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July 5, 2009 Sermon

From the Margins (Hebrews 11: 1-3; 8-13; Matthew 10:40-42)

Rev. Sally Harris

Giver of Life and love this I pray:
for stillness to hear the song of Your Spirit.
For the wisdom to see the shape of Your vision.
For the courage to see from the margins so we may touch the depths of Your caring. Amen

This past week as the public expression of grief continued being broadcasted I remembered a book I read a few years back entitled The Company of Strangers. The author, Parker Palmer, a Quaker theologian is counting on the church to renew a sense of public life in a culture of brokenness and fragmentation. A culture where the images of individualism and autonomy are far more compelling than visions of unity. A culture where the fabric of relatedness seems dangerously threadbare and frayed. As our public experience dwindles, it is easy to regard 'the public' either as an empty abstraction or as an anonymous crowd that has no connection with our well-being. But while our privacy deepens and our distance from the public increases, as a society, we pay a terrible price. We lose our sense of relatedness to those strangers with whom we must share the earth. We lose our sense of comfort and at-homeness in the world. We lose the need as a government to be accountable to the least among us - the children and the elderly, the sick and the homeless. We lose the need as corporations to be responsible for the well being of our planet as life-destroying industrial wastes are poured into rivers and essentially poisonous products for profit alone are produced. We lose our call as church to be a faithful public witness to our experience of the divine with us and through us. For Palmer, the word 'public' contains a vision of our interdependence on one another. In public parks, public transit, public libraries, and public schools, we come together as strangers who agree to share common resources. We do not have to see eye to eye on everything. We do not even have to like each other. But in order for our public life to work, we do have to act with honor and respect each other's dignity as a human being, which is what we have in common.

And what does our story, our beliefs, our faith, our mission have to do with this so-called public life? Everything. Our story, our faith has to do with unity, inclusivity, with overcoming of brokenness and fragmentation, with an awareness of those on the margins. This does not come cheaply, quickly or easily. But if we dare to proclaim a vision of wholeness it means little if we do not act it out in the public realm. The key figure in public life is the stranger. The stranger is also a central figure in biblical stories of faith, and for good reason. Faith journeys, spiritual pilgrimages are always taking us into new lands where we are strange to others, and they are strange to us. Faith is a venture into the unknown; a path into the realms of mystery. The very idea of faith suggests a movement away from the known into the strange and uncertain. The very idea of strange or the stranger in our lives is grounded in the simple fact that truth is a very large matter and requires various angles of vision to be seen in the round. It is often the stranger that offers us an opportunity to look anew upon familiar things.

Disillusioned, Abraham and Sarah were told of the unprecedented promise child of their nineties by strangers (Gen. 18). Disillusioned disciples on the road to Emmaus were told of the unprecedented promise of resurrection by a stranger we now name Christ (Luke 24). In these stories the stranger is the bearer of truth. It is the role of the stranger as spiritual guide that reflects the God of our faith. It those on the margins of our lives, the stranger and the strange that often bring the promise of God. As Palmer writes:

It is no accident that this God is so often represented by the stranger, for the truth that God speaks in our lives, is very strange indeed.

Perhaps as a people living on the edge or standing with those who do, we can more clearly see the God who comes to us as a stranger. As our mission statement reads:

Our service to our neighbours seeks justice for the marginalized in our community and our world; and cares for the ecological well being of our neighborhood and planet.

It seems fitting that this week Trinity embarks on a new form of ministry – inviting the stranger into our midst to walk an ancient path of pilgrimage, with us – the labyrinth. For several years Trinity council has set aside a sum of money to purchase a labyrinth as an outreach to the neighborhood and as a spiritual practice for our own community. Through this past year the conversation continued and in the spring a labyrinth was ordered. It has arrived and space and time has been created to begin this ministry over the summer.

Labyrinths have an ancient history, occurring in many faith and cultural contexts and in many parts of the world. Unlike a maze there are no dead ends in a labyrinth, only a single path with turning points that moves from the margins and leads to and from the centre.

Walking the labyrinth can build community quickly even in a group of strangers. It offers an opening into a shared journey and it is a visible reminder that we are all on the same path, just at different places. One of the many gifts the labyrinth offers us is a place to practice being present to each other and to the stranger with prayer and pilgrimage as our public witness.

For it is in the company of strangers that our view of self, of world, of God is deepened and expanded. In the company of strangers we are given a chance to find ourselves. In the company of strangers, God finds us and offers us a cup of cold water, the gift of wholeness in the midst of our estranged lives. And so together let us publicly dedicate Trinity’s new ministry of walking our faith in the ancient spiritual practice of praying the labyrinth.

Unfolding of the labyrinth

We dedicate this labyrinth to Your glory, God, and to the spiritual wholeness of all who come.
BLESS THIS LABYRINTH AND ALL THOSE WHO WALK UPON IT
We pray that those who use this labyrinth will experience Your presence, O Christ.
BLESS THIS LABYRINTH AND ALL THOSE WHO WALK UPON IT
May the pilgrims who come to walk this ancient path find your wisdom, love and acceptance, O Holy Spirit
BLESS THIS LABYRINTH AND ALL THOSE WHO WALK UPON IT
We offer this labyrinth asking that the faith we walk upon this cloth may connect us with your presence throughout the world. AMEN

adapted from Jill Kimberly Hartwell Geoffreon’s book, Christian Prayer and Labyrinths

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