INTO THE UNKNOWN - FAITHING
Second Sunday in Lent - March 8, 2009
Mark 8:31-38; Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
South Congregational Church, Amherst, MA
Caroline K. Meyers, Pastor
Suzan Young, Appalachia Service Project volunteer

(note: this was done as a dialogue sermon.  the first voice is inidicated in plain text; the second in italics.  The two of us speaking were in Kentucky for two days the previous weekend.)

If you’d told us a year ago that we’d be driving down a winding Kentucky Road with sketchy directions and no decent map to follow, following a pizza truck whose driver we’d run into at a gas station, and heading toward a town of less than 300 people to spend the weekend on sleeping bags with two dozen strangers with whom we’d enjoy getting muddy, cold, sore, and drenched to the skin, we’d have laughed.  Just like Abraham and Sarah.  But there we were, taking wrong turn after wrong turn, until finally, up one last, narrow, almost 90 degree hill, we found the Center where the training would occur.  All day Friday we heard from veteran workers about the mission and experience of ASP, Appalachia Service Project.  We tried to picture what it would be like bringing 15 other church members, ages 15 to 75, into this new territory.  We didn’t sleep much that night.  The next morning we set out in our small groups, each with a truck full of tools, for “a place that I will show you.” 

During Lent this year we are exploring the idea of what it means to be pilgrims, travelers, on the road with Jesus.  During this 40-day season, we’re trying to listen more intently for God’s voice, learning to pay attention to where it is inviting, leading and calling us to go.  Whether that pilgrimage involves passage from one physical location to another, or is “only” a movement within our own hearts, we are seeking to journey deeper into relationship with God, ourselves, and all those other wandering souls that God loves so much.  Our journeys might take us to the Appalachian Mountains, or the Himalayas, or no further than our armchair; but wherever we go on these holy treks, we trust God’s hand to lead us into the unknown way ahead.

When we look at the scriptures, we realize that there have been countless generations of pilgrims who have walked this road ahead of us.  So perhaps we will find firmer footing since their feet have trod this ground before.

Abraham is one of the first of our pilgrim ancestors.  And these were his traveling instructions: “Go.  Leave your home, your territory, and your family.  Go, to a place that I will show you.”

Honestly, this does not sound like much to go on.  Both the destination and the directions to get there are vague, at best.  And not even a pizza truck to follow!  You can imagine the questions that rattled in him: What might be waiting out there in the great unknown?  How will I know when I get there?  What if there are wrong turns along the way; how far off the track might I go before turning around and getting back on the right road?  And just why am I going in the first place???

“Go.  Leave your home, your territory, and your family.  Go, and I’ll show you along the way where you are going.  Go, and I will bless you and multiply you, and I will make you a blessing, a great blessing, to others.”

Well, Abram may have thought: I’m going to be blessed, and to be a blessing.  That certainly clarifies things!

Imagine a valley so steep that there’s not 100 yards of level space between the mountains – not enough space for a football field. There’s a narrow gravel road no wider than a driveway snaking its way up between the mountains. All along both sides of that road homes are defiantly built – with little or no foundation – atop the heavy mud-clay soil. In the lowest point of the valley a brook is gurgling along – not 100 feet from the road. We were sent to a location between the brook and the road.  The ground was pitched about 35-40 degrees from the road to the brook and on the opposite side of the brook the mountain rose almost straight up.

There were two outbuildings – a shed and an outhouse, as well as a dog house with a dog on a very short chain. Across the road was a fenced in area with a chicken coop and some chickens clinging to the side of the mountain.  Directly behind the home and literally on top of it, was a second home – a modified trailer. Two cement steps that seemed like they should belong to the trailer were shifting precariously in the mud – clinging to nothing, leading nowhere. There was no grass, only the bare mud-clay soil.

Apprehension rose as we were greeted by these sights, and smells, and we weren’t sure we were prepared for what might lie ahead.   That sense was heightened by the weather - the day was dreary and cold – the upper 30’s with a strong chance of rain.

Abram was 75 years old when he first heard God’s initial call promising him a new land, the blessing of children, and the assurance that through his obedience all the peoples of the earth would also be blessed.  This first call of God to Abram is found in Genesis, chapter 12, the first 3 verses.  And then verse 4 begins, simply, “So Abram went…”  He went into the unknown, taking his immediate family and the family of his nephew, Lot.  Not knowing what might lie ahead, Abram and his small entourage packed up their belongings and headed for – literally – God-knows-where. 

We don’t know how old Peter was when Jesus called him from the lakeshore to follow him.  We do know from the gospels that he was a fisherman, and married.  We also read in the gospels that he, like Abram, left immediately when he heard Jesus’ say “Follow me.”  He did not know where that following would lead.  But something in the voice of Jesus caused him to put down the nets he knew so well and move into the unknown.

In Genesis passage we heard earlier, Abram had traveled a good many years since he first was called to pack up and move.  For 25 years he had heard God’s promises, promises of a settled home and the pitter patter of little feet to fill it and descendants as many as the stars.  Over the past quarter century, he had taken lots of wrong turns while trying to make those promises come true on his own, none of which had worked.  And yet again in today’s reading, God reiterates the absurd promise that Abram, now 99, and his wife Sarai, not too far behind, would soon be parents.  No wonder the two old-timers laughed!  But God even changed their names as witness to that promise, calling them to keep going into the ever-more ridiculous unknown, trusting a future in God’s hands.

In the passage from Mark, Peter had also been walking with Jesus for some time.  He had followed him through thick and thin, through powerful healings and miraculous meals.   And on this day, he had finally come to see Jesus for who he really was – and had said so right out loud: “You are the Christ!” Peter declared, so glad that he finally got it!  Now, after all this time, he knew exactly where they were headed: the Christ would come to overthrow the oppressive rulers of Israel, and they would again be free.  But then Jesus started talking about how he must go through great suffering, and rejection, and death.  This was not the path Peter expected to follow.  This was not the game plan he’d mapped out.  This was not the way the Christ was supposed to go…was it?  This was new territory…and just as absurd and impossible for Peter to fathom as it was for Abraham to imagine a child of his own.

The home we were sent to work on was “neat as a pin” when we went in and were introduced to the family.  A crackling pot-bellied stove kept the low-ceilinged room warm and cozy.  The residents of the home were Lily, her son Adam, and his wife Linda.  Lily was dressed in a long jumper and t-shirt, with her hair done up in a bun. She had a shy smile – she was missing her two front teeth – and a soft voice, and often seemed overwhelmed by our presence.  Linda and Adam, although more animated than Lily, were also somewhat shy. Linda was dressed in a long denim skirt, a shirt and bulky sweater. Linda had a gentle laugh and a quick smile. Adam appeared to be the clown of the family. And then there were the dogs, Buddy and LuLu who live in the house, Hootch on the short chain outside, another dog in a kennel and a beagle wandering around. And chickens – lots of chickens.  

Our tasks were to prime a newly sided exterior wall; prime and paint the fascia boards for the gutters; cut and hang siding as trim for the peak; and hang the gutters.  There were fascia boards that had not been nailed down securely and one area where the soffit had pulled away from the eave and needed to be repaired before we could start work on the gutter.  ASP is about making homes warmer, drier, and safer.  Clearly, whatever we could do that day would be an improvement on Lily, Adam, & Linda’s home, though it would be only a small fraction of what was needed. 

The extent of that need became clearer still as the day went on and we went about our work, with a lot of fits and starts and some – hmmm – personality issues among the crew members.  (Sometimes God picks traveling companions for us that we would not necessarily have chosen for ourselves!)   On one side of the home was a pile of lumber over a sheet of tin which was covered by mud. There was an overwhelmingly strong odor of sewerage coming from it: perhaps the location for a previous outhouse.  The current outhouse, apparently still in use, was along the back of the house.  Not far from there was an old abandoned well. The “well house” was rotted out, the bucket and rope non-existent. All that remained was the concrete block base and a gaping black hole to nothingness.  And running across the narrow path of earth between the brook and the back of Lily’s home were garden hoses and a bright orange outdoor extension cord.  A water pump was in the brook, apparently the family’s sole source of water, even with the runoff and seepage from the outhouse so nearby.  We learned later that day that because this is an area where hills are common and town sewer services are not, many families “straight pipe” their waste; meaning that they send raw sewerage directly into the streams and brooks, making any of the water unfit for human consumption. 

Our project that day was but a drop in the bucket.  But a drop nonetheless.  The average budget for an ASP project is $433. It’s amazing what can be done with $433 and a few people willing to step out in faith.  

“Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”  Following God’s calling out into the unknown is not without suffering, much as Peter – and we – would like to deny that.  At age 99, Abraham was circumcised to show his owning of the covenant with God.  Sarah went through pregnancy and giving birth when she was 90.  Trusting in God’s crazy promises meant they would know intimately what it was to give up their lives…and a year later, in Isaac’s birth, to find their lives again, transformed.

Faith is often something we think about having, holding onto, as if it were a possession.  But really it is better described as a verb.  Abraham and Sarah faithed.  They trusted God and let that trust move them out into the unknown.  They didn’t know what they’d find. They took wrong turns again and again.  They didn’t know how long it would take to get there or what suffering would be theirs along the way.  But they faithed; they put their journeying in the hands of the God who had promised to be with them, to bless them, and to make them a blessing to others.  This Lent, this year, this life…may that be so for us as well.

It had started to rain in earnest, cold and steady, while we were painting.  Some of us were perched precariously on ladders, watching our work drizzle down into the clay.  It was wet, and cold, and our efforts seemed almost fruitless.  Suddenly, there was a loud squawking from one of the hens on the porch.  Adam excitedly exclaimed that the hen was laying. He went over and nudged the hen aside, cupping the egg carefully in his hands.  With great pride and joy he brought it over for us to see, holding it out like the blessing it was.  “You can’t get them fresher than this.” 

Amen.

Amen.