1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
First Sunday of Christmas
December 31, 2000
Year C
Title: An Odyssey of Faith
Theme: The coming New Year promises to challenge us to be on an
odyssey of faith, one where we are navigated by the only star that can
take us to solid ground in a not-so-solid world, Jesus.
One of the things I am going to do during this sermon is introduce the
central focus for the Cathedral of Hope for the year 2001. Last year we
focused on the theme THIRTY YEARS OF COMPASSION, which
celebrated our thirty years of ministry, and we committed ourselves
during the year 2000 to giving away a million dollars to the community,
and I am happy to report that we exceeded that goal by some half million
dollars. This year’s church-wide focus, though, I think, will be an even
harder task to live out, this year is going to be a tougher road to take
because we are not celebrating our past, we aren’t looking back at what
we have done, at the map we laid out for ourselves during the past 30
years. This is the year that we acknowledge that our maps, the ways we’
ve always done things, are not doing to be any good in the new
millennium, that the maps of the last 30 years are useless at the
beginning of this new millennium. Of course, maps are always
IMMEDIATELY out of date, but especially now, in this fluid, technological
culture, where we have the access to the world through our keyboards.
The old maps now seem especially out of date, almost instantly out of
date.
There is a wonderful fictional conversation constructed by Newman Levy
between the Rand & McNally, the mapmakers, that really illustrates this
truth. It goes something like this:
“Time was when this business of ours was grand,” said Mr. McNally to Mr.
Rand,
“When our toughest job was to sit and think Shall France be purple and
Britain pink?”
“Remember those days,” McNally said,“ When we’d plan a map a month
ahead,
And we’d know, if it came out at noon, let’s say,It was up to date the
entire day?”
“Those days,” said Rand, “are gone totally,” “You said it, brother,” said
Mr. McNally.
That is the kind world where we live in, where the maps from the past don’
t depict the way the world is NOW, where we find out almost immediately
that the solutions we devised in the past for our problems and questions
don’t work anymore. The formulas from the past about how were going
to live our lives and the answers we’re given by our leaders, religious or
otherwise, just don’t work anymore. And if they are accepted, they are a
reaction, a backlash, really, to the fast changing pace of this world, with
all of its new questions and its distaste for formulaic answers. Historians
of religions have argued that the rise of religious fundamentalism around
the world, especially in the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish traditions, is a
direct reaction to the modern’s world distrust of nice, pat answers that
are expected to be accepted because they have been issued by our
once traditional religious leaders. For some, it just seems easier to
believe it because someone or something told them to believe it. The
problem with fundamentalism is that it asks us to throw out our intellects
and any real questions we might have in exchange for what is supposed
to be solid ground, a truth that is NOT TO BE QUESTIONED. Of course,
the reality is that real life keeps breaking through, erupting, almost like
volcanoes and earthquakes, in what was supposed to be solid ground—
and we walk away disappointed and betrayed by what we thought was so
solid.
So, what do we do, we people who are Christians, but who are rightfully
mistrustful of people telling us WHAT to believe and HOW to believe it.
We know that sometimes the old answers don’t fit reality—we are
gathered here, doing worship together, Christian refugees, because we
were burned one time too many by what people thought was the right
answer, an answer that we knew was a spiritual and emotional death for
us. And the question haunts us: if they lied to us about this issue, if they
are wrong about this issue, what else are they lying to us about, what
else are they wrong about? If they are wrong about this, what else are
they wrong about? How do we live now, we Christians, at the beginning
of the millennium, knowing that the old formulas don’t work, that we will
not accept an answer just because the preacher said it or just because
the text said it—the Christian church rejected that old formula—the Bible
said it, I believe it, that settles it—when we rejected what the Scriptures
said about the morality of owning another human being, slavery, and
about what it said about the place of women in church and community.
So, what do we do, when all the old formulas and answers fail us, when
those we trusted to give us answers that feel hollow and shallow? What
do we do when it feels as if we are no longer standing on steady ground,
when our legs feel wobbly because the earth keeps shaking and
erupting around us? What do we do when we realize that we are, in fact,
on a boat, rather on the solid land we thought we were once standing on,
when we realize that we are a people taking a journey out into an
uncharted sea? How do we get our sea legs, so to speak, when we
weren’t really trained or taught to stand on our two feet?
You know, ironically, we do it as we should as Christians, by going to the
story of Jesus, of listening to the text for yet more clues about what it
means to be disciples of this Jesus of Nazareth. The passage here is
about a young Jesusfound teaching in the temple, a story about a parent’
s panic about the whereabouts of their twelve-year old son. The
parents of Jesus have left Jerusalem, assuming that their young son was
with the mess of kids following the caravan back home to Nazareth. But
they panic when they realize he is not there and they run back to the
temple, only to find him among the traditional teachers at the temple,
giving and exchanging answers to their riddles and puzzles. You can
imagine the relief and anger in Mary’s voice as she confronts, scolds
really, her young son: “How could you do this to us? We’ve been worried
sick about you! You’ve really disappointed us.“ And the way he
responds seems almost disrespectful, if it wasn’t full of honesty over his
surprise about their worry over his safety. “Why did you look for me?
Didn’t it make sense that I would be in this place, the home of my
Father? Mom, this is home for me.” And I love what comes next: the
Scripture says, ”They did not understand what he meant.” They went
away not getting an easy answer, they walked away knowing that what
their child said something ridiculous…and yet, it didn’t feel ridiculous, it
felt right. And so “Mary treasured these things in her heart,” the deepest
part of her being, all these answers that didn’t fit the questions she was
asking. And so she stayed, she settled for being on a boat rather than
on solid land, knowing that the one who was guiding her—her Son, this
marvel in her own family—was the only thing she could count on in a
world that seemed so chaotic and map-less. Like all good navigators,
she looked to the stars, and for one particular star,the navigating star,
the North star, her son Jesus, the one she did not always understand,
but whom she knew would take her home, wherever that was supposed
to be. She was willing to begin a real odyssey of faith, one where she
sometimes lived with more questions than answers, wondering more
often than not about the path she was on, trusting that the star she was
following would take her to something solid.
The dictionary actually defines the word “odyssey” as “a long journey or
wandering, usually marked by many changes of fortune.” I love that—“a
long journey or wandering”…yes, that sounds like my life…”usually
marked by many changes of fortune”…yep, that’s me as well! I suspect,
I suspect, the word “odyssey” describes your life as well. And it certainly
describes Mary’s life, as she walked away with her son, his hand in her
hand, some two thousand years ago, that day she treasured in her heart
for a lifetime. The world is not so solid anymore—Mary came to know
that truth years earlier when she had this miracle of a son—the world is
not so solid anymore. But just because its not so solid, just because we
are like Mary, stuck with more questions than answers, doesn’t mean
that we don’t have a north star to guide us home, a Christ star, just like
the Magi had when they found Jesus.
Our theme for this year as the Cathedral of Hope, in a shameless rip-off
a movie you and I both know, is 2001: A Faith Odyssey. 2001: An
Odyssey of Faith—a journey, a wandering, a wondering, perhaps, with
many, many changes of fortune in the year 2001. Who we are—a
people of compassion, of inclusion, of liberation, of hope, a people who
navigate their lives by the only star that can set us on truly solid ground,
upon a rock whose foundation isn’t made up of clichés and formulas, a
people who follow the North star that is the Christ—who we are as a
people of Christian faith is going to be challenged this coming year. We
are going to set sail on a journey of faith with our childlike faith, a faith
like Mary’s, expecting to find some answers, but knowing that we will find
yet more questions—and realizing that those questions are just as
important as the answers we so desperately want in our odyssey of
faith. We’re going to set sail, not settling for any land that is less than
the rock that is Christ, not settling for pat answers that aren’t good
enough anymore, looking to the north star of Christ to take us on a
journey we were always, always meant to begin. Amen and amen.
