RECALCULATE
Luke 24: 13-35
I am technologically challenged. Nonetheless, a few years ago I decided to take a chance and get a cell phone. I liked the way it looked and it was kind of cool having this thing in its carrying case strapped on to my belt. I did, however, think it was kind of curious that I never got any direct calls. Frequently, when I turned it on, I found that I had a voice message. Being a quick study, I figured out that this meant that someone had tried to call me and, being unable to get through, had just left a message. I happened to mention to one of my daughters that my phone wasn't working properly, that it never rang but rather only saved voice messages. My daughter, sensing the problem, said: "Dad, it won't ring unless you have the phone turned on." To which I replied: "Oh...." and then quickly changed the subject. Now, being enlightened, I remember to turn my phone on and I actually get live calls now and then.
The challenge of operating a cell phone having been mastered, my next leap into technology was to get a GPS unit. GPS stands for Global Positioning Satellite and this amazing little device, on the dashboard of my car, can give directions to almost anywhere I want to go...at least that's the theory....All I have to do is key in the address I'm looking for and this thing figures out what it thinks is the best way to get there and displays it on a small screen. It even has a female voice that tells me when to turn and how many miles I have to go before the next turn. And, if I should make a wrong turn, or intentionally disregard its directions because I think I know better, the voice comes on and says "recalculating," and then it comes up with an alternate route. Now here is an interesting part: I know this is an electronically generated voice but I swear that, when I've missed a turn and it has to figure out how to get me where I want to go, it actually sounds annoyed. There is definitely an edge in her voice as if she is thinking, "Hey, stupid, I gave you the right directions but you weren't paying attention, now I have to figure out a new route...."
Nonetheless, it has proven very helpful to have an on-board device that keeps an eye on me, keeps me posted on how I'm doing with regard to reaching my target address, and is willing to recalculate my route when I make a mistake or rely on my own judgment. At my wife Susan's suggestion, we have named our GPS Grace. I'm not sure why she picked that name, but I like its theological implications.
This morning's lesson from the Gospel of Luke has to do with recalculating, with discovering that you may be headed in the wrong direction and need to refigure your course. Two of Jesus followers are walking out of Jerusalem, along a dusty road that leads to a small village named Emmaus. They are despondent. The person whom they thought was the long awaited Messiah had just suffered an ignominious death. All their hopes and dreams and plans had suddenly become a dead end. They had pinned everything on the hope that finally God had sent a savior to free the Jews and to reconcile the world to God. And now...this. Where to go now, what to do....For hundreds of years, various prophets had foretold the coming of a Messiah, a savior who would overcome the world. There was much speculation about who or what this savior would be. Some thought he would be a military man who would conquer the enemies of the Jews and establish a theocratic nation destined to rule the world. Other prophets spoke of the Messiah as a bringer of peace and reconciliation, an incarnation of the creator who would beat swords into ploughshares and be known as the Prince of Peace. For instance, the Zealots felt strongly that Jesus had come to raise an army to overthrow the Romans and restore Jerusalem as God's kingdom on earth while the Essenes interpreted his message as being one of spiritual, non-violent transformation and reconciliation. As these two men walked along the road--probably not caring all that much where they were going since...what did it matter now, Jesus came upon them and asked why they seemed so upset. This must have seemed like a foolish question...was this stranger the only one who had not heard of Jesus crucifixion? Was he the only one whose life had not been turned upside down by this a terrible miscalculation, this putting all their hope and trust in a man who turned out to be just as fallible and subject to the world's order as they were? They had forsaken everything, given up all they had known to follow him...and it had turned out to be wrong turn. It would have been better to just keep trudging the road under the yoke of the Romans than to experience this devastating let down.
"We had hoped that he would be the one," they told the stranger. And we can presume that they told him how Jesus had redirected them, had put them on a road that lead back to God, had encouraged them to recalculate their disordered lives and head along a road to real life. You can almost sense that they were frantically trying to figure out what to do next. "What do we do...where do we go...do we just go back to the familiar roads we walked before we met Jesus...do we keep searching for the path he told us about...how will we know what road to walk without him by our sides?"
The analogy between a GPS unit and God has many flaws and, if there are any learned theologians in the congregation, I can almost hear them cringe...but, since I have never been accused of being a learned theologian, I like it and have found it useful. Our GPS Grace depends on constant contact with at least three satellites which orbit the earth. If only one or two are in contact with Grace, she can't give directions and her voice comes on and says, "lost satellite contact." I've had this happen while driving and it is very disconcerting. What do I do, where do I go, how come Grace has lost contact with her source of directions? Almost invariably, if I wait for awhile, Grace reestablishes contact and starts providing travel information again. On the road of life, something quite similar can happen. We can be going along, pretty sure that we're doing the right thing, feeling God's constant guidance, getting little but powerful messages that we're making the right turns and that we're headed in the right direction when, all of a sudden, we lose contact with God. Things start going not so well. A relationship we trusted may start to unravel; our children may choose to walk a road of which we do not approve; our sense of security may become shaken, illness may force us to radically change our direction and plans and we may wonder why we have lost contact with God. The Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard described this as "the dark night of the soul" and we're told that even a saintly person like Mother Theresa had occasional times of doubt in which she lost contact with or had a sense of great distance from God. We can imagine that those two followers of Jesus had a similar sense of having lost contact with God and wondering what to do next.
They kept walking. That's crucial: they kept walking. They didn't turn around, they didn't quickly attach themselves to some other, false, Messiah, or get back on the same old road they had walked before they encountered Jesus, they didn't give up. And, in a sense, they gave Jesus time to catch up with them, to join them on the road to Emmaus. And, as night approached, they sat down to eat with Jesus and, suddenly, they reconnected, they recalculated and recognized that the stranger who had walked with them was Jesus and that they were indeed on the right road and under the guidance of God. God in Christ had been there all along, they were not alone, they had not been misled. God's grace was going to see them through!
There are few things which send a person down the wrong road with such disastrous consequences as addiction to alcohol or other drugs. For persons inclined to addiction, the seductive power of mood-changing chemicals can have an almost messianic quality. Shy people can talk, up-tight people loosen up and enjoy themselves, insecure people feel gloriously self-assured. What a wonderful road addiction seems to be...at first. But then, often subtly, the road changes. Bizarre detours are taken, the path ahead is hard to see, the sense that "all is well" is transformed into doubt and ultimately terror. Chemicals replace or help break off contact with God. The addict is on his own and invariably makes the wrong turn down increasingly slippery and twisting pathways. Relying solely on his own resources, the alcoholic drives toward oblivion, often taking others with him.
There is a God-given recalculation which alcoholics and addicts can make. Alcoholics Anonymous provides a road-map back to a sober and useful life and, of greatest importance, a way to reconnect with a loving God. It does not take all the bumps out of the road and it certainly does not provide the false euphoria that chemicals once did. But, just as the GPS Grace gives useful directions, A.A. invariably gets the recovering addict where he needs to go. And taking the A.A. road to sobriety takes a certain amount of courage, of willingness to keep walking even when sometimes the connection seems lost. Just as the two men on the road to Emmaus kept walking and gave Jesus time to catch up with them and thus to affirm that they were on the right road after all, so members of A.A. are always available to carry the alcoholic through times of doubt and lost-contact with God.
This business of recalculating has other implications. For the past several years, our nation has been involved with a devastating war in Iraq. We have spent thousands of lives and billions of dollars going down a road which seems to have no end. One can argue whether or not we should have taken this road in the first place, but one wonders if it isn't time to recalculate; to try some other means of achieving our goals. One wonders that, as Christians whose savior came in the form of a humble, non-militaristic man, we might not be better served to try the road of peace and non-confrontation. Clearly this is a complex matter with no easy solutions, but I find it hard to hear the voice of God saying, "what we need is more shock and awe...." I wonder if--as sometimes my GPS loses contact with its satellites--we haven't lost contact with the voice of the Prince of Peace.
My GPS, Grace, can be difficult sometimes. When I turn the device on, a message comes up saying, "searching for satellites." Sometimes Grace makes contact right away and sometimes it seems to take forever for the task to be done. Frankly, I think sometimes she is just lazy. When no one else is in the car, I will sometimes say out loud "come on, come on Grace, I can't get going until you give me the information...." Sometimes, our lives are like that also. We have to be patient and willing to wait until the right information is available. We want to know if this is the right job, now. We want to know if this is the right person, now. We want to know how to handle this difficult situation, now. We want the diagnosis and treatment recommendations, now. God gives us what we need at the time we need it and no amount of cajoling or impatience will change that. I know that is true with God...but, frankly, I still think sometimes Grace is just being difficult.
Grace can sometimes behave quite oddly and provide conflicting directions. The other day while I was driving back from Boston on an interstate road, Grace suddenly chimed in with "lost satellite contact" followed shortly by "in 200 feet turn right," followed shortly again by "in two hundred feet, turn left," followed shortly again by "turn left, then turn left, then turn left..." and ending with "lost satellite contact" again. Fortunately, I had a set of written directions and a hard-copy map with me and, consulting these, I was able to stay on the right course. This reminds me that since sometimes I may get what seems like confusing or uncertain "directions" from God, it always helps to consult other sources of information just so I'm sure I'm doing the right thing. In real life situations, this usually involves my checking with other people to make sure that what I think is God's will is just that and not some product of my own confusion or misinterpretation.
It has been my experience that there are no short-cuts or easier, softer ways, to walk the road of life. Grief must be walked through; ignoring it won't make it go away. Fear must be faced; there are no magical cures. Love often involves great personal sacrifice and challenge, it demands much more than superficial affection. War will not be ended by simple slogans. In these and so many other situations in life, what God asks of us is a willingness to stay on the road and to trust in God's guidance in whatever way it may be given to us.
The other day I was in my car taking directions from Grace when it occurred to me that if I had had a GPS in my baseball glove, I might still be playing ball. A few years ago, I "retired" from my Over Forty baseball team mostly because I was having trouble tracking and catching fly balls. How great it would be, I thought, if I had a little GPS right in my glove, shouting out directions..."okay Tom, run to your right about ten feet, now run in about twenty feet, now...a little bit more to the right...that's it, now stick your glove hand out and catch that ball..."!! Alas, no such device exists and, if it did, it would be my luck to hear "lost satellite contact" just when I was ready to make the catch. Again, there are no easier, softer or magical solutions. What seems to be required is the same gritty determination those early followers of the risen Jesus had; the same willingness to walk through doubt and uncertainty until we hear again the voice of God.
It could be said that, in a way, God has done some recalculating through the progression of human history. The earlier Old Testament writings speak of a rather wrathful, angry and jealous God. Perhaps, given the brutality of early historical times, this portrayal simply reflected humankind's crude understanding of how the Creator dealt with his creatures. At any rate, the Hebrews seemed to consistently miss the deeper message of God's love and God's will for his creatures. So God recalculated; God tried to put the humankind back on the right road by sending prophets with clear instructions about how to walk the road of life with care and dignity. But, again, we failed to heed the message and wandered off, chasing idols and following highways that lead to nowhere. Finally, when all else had failed God once again recalculated and sent the Christ. So great was God's love that God chose to be one of us, to show us the road--not by messages sent from afar--but by walking next to us in the person of Jesus. The way is now clear, if we follow Jesus, we will not be lost.
God's grace, God's love for us as shown in Jesus, is always available to us. If we are lost, if through self-will, doubt or fear we have lost contact with God and have wandered off on some destructive side-road, we may be sure that God has not lost contact with us, that as the risen Jesus walked quietly with his followers and gradually allowed them to experience his presence, so we may expect and anticipate God's graceful presence in our own lives. With God's grace, we can recalculate and walk the road that leads to life.
June 29, 2008
The Reverend Tom Baker
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