A Way Through the Wilderness

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 146: 5-10 and Isaiah 35: 1-10 Sermon Title: A Way Through the Wilderness Preached on December 15, 2019 Last Tuesday was the annual Church Staff Christmas Party. This is an event that all of us look forward to, because it is a rare gift to work in a place where you feel so appreciated. This year we were welcomed into the home of Helen Hines. We sat at her dining room table, used her polished silver, were waited on by members of the Administration Council, and ate like kings. Then we gathered in her living room, where Santa delivered gifts. That took a little while because his slay was blocking the driveway, so he had to movie it first. Eventually we all unwrapped presents, a Christmas bonus, and I was also honored to receive the black tie that I’m now wearing, which celebrates a recent accomplishment. For months I’ve been learning to ride a unicycle, and this tie has a unicycle on it with the words, “Yeah, I can!” And I can. It took a lot of work which started when I bought a unicycle at a yard sale. The first time I tried to get on it I knew it had been an impulsive decision because I couldn’t even sit still on it. Frustrated, I quit for a couple weeks. Then I picked it back up again with greater determination. Last June I finally peddled once or twice without holding on to anything. I was so proud that I called my family out to the driveway for a demonstration. I miraculously repeated the same feat of ridding a unicycle for a distance of nearly one yard. I’ll never forget their response: “Was that it? Is that all you can do?” Fueled by their encouragement I kept going. I can now ride for about twenty feet. My goal is to ride in our next church talent show in October, but the point I want to make is that many times I wished for a short-cut. I wish it had been easier. I wish I hadn’t had to fall so often. I wish I could have learned this new skill a lot faster. If I could have learned faster, I might have started trying to learn much earlier, but that’s the way it is with new things and long journeys. Just as there are falls in the process of learning, so there is a long way between point A and point B, and that long way in-between goes by many different names. You can call it practice, purgatory, or adolescence. In Scripture the point between point A and point B is often called the desert. The wilderness or the desert is an in-between place. The Hebrew people wandered in it for 40 years after leaving slavery in Egypt. 40 years is a long time. Typically, it would take a person just 11 days to walk from Egypt to the Promised land, but the truth is that making it from slavery to freedom takes much longer and there are setbacks along the way, just as the journey between starting and finishing or not knowing and knowing is always harder and always takes longer than we want it to. We fall more often than we want. We look silly. We get frustrated. The road is rocky so often people give up before they make it, or they just stay right where they’ve always been, unchanged. That’s true for some when considering going to the FOX to see the nutcracker or something. One thought of the traffic and we watch it at home, but that’s also true for anyone who is trying to change or learn something new, like a new musical instrument. There’s a magazine that I love called Okra. I love it because it’s a magazine that celebrates the South unapologetically without being redneck about it. That tone was summed up in the letter from the Editor of last month’s issue: We don’t try to preserve our past to live in it. We preserve it to feel a connection to our ancestors, to learn from the lessons left behind, thereby creating a better future. I like that. I also liked an article in that same issue by a guy named Matthew Magee who knows how to play the fiddle. A friend of his asked him to send some instructions, because his brother-in-law, a classically trained violinist, wanted to learn how to play the fiddle, but only if someone could teach him to do it in about ten minutes. Now I expected Matthew Magee to be clear and say, “that’s just not how it works.” Getting from point A to point B takes a lot of time. Who knows how many hours of practice our own Will Myers had to put in before he learned to play as he does? And to ask him how to master another style would probably take years. By the way, at our staff Christmas party Will ended up with a t-shirt that says, “God’s gift to women.” But back to the point, to learn how to play something well takes some time in the desert, yet this Matthew Magee said he would send instructions for learning the fiddle in ten minutes. This is what he wrote: All he needs to do is hold the bow a little further up, lower the violin turned fiddle off the shoulder kind of slumping over out of classically taught position. Never use vibrato with the left hand, ever; move like he’s getting stung by happy bees. Shuffle the fire out of the notes with double stops every now and then holler something random… not quite on pitch, like “tater patch, tater patch” or “had a dog named Rover, when he died, he died all over,” with extreme confidence and wild eyes. Always smile like you know something they don’t. Be in the moment and feel the vortex of music pulling you in. The objective is to make people feel like something musically strange is happening, because it is. And that’s Fiddling 101 by Matthew Jay Magee. Mr. Magee ended the article by saying, “What this basically means is… make a joyful noise… [for] the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” Sometimes we never start because the way is hard or we fear failure, but what if the way were easy and filled with song? What if trying were the same as rejoicing and we knew that walking out on a limb were the same as stepping into the fragile space where Christ takes us by the hand? From the Prophet Isaiah we read: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, The desert shall rejoice and blossom; Like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, And rejoice with joy and singing. What the Prophet means here as he addressed the people Israel is that the land in between where they were, exile in Babylon, and where they longed to be, the Promised Land, was not a desert or barren wasteland. In fact, it was no longer a wilderness at all, but more like a forest full of bird song or like I 75 when you have a Peach pass. The highway is clear, he says to us today, for the Lord is here, and no traveler, “not even fools, shall” miss their turn. The redeemed shall walk, the ransomed shall return, and all will make it to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. This is an important and crucial message for us, for like the people of Israel, there are so many moments in life where point A is not where we want to be, but the getting there to point B keeps our feet planted. The illiterate doesn’t want to look foolish. He imagines admitting his need will met with shame, so he hides the fact that he can’t read rather than start the long journey towards literacy. The addict fears facing the truth, so numbs himself to it again. The soldier longs for home, but even once she lands back on US soil there’s still a long way to go: bills, childcare, learning how to get along with her husband again. Then for others, the journey through the desert is literally that: a desert. My first job out of college was as a lawn maintenance man, where I met some of those who had done it. They were two men from Mexico, who spoke little English, but had literally crossed a desert to cut grass in Buckhead and I cut grass right beside them and drove around with them in a big truck from house to house. One benefit of such a workday was that my Spanish got pretty good, but no matter how good, the jokes were still hard to make. The only time I really made my coworkers laugh was once when I didn’t mean to. They were describing the journey through the desert from Mexico into Texas. They told me that it costs about $5,000 dollars to pay a coyote or guide to lead you across the border, and still, you might get caught and sent back. I asked them if you could get your money back if you didn’t make it over. That’s when they started laughing. Then I said, “But don’t you get a receipt or something.” For the rest of that week my coworkers were retelling my joke to every Mexican lawn maintenance worker they saw, which points to a reality: going from point A to point B is a risk. It’s hard. It costs something. Only let me say this, the Lord is with us as we walk our pilgrim journey and if we have hope in our hearts then a desert crossing or a mountain pass is nothing. Consider the Von Trapp family who illegally crossed the Alps into Switzerland to escape the Nazis, but for them, the hills were alive with the sound of music. That’s what the Prophet is saying. The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, The desert shall rejoice and blossom; For the difference between point A and point B is nothing considering how the Son of God bridges heaven and earth, born in a manger, as the great sign that God is with us. Too often we imagine that he’s waiting for us at the finish line. That he’ll meet us just as soon as we’re good enough or have made it but that’s not it you see. In the Christ child we know that he’s running beside us in the race. And that even when we slow down, he’s close by our side. Back in Tennessee I went to visit a woman named Mrs. Cotham. Mrs. Cotham was in hospice. I went to visit her and asked her if she was afraid. “I’m not afraid of death,” she said. “It’s what happens between now and then that scares me.” I can understand. There’s always fear between point A and point B. So, this Advent may our prayer be like that of the great Episcopal priest Thomas Merton, who was bold to pray: My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. [Yet I do know this,] you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. “Do not fear, for I am with you,” says the Lord, so let us find joy on our way through the wilderness. Amen.