A Better Country

Do you ever get the feeling that the whole world is passing through the Eastern Shore? I often get that feeling watching the traffic go by on Rt. 13. Usually I’m sitting at stoplight trying to get ONTO Rt. 13. There go all these cars with license plates from exotic places like New Jersey, Connecticut, New York or even Quebec. All moving on.
As a United Methodist preacher I’ve gotten to be pretty good at moving on. It’s what Mr. Wesley would have wanted. He used to tell his preachers back in the day, “Never stay in any one place any longer than is strictly necessary.” Most days I hope that it’s going to be strictly necessary for me to stay on the Eastern Shore for awhile longer. But the bishop keeps reminding me that I’m an itinerant pastor and that means that one day I could be moving on again.

It’s not just a United Methodist thing, though. Being a pilgrim on a journey is part of the greater American experience. The California Gold Rush, The Trail of Tears, The Dust Bowl migration, Thelma and Louise – we’ve got a lot of stories of moving on in our past. We’re good at moving on. We just need someone to tell us when we’ve gotten where we’re going.

I remember an experience I had one time in the early days of cell phones. I was at a gas station in Dallas filling up my tank, which is a time of silence and reflection for me usually. It’s not mystical or anything, it’s just that I’m stationary for a moment of time. The radio is not playing. I’m not paying attention to traffic, except maybe to the cars on 13. Mostly, though, I’m just there.

On this occasion, I had pulled into the station and began the ritual of getting the car gassed up. I wasn’t expecting anyone to talk to me, but as I was punching in the buttons on the pump I became aware of people talking on both sides of me. One was behind me on the other side of the pump; the other at the next pump over. The woman I could see was looking directly at me and speaking so clearly that I assumed she must be speaking to me, but I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. Then I noticed the cell phone by her ear. And wouldn’t you know, the other man talking was on his cell phone, too.

This is not a tirade against cell phones…some of my best friends are cell phones…but it struck me that though we were occupying the same general space, the three of us were in vastly different worlds. With our technology we seldom are where we are. We’re on the way to somewhere else.

This has its negative consequences. One of the things I’m grateful for about the church and about this strange counter-cultural thing that we do every week – gathering for worship – is that it provides an antidote and an alternative reality to the headlong rush into oblivion that I sometimes worry we are engaged in in the world. The church, especially in its Sabbath mode, is place just to be. It invites others to stop and reflect and feel and pray and worship. It is time OUT to be IN a PLACE.

You could say, as the author of the letter to the Hebrews does, that we are seeking a better country, a place where we are not constantly in motion towards nothing in particular. As a pilgrim people, the Church is looking for a place of purpose. We are called to move on towards a city “founded, designed and built by God” [11:10, Jerusalem Bible].

In chapter 11, from which our reading for today was taken, we are invited to see this long legacy of faith moving everyone from murdered Abel to the prophets. They’re all listed there. The author takes particular care to lift up Abraham, who arrived as a foreigner in the promised land and who died still a stranger and a nomad upon the earth. All of these, Hebrews tells us, had their eyes on the prize and they were headed to a heavenly homeland.

You’ve heard this language before – “eyes on the prize,” “headed to a better country.” It echoes throughout our history. Through the centuries martyrs and saints of all types and varieties have chose the despised path because they believed sincerely and fervently that it was leading them some place different…some place blessed. In our country, Massachusetts pilgrims and tidewater Virginia slaves both found inspiration in the belief that moving would mean entering into that better country that God has waiting in store.

There’ll be pie in the sky by and by. We’re in the world, not of the world. Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away. We’re only passing through. Let’s pass over to the other side of the river and rest in the shades of the trees. We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. You know this language. You know that Christians are a pilgrim people.

So, why is it that being a pilgrim disturbs me so much? Doesn’t this language imply that the world in which we travel is somehow unimportant? If we’re only passing through, does that mea we can’t appreciate and care for the creation in which we live? When the roll is called up YONDER I’ll be there, but until then you can PROBABLY reach me at one of the fifteen different numbers or addresses listed on my business card, but no guarantees.

This is the problem with pilgrimage, you see. One glad morning we may fly away, but what about the glad morning that greeted us today? When we don’t taste the pie in the sky today, will the crust of communion bread and the hint of wine do? We need to learn to live in this world as we’re moving through. There is something sacred space about this space, too. Take off your shoes because this is holy ground and somehow the foreshadows of the better country to come can be found in mud marsh and mountains.

But I was talking about Hebrews. What does Hebrews say about us pilgrims? When I look at this text I’m struck by the sorts of people picked out as faith-full pilgrims on the road to a better country. You might want to look in your Bibles and take a look at who’s there. Abraham seems like a natural selection there in verse 8, but Sarah is almost absent in this recollection and she seems pretty significant to the story. Moses gets mentioned in verse 23, as we would expect, and all of his deeds are named, but then Gideon comes along in verse 32 and he’s an interesting example of faith. Gideon was a timid hero who demanded multiple signs from God in order to perform his heroic deeds. Barak is there in verse 32, too, and do you remember what he did? He refused to even consider following God’s commands unless Deborah, the wise and confident judge goes with him, and she doesn’t even get mentioned.

Samson is there, too, in this ancestry of the faithful even though he was as great as slave to his passions as ever he was to God. Jepthah is there, too. Jepthah! He was the one who opted to sacrifice his own daughter rather than to renounce a rash vow. David and Samuel are here, but where are Ruth and Joshua, Caleb and Miriam? Where are Esau and Saul, who, in their own way, kept God’s story moving? Where are the unnamed victims of violence who calling and faith remain a mystery to us?

This is troubling to me, until I begin to see, near the end of the litany, that even though these were called the heroes of faith, their journey is still incomplete and their story is still unfinished. Then the most ironic twist of all – we, who should be the last to do the judging I’ve just done, are the ones chosen to accompany this cohort of imperfect people in the pilgrim way to the better country God is preparing. The Jerusalem Bible translates the last verse of chapter 11 this way, “These are all heroes of faith, but they did not receive what was promised, since God had made provision for us to have something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us” [11:40].

Some candidates for perfection we are. No offence, but if the hopes of the ancestors, named and unnamed, are on the likes of me and you then it would seem that something is not right with the universe.

Except that we do have someone who has moved on to show us the way. We do have someone who did not think that earth was a mere way station on the way to somewhere else, but a place where even the substance of existence – our human flesh - was worthy to reveal the greatest of treasures. We do have someone who was one with us, flesh and bone, and who came to touch these bodies and make sacred these places with the knowledge of God. We do have someone who knew that the most powerful things in the universe could be conveyed in the touch of a hand and the shedding of a tear.

We have Jesus. And for Jesus, I’ll move on. I’ll be a stranger and nomad upon the earth, with my eyes set on that distant, better country. Because Jesus revealed the miraculous in the mundane, the holy in the humble. And here we are –pilgrims despite ourselves.

So we baptize this baby and we welcome these confirmands and we tell them that this is not the end of the road but the beginning of the journey. We have a lifetime to learn to live in a God-filled place and we the place we have to figure that out is already filled with the presence of God. Yes, there is evil and darkness in this world. There is a shadow on the goodness of creation caused by our sin and the sin of the world. But it can never change the fact that Jesus came into this world and defeated the powers of darkness. They may still resist, but all we have to do is look at the cross to know that the power of hell has been broken. And all we are asked to do is to have faith. By faith we move on.

So swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home. Coming for to carry e home to the place where earth and heaven are not two places but one. When you were created God said, “This is good. This, my creation, is very good.” And God wants to draw the circle whole once more. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Thanks be to God.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 [NRSV]
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible…
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old -- and Sarah herself was barren -- because he considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, "as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."
All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.