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July 6, 2008 sermon

Led by the Right Way
(Genesis 24: 42-48a; Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30)

Reverend Minister Sally Harris

Giver of Life and love this I pray:
for stillness to hear the song of Your Spirit.
For vision to see the shape of Your dreaming.
For wisdom to touch the depths of Your creating.
For courage to take the paths our souls have always known. Amen

We have recently journeyed with Abraham and Sarah and discovered faith through their decision to live the promise even when the promise seemed in question and at risk. Through the church year we journey along side a motley crew of would be followers as Jesus educates and entrusts them with the call of discipleship. Following in the footsteps of these biblical spiritual giants seems an almost impossible task. No doubt we have all felt at one time or another that we can never measure up to such a story. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise to suddenly hear a story, not of the famed Abraham and Sarah and their superior spiritual skillfulness but of their servant journeying from a strange land, entrusted with a precious and pressing commission. It comes as a surprise to suddenly hear this text that summons us to a discipleship that is easy and to a burden that is light. What happened? What are we to believe? Which is it - costly or comfortable? What is the right way? How will we be led?

A stranger comes to a spring. A stranger that is a servant entrusted with a delicate and urgent commission to find a wife for the precious son of a blessed and elderly couple. This servant stranger has been on a long journey - a journey surrounded in prayer, a prayerful journey. Unlike previous faith stories this narrative has no spiritual giants, no major action, not even intense intrigue. It is a story where a servant speaking from the heart places the precious and pressing commission in God's hand. This strange servant prays for a sign. Not the usual praying-for-a-sign prayer - like a sign for strengthening one's faith. No, this servant prays instead for the knowledge of God's way. This trustworthy assistant to the spiritual giants of our faith story prays that the young woman of God's choosing will merely be shown by the readiness with which she complies with the request for water, for the servant and for the camels. This is not the usual 'sign' of ancient, sacred piety. This was no major miracle of the impossible. In antiquity this sign was considered a minor miracle of nature not a miracle of the God of Abraham and Sarah. Yet if we listen closely there is an intimate connection between the sign and the seriousness of the commission. Truly the servant subjects the women at the well to a very calculating test in which the right woman will show a readiness to help, kindness of heart, and an understanding of animals. Further, the sign requested is no longer on the plane of externally material miracles. Here childlike trust in God is combined with worldly-wise calculation. Here the miracle, the sign takes place quietly, gently and humbly. In this story, the guidance of God is found not in the external world of action and events but rather it is in the inner realm of the human heart that God works, mysteriously directing and removing resistance. Here is a very different expression of faith - it is not about great action but about great heart.

Could this be what Jesus' prayer of thanksgiving meant in Matthew 11? In these verses we read of Jesus thanking God for revealing the wisdom of the ages not to the major players of the world, not even to the major characters of our faith story but to the minor ones, the childlike ones. To the ones open to the strange and mysterious ways God's presence is revealed. To those who could see God's presence in the strangeness of John the Baptist who came as a sober figure, a teetotaler who ate a strange diet and was labeled demon possessed. To those who could also see God's presence in the strangeness of Jesus who came in the opposite way as a gregarious character, eating and drinking with all sorts of people and was labeled a glutton and a drunkard. Jesus gave thanks not for the spiritual giants or the ones who risked most, not the ones with the highest IQ, the best skill sets, the most faith or the privileged education. No Jesus gave thanks that the divine preference for revelation was those with childlike wonder. Those aware that God cannot be boxed, packaged and predicted. Those becoming aware that God does not withhold; that indeed it may be us who are not be-holding. That perhaps the adventure of faith is more like a treasure hunt than building spiritual muscle. It is the joy of becoming aware of life and its mysteries - becoming spiritually attuned – led by the right way.

Someone once observed that 'half of us are blind, few of us feel, and we are all deaf.' Awareness is seeing buildings and teapots and not just thinking 'shelter' and 'drink' but form and shape and beauty and curvature. It is hearing a sparrow sing and identifying one's own voice in the song of nature. It is seeing the strangeness of John the Baptist and not thinking weird, crazy person but messenger of God. It is seeing the strangeness of Jesus and not thinking glutton and drunkard but the very breath of God's presence. It is watching a woman draw water for a stranger and see the greatness of heart that will birth the on-going promise of God.

In these simple stories of those who follow their simple understanding of God we find the great movement of prayer. The servant prayed. Jesus prayed. Their prayers were not merely the words they spoke but the way they journeyed through life. Each lived from the heart. Each lived in connection with the creator. They were aware that praying was not about saying prayers, but about living life in the context of mystery and revelation – led on a constant treasure hunt – an amazing race, if you will, filled with amazing grace. They knew that living this way, praying on the way, hunting for spiritual treasure, changes one, opens one to receive the unpredictable and impossible. Prayer was not about the perfect combination of letters and words. No their way of praying moved beyond words to the power of heart and soul. They prayed in the way they responded to the delicate and urgent commissions of life. In the way they responded to the very breath of life. Prayer for Abraham and Sarah' servant was not about talking to God. Prayer for Jesus was not about talking to God. No, prayer for the servant and for Jesus was about the presence of God in whom they lived and moved and had their being. And Jesus invites us to be a part of this presence.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Jesus invitation to an easy yoke and light burden is an invitation to live in the presence of God. It is hunting for the treasure that is all around us. The yoke of God's law is simple and easy to wear - it is about loving oneself, one's neighbor and one's God. It requires one to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with one's God. In this way one's soul finds rest. By this way one finds one's true self. Here is abundant life. A life lived not according to external demands of rules and regulations but a life lived according to the One who is gentle and humble in heart.

Led by the right way is not a call to the external world of grand action but to the inner realm of heart and soul where true treasure is found… Wow… how would I live differently if I really believed it was not all up to me, not all up to us… that to be led in the right way is to be resting in the presence that is all around us. As the poet Walt Whitman wrote:

For I too have forgotten
(Wrapt in these little potencies of progress, politics, culture, wealth, inventions, civilization),
Have lost my recognition of your
Silent ever-swaying power,
Ye mighty, elemental throes,
In which and upon which we float,
And every one of us is buoy'd

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