All the Way to Canaan

Sermon by The Rev. David R. Anderson

Genesis 12:1-9

 

 

 

In the Baptist church we used to sing the old Negro Spiritual, “I am bound for the Promised Land.” It went like this:

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand, And cast a wishful eye,
‘Tward Canaan’s fair and happy land, Where my possessions lie.
I am bound for the promised land, I am bound for the promised land.
            O who will come and go with me, I am bound for the promised land.

 Canaan, the “promised land” given to the ancient people of Israel some 4000 years ago has come to stand for heaven (we live next door to New Canaan). Canaan was the land “flowing with milk and honey,” where grew the Texas-sized sweet grapes of Eschol. And today’s reading from Genesis 12 is the Bible’s first mention of Canaan. God comes to Abraham and says, “Go from your country and your kindred and your fathers’ house to the land that I will show you.” God promises Abraham three things: land, seed and blessing. He’s going to inherit Canaan land; he’s going to be the father of a whole nation (seed); and he will be both blessed and, in turn, a blessing to “all the families of the earth.”

But first he has to go. He has to leave everything he knows for a place he does not yet know. He has to let go of his own ego-controlled version of happiness—the life he’s made for himself. And Abraham had a pretty sweet life—all those flocks and herds . . . .
And now you can see why Abraham is the father of three great world religions: because his journey is the archetype of all faith. He is the hero because he trusts God absolutely. Enough to let go. Enough to get up and actually go.

This is perhaps the world’s greatest religious story because it’s about going to Canaan. That is, it’s about going to heaven.
Do you want to go to heaven? (I hope you’re not embarrassed by that question.)  

I do. No, I don’t want to go to the place with streets of gold, pearly gates and crystal seas. But I want to go to some place better than this, better than this broken down world of pain and sorrow—most of it inflicted by one human being upon another; better than the best life I can manage to live on this side of eternity, hobbled as I am by willfulness, weakness and the dimness of my inner eye which I share with St. Paul, who said, “For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.” Yes, I want to go to Canaan. I want to go to heaven.

And if you do too, then we’re in luck. Because the story of Abraham tells us how to get there.  How? By obeying God’s call; by living the life God asks us to live right now. We don’t “get to heaven” by believing the right things or avoiding certain wrong things. And, most important of all, we don’t “get to heaven” by being good. In the Old Testament, God’s chosen ones—and in the New Testament, Jesus’ chosen ones are unfailingly sinful people who are no better, and often considerably worse than, those who are not in relationship with God! What puts them on the road to heaven is desire, a passion to live in relationship with the ultimate in life, the thing we name as God.
And the wisdom of this story is, heaven is both here and hereafter. That’s because heaven is nothing more and nothing less than living in fellowship and right relationship to the giver of life and blessing.
If we do what God asks of us, we are on the way to heaven. That’s why Abraham is a type of perfect obedience, because God says Go and he goes. And what he finds is an earthly paradise, Canaan—the “land flowing with milk and honey.” It’s a foretaste—not yet the fullness of God’s presence, but the closest he’s going to find in this life. His obedience to the will of God brought him to bliss, and yet he knew that in his shadowed, mortal nature he could never fully comprehend the height and depth, the breadth and majesty of God. That was bliss impending. That was the ultimate joy, the final beatitude.

More than being merely a plot of earth, beautiful though it was, Canaan was always a type of something greater and to come. It was a grant of eternal fulfillment that was not yet possible here on earth. But—and this is key—the way to find that ultimate Canaan was to obey God and set out for the earthly Canaan. Right here. Right now.
I love what Catherine of Sienna said, “All the way to heaven is heaven. We arrive as soon as we depart.”

What I love in this wisdom is Catherine’s insistence that the way is the destination, the journey matches the goal, the trip is its own reward. Because you and I have been given a set of Mapquest directions to heaven and they are wrong. The directions we have been given tell us that to find ultimate fulfillment, we have to sell our souls. But not to worry, we’re assured, not to worry—it’s only for the short-term. If we live selfish lives of getting and spending; if we sacrifice the most important relationships; if we worship work; if we tend obsessively to our bodies and material things, to the neglect of our everlasting souls, we (and the people we love) may suffer, we are told, but only in the short-term. All of that will pay off one day, and we will finally be happy—secure, and healthy and care-free. But for now we have to live in a little hell. We have to lead lives we call “crazy” and “insane” and “brutal.” It’s a little like that 70’s Steve Miller song “Big ‘ol Jet Airliner.” He sings, “You know you’ve got to go through hell before you get to heaven.”

I like the song of Catherine of Sienna better: “All the way to heaven is heaven.” But to sing that song we have to obey the voice of God, calling us to follow. We heard it again in the Gospel where Jesus walks up to Matthew’s tax-collecting booth and says, “Follow me.” And what does it say? “And he got up and followed him.” That’s an Abrahamic act; that’s a man on the road to Canaan. He doesn’t know where Jesus will lead him, and he’s scarcely considered all he is leaving behind at the office, but he’s going. He’ll know—right now!—the surpassing joy of serving someone and something greater than himself. And of course along the way he will fail miserably, as Matthew’s own gospel attests. But he’s like Abraham now. He’s had a foretaste. The milk and honey are on his palate.
Do you want to go to Canaan?