August 18, 2013
Following in the Footsteps
- Hebrews 11:29-12:2
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
First of all I would like to thank all of you for the opportunity of a sabbatical this spring and summer. The fourteen weeks I was away were very meaningful and life changing for me, and I appreciate your support and encouragement of the clergy renewal program from the Lilly Endowment. (I am also grateful to the Lilly Endowment for funding the sabbatical – very grateful!)
When I go on a trip, or try something new, I ask myself, “What did I learn?” When 20 people from Northminster visited Kenya in July they asked themselves, “Where did I see the presence of God?” When you get time away from your workplace and you journey to new places you learn a lot about yourself, and you learn a lot about God.
When you get a chance to go away for a while the first thing you notice is that you receive the gift of time - and time was perhaps the greatest gift I received during my sabbatical. Because when you are given time to do something special you pay attention to it. You savor it. And you have time to appreciate it. And when you take the time and open your eyes and your heart, God is usually right there in front of you – in the scenery, in the people and for me in the history of Celtic Christianity.
I’m not going to bore you with travel stories – you can hear about those at the luncheon after worship today. But I do want to let you know that God has a great sense of humor. One of the goals of my sabbatical time was to be around water as much as possible. Water refreshes my soul. It is around water that I feel the closest to God. And I was around water for as much of my sabbatical as possible. The only problem is that a lot of the water was in the form of rain, sleet or snow. We actually saw brand new snow in the mountains around the Lake District of England in the middle of May. It rained just about every day I was in Ireland, Scotland and England. But that’s ok – that’s what I asked for – and even the cold wet rain of Ireland was life giving and refreshing.
JC talked about faith last week, and our passage from Hebrews this morning continues the same theme. It is by faith that the people passed through the Red Sea. It is by faith that the walls of Jericho fall down. It is by faith that Rahab is obedient and it is by faith that the others who are named conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, and shut the mouths of lions. Each person and event mentioned minimizes entire stories from the Old Testament into neat sound bites about faith. The Hebrew passage describes martyrs for the faith and their horrible torture, flogging, stoning and murder. It is not a pretty picture. But these “people are the great crowd of witnesses” – the courageous and faithful ancestors of our faith.
I got to learn about a new “cloud of witnesses” when I studied Celtic Spirituality in Northern Ireland. And what is interesting is that most of them can be described just like the heroes and heroines of our biblical past. Because just like the faith ancestors mentioned in Hebrews, “they wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.” (vs. 38) Amid all the bravery and gore of the earlier verses, and before the triumph of Jesus still to come, this description is just a small interlude – but two large ideas are buried in this verse. First, the faithful are “wanderers,” and second, the places where they do their wandering are wild. While these places aren’t named as specific destinations in and of themselves, mentioning them does send a message to those of us whose feet usually touch only concrete and linoleum – those of us whose feet stay in our comfy homes, our beautiful churches and our familiar neighborhoods. Following in the footsteps of our spiritual ancestors requires us to leave the familiar and the comfortable and step out in faith. I had the opportunity to do some of that during my sabbatical time, but all of us need to be encouraged to make journeys into the “new” and the “unknown” occasionally.
I spent about a week of my time in the Northern Ireland town of Armagh. It’s about 40 miles south of Belfast. It was in Armagh that I studied with an Anglican priest at the Centre for Celtic Spirituality. We spent 5 days together talking about ancient Celtic Christianity and how we can apply their way of living as Christians to our own spiritual life.
Going out on pilgrimage, (which is what my sabbatical was in many ways) is one of the most important features of Celtic Christianity. Leaving behind the familiar and going to new places and trying new things is a part of what is involved in pilgrimage. The Celts didn’t go on a journey to discover themselves or to discover God – they knew God and they knew themselves pretty well. What they were doing was traveling to new places and meeting new people to share the gospel with people who had never heard of Jesus Christ. It’s hard for us today to fully appreciate what it must have been like for these ancient Celtic people who left behind their homes and families for the sake of the gospel – but that’s what a majority of them did. For a people who had a very strong sense of place and family connections, to go out on pilgrimage – to “wander in the deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground” was a very costly form of discipleship. These early Christians went out into unmapped and unknown worlds that held all sorts of dangers to share the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ.
Now of course I really didn’t do that kind of pilgrimage. First of all I stayed in nice Bed and Breakfast facilities – although the priory where I stayed with the monks was a bit like living in a cave and I swear our walking tour was really mountain climbing! But the challenge of pilgrimage as the early church in Ireland practiced it is a powerful source of inspiration for our contemporary spiritual journey. This is because it calls us to recollect and rediscover a central practice of the Christian faith which has been largely sidelined as the church has become a more settled and organized institution with its structures and buildings. The practice of pilgrimage calls us to reconnect with a more nomadic spirituality – the sort of spirituality that is willing to leave the safety zone of familiarity, and to go out on a journey of spiritual discovery – open to where God wants to guide us. This is a journey in the spirit of the Celtic communion of saints like Columba who started the Christian community of Iona in Scotland, or Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland, or Abraham who the bible says, “set out not knowing where he was going.” The call to nomadic Christianity is a call to openness, flexibility, a perpetual faith and an ultimate trust in the God of the Exodus and of new beginnings.
And when you go on a pilgrimage you get to see thin places. We’ve talked about thin places before – where the veil between heaven and earth is thin. It is in thin places that the presence of God is so strong that there is very little separation between this world and the world of the Spirit. The places we went to in Ireland, my travels to the Isle of Iona in Scotland, even climbing the snowy mountains in England became thin places for me – places and experiences and time – for my relationship with God.
In setting out on pilgrimage today we may not face the same physical hazards as the ancient Celtic Christians, but there is still the opportunity for an inward journey offered by a shift in perspective which pilgrimage brings. By having the courage to leave familiar surroundings, people and routines, we provide opportunities for encountering new understanding, experiences and insights. My new understanding of ancient Celtic Christianity continues to encourage me to look for the presence of God in my life – all the time and in every place – not just when I am on a mountain in England or by the Irish Sea. I have begun a morning practice of prayer and reading the Psalms so I can center myself in God and continue to be aware that God is a part of everything I do and everything I am. Because of my own pilgrimage I now understand and believe that it is in God that “we live and move and have our being.” (Sean O’Duinn)
But I have to be realistic too. As soon as Pastor Teri went on vacation last week, I felt the familiar work tensions begin. Within a week I felt like maybe my sabbatical was just a dream. It is so much easier to feel God’s presence on a mountain, or walking along the coast line, or sitting by the waves in North Carolina. This is why faith also needs perseverance. We need to have it to keep our faith going over the long haul.
Hebrews tells us that in this distance race we call life, we are to lay aside every weight - because no one would try to run a race carrying extra weight would they? Somehow we have to keep the faith when life weighs us down. Our weights are different – unemployment or underemployment, depression, illness, grief, anxiety, a strained relationship, and it’s difficult to run the race of faith with perseverance. We need a faith that sustains us. We need a faith that doesn’t fade away in the middle of the race.
So what do we do? Well you can go on a sabbatical like I did, but unfortunately most people don’t get that gift of time and place. So I appreciate this Hebrews passage that assures us that we don’t have to run the race on our own power. What has always helped God’s people deal with discouragement or setbacks is the knowledge that we are not alone. We follow in the footsteps of people from the earliest biblical times who were unsure of what the future held for them. We follow in the footsteps of saints who along the way chose to trust God anyway. Saints that traveled to remote places in Ireland and Scotland, and saints that traveled to little villages in Kenya. Saints from the biblical witness of the Old Testament and saints who started this church years ago. Saints that made banners and saints who sang in the choir for forty years. Saints like our parents and grandparents and teachers who told us about a God who does not abandon us in times of trouble. And then, when we follow in the footsteps of our ancestors by staying focused on Jesus Christ, we’re able to see the joy in life despite the obstacles. Many biblical saints who are commended for their faith did not receive what was promised. But their example for us is not in the receiving but in the persevering. It is because we are part of a long lineage of faithful people – a cloud of witnesses – that we can dare to move forward. Stepping out in faith was a challenge 2000 years ago and it’s just as much a challenge for us today.
So what did I learn from my sabbatical? Well I learned that I need to be more intentional about looking for the presence of God in my life. I learned I need to take the time to pray and be in the presence of God. My faith journey will not just take care of itself, I need to make it happen. Most of us are not the recipients of a sabbatical where we literally and figuratively get to have mountain top experiences of the presence of God and the magnificence of God’s creation. And most of us are not the recipients of sudden blinding flashes of spiritual light which change our lives forever, and signal that no further effort is required on our part. We are often very reluctant to accept that faith involves taking risks, and that we need to be prepared to follow detours and false trails as we seek out the right way. The example of our Celtic Christian forebears, our biblical heroes and heroines, and the saints of this church and in our lives can surely help us to keep on going – to persevere to finish the race set before us. When we follow in the footsteps of the great cloud of witnesses we are reminded that in this life at least, the journey is never quite over.
Christians are called people of the way – the way of Christ, the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the end of our spiritual journeys. Like Christ we are called to leave the comfortable and the familiar and to journey like the saints toward the joy that is set before us. May you have the chance to run your life’s race in new and different ways – even in deserts, mountains, caves and holes in the ground – as you discover again and again the presence of God all around you and in the people who help you keep the faith. May it be so. Amen
Resources
The Celtic Way by Ian Bradley
Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3
Sacred Living by Grace Clunie
Seasons of the Spirit, August 18, 2013, Cloud of Witnesses
Sermons.com, Running with Perseverance by Charles Aaron Jr.