Creekside Church Sermon of September 17, 2000 "Summons to Pilgrimage " Mark 8:28-39	Rev. David Bibbee
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But one day the actions of a well-intentioned person brought unexpected results. Someone thought it would be a good idea to feed the ducks...give them just enough to help them make it to their destination. So early every morning, supplied with several bags of seed, a woman fed the ducks. The ducks had a summit meeting at which by unanimous consent they voted that they liked the lady and wanted her to keep feeding them. More ducks arrived which required buying more food. Never in their migrations had the ducks encountered a situation like this. Finding food was so easy they went against their instincts and decided to stay put. But as the days passed, the temperatures dropped. Some of the ducks became entrapped by ice and were killed by wild animals. A kind gesture had yielded unintended results. Shotguns were the only solution. Their crack echoed through the valley, but not as the ducks were being killed. In an effort to save the ducks, the shotgun fire was intended to scare them back into their migratory route. Caught between the impulse to migrate and an easy meal, the birds stayed put. They nearly denied their destiny.

The same thing can happen to us. Once we have attained a certain comfort level, we want to put a picket fence around it, and stay there. We earn a degree and flippantly think that the life of studying is behind us. There are people who push the edge of intellectual pursuit, but leave the spiritual dimension of themselves back in kindergarten where they continue to pray, "Now I lay me down to sleep..." No wonder someone said the chief goal of life and faith is to keep it out of the stopping places.

People get in trouble in their marriages if their relationships don't mature beyond the initial stage of physical attraction and romance. Something far deeper is required if they are going to make it through the pressures of marriage together. We get in trouble with racism when we stop at the point of stereotyped understandings which blind us to the good in others. People get into trouble when they stop at the point of hating, refusing to let bitter memories die. We have seen this after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. No longer under the influence of Communism, ethnic groups have returned to where they had stopped. Serbs and Albanians have returned to hating one another and inflicting unspeakable acts of violence against each other. War is an ever present threat because nations stop at military solutions, and do not spend a fraction of that which is spent on the military for creative diplomacy and just solutions to bring about peace.

One of our great needs is to stay out of stopping places and instead heed Jesus' summons to pilgrimage. If someone had kept a calendar of the last three years of Jesus' life, they would make an immediate observation. He was in a hurry. He never stayed long in any one place. He would stop along the way to minister to peoples' needs, but he didn't tarry. He was on a mission...to announce the new way of life God had made possible through him. He had a destination...the cross. The two things Jesus wanted the disciples to learn was who he was and where he was going. Mark's gospel feels like it is written with a compelling sense of urgency. Jesus has so much to say and do, and he has so little time to do. Seventeen times Mark uses the word "immediately" to underscore the importance of Jesus' mission. "Immediately the spirit drove him into the wilderness." "Immediately his fame spread." "He touched the little girl and immediately the fever left her."

In the first chapter of Mark, Jesus walks along the shoreline and sees Peter and Andrew fishing. "Follow me," he says to them. "Immediately" they dropped their nets and followed him. Jesus showed up afterward down at Fisherman's Wharf where he found James and John mending their nets. "Immediately" Jesus called them, and they left their nets, their boat, and their father to follow him. They didn't ask where they were going. They didn't say, "First let us go home and put our papers in order and kiss the wife and kids goodbye."

For the disciples it was a learn-as-you-go process. They weren't the brightest of men. They were usually two steps behind and always wondering what Jesus was talking about. Gradually they got it though, like when Peter told Jesus, "You are the Christ!" Then he blew it when he told Jesus he wouldn't have to suffer and die. There was no holding Jesus back. There was no stopping place for him, even at the tomb. On Easter Sunday the women heard a man dressed in white say, "If you're looking for Jesus, you've come to the wrong place. He's not here. He has work to do in Galilee. I suggest you follow him there."

The simplest definition of disciple, it is "a follower". "Take up your cross and follow me," Jesus said. In Luke's gospel he writes, "Take up your cross daily and follow me." Every day we begin again. Every day we must decide to follow where he takes us, or stay put.

In the next moments I want to lift up what is implied in following the summons of Jesus. The first thing has to do with the reason we stay in stopping places. Often times the task of being a Christian feels overwhelming and seems impossible. I recall the story of Colonel Richard Lockhart who accompanied Admiral Byrd on his last expedition to Antarctica. Like many seamen, Lockhart was fiercely independent, rough around the edges and not much interested in God. What did interest him was the excitement of sailing the frigid, uncharted waters of Antarctica.

"Suddenly," Lockhart wrote, "a twelve-hundred foot wall of ice which extended far as we could see was before us." Everyone came up on deck to behold the awesome sight which dwarfed the ship. The chaplain softly began to sing 'Amazing Grace', and the crew joined in, kneeling, one by one. But not Lockhart. He wrote, "I remained standing until the third verse, then I too kneeled down and met Christ." Do you remember the third verse? "Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come. 'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home."

We won't encounter walls of ice, but rest assured, we will hit walls in our lifetimes. If you follow Jesus, you will likely encounter even more. We can choose not to go on with him out of fear, or we can follow him and remember that the one who bids us to follow will not withhold the strength we need for our journey through life.

A second aspect of our pilgrimage through life is this...it is not about following a doctrine. It is not emulating a fine example. It is not even abiding by Christ's teachings, even though these things are all aspects of being a Christian. If all Christianity amounts to is a teaching or example, there are teachings far more logical than Christianity. You can't follow a doctrine. You can't follow beliefs or teachings. You can't follow an example, fine though it may be. You can only follow a person. A Christian disciple is one who has a personal relationship with Christ...not as an historical person alone, but as a living presence.

In a marriage service I do not ask the couple, "Do you love each other?" "Do you" has to do with right now. "Do you" is subject to the feelings of the moment. The question I ask instead is, "Will you love each other?" "Will you" love each other not just now, but when you're loveable and when you're not, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health? Will you promise not to stay stuck and never grow beyond a certain level of intimacy in your marriage? Giving your life to another is serious business. Promises aren't necessary unless we are taking on something bigger than ourselves. We don't know where our marriage will lead us, nor do we know where following Jesus will take us, but since we are in a relationship, we can trust the process to him.

This brings us to the third aspect of our summons to pilgrimage with Jesus, and it has to do with trust. One of the most frequently asked questions by new and seasoned Christians alike is, "How do I know when I am following Christ's will for my life?" This is an involved question. Sometimes we can only know in retrospect, in looking back over the events of our lives. Sometimes we can know it by testing by the standard of scripture. Sometimes we can know that will by testing the question with our brothers and sisters in the Church. We may "think" we are following Jesus, but maybe we are not really. This is where trust enters the picture.

I was moved by the story of a father who, upon learning he had a terminal illness, wrote a series of twelve letters to his 9-year-old son. The executor of the father's estate hand-delivered a letter on his son's birthday until he was 21. The father anticipated many of the challenges and the passages his son would encounter. There was sage wisdom in his words. Here is the last letter delivered on his son's 21st birthday:

Dear Troy,

They say today is the day you become a man, but I've got a hunch that happened a long time ago. You always had an independent streak and I'm sure my absence caused you to shoulder responsibility a bit faster than most guys your age.

This is the last letter I am writing. Not because I don't care what happens from here on, but because I trust it. Oh, I'm sure there will be times of confusion, disappointment, pain, maybe even disaster. Managing such challenges is a key to life. Some people never recover. Others figure out how to take something meaningful from every experience and keep on growing. I'm sure you will know which kind I pray you will be.

As I reflect on my 36 years of life I see there were three things that shaped the way I lived:

(1) The inner dimension of truth is much more important than the outer dimension; what you know to be the fact about your motives, and intent means a lot more than public perception.

(2) There is no substitute for dignity anchored in self-respect.

3) Trust God's plan and give yourself to it.

I never talked to you very much about my faith but I want you to know now that along with your Mom's love and yours, it is what held me together during these last days. Recently I've been thinking a lot about the Holy Spirit. Our pastor says, "The Holy Spirit is like the wind. It is always with us, no matter what we are doing." I believe that and hope you will discover early what it took me more than 35 years to perceive. "If we hoist our sails in trust, God will take us where we are intended to be."

I love you, Son. I was always proud of you and I am sure I would be today as well. Happy birthday...Man!

With all my love,

Dad

"If we hoist out sails in trust, God will take us where we are intended to be." Isn't that beautiful? Sometimes we know where we're going, but if our desire is to follow Jesus; if we try day by day to deny ourselves and take up our cross, if we desire to follow Christ, that desire, Thomas Merton says, "will in fact please him." This is what I mean by trust. We trust that when we are faithful to him, he is ever more faithful to us. It's not about following a doctrine or belief. It is about handing ourselves over to a person to whom we can entrust everything.

In Franco Zefferelli's film "Jesus of Nazareth", there is a scene near the end when the chief priest Caiaphus and another temple official examine the empty tomb. Staring at that space which held nothing of his presence save his burial clothes, the official says to Caiaphus, "It's all over." Then Caiaphus answers, "No...it's just beginning." It was reminiscent of the words spoken to the women that morning. "Who are you looking for? If it's Jesus you're after, you just missed him. He's gone ahead of you. Follow him and you will find him."

Those words are our words as well. The pilgrimage to which we are summoned is not an easy one. It is not always exciting. Nor is the way always clear, nor are our fellow travelers always an agreeable bunch. But with the desire to follow him, we can.

In simple trust like their's who heard, beside the Syrian sea, the gracious calling of the Lord, let us, like them without a word rise up and follow thee.

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