Tag: Parables

Warehouse for all the rich man's stuff

The rich man’s folly—and ours

Kyle

A sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C (Proper 13: Hosea 11:1-11; Psalm 107:1-9, 43; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21)

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As some of you know, my day job is as an educational media producer and researcher. My main interest has always been in how people make meaning of and with various kinds of objects and experiences. 

Take, for example, a vacation photo of a remote mountain path, or a t-shirt some industrious aunt made for a family reunion. Perhaps you can imagine the hiking photo repurposed for a social media post about some big life decision. Perhaps you can imagine the t-shirt repurposed as a cleaning rag, so that whenever you dust your bookshelf you find yourself thinking of that time your 12-year-old cousin went mad with power during an epic game of Monopoly.

I never get tired of hearing people trace these webs of meaning.

**

Stories from scripture can have this kind of power for meaning making. In particular, I think Jesus knew that parables would be a rich source of reflection and what we would call remixing for his immediate audience and for generations to come. 

Stories invite us to bring our own experience to bear on the speaker’s ideas and accounts.

Jesus  taps into a lot of gut and heart and soul stuff when he says a simple phrase like “a rich man” or “ample goods” or “eat, drink, be merry.” 

I recently had a conversation with a community organizer who works on police accountability and racial wealth disparities in the Bayview. She said something like, “You know, our economic system has taught us to divide our time between working for our livelihood and trying to relax enough to be able to get back to working for our livelihood. If we have a partner, or children, or parents who need our help, we might carve out some space for working and/or relaxing with them. 

“But life is about so much more than this,” she said passionately, “and the dimension I’m trying to help people recover is their connection and responsibility to their community.”

I’ve been playing back that conversation in my head for weeks now, and the experience returned to me unbidden as I spent time with this particular parable of the rich man.

I think we do a pretty good job of reminding each other of our interdependence, of how much we need each other and our wider communities, of how much our neighbors and our world need the radical message of love and grace with which Jesus has entrusted us. We received yet another heartbreaking reminder of that need yesterday.

And yet I know all too well what my calendar looks like from week to week. Devoid of, say, the chance to break bread with some of you or the other disciples in my life, or the chance to pitch in at an event my organizer friend is leading, or the tragic necessity for prayer and lament when innocent people are gunned down—without these prompts, as often as not I revert to precisely the kind of thinking the rich man exemplifies. 

I may not be building warehouses or renting storage units, but I am nevertheless primarily occupied with my stuff: my possessions and paycheck, my research, my list of responsibilities, my carefully guarded hours to eat, drink, be merry. Even my attention to spiritual or emotional growth, when I have such attention, can be a form of idolatry, a way of focusing overmuch on the created rather than the creator. Of focusing on me.

Where does the rich man go wrong? Where do I? Where do we? And how can we live differently—in ways that grow community and rejoice in human dignity? 

What I’m about to say is gonna sound like just “one weird trick,” but it’s actually a window into a deep and life-giving would-be reality:

This week, pay attention to the pronouns you use when you speak. As you’re writing emails or chatting with friends or making plans with a significant other, listen for the pronouns we hear an absurd number of times in this parable: I and my. 

For example: How often am I talking about “my ideas” that are really our, or her, or their ideas? 

Of course, this exercise in turning from selfishness toward relationships can go the other way too. When am I verbally collectivizing our action in situations where perhaps I am actually shirking my responsibility. 

Or when does my “us” also exclude, creating a “them” I can avoid, or blame, or worse.

If the rich man had this particular filter running on his internal monologue, he might have paused to ponder some new possibilities. A larger barn to store crops would make a love-spreading difference if it belonged to the rich man and his workers. “Relax, eat, drink, be merry” is good news bearing good fruit, for a time and for a community. But when he says it only to himself and for many years, that fruit withers on the vine.

In so many ways, too many of God’s children are withering on the vine.

**

If we allow her, the Holy Spirit will teach us to ask who’s missing from a particular photograph, who is object rather than subject in a particular narrative. 

When we slow down and pay attention, perhaps even just to the words we use, the meaning we make from these new perspectives will sometimes surprise us. Sometimes what we discover will tempt us toward shame or disengagement. In one way or another, we will all fall into the rich man’s selfish predicament.

But thanks be to God, Jesus also assures us that, if we let it, what we learn when we turn back outward can transform and deliver us instead.

Running through weeds & wheat

The parable of the landowner’s wise restraint

Kyle 1 Comment

Image credit: “Running” by Mackenzie Black via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost:

Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139: 1-11, 22-23; Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30,36-43

I’ve been traveling for work the last the couple weeks, first in the Midwest and then in Germany. But at the beginning of the trip I got to spend a day with my sister in Wisconsin.

Rachel teaches baking at a community college and so has some flexibility to work other jobs in the summer. Currently she’s helping to manage the harvest at a small organic farm about halfway between Milwaukee and Madison.

My trip to the farm with her has given me a new appreciation for this passage from Matthew’s gospel.

When you can’t spray herbicides, you have to use every other trick in the agricultural book to give your crops a fighting chance. Even then, I’m told, you’ll probably end up like our farm owner from scripture—whether or not you have enemies sowing bad seed in the night.

That was certainly the case where I visited. In some fields it was hard to even tell the good crops from the weeds. I definitely believe that in some cases pulling the weeds would have been a problem for the produce.

I appreciated this lesson that sometimes no amount of care or agricultural cleverness can guarantee that a farm will avoid the weeds-and-wheat situation.

There is an alternative. Almost anyone who leaves the city for awhile this summer will at some point see farms that display a different reality: Row after row of perfect crops—wheat, yes but corn even more strikingly. There’s often not a weed in sight beneath those tall, straight stalks.

Of course, many of these seeds have been genetically engineered with immunity to herbicides and pesticides. Many of these farms also squeeze the last bit of nourishment out of depleted soils using industrial fertilizers.

But it’s worth noting that even big agribusiness cannot guarantee success in this struggle. Pests and weeds and blights can and do evolve. Exhausted earth cannot yield an increase indefinitely.

**

Of course, this is not a sermon about agriculture, any more than Jesus’s was. But the farmers’ situation in the parable and in today’s world is an apt illustration of … let’s just say the lengths to which we are willing to go.

The people who trained me to interpret scripture told me to be skeptical of the simplistic explanations that follow some of the gospel parables, the ones where Jesus lays out a narrow one-to-one correspondence between each literal element and its spiritual interpretation. These were likely added later by hand-wringing scribes and editors.

What happens if we lay aside the narrow reading of this parable? What if it isn’t a simple encouragement to perseverance for the faithful and a warning to all others that the clock is ticking?

What happens if we focus instead on the landowner’s wise restraint in the face of a quite natural longing—a longing to root out the ineffective to encourage the productive, to eliminate evil to protect the good.

Then this parable becomes a warning about the belief that we can fully identify, separate, and control the forces of good and evil. God knows we need the warning.

We want to rip out the weeds right now, stay on top of things, remove the threat. Even if we’re the kind of people who hope for the best, we usually fear the worst—and more often than not when we act out of fear we exacerbate the situation.

Whether we’re surveying history or today’s headlines, it’s hard not to start seeing this parable everywhere: I’ve noticed it recently in airport security lines and in the laments of educator colleagues about the folly of standardized testing run amok.

I saw it on grim display last week when I visited an East German state police jail—now a museum—that held political prisoners until they could be psychologically tortured into signing false confessions.

And I felt a last version of the parable leap back into my life after a momentary absence when I reconnected to our U.S. news cycle, filled with story after story of police violence, the communities it affects, and the accountability that is almost always missing.

When we believe we can understand and control the forces of good and evil, we sometimes cause ourselves or others unnecessary inconvenience or stress. Other times people will suffer or even die at our hands.

Against that backdrop, I believe this parable can be for us a warning against the constant temptation to let vigilance override restraint.

**

I was still at the conference that brought me to Germany last week when I got the email reminding me to choose a text to place on the today’s bulletin cover. I knew I wouldn’t be starting my sermon until the flight home, so I picked my favorite verse from among the scheduled readings and hoped for the best.

Obviously, you’re not hearing a sermon on the story of Jacob’s dream in the wilderness. Still, it seems to me there’s an important connection between his story and one last reading of the parable of the landowner’s wise restraint.

Jacob is, at this point in his life, a scoundrel. He’s out in the wilderness to have this fantastical dream because he’s on the run from his brother Esau—the brother whose birthright and blessing he has stolen.

And yet in this moment—when he’s basically a fugitive on the run—God chooses to bless him anyway, to renew in him the promise to his parents and grandparents to make of them a great nation.

Perhaps even more than these complicated relatives do, Jacob shows us that God doesn’t just work through moral superheroes in order to bring about good.

In fact, it’s God’s faithfulness to Jacob that drives his growth and transformation. He returns years later a better man. God didn’t give up on him. God forgave the bad and nurtured the good.

Just like Jacob, you and I are ambiguous characters. We have within us both good and evil.

So could it be that this God has the same plan for us?

Could it be that the weeds and wheat are not just or even primarily out there but are also in here growing together, composing us as flawed but nevertheless beloved children of the Most High?

Could it even be that our weeds are no threat to God bearing fruit in us if we can only learn to live with them by God’s grace?

I believe that so much of what tortures our relationship with the weeds and the wheat growing together in the world is that we do not want to think about the weeds and the wheat growing within ourselves.

God in Christ has promised not to make us free of evil and sin, but free from evil and sin. As in free from being determined by them. Not spotless, but redeemed.

God in Christ isn’t pulling weeds or spraying herbicides. God in Christ is patiently waiting for a harvest that is assured not by our vigilance but by grace.

Our destiny is to be gathered up—all made one by God’s reconciling love.

If we can trust that, then we can learn to see the tangled mess of life and growth as a field not of threats from our enemies but of fertile, patient possibility.

Salt in hand photo

You are the salt of the earth

Kyle

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany:

Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12];  Psalm 112:1-9 [10]; 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, [13-16]; Matthew 5:13-20

I can still remember the angriest I ever got in seminary. It started, I am not surprised to notice upon reflection, with me sticking my nose into someone else’s business.

Two of my international student classmates were having a heated conversation about the interpretation of scripture. One was an evangelical man from East Africa, one a high church woman from Southern Africa. They had very different approaches.

I entered the fray with some arrogant Western comment about how there was no such thing as a talking snake and no such thing as “the plain sense of scripture.”

“And don’t even get me started on parables,” I huffed. “Surely if Jesus wanted us to take the scriptures literally, he wouldn’t have chosen such an ambiguous mode of teaching.”

“My friend, what is ambiguous about the parables?” he asked. He was perfectly calm.

“What about ‘You are the salt of the Earth!’How can we possibly know what that’s supposed to mean?!”

And then he told me. Calmly, confidently, convincingly. I honestly can’t remember what exactly he said, but it was probably not so different from what I’m about to share with you.

The argument, of course, went on and on, well past when we needed to get our dishes back to the kitchen. Long enough that temporary onlookers asked me about it the next day. Long enough that our other classmate lost interest and left. Long enough that I’m still embarrassed about how I behaved.

I was salty. My friend was…salt.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe what I said about interpreting scripture—and for that matter about how the whole point of parables is that they speak in many ways.

But my friend knew something I didn’t yet: That we have to make our own sense of scripture throughout our lives—and then we have to believe it. That doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes change our mind. It doesn’t mean we don’t listen to others’ viewpoints. It doesn’t even mean we don’t occasionally throw up our hands and say, “I’ve got nothing here.”

It does mean we do our best with the material in front of us. I think part of the point of today’s material is that “salt-of-the-earth” people are like my friend:

They’re confident, but humble. They know they have a role to play, but they don’t draw attention to themselves, at least not just for attention’s sake. As a bishop once pointed out to me, Jesus didn’t say, “You are the pepper of the earth.” This doesn’t mean salt of the earth people won’t occasionally serve, as the prophets often did, as salt in the wounds of those who stand in the way of justice. Salt of the earth is not intended to be trampled underfoot, by presidents or anyone else.

Like salt, Christians are also called to be reliable, in for the long haul. More on “losing our saltiness” in a minute, but of course that very suggestion is alarming because it’s not an idea we’re familiar with. We learned in high school chemistry that if equal parts sodium and chlorine are doing their ionically bonded chemical thing, they form a strong matrix of interconnection with a practically unlimited shelf life. To be the salt of the earth is to run with patience our own race and to encourage all those runners we’re bonded to.

(By the way, if you’re tallying mixed metaphors, I think we’re bound for the double digits by the time the morning is out. My only defense is that Jesus racked up quite a number himself this week.)

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Confident, humble, reliable, encouraging. If you’re starting to picture someone in your life who is “salt of the earth,” then I think this rhetorical device is doing the work Jesus needs it to do. Because, of course, we draw on metaphors and parables when we’re trying to get at some subtle quality or combination thereof, to put our fingers on a common experience that is hard to describe but easy to recognize.

As I prayed about the gospel passage this week, I thought immediately of several members of one of the communities I’m a part of this semester. I’m taking a course on research methods grounded in civic and social participation, and our convening theme is “Youth and Wellbeing in an Age of Mass Incarceration.” To lay the groundwork for that theme, we watched on Monday a film that has been screened here at St. Michael’s but that I had not yet seen: Ava DuVernáy’s shattering Netflix documentary 13th.

If you don’t know the film, it explores the legacy of an exception in the constitutional amendment that banned slavery and involuntary servitude: “except as punishment for a crime.”

I thought I understood and could enumerate the many ways American society has found to demonize and criminalize black and brown bodies, and black and brown communities. But if you haven’t seen the film yet, all I can say is that to have those dots vividly connected through generations of policies that intentionally and effectively passed the baton of racial oppression … well it left us all speechless, regardless of how many times each of us had seen the film.

Our class has a “Vegas rule,” as in “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” But I think I can be faithful to that rule and make a general comment about the experience. I estimate that 60% or so of the folks in this class are people of color. A common theme among their reflections was how hard it is to live in our society without hating it, and to be engaged in racial justice work without giving up. And yet here they are, enrolled in a course that by the second class session had all of us feeling nauseous and worse about the reality behind and before us. When I hear the phrase “salt of the earth” this week, I cannot help but see their faces, give thanks for their witness, and continue seeking ways to do my part.

**

I don’t have to tell you that our society needs “salt of the earth” people very badly at the moment. Not just to defend the human rights and human dignity of immigrants and refugees. Not just to counter rhetoric that scapegoats and antagonizes Muslims and poor communities of color. Not just to defend our ailing environment. Not just to strive for responsible global citizenship at a time when we are more interconnected than ever.

We need such people because all of us are bound to lose our saltiness from time to time in the days and years to come. “Have salt in yourselves,” Jesus says in Mark’s version of this mini-parable. But might I suggest that when that fails, have salt in those around you. Check in with each other. Show kindness to one another. Find joy whenever you can, and share it like a lamp on a lampstand.

Most of all, we need “salt of the earth” people because without salt, none of us has a chance at our most difficult challenge: striving to do what is right without also wanting to win. It is very hard to keep those two things separate, but I believe our futures and our very souls depend on it.

That’s not to say we aren’t witnessing and participating in genuine struggles whose outcomes matter, nor that those outcomes won’t produce the feelings associated with winning and losing.

But honest to God, I think this is the full point of these parables. Salt doesn’t win out against blandness, it’s simply there, transforming the dish by its presence. Light doesn’t defeat darkness, but even a little of the former changes our experience of the latter. A city built on a hill isn’t intrinsically better than one built in the valley—it’s just there for us to see when we look to the skies.

I don’t know how to work for what I think is right and also not want to win. That’s why I’m glad Jesus assures us we are salt of the earth and not that we should try to be.

My seminary classmate probably did want to convince me of the importance of interpreting scripture a particular way. As it turns out, he didn’t, nor of course did I convince him.

But in resisting the temptation to win the argument for winning’s sake, he certainly convinced me that he knew what it means to be salt.

Hope image

A Parable of Grit, and Hope

Kyle

A sermon for Proper 24:

Jeremiah 31:27-34; Psalm 119:97-104; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5; Luke 18:1-8

A friend and I play a sort of ongoing game of long-distance tag. We’re both interested in character formation, and we’re enchanted by one idea that is currently en vogue. Researchers call it grit.

Our obsession with popular discussions of grit has gotten a little out of hand. You can tell because of all the bad jokes. Last time I tagged her with an article, I added the groaner “The grit that keeps on giving.” She still has the best one, though: “I’ve got so much grit, my mama shoulda named me sandpaper.”

At the risk of taking grit researchers’ work totally out of context, I gotta say that the woman in our Gospel passage today is just such a person. Grit is about consistency of interest and perseverance of effort, and I think those ideas are closely related to who she is and what’s going on in this reading.

That’s why another colleague refuses to call this parable by its traditional name, “the parable of the unjust judge.”

If we focus on the judge, then this becomes a parable primarily about who God is. God, like the judge, will respond to the entreaties of those with grit. “And will not God grant justice” to those who cry out day and night?

But parables are an imprecise form, and their statements of what God is like usually need caveats. In this case, we have to hasten to add that surely God is a more proper judge, granting justice not from a desire to silence or otherwise be rid of our cries for help but in order that justice might be done. The why of God’s justice is important, and the parable sort of obscures that.

Thornier still is the issue of when justice comes, if it comes at all. Because there sure seem to be many modern-day justice seekers who, whether persistent or not, have yet to experience the deliverance that our widow does. Focusing on the judge begs hard questions that will sometimes keep us up at night. Why them? Why us? Why me? Doesn’t God care?

Let’s set those questions aside for a minute. Because if we’re instead treating this passage as the parable of the persistent widow—and if we’re focusing our interpretation on her—then this parable stops seeming to focus on how God is both like and unlike the unjust judge. Instead, it’s a parable about grit.

Try to imagine yourself in the widow’s shoes—shunned by society for being a woman without a spouse, mistreated by some unjust opponent, actively ignored by the person with the power to put it right. Each day, you find him in the courts and press your case. Each day he sends you away.

How do you start to feel? Well, my imagination leads me to the conclusion that there would be good days and bad days. On the bad days, it probably feels like going through the motions, like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day reliving the same futile 24 hours over and over, only to end up right back where he started. Some days, the familiar dance steps are the only force pulling you along: another day of justice sought, justice delayed.

But what about on the good days? Here again, I imagine a couple different kinds. Sometimes you probably feel defiant. Dang it, I am going to go knock on that jerk’s door and get in his face and not take no for an answer, at least not a final one. I’m not backing down.

And on the best days, you find the courage to risk real hope. Today is the day we break the cycle. Today is the day I get through to him. I’ve thought that before and been disappointed but I’m willing to believe again, at least for today, at least for right now.

I think the widow’s secret, the secret to grit, is that we need to be OK with all three kinds of days. To stay in the game, to hang in there in the midst of adversity, sometimes means admitting that today may be a wash but that we can and should try again tomorrow.

And I think the spiritual version, grit with God, if you will, is realizing that God is OK with our having all three kinds of days too.

When we’re full of hope, the risen Christ is there nurturing it, reminding us that God wants the best for us and will triumph over over evil. When we’re feeling defiant, the Christ who knocked down tables in the temple, and seemed to delight in defying the powers that be, inspires our witness to what is right. And when we’re feeling abandoned, when we’re tempted to throw in the towel, the Christ whose friends deserted him will wait with us in our dark hours—whether we think to invite him or not and whether or not we can always feel his presence.

It’s that unceasing presence, that willingness to share with us in our pain while we wait for deliverance, that helps me, at least, to make some sense of this passage, to want to proclaim it as good news. That unceasing presence can help us in days like these, when many people in many walks of life are feeling a distinct absence of hope.

Luke frames the parable of the persistent widow with these words: “Jesus told his disciples a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” Pray always. Don’t lose heart.

Those feel like empty words unless we know something about their speaker. But when they come from Jesus, who gave his life as a plea for us to believe them, I pray that by grace we can learn to trust those words. When they come from Paul, who has a thing or two to say about them and endured prison and worse for his witness, I pray that by grace we can learn to trust them.

And when they come from this parable’s persistent widow, one of many gritty Biblical women who dared to hope against hope, I pray that by grace we can learn to trust them.

I’ve been thinking a lot about hoping against hope this week. In late 2014, one of my Virginia Seminary colleagues wrote this:

Today marks the 207th day since more than 250 Nigerian schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram. These Christian and Muslim girls have been described as the intelligent and bright hopes of their communities, which is why the girls were so eager to return to school and complete their exams last Spring, in spite of the threat of terror activity in that area at the time. Since their original capture, some girls have escaped, but most have not. The Nigerian government reports that it is increasingly unlikely that the girls will ever be recovered, as Boko Haram has apparently sold girls into marriages and dispersed them.

Nevertheless, that colleague assigned us individual girls to pray for. I’ve prayed most days since for Awa James, Deborah Ja’afaru (found!), & Ladi Joel. So when I read on Thursday, Day 913, that 21 girls had been released, I Googled around for a list of names. Deborah was on the list. Awa and Ladi were not. 21 families are rejoicing with particular joy. So many more continue to wait and hope.

The God of justice hears their prayers, and the prayers of all who wait for the Lord, not with annoyance but with tender compassion and, I believe, a share of our longing and grief. On the good days and the bad days, may grace inspire us to join the company of the persistent widow and all who dare to hope for deliverance.

Image credit: “Hope” by Jan Tik via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

"Singing Pilgrims" by Ahron de Leeuw via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Pilgrim Virtues

Kyle

Proper 20, Year C

(Amos 8:4-7; Psalm 113; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Luke 16:1-13)

Image source: Ahron de Leeuw via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

PDF | Audio (soon, or via Dropbox) | Text:

Let me start by saying that I’m as confused by our Gospel passage today as you might be. A manager “squanders” the resources he’s been entrusted with and receives notice to get the books in order, such as they are, and prepare for the pink slip. So he scrambles around cutting deals with his master’s debtors, hoping to ingratiate himself and receive eventual welcome “into their homes.”

As we get ready for Jesus to pounce on the manipulative manager, the punchline all but set up, we hear instead that the master “commended” the manager’s shrewd strategy. And just as we get our heads around this shocker and prepare for Jesus to write both men off as “children of this age” rather than “children of light,” he tells the crowd to “make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” [pause] What’s the deal?

Well, let’s first commend Jesus for his shrewdness too. A story with not one but two surprise endings certainly grabs his hearers’ attention—no mean feat in his time or ours. And a parable that leaves us asking “What’s the deal?” has achieved the overriding objective of any parable: to get us thinking hard.

A lot of very smart people have thought very hard about this peculiar parable, and I read quite a few of their attempts to make at least some sense of it. Several of them seemed to me to put too tidy a bow around a messy story dripping with ambiguity. Jesus, and Luke, were quite capable of being clearer if they wanted to be.

The interpretation I found compelling and relevant to our life together has modest ambitions. It starts by picking up on a little translation detail that would be easy to miss:

When the manager is contemplating possible landing zones for his self-made golden parachute, he speaks of being welcomed into his associates’ “homes” using a greek word that means home, house, or household. When Jesus talks about the friendships we are to forge, the promised “eternal homes” would be better translated with “tabernacle,” “habitation,” or simply “tent.”

The persuasive commentator then puts this small detail into a broad perspective on the Christian life:

“Jesus does not promise to provide what the unjust steward sought, the stable abode of those who have possessions and security. Rather, [he] promises the unstable abode of the wanderer, the refugee, and the pilgrim, whose mobility requires the dispossession of goods” [Scott Bader-Saye’s “Theological Perspective” from Feasting on the Word (Westminster John Knox): Year C, Volume 4, pages 95–96.]

So we might paraphrase Jesus like this: You might as well throw that dishonest wealth around with some abandon, because you can’t take it with you on the journey I’ve got in store for you.

This exposition doesn’t “solve the puzzle” of this parable, but I don’t think that should really be the goal. What if, instead, we just sat with the question our commentator suggested: What would it mean, what does it mean, for the people of God to be pilgrims rather than citizens, tenants rather than landlords, sojourners and wayfarers rather than the kings and queens of our own castle keeps? Here’s my stab at some … let’s call them “Pilgrim Virtues”:

First, pilgrims know that absolute security is an illusion. They do their best to bring provisions for the days ahead, and to steer clear of the most dangerous obstacles. But no one is immune to famine and disease, to cycles of violence and random tragedies.

(On that note, let me pause and bid your continued prayers for the victims of the mass shooting at the Navy Yard on Monday morning; for their families, friends, and colleagues; and for all those affected by violence throughout the world. If you know someone touched by this tragedy, or if you experienced resonances with some past trauma in your own life, please remember that the clergy and people of St. Paul’s are here for you. Just speak to someone after the service and we will do our best to connect you with the help you need.)

So pilgrims are not surprised by the worst that life can throw at them, but pilgrims are also thankful, as we know, for the gifts they have received. They don’t have the luxury of mistaking those gifts as signs of their own value or of a contingent blessing based on good behavior or worthy offerings. Pilgrims know what it’s like to be out of meal and oil, and they’ve learned the hard way to trust that God is present anyway. If they hadn’t learned to trust and to be thankful for what they have, they never would have made it this far.

Pilgrims can also be on the lookout for opportunity. They are blessed with an awareness that the story of their people is still being written. They are resistant (though not immune) to the temptation of glorifying “the good old days.” If they weren’t, they probably wouldn’t have ended up as pilgrims in the first place, because the memory of what was is seductive. It seems like a much easier dream to chase than the promise of what could be. But of course the pilgrims have it right, and the alternative is usually folly.

So what do these pilgrim virtues have to do with us? We might start by asking what false security we’re hanging onto. To add some wayfaring imagery to Bishop Jim’s question from two weeks ago, what treasures are we dragging through the wilderness that should have been left in Egypt? Some things are worth carrying, as the Israelites knew. But only the essentials—pilgrims travel light. We can’t limit our soul-searching to physical things: some old ways of working and worshiping, of relating to each other and our neighborhood, will probably need to change. God is doing a new thing, but none of us knows entirely what. That’s why we’re on a pilgrimage.

How about thanksgivings? What do we have to celebrate, right here, right now, even among much uncertainty? My first idea is the incredible talent and dedication in our music program under Robert McCormick’s steady direction. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our choirs than with more music, and I hope to see many of you here Friday night to support their ministry and join in the fun. Sharing and retweeting our social media posts about the event wouldn’t hurt either.

Another gift I’ve heard the parish buzzing about these past couple weeks is, and you can’t make up these coincidences, pilgrims: the Pilgrims in Christ class. As someone who makes his living as a Christian education consultant in training, I cannot understate to you what a tremendous blessing it is to have newcomers, long-time members, and a team of dedicated teachers so excited for a year-long faith formation experience that meets for two evening hours every single week. If I even suggested something like that to anyone who called our center at the seminary looking for ideas, they’d probably still be laughing at the absurdity. But Pilgrims is transforming lives in this parish, even in a year of transition. I’m thankful for everyone taking the plunge.

But what opportunities to use our many and distinctive gifts haven’t we thought of yet? What life-changing ministries lie just beyond the horizon? What unmet needs are we just starting to get an inkling about? What new ways to share the love of Christ are seeking root in the fertile soil of our hearts and minds?

We’ll miss these opportunities if we’re busy engineering a soft landing into business as usual or serving masters other than the Lord of All. We’ll miss them if we expect them to be unambiguous or tidy or painless.

But those who have taken a leap of faith in this life know the sure provision and surprising pleasures of a pilgrimage in Christ. It takes an ability to stay calm, to keep alert, to let go. It may even take some holy shrewdness.

The one thing we can be sure of is that God will be there in the thick of it, even if we don’t always understand how.