“NEW YEAR
JOURNEY”
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An Sermon preached at the Mint Methodist Church, Exeter, by the
Minister, Rev Andrew Sails at 6.30 p.m. on Sunday 7th January 2007 Readings: Genesis
11:27-32,
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Copenhagen Railway Station
Terah took his son Abram, his
grandson Lot
and his daughter-in-law Sarai, Abram’s wife,
and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to
go to Canaan.
But when they came to Haran they settled there.
Genesis 11:31
So the OT story – which has begin
with the great events
of creation and Babel and Flood,
suddenly moves from Star Trek to Ambridge -
suddenly takes us to an otherwise very ordinary famly
living 4000 years ago a few miles from what is now Nazariah
in Southern Iraq.
And God says to Terah and his family – I want you to go on a Journey.
As a new year begins in modern
Iraq,
and all seems frankly doom and gloom,
we would do well to remember that 4000 years ago
God saw the people of Iraq -
and doubtless has counted ever hair on every Iraqi head –
from that day on –
whether humble dwelling, opulent palace,
or indeed degrading place of execution.
It is not always easy to see the
way ahead –
particularly when the world seems dark and hopeless.
But whoever and wherever we are God has a path for us –
one step at a time.
Terah and his family settled in Haran –
not knowing that this was but the first part of an even greater journey to
Palestine.
This is how God directs our journey –
one step at a time:
New Year is a time to take stock,
maybe make a resolution or two,
perhaps plan a new direction and ask questions.
As Margaret
Killingray puts it talking about this passage -
“Do I need to make a move?
Am I being pushed out of this place, this job or this relationship?
We may only be able to see a little way ahead.
We may only be aware of the Lord
leading us a short distance onwards at the moment.
The full significance may only be revealed years in the future.
But knowing what the Lord would do with Terah’s move
from Ur to Haran,
we can trust him for 2007 and, if he calls, be ready to make a move. “
Yesterday was the Feast of Epiphany
when we remembered the Wise Men –
Where in the east they came from we know not –
but maybe they too followed the path of Terah and
Abraham of old –
from Iraq along the river valley of the fertile crescent
around via Syria and Lebanon to the Holy Land?
Time and again the Biblical story
tells of God calling his people to a journey – calling us to follow.
Our God is one who goes before us.
Sometimes he is a shepherd leading his sheep.
Sometimes he shows us a star, sometimes a cloud by day and fire by night.
Often, blind and foolish as we
are, we fail to see him there –
but this we know, that he goes before us, and wherever we travel –
even on the dark and despairing road to Emmaus,
or amidst the thieves and bandits of the Jericho Road,
or amidst the bomb blasts of the road from Nazariah
to Baghdad,
he – if we can but see him - is there with us on the road,
and indeed like the Prodigal’s Father,
awaiting our arrival at journey’s
end.
The theologian Soren
Kierkegaard lived in 19th C Denmark,
in an age when the Church as very corrupt and lazy and self seeking.
He constantly attacked the Church leaders of his day,
and often in wonderfully vivid ways.
On one occasion he describes the Church
as being like an enormous set of railway carriages waiting in the station.
It is, he says, a very very long train.
For every generation links a new set of carriages
to the carriages from the generation before, saying
“Thus we keep the faith of our fathers and honour the past”
So the train in the station keeps getting longer and longer and longer.
But says Kierkegaard, what no one in the carriages notices
is that the engine at the front has long ago left
and is way way over the horizon leaving the Church
behind…
“How charming, the tranquillity of literally not moving.”
As we begin a new year of course
we remember the past –
and look back and give thanks for those who have gone before us in the faith –
we give thanks for Terah and Abraham and Moses and
Jeremiah
and Mary and Joseph and Caspar and Balthazar and Melchior,
we give thanks for those of our own time
who have kept the flame of the faith burning in this place
But the man who pulls on the oars
of the rowing boat
looks back as he moves forward –
and we give thanks for those who have gone before us
in the past and previous years
that we may in this coming year continue forward.
We do not honour the Saints before
us by staying in the Railway siding,
staying in Ur of the Chaldees, staying in Pharaoh’s
Egypt –
we honour them by moving on in God’s name.
This
Sunday we traditionally think about the Baptism of Jesus,
and realize that for him this was the beginning of his journey to the
cross.
That reminds us that God often calls us to travel in the shadowy depths
as well as on the sunny uplands -
God’s journeys may not always be easy ones –
they may involve going down into the waters of sin and death.
In the words of the Covenant
Service,
“Christ has many services to be done…
some are suitable to our natural inclinations and material interests,
others are contrary to both;
in some we may please Christ and please ourselves;
in others we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves…..”
But we recall how having come up
out of the waters of death,
God’s voice greets Jesus and his spirit empowers him.
Just so for us, the Covenant service says:
“Yet the power to do all these things is given to us in Christ who strengthens
us”
To return the railway metaphor,
I recall someone telling of a railway journey
through the stupendous mountain scenery of the Alps –
when all at once the train rushed into a huge tunnel –
all went dark and the passengers felt themselves suddenly disorientated.
But in the darkness they trusted the way forward –
knowing that the train would emerge again –
Yea though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death,
will I fear no evil, for thou art with me…
So this new day, this new year, we are called to a journey.
And we do not just follow in the footsteps of Terah
and Abraham,
and of Caspar, Balthazar and Melchior –
we follow the way of the cross in the footsteps of Christ himself.
And so on our journeying we come
to Lord’s table,
as once long ago those first disciples came to an upper room.
And then perhaps we will hear Thomas saying
“Lord we do not know where you are going –
how can we know the way?
And then hear our Lord reply “I am the way”
And so as we begin a new years journeying
with the Lord,
I leave you with Luther’s wonderful description of the Christian life:
Wonderful words at the start of every new day and every new year:
“The holy soul stands always at
daybreak and is always arising,
not because it has reached its goal or is perfect,
but because, forgetting what is behind,
it always begins anew and stretches forward."
"This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not yet finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road."
What good news to take with us as we begin this new
year.
God be with us on that road, every step of the way.