter how hard we work to further our journey, any progress we make is a gift from God.
There was a message on the back of the big tour buses that my marching band used to use when I was in college that read, “Getting there is half the fun.” We never believed it. For us getting there meant riding a bus for eight hours to places like Bloomington, Indiana, and East Lansing, Michigan. (It also meant getting clobbered by superior football teams — in the rain. The futility of rooting for Northwestern in the 1980s was terrific preparation for parish ministry.) For us, the bus ride was a necessary evil, a means to getting where we really wanted to go. Getting there was not half the fun at all; it was boring. Being there — wherever there might be — was all the fun. We didn’t enjoy the journey, in our hearts we were always asking, ‘How long until we get there?”
“Getting there is half the fun” is a good slogan for Presbyterians, because we take great care whenever we make a decision. We insist on hearing as many points of view as possible. As a denomination, we do not jump to quick, simple answers. Instead we believe that the Holy Spirit works through congregations, task forces, committees, and ruling councils. We believe that decisions we reach together — guided by the Holy Spirit — bring honor and glory to God. For Presbyterians the process that we go through in making decisions is practically as important as the decision itself.
Once at a Presbytery meeting when we faced a vote on an issue on which we were deeply divided, the moderator declared that we would vote by paper ballot. Someone protested, so we had a vote on whether to use paper ballots or to vote by voice. The debate was intense. The Presbytery voted to use paper ballots by a narrow margin. The vote on the controversial topic itself was much more lopsided. The most interesting vote of the day was a vote on how to vote! Do you see why Presbyterians sometimes seem baffling and odd to other Christians?
This is why we need to love the process and to love the journey. It helps if we really believe that “getting there is half the fun,” because the road is often so long and has so many bends and hills that it seems that we’ll never arrive anywhere.
The reading from Ruth this morning is the very beginning of Ruth’s journey to a foreign land, the land of her in-laws. After her father-in-law, husband, and brother-in-law died, her mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to return to her hometown, Bethlehem. Naomi intended to go alone, but Ruth insisted on going back home with her. Naomi was grieving the death of her husband and sons, but allowed Ruth to come along anyway. In the second chapter of the book, Ruth went out to glean in a field near Bethlehem. Gleaning was a kind of food share program during that time. Harvesters did not pick every bit of produce and did not pick up anything that fell to the ground. They left those bits for needy people who followed the harvesters. Ruth just happened to glean in a field of a relative of her husband. She was a hard worker. She gained the attention of the field’s owner, Boaz. Naomi schemed and got Ruth to seek protection from Boaz. In her case, protection was a man who could marry her. Ruth was a foreign widow, which made her very vulnerable to being exploited, some translations say, ‘molested.’ The very end of the story is a moment of triumph for Naomi, who was thrilled at the birth of her grandson. Oh, and her grandson was the father of Jesse who was the father of David, a former ruddy shepherd boy, composer of psalms and a great king — that guy.
Ruth was quite literally the first convert to Judaism. Her journey from her home - the beginning of which we covered in today’s reading— a foreign place out of loyalty to her mother-in-law had a truly happy ending. One can see the guidance of the Holy Spirit prior to Ruth’s journey and well beyond it.
We find a very faithful, trusting journeyer in this morning’s lesson from First Kings. Elijah was in hot water, which was incongruous in that he had just prophesied a drought. In so doing, he challenged Baal, the god that King Ahab and his wife, Jezebel, had been worshiping, against the Lord who had brought the Israelites out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. (That’s a travel story for another time.) Elijah fled into the wilderness at God’s command. He had enough water there and ravens brought him food. As today’s lesson started, Elijah’s water source had dried up, so God had instructed him to journey to Sidon, where a widow would care for him. He found the widow, who was herself close to starving, along with her son. Elijah told her to bring him a small cake made from the tiny amount of flour and oil that she had on hand. He declared that the oil and meal would not run out until the rain returned. She cared for Elijah for many days. When the widow’s son was close to death, Elijah was able to bring him back to life through prayer. Elijah was a good man to have around the house. We just get a glimpse of his journey this morning. I doubt that he would say “Getting there is half the fun.” Like all Old Testament prophets, Elijah paid a high price for speaking the words of the Lord.
Every work camp I have led has had many highpoints and memories. You can never tell when a certain vignette or encounter will be a story that gets told back home that in some way captures and summarizes the entire trip. We always tell those stories when we return.
There are, however, two high points on every mission trip that can be scheduled with precision. For me personally, the first one comes behind the wheel of the church van about thirty minutes after pulling out of the church parking lot. We’ve stopped waving, we haven’t gotten into the snacks that we packed - our bread for the journey. We’re just far enough away from home that if something goes wrong, the group is going to have to improvise. All the careful planning — believe me, every vehicle has detailed directions to every destination, I never want to head to the wrong state again! - cannot prevent difficulties from emerging. I have found that it is those difficulties, the ones that arise after we’re too far away to turn around, are what memories are made of. Once a father wished me a trouble-free trip and I replied, “There would be nothing to remember! Give me a trip with troubles that we can work through, with difficulties that we overcome together, by working as a team.” That moment when we leave the church parking lot’s gravitation field always gives me a frisson of excitement.
The other moment comes either on the last night or the last lunch stop on our way back home. We gather around the Lord’s table, which may be a picnic table just off the I-road, and we share the Lord’s Supper. This is the sacrament that Christ commanded his followers to do to remember him. This is the sacrament that reminds us that we are one in Christ. At the end of a work camp when we’re tired and eager to get home, it’s good to pause for a moment and remember what we have been through, together, on the journey that we are about to complete.
As Christians we’re all on a journey, even if that journey doesn’t lead us to another city. What’s your journey like?
How has your journey of faith been surprising?
What obstacles do you face on your journey, what roadblocks? How have you felt the leadership of Christ on your journey?
How have you been aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit on your journey?
What do you need to strengthen and encourage you as you look at the next step you will take?
We are all in this together. Let us resolve to be open to whatever is at work in us and among us and finally, enjoy the journey which Christ invites all of us to take.
Amen.