Are you sitting in the Harbor?

Sermon by The Rev. Lynda Z. Tyson

Exodus 19:2-8a
Matthew 9:35-10:8

 

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what a ship is for.”  Those are the words of  Thomas Aquinas.  “A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what a ship is for.”  We are ships, you and I, vessels for carrying the word of God’s love to God’s beloved people – the love personified in Jesus, God’s Son.

In this early part of the season after Pentecost, the recurring theme running through our scripture readings is God’s call…and humanity’s response.  Last week our lesson from Genesis began, “The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.’ (Gen. 12.1)”  In other words, leave your harbor, Abram – leave everything you know – your village, your friends, neighbors, cousins, the house where you were raised…leave behind your comfort zone, Abram…trust in me, God, to lead you out of what you know to a land that you know not, a land that I will show you.  And, if you trust me enough to do this, if you have faith in me, Abram, I will bless you.  [P]  Lo and behold…Abram goes.

We fast forward some 250 years to today’s reading from Exodus and we see… God’s promise to make Abraham a great nation starting to be fulfilled.  The young nation, Israel, has joined with their leader, Moses, in a caravan out the land of mitzryim – Egypt, and into the Sinai wilderness.

Fast forward another 1200 years, give or take, to the first century, and Jesus of Nazareth is living, and working, and teaching among what has now grown into a recognizable faith community – even the oppressive Roman authorities recognize the Hebrew people as a segment of the populace who have set themselves apart.  The 1st century Hebrew people are not a unified happy lot, they are not without their internal factions.  Jesus looks out at the struggling masses and sees them (as Matthew tells us), “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”  The Hebrew leadership of the day is more concerned with matters legal than with matters spiritual.  So Jesus, Lord of the harvest, sends out the disciples as laborers into his harvest, to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  Having already persuaded the 12 to leave behind their former lives – jobs, families, hometowns – now he is sending them out (in his words) “like sheep into the midst of wolves.”  And, they go. 

It takes a certain amount of faith to respond when God calls.  It takes a certain amount of courage.  And, it also takes a certain amount of ignorance.  Look at the nation of Israel in today’s reading.  They are so thrilled to follow their rescuer, Moses, out of bondage and into the desert; the desert, where (surprise)they will be hot, and homeless, and hungry and thirsty, and exhausted, where they will wander for decades.  Into the desert they go where in short order they will be accusing Moses of trying to kill them rather than rescue them.  Sometimes our ignorance protects us from the whole truth that, if we knew it all in advance, would sap us of the courage to answer God’s call.  The nation of Israel will soon make it clear to Moses she would have stayed in Egypt had she only known…

How many times have some of us said just that: “If only I had known, I never would have______…fill in the blank.  A somewhat cynical priest friend of mine says that if couples on the verge of marriage really understood what they are promising, they’d never go through with it – same idea, like the old saw, “ignorance is bliss.”
The famous author Theodor Geisel, a.k.a., Dr. Seuss, wrote a book just before he died called, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!   The central character in the illustrations is a little boy who I suspect could very well be the young Theodor Geisel reflecting back on his own amazing life-journey, near the end of his own life.  It’s a journey that starts out with the great excitement of being out in the world, and then… excitement meets reality.  Seuss writes:

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.  Some windows are lighted.  But mostly they’re darked.  A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!  Do you dare to stay out?  Do you dare to go in?  How much can you lose?  How much can you win?

And if  you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters?  Or, maybe, not quite?  Or go around back and sneak in from behind?  Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker upper to make up his mind.

“I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you…There are some things down the road between hither and yon, that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.  But on you will go though the weather be foul.  On you will go though your enemies prowl…Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak…

Oh, the Places We will Go – If we go – if we are willing to leave our safe harbors.   Each of us hears God’s call in a unique way, and few of us model Abraham’s immediate and unquestioning surrender.  Most of us are a lot more like Moses, who (earlier on in the Exodus story) argues with God, “‘O my Lord, please send someone else (Ex. 4.13).’”  Moses tells God he couldn’t possibly face Pharaoh because he just wouldn’t be able to come up with the right words to convince Pharaoh to release the Hebrew people.  God says, ‘No, you don’t understand, Moses, I will give you the words.’  Moses continues to resist, God gets really ticked off, and finally says, ‘Alright Moses, where is that brother of yours, Aaron?  Take him with you and I will give him the words and he will give you the words.’  As in, God knows sometimes we are more willing to trust flesh and blood than we are willing to put our faith in God.

Thanks to the magic of video-streaming over the Internet, I was able to watch parts of the Yale Divinity School graduation on Memorial Day without driving to New Haven.  And there they were, right on my computer screen, three STL sisters, receiving hard earned Masters Degrees: Hospital Chaplain Judy Holding, The Rev. Susan Wyper, now priest at St. Matthews, Bedford…and The Rev. Dawn Stegelmann, brand spanking new Transitional Deacon, as of yesterday’s glorious ordination at the cathedral in Hartford.
I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to serve at this altar today with Judy, and Dawn.  We wish Susan could also have joined us here this morning, but she is preaching at St. Matthew’s.  The four of us share some powerful faith-journey history, having stood together at many of those uncertain seminary intersections “where the streets [were] not marked” and the windows [were] “darked,” and together we counted on and received the gift of God’s grace that shored up our courage and pointed the way.  Two of the biggest questions were always, “How do we know when it’s God calling?” and “What is God really asking of us?”

In a recent sermon, our Presiding Bishop, Katharine reminded listeners, “Jesus disappears into heaven and leaves his friends to get to work.  In a very real sense,” she said, “[the disciples] never would have gotten busy if [Jesus] had stuck around.  When he was no longer there fishing them out of the lake, or correcting their thick-headedness, they had to start learning how to be God’s body in the world.”  And according to Bishop Katharine, “[We are all] in the same predicament…”

Judy, Susan, and Dawn heard and responded to God’s call to their respective lay and ordained vocations as leaders.  It’s not the kind of call everyone experiences.  In that same sermon, Bishop Katharine said, “Sharing the Good News doesn’t mean standing on a soapbox in the middle of Wal-Mart.  It means using the gifts we’ve been given to the best ends possible.  Whether it’s teaching someone to read, or making glorious music, or healing an animal, or holding the hand of someone who’s dying… Look around…at your neighbors; see God’s beloved sitting there…see God’s beloved in the mirror.  And then go out in the world and make that real to all the rest of God’s beloveds.”

If we don’t allow ourselves to be called out of our comfort zones, if we don’t leave the harbor, we will miss out on some of the best God has to offer.  Some of God’s greatest blessings are our greatest challenges – the bumps in the road that force us to stretch, and grow, and learn – the dark times, the scary experiences, the places we would choose never to go.

After Dr. Seuss cautions his young character about life’s pitfalls he reassures: “And will you succeed? Yes! You will indeed (98 and ¾% guaranteed.) KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!”
We are called, every one of us, to be Christ’s hands in this troubled world, called to bag the comfortable, and go.  And the Good News of the kingdom of God revealed in Christ is that we don’t go alone, whether we go to Malawi, to Honduras, to Lewiston, Maine, to Navaholand, to the ravaged Gulf Coast; or to St. John’s Bridgeport to serve lunch, to cook dinner and take it to St. Luke’s Lifeworks in Stamford to share, to take a regular volunteer shift at Person-to-Person, to spend part of an afternoon with a friend who is lonely, or some of the other wonderful opportunities for ministry listed in today’s service bulletin wrapper…please take it home with you…and think about ways God may be calling you to use the gifts God has given you.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what a ship is for.”  If we answer God’s call to use our gifts, Oh, the Places We’ll Go!  Otherwise, we’re just sitting in the harbor.  Where would you rather be?