The Weekly Fare . . . December 30, 2004

This week's column is a bit different than normal. I was asked to lead worship and preach a sermon on December 26th at Rocky Mount Presbyterian Church (in Rocky Mount if you can imagine that) and several people have told me that "they wish they could have been there." So being just gullible enough to believe them (and just lazy enough to beg off writing a new column between Christmas and New Years), I have decided to offer it here. You don't have to read the scripture listed to get the complete gist of what I'm trying to say, but if you haven't done so in a while, I encourage you to dust off that big black foreboding book and give it a go . . .

Happy New Year All!

May God bless all of your "First Steps" in 2005.

First Steps
12/26/04
Old Testament Reading: Psalm 148
New Testament Reading: Mathew 2: 13-23

We are told that taking those "first steps" are the hard ones! The ones that cause all the consternation and anguish - like babies who hold on so tenaciously to the coffee table, we often don't want to let go unless we have a very good reason . . .

Who knows what prompts us to first let go as children - maybe it's that ball on the other side of the room - or maybe its just the prospect of being able to better move through our world, upright like everyone else, but at some point our desires outweigh our fears and letting go of the security of the table behind us, and trusting something entirely beyond our abilities to comprehend, we step out . . .

Now if my extended family were here, they'd all be chuckling at my analogy - because you see, I was not an early walker . . . In fact, I didn't take my first steps, according to the entry in my "baby book" until I was 18 months old. My siblings used to have great fun with this fact whenever I took longer than expected to do any particular thing. I recall my sister Anne advising my future wife that, "You know, it took Stuart over eighteen months to walk . . . It may well take him eighteen years to propose . . ." (It only took five!)

But my dear mother has always taken up for me - explaining that I was far and above the easiest of her four children . . . And I guess I was - laying around all day on the floor like that . . .

But actually, I think I discovered the real reason for my less than rapid progress while looking at some old baby pictures several years ago. It seems that being the number three child coming just 23 months after two other boys who were only 15 months apart, that I was the first one to be placed in what was fondly known at the time as a "play-pen."

Now you don't see many "play pens" these days, because if someone were to use one in public, then the next knock on their door would probably be from Social Services - because all a "play pen" really is, is a cage! Now mine wasn't metal . . . Actually it looked to be made of mostly nylon mesh, but the principle was the same - keep the child contained! And it did so nicely in about a 3 foot by 3 foot space. Which begs the question . . . Where was I going to walk TO?

There - I feel better having explained all that. But perhaps the real point to remember here is that "perceived benefit" often has a lot to do with our willingness to step out and take those "first steps" in life.

But should it? Are such perceptions all we should rely on?

It is clear in our New Testament scripture reading this morning that Joseph must have perceived some significant benefit as he responded to God's call and he and Mary took their "first steps" as a family. Not only has Joseph witnessed first hand the miracle of the child's birth as Mary had said it would be, shining star and all, but he has also been informed in a dream - a whisper from the wings I would call it - that he and Mary and the baby should travel into Egypt to avoid the certain wrath of King Herod who is taking very seriously the notion that "another king" has been born.

It is easy to surmise that with Joseph's first hand experience of God and with a healthy dose of fear to motivate him, that taking those first steps came rather easy. But who's to say? Would Herod really seek a child born to a lowly teenage couple in a barn? Would the "great and powerful king" really perceive HIM to be a threat? It sure would be nice to just head on home . . . Surely Herod wouldn't seek them there?

But Joseph listens . . .

And it doesn't take long before God is prompting him again - this time advising him to "step out" once more and travel to Israel - that all is OK there now - that "those who sought the young child's life are dead . . ."

But several months have passed while they were in Egypt and some very serious and horrific things have happened - the worst of which is that Herod, because he was deceived by the Wiseman, and cannot find Jesus to kill him, has declared that all the male children two years old and under in Bethlehem and surrounding districts are to be killed.

Can you imagine the horror? I'm not sure I can.

Presumably God could have made any number of things happen that might have precluded this dreadful event from occurring - not the least of which is maybe just sending a simple heart attack Herod's way, but he doesn't . . . He allows events to work themselves out in this particularly peculiar and tragic manner . . . And then when the moment is right according to HIS sense of time - which is, of course, outside of time as we know it - does he whisper once again into Joseph's heart . . .

"Go . . . Now . . ."

And Joseph listens. After all, he's learned to trust the whisper when it comes.

But Joseph gets some news along the way that makes him question just what the heck God is sending him into. When he hears that Herod's son Archelaus is now reigning over Judea, he becomes afraid to go there, and God then offers an apparent change of plan - or at least lets Joseph in on perhaps what he was planning all along. Once again Joseph is warned in a dream and he changes his route and travels into Galilee eventually coming to dwell in a little known backwater called Nazareth.

There are a lot of nuances going on here . . .

God acts, and the wise men head home by a different way - Herod doesn't know how they know to do so, and the wise men will never know all that depends upon their actions.

God acts, informing Joseph that he must originally flee to Egypt and stay there until he is told otherwise . . . Thousands of young boys die in his wake and he has no idea why such a thing is necessary, but he obeys . . .

God acts and tells Joseph to travel home. At first Joseph listens but then begins to doubt when more details of what lay ahead start to filter in . . . (Sound familiar? It does to me.)

God acts again, apparently changing the plan, but possibly fulfilling it and Joseph finds his way to a small out of the way town where the baby can grow up far away from the worldliness and evil that might threaten him - able to reach the full measure of the growth required for the world changing ministry that lies ahead . . .

No one - not even Jesus himself - knows exactly what the future holds.

But was Joseph satisfied with all of this? We don't know, but if one had to guess, it's easy to think that he wasn't. After all, he was young. Didn't he want to see the world and live in a big city? Rome, Jerusalem, Capernum . . . Perhaps Washington D.C.? They all had professional sports teams, plenty of nightlife and higher paying jobs didn't they?

Nazareth?? Sheesh, you might as well live in Grundy or Iron Gate maybe . . .

None of it made sense . . ., yet all of it made sense . . . And somehow Joseph and Mary knew it - and trusted it . . .

Aren't OUR lives like that? Making no sense - yet making ALL sense?

We look back and we see the work of the Spirit in our lives at almost every turn - in the most unusual and unexpected ways . . . "If I hadn't done that one thing . . . And if that event hadn't interrupted my plans for doing "this," then that "next thing" wouldn't have happened . . . and I would have never made it "here."

And likewise as we look back over our spiritual journeys, we see God's hand at work in an almost infinite amount of small yet miraculous ways . . . Always shaping us, cajoling us, inspiring us and calling us back to himself . . .

Yet, when we turn towards the future and this old world starts banging away on us, we somehow lose sight of all the miracles, as well as the confidence that comes from such experiences . . . And we return to trusting our own worldly devices as though God wasn't any more real to us than the fairy tales of our youth or a department store Santa . . .

And when the day comes that we are called to the true ministry and service that we were put here for, we hold onto that table with all that we've got . . . Or perhaps worse yet we unleash unsupportive words that crush the dreams and calling of another - creating barriers that would not have been . . .

But sometimes the barriers are there for reasons we can not fathom - for our own safety - so that our walk might begin according to God's perfect will and not our own . . . And we must listen well and wait for that moment in time, when by his Grace, he can use us most.

But as we wrestle with the "when" and "how" and "why" of "things," how can we hold on to the Spirit-inspired confidence that does come from the experience of God at work in our lives?

Well, we can do the obvious - we can go to Church, we can study scripture, we can "do the next right thing" again and again and again . . . But if all of that is not being done with the knowledge that God has a plan for us and if we are not willing to trust that plan and act upon it, (without over-thinking it every which way to Sunday), then all such confidence has been poured into a broken vessel that can never be used to quench the thirst of this world.

And it is a world that certainly takes its toll upon us - with all its preconceived notions of how things have to be . . . I for one, sure am glad Joseph didn't talk to a modern day Lawyer, or Corporate President or Presbyterian Church leader before he made the call on whether to obey the whispers he'd heard. If he had, chances are he would have played it safe and beat a hasty retreat to somewhere he didn't belong . . .

There is only one way to respond to the miracle of Love given in the child who's birth we celebrated yesterday . . . It is by recognizing and praising the Lord as the Psalmist does and by Trusting and stepping out on faith and doing whatever we are called to do to reflect that Love - no matter the circumstances - no matter the questions - no matter the perceived limitations . . .

For who knows how God might be at work in our simple little lives . . . Or what he might really be up to . . . If anyone ever tells you they're sure they know - look around for a few grains of salt , for God is not generally in the business of sharing the details of such things . . .

We've all read the stories . . . We've all seen the miracles . . . We've all heard our own whispers.

All we are asked to do now is Trust.