Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
      Why do you come to church?  I ruminate on that question with some regularity, not only asking it to myself, but also considering how individuals here answer it and wondering why those who have no spiritual home don’t come to church.  At least part of it must be that they see the church as having no value, or negative value.  Of course I disagree, but I respect that point of view and understand why people think that.
 
      The church exists to change lives, to make a positive difference.  Ascension and St. Agnes has changed my life; it gives me life and growth.  I think of Jesus saying, “I came that [you] may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10b)
 
      Human beings try to have life, abundant life, two ways.  One way, we seek position, wealth, power, achievement, popularity, praise – external things, and to some extent we need these things, but we may put too much emphasis on them, too much value in them.  The other way is internal things: personal growth, serving others, connecting to others – the things Jesus offers.
 
      The church, the body of Christ, offers three basic things: 1) a connection and encounter with God, God in our lives; 2) belonging, a community where I’m known and accepted and where I serve something bigger than myself; and, 3) support to grow as person, for my character to strengthen.  These three give our lives meaning and purpose.
 
      Church, of course, is not the only place where these things may happen, but it’s really the heart and value of Christian community.  That’s why many people dedicate their lives to building Christian community, and it’s why St. Paul put so much of himself into the gathering of Christians at Corinth, that it might be a place of encounter with God and good news, a community focused on human transformation.
 
      Corinth was a major Greek city, cosmopolitan and wealthy, a mixture of many ethnicities, lots of people coming and going, a useful place to set up shop to let people know about Jesus and the gospel.  Paul established this gathering of Christians and made extended visits there at least three times, sent assistants there to represent himself to them, received delegations from them, and wrote at least five letters to them, probably more.[i] The two letters we have may combine several letters.
 
      Paul’s letters reveal deep communal dysfunction, just dreadful pastoral problems.  The Corinthian Christians were disobedient, ornery, and obstinate; they almost certainly kept Paul up at night, tossing and turning, wondering how to deal with those impossible people, some of whom ridiculed and belittled him.  He reacted to them variously: on occasion with fierce, withering words and also with tears, but mostly with tact and care, with love.  He addressed controversies about doctrine, worship, discipline, and vision.  He dealt with volatile class, gender, and personality tensions.
 
      The Corinthian gathering had conflicting loyalties, three or four factions, and Paul addressed the problem not with directions to each group, but rather with criticism to the whole group.  He compared the gathering, the church, to a human body.  In the ancient world, comparing a group to a human body was common, a tactic to promote social harmony, but in most ancient speeches, the intent was to keep people in their proper place, to discourage subordinate, low status people, like slaves, from getting notions about upsetting the social order and threatening the privilege of their superiors.
 
      Paul used the body-gathering analogy in a new way.  He argued that, like a body, a community needs diversity and interdependence.  Diversity: the beginning of today’s reading explained that God has designed a body to have multiple parts, doing different things, but all belonging to the body.  Interdependence: then Paul explained that each of a body’s parts, both the honorable and the less presentable, inferior parts, each part is indispensable to the body functioning in a healthy, effective, and pleasant way; each contributes to the body and receives from the body.  All of a body’s parts are in it together; the fate of each part tied to the fate of the other parts.
 
      In a body, it seems like the more complexity, the more diversity, the more capacity to do different things.  A body has many different parts so that it can do many different things.  Paul pointed out that the whole body is not an ear.  It would be grotesque, and it would not be able to see or smell or handle or know or walk or reproduce.  God designed many different parts of the body so that a body had many different abilities.
 
      Today’s epistle reminds us that differences are not a mark of weakness.  Any group, or family, or couple, has differences, and these are not a threat, but differences do require us to do the hard work of cultivating virtues that help us to live in unity.  That is what leads to spiritual maturity, to producing what Paul called the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, gentleness, self-control.
 
      When I read the newspaper these days, and especially if I turn on talk radio or TV talking heads, I don’t see many fruits of the Spirit.  There’s so much scorn and dissension and party spirit, and so little appreciation that God has made everyone important and valuable.  Paul said that everyone in a body is indispensable.  Do we recognize that we’re all in it together?
 
      Think of the groups you are part of: family, church, school, friends, work, neighborhood, nation.  It can be very difficult to value everyone in those groups, but as we rise to meet that challenge, we grow spiritually.  No one can be a Christian on their own.  Spiritual growth is not a private matter, but has everything to do with relationships, especially the challenges of being with other people, not retreating from, but engaging even very difficult people, like the Corinthians.  Indeed, by engaging difficult people we are really confronting ourselves, our own shortcomings.
 
      In the church, at the very least, Paul asked us to accept each other and value each other.  Christians have differences about theology, scripture, mission, worship, abortion, sexuality, guns, wealth, global warming, gender, and many other topics.  There’s no value in getting defensive and condemning.  There’s value in listening to each other and remembering that we are one, and surprising as it is to us, that we need each other.
 
      Paul wrote that if one of us suffers, we all suffer.  If one of us is honored, we’re all honored.  It’s just as if the stomach gets upset, the whole body feels it.  If a finger gets broken, the whole body experiences pain and weakens.
 
      In effect, Paul said, “Feel compassion, empathize with those who are suffering.  Don’t be a wet sock trying to protect yourself from emotional discomfort.  Don’t be lofty and aloof.  That doesn’t mean you can fix someone else’s suffering.  That doesn’t mean you are responsible for someone else’s suffering.  That does mean you are present to them in their suffering.  And in the same way you are there in difficulty, you rejoice with someone who is rejoicing.”  That’s Paul’s message to us.
 
      The life of the body, many members and yet one, how it’s the model of church life, also mirrors the inner life of God, God who is in himself a community: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God who is three in one and one in three.  Each person of the Trinity retains his own individuality and identity, but has deep mutuality with the others.  There’s a mysterious balance between individuality and connection, self-definition and community, unity and diversity.  That’s what we seek in our lives.
 
      God is love, his inner life a community of love, and it’s what we’re entering, what we’re becoming.  It’s our future.  Today’s epistle ends with Paul urging the Corinthians to seek the best gift, and the best gift is love.  All of the next chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, the pre-eminent wedding, text is about love, the love of God seen in Jesus: love is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful… does not insist on its own way; … rejoices in the right… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, … never ends.  This is the love that gives life, abundant life.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] Garry Wills, What Paul Meant, Viking (2006), p. 113, for comments on the Corinthian context.

Read the sermon:
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
        Agnes was a martyr, a churchy word that originally meant “witness.”  A martyr bore witness, or testified, as in a courtroom.  For nearly three hundred years after the resurrection, Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire, and some Christians were killed on account of their belief.  These martyrs would not deny Jesus or change their testimony.
 
        In our day, in some places, people kill Christians for their witness to Christ.  Intense persecution of Christians continues today in North Korea, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other nations.  These persecutions sometimes include killing people.
 
        In the early fourth century, the Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered a particularly fierce persecution of Christians, the bloodiest of all the Roman persecutions of Christians.  The world, as always, was rapidly changing, and like many last gasp attempts to hold back the future, it was extremely ugly.  When children are targets, the killers are desperate.
 
        Agnes lived in Rome.  In 304, when she was twelve or thirteen years old, she refused to renounce Jesus, and the authorities killed her.  The horror provoked tremendous outrage.  People questioned whether preserving old Roman ways was necessary, or worth, such extremism.  Her execution may have been the tipping point, the point where people said, “No more.”  Within a decade, Rome legalized Christianity and soon thereafter embraced Christianity.
 
        Agnes’ official feast day is tomorrow, supposedly the day she was killed.  To me, it contrasts sharply with what will be happening here tomorrow, Inauguration Day – two different kinds of kingdoms.  Obviously, our government is far more just, egalitarian, accountable than most, and especially far more than Imperial Rome, but still the inauguration is a display of worldly power; for the most part, it celebrates the kingdom of this world.
 
        My first passion was politics, the art of living together.  I still find it fascinating and consider it enormously important.  The decisions we make, or don’t make, significantly impacts billions of people.  Working together we can make the world a more just and humane place, or not.  In my youth, my strong idealism made me hopeful that good policy could create a near perfect society, alleviate most suffering, and help us live in comfort if not luxury.
 
        I started to become a Christian, however, when I came to recognize that even if such a perfect society did exist, it wouldn’t matter without God.  Humanity’s purpose could not be found only in this world.  A couple years before I was baptized, I came to believe that for life to be meaningful, God had to exist, and humanity had to have some connection to God and eternity, connection to something beyond this world, other than this world.  For me, the kingdom of this world, a human kingdom, no matter how perfect, was not enough.
 
        Slowly I began to learn about the Kingdom of God.  No doubt, worldly kingdoms shaped my conception of it; our views of this world typically shape our notions of greater realities.  So my initial imagination of the Kingdom of God assumed that it was a place with a hierarchical structure, a place of the lesser serving the stronger, a place of exclusivity.  My notion of the Kingdom of God was mixed up with all that St. Peter and pearly gates imagery, and it’s hugely misleading, implying external barriers to entry, implying that we had to earn our way to be welcomed.  Nuts.
 
        In today’s gospel, Jesus described the Kingdom of God.  The disciples asked Jesus, “Who has the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”  Matthew has revised a story in Mark’s gospel where the disciples fought among themselves about who was the brightest and best. (Mk 9:33-37)  Mark’s portrayal of the disciples as bumbling, petty, and dim-witted embarrassed Matthew, who had a different opinion than Mark.  So he re-wrote it and gave us today’s scene.
 
        In the ancient Near East, determining the pecking order was very important.[i]  Everyone had to know and act according to their honor status.  It minimized conflict and promoted social stability.  Being humble meant staying within your inherited status.  The humble didn’t grasp for a social upgrade.  If your status did improve, that necessarily meant at least one person, and maybe many, had a downgrade.  Honor was a zero sum game.
 
        A child had no status in society.  Jesus told his disciples that if they were like a little child, a nobody, then they would be great in the Kingdom of God.  Jesus completely undermined his culture’s fundamental convention about status.  The Kingdom of God doesn’t have this strict hierarchy.  He was saying, “Your social status does not mirror your value.  You are of infinite value.  Don’t think of yourself in terms of social hierarchies.  It’s okay to be a nobody.”  Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the meek.
 
        The message was not only don’t seek a higher position, but be willing to give up the honor, the status, you currently enjoy; be willing to be treated as someone lower on the totem pole.  According to Jesus, when we have that kind of inner conversion so that we can accept lower status, as we develop that kind of humility, then we’re entering the Kingdom of God.
 
        The corollary of such humility is the imperative to extend hospitality, a ready and eager embrace of all.  In effect, Jesus said, “When you welcome a little child, a nobody, you are welcoming me.  See me in other people, especially those you hold in lower regard.  And if you take advantage of the little ones, those who are weak or despised, you’ll be sorry because you’ll be cutting yourself off from me.  It’s like being dropped in a lake with a huge rock tied around your neck.”
 
        Let’s be clear: it’s not God punishing us.  When we take advantage of someone with less position, or less talent and ability, when we grasp for higher status and snub people trying to climb over them, God does not come after us.  Rather, by our own actions we separate ourselves from him and his Kingdom.
 
        “Kingdom of God” is an unfortunate phrase.  It’s much better to think about the Kingdom of God as God’s rule, or as Jesus’ personal presence, or the phrase John uses: “eternal life.”  I want God to rule my heart, for Jesus to be present with me, to have eternal life (God’s life) in me.  The story of our lives, our journey in life, is about learning to welcome God into our lives, being hospitable to his presence in us.
 
        Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God [his rule, his presence] is not coming with signs to be observed; nor when someone says, “Look here it is” or “There it is,” because the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” (Luke 17:20b-21)  It’s in the midst of you.  It’s here and now, not then and there.
 
        When I pray the Lord’s prayer, which all about God’s kingdom, his presence, coming into our lives, being in our lives, I’m asking him to fill my heart and mind and being with himself, to awaken me to his presence and love and care of me, to make me more aware that God’s rule is already taking shape in the world.  Heaven and earth are already coming together.  In the resurrection, Jesus showed us a little of what this new creation looks like, of what our future looks like.  This new order of creation has begun to appear.
 
        We are now in the midst of heaven and earth coming together.  It’s happening in the world and in each of us.  The Kingdom of God, Jesus’ presence, already exists in you.  We don’t have to wait for death or an afterlife to connect to life and heaven.  It’s happening now.  Just pay attention to this moment, to who’s with us, to what we are thinking and feeling, to what we are part of, to what’s going on around us.
 
        If we connect to that life, that presence, that Kingdom, in us, it doesn’t separate us from this world; it makes us more attached, more involved, more committed to this world and to our nation.  As we begin a new presidential term, I hope and pray that the next years are full of prosperity, strength, justice, peace, that we work better together, taking advantage of our opportunities and addressing our problems, and while our government may, or may not, move in that direction, we can.
 
        We follow Jesus who offers an agenda, a platform, that no politician would ever endorse.[ii]  Can you imagine any politician – and remember our politicians are, for the most part, merely a reflection of us, we get what we deserve – can you imagine a politician proclaiming Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) or Sermon on the Plain (Luke) as his priority?  Can you imagine any politician making a campaign speech or an inaugural address saying,

  That is Jesus’ platform, and it is the path to the Kingdom of God, to living wholly in Jesus’ presence.  It’s heaven.  It’s love.  It’s our future, and together with God we can make it more of our present.
 
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.
 
 
The Rev. Lane Davenport
www.asa-dc.org
(202) 347-8161
 

[i] Bruce J. Malina & Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Fortress Press (2003), p. 92.
[ii] Point made by Garry Wills, What Jesus Meant, Viking (2006), pp. 88-89.  He quoted Luke’s Sermon on the Plain.  I’ve added bits from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, paraphrasing from The Message and some of my own.

Isaiah 43:1-7
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

      Last Sunday our bishop made a formal visitation...  Grateful to be part of such a hospitable and gracious community... Thrilled to have a great group of folks being confirmed and received... This morning formally recognize them as members of the parish...

      Today’s gospel begins by telling us that all the people were in expectation.  They expected that God was finally acting: he was sending his Messiah to save them from decay and destruction, to take away their sorrow and pain, to make them prosperous and powerful, to set them up as the envy of the world. 

      Does that sound familiar?  Luke was writing about Jews two thousand years ago, but perhaps you recognize that attitude and anticipation here in this country?  I notice it not only in myself, but throughout our society, at least every four years.  “Oh come, Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, come and solve all our problems, take care of us, sort things out.”  It’s as if we as a people do not bear any responsibility.  And it’s not only politicians that we expect to solve our problems and take care of us, but possibly a family member, our doctor, a friend, our bishop, a financial advisor, a boss…

      We often look to authority to solve our problems, and when authority doesn’t come up with what we want, that authority becomes less trustworthy to us.  We get disappointed with authority when we are not provided with clear direction and protection from dangers.  We get disappointed with authority when it does not maintain norms and quell conflict.  We get disappointed with authority when it does not shield us from the hard work of changing our habits, our values, our attitudes.

      All the people were in expectation.  Each expects the Messiah to be their own idea of perfection, the fulfillment of their own dreams, but of course each of us wants something different than the next guy.  It was impossible for the Messiah not to disappoint. 

      Two thousand years ago, many people thought that John the Baptist was the Messiah.  He knew that he was not the Messiah.  Today’s scene at the Jordan River marks John leaving the stage for Jesus.  The spotlight now focuses on Jesus.  It was a moment of transition, and like many transitions it was a moment of encounter with God. 

      Luke wrote that after Jesus was baptized, Jesus prayed, and heaven opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus.         These events, Jesus’ experience of God, sort of constitute an annunciation scene.  They profoundly shaped his self-understanding.  It helped to make him more aware of his own significance as the beloved Son of God in whom God delights. 

      “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.”  It’s the combination of two verses from Hebrew scripture.  First, Psalm 2:7: “the Lord said to me, ‘thou art my Son.’”  Second, Isaiah 42:1: “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him.”  It’s the first verse of one of Isaiah’s descriptions of the Suffering Servant, God’s agent who in all patience and anguish announces God’s teaching and establishes justice.  In other words, “thou art my beloved Son in whom I delight” is a statement saying that Jesus is Son of God and the Suffering Servant of God.

      It’s a moment of epiphany for Jesus, a flash of understanding about himself, given to him by the Holy Spirit.  It shows us the importance of knowing something about ourselves, having a sense of who we are.  It is essential not only for effectively engaging in ministry, but also for having a full life and a sense of belonging and purpose. 

      For Jesus, the voice from heaven, perhaps heard emerging from the deepest recess of his own heart, told him of his special, unique relationship to the Father.  It would later inspire Jesus to compare prayer to a son’s request to his father.  Jesus said, “As bad as you are, you wouldn’t dream of giving a serpent to your son if he had asked for a fish.  If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (Luke 11:13)  Jesus’ experience at the Jordan strengthened his confidence in God as his loving Father.[1]

      Jesus became more thoroughly conscious of his sonship and his intimacy with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  In the very next scene after baptism, as Jesus went out into the wilderness, twice the devil tempted Jesus to prove his sonship through miracles.  The devil ordered him, “If you are the Son of God, turn this stone into bread… If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the top of the Temple.”  Jesus didn’t act to prove it.  He remained confident of his sonship.

      So baptism strengthened Jesus’ sense of identity as Son of God and Suffering Servant of God, but it also shows us his sense of identity with you and me.  John’s baptism in the Jordan was for repentance, for returning to God.  Jesus was one with God, in harmonious relationship with God – not separated, not in sin.  He didn’t need to repent.  Why did Jesus get baptized?  In being baptized, Jesus showed that he was one with the people of Israel, and with you and me.  He identified with broken and damaged and sinful people who need God. 

      He was willing to belong to a group of people and to have their identity shape and influence him.  He was not aloof, not a mile above us, not separated from us, not going it alone.  John Taylor was an English Bishop.  He wrote: “What is so astonishing about [Jesus] is that in all his uniqueness his true self exists in the gathering together of the two or three… he seemed to delight in the interdependence of [humanity].”[2]  Jesus delighted in people being mutually dependent on each other, responsible to each other, needing one another. 

      St. Paul makes this point when he compared a human body to the church: “the parts of the body should have equal concern for each other, dependent upon every other part.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Cor 12:25-26)  It’s dependency that runs two ways.  It’s different than what we typically assume about the Messiah, the Messiah who takes care of us and we don’t have to assume responsibility, only receiving and not giving.  That’s not the kind of Messiah Jesus is.  For Jesus, it’s working together, collaborating, trusting, depending upon each other.  It’s the cliché that one hand can’t clap on its own.

      In the early 1960s, more than thirty people in Manhattan’s Central Park witnessed the stabbing and murder of a woman, and none of them called the police.[3]  Now, you may say to yourself, like me, “I would have called the police.  I might have even tried to stop the attacker myself.”  Well, perhaps.  But there’s also part of us that is very reluctant to risk, to put ourselves out there, especially in the moment.  The incident shocked people about how fearful we were to get involved.  The incident provoked controversy about how guilty the do-nothing onlookers were.

      Baptism makes us all brothers and sisters in Christ, the children of God.  Baptism shapes our identity, our sense of self, so that we know that we have a responsibility toward helping someone under attack.  Jesus got baptized to show us that he was one with us, and baptism binds each of us together.  We’re all in it together.  Sometimes we have to serve other people in ways that may cause us some inconvenience, discomfort, even suffering. 

      In a few moments, we are going to celebrate a rite welcoming new members of the congregation.  New members accept some responsibilities in becoming part of this Christian community.  They are giving something of themselves, making commitments, but they also are receiving acceptance and support.  Likewise, the current members in taking on some responsibilities toward new members are giving something of themselves, making commitments, and receiving new sources of inspiration and learning.  It’s all about mutuality, give and take, interdependence, reciprocal responsibilities to each other.  It’s sacred, holy, modeled by Jesus himself, essential to our identity as the children of God, each of us a beloved child of God.  God delights in each of us.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.


[1] James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, Eerdmans (first published by SCM Press, 1975), p. 66.

[2] John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God, SCM Press (1972), p. 93.

[3] Ronald Rolheiser, Seeking Spirituality, Hodder & Stoughton (1998), p. 116.

At the Church of the Ascension and Saint Agnes
The Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde
Bishop of Washington

Arise, shine, for your light has come….                                                       Isaiah 60:1

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage.                                                 Matthew 2:1-2

                  The trouble with stars that beckon us to follow them is that we can never know at the onset of our journey where their light will lead. The invitation is simply extended: “arise, shine, for you light has come.” The invitation may come in the form of an unexpected opportunity, a new relationship, a chance for adventure, or even a crisis or loss—anything, really, that calls us from beyond ourselves to a new place or way of being.  Or the invitation may come from within, rising up as illumination from the depths of our being, as we come into our own at last.

            The source of the light isn’t, in the end, all that important. The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor begins her sermon on the journey of the wise men this way: “Once upon a time there were some very wise men who were all sitting in their own countries minding their own business when a bright star lodged in the right eye of each of them. It was so bright that none of them could tell whether it was burning in the sky or in their own imagination, but they were wise enough to know that it didn’t matter. The point was, something beyond them was calling them, and it was a tug they had been waiting for all their lives.” (Taylor, 1999)     

            So they began, as do we whenever light beckons us, not knowing what the journey will mean when we consent to it. Sometimes, truth be told, we never know. All we have is the light, the desire, or the pain to guide us. Poets, I think, understand best what drives us forward on such journeys. W.H. Auden writes, in the voice of the magi, “All we know for certain is that we are three old sinners, That this journey is much too long, that we want our dinners, And miss our wives, our books, our dogs, But we have only the vaguest idea why we are what we are. To discover how to be human now is the reason we follow the star.” (Auden, 1991)

            As ill-equipped as we might feel for whatever beckons us, we are not without resources when we begin our journeys of significance. We have ourselves, the strength of our character, the content of our dreams, the cumulative power of our skill and past experiences, and even, in the paradoxical ways of grace, our weaknesses to help us. It may not seem like much, what we bring to the journey, yet what we have and who we are is important. The Magi, you know, were not simply wise men in the generic sense. The Greek term, magoi indicates that they were priests and sages, experts in astrology and the interpretation of dreams. They knew something about stars, and they were called for a reason to follow the one leading to Christ, as are we whenever a new light beckons us. We are called for reasons that are grounded in who we are. If we are young, those reasons are likely to be found in our idealism and hope, the gifts we’ve been given and the passions that stir us. If we’re older, the reasons may be found in our character, how our experiences have changed us, and new doors opening that we would be fools not to walk through.

            The reasons why we are called are often not evident at first. On the surface we may seem like the least likely candidates to go where the stars lead. It is the nature of revelation, you know, to be counter-intuitive. I haven’t seen the film version of The Hobbit yet, but those of you who love J.R. Tolkein may remember a scene from The Fellowship of the Ring in which the wise wizard Gandalf assures the young hobbit Frodo Baggins that he is indeed the one destined to carry the evil ring back to its destruction in the fires of Mordor. No one would have guessed it, looking at Frodo. Hobbits were small and utterly provincial. Frodo was innocent and afraid. But there is something about him—his loyalty to friends, his inner strength, and an innate capacity to resist the ring’s evil—that made him the one. “The ring came to you for a reason, Frodo” Gandalf tells him, “There is comfort in that.” “I wish the ring had never come to me,” Frodo despairs. “I wish this had never happened.” “So do all who live in such times,” Gandalf replies, “But while we cannot choose the times we live in, we can choose how to respond to the time we are given.” Then in perhaps the bravest words uttered by hobbit or human, Frodo says at last, “I will take the ring, but I do not know the way.”

            It is often like that. The magi chose to follow the star, not knowing where it would lead. Frodo chose to carry the ring, though he didn’t know where to take it. In ways large and small, we all say yes to things we cannot fully comprehend. It is an extraordinary aspect of the human experience, requiring of us great courage. “In order to reach a distant shore,” writes the artist Andre Ghee, “one must consent to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”

What, then, is there to guide us in this life when we do not know the way?

We have, first of all, the star, whatever it was that inspired us to begin our journey in the first place. Its light is generally not enough to illumine the entire path, but it is sufficient for us to take the next step. And we should never underestimate the importance of taking the next step, no matter how small it seems.

A woman once wrote Carl Jung asking for advice on how to live her life. He replied that her questions were unanswerable. “One lives as one can,” he wrote. “If you want to go your individual way, it is the way you make for yourself, which is never prescribed, which you do not know in advance, and which simply comes into being of itself when you put one foot in from of the other.  If you do with conviction the next and most necessary thing, you are always doing something meaningful and intended by fate.” (Jaffee) Guidance comes, then, from impartial light and the step before us.

Yet even the light, and the “next and most necessary thing” may only get us so far on our own. Sometimes we need help from other sources.  The magi’s star, remember, led them at first to Jerusalem, to the palace of Herod, a king who was, to say the least, something of a disappointment. Taylor describes him as old and fat and with terrible breath. Without even conferring with one another the wise men knew that he was not the one. Their star had brought them to a dead end, and so they asked Herod, of all people, if he knew of any other kings in the area.  It was a question that got Herod’s attention, and he quickly conferred with his priests who consulted their Scriptures. Yes, there was to be a new king born, they told him, in the city of Bethlehem, according to the prophet Micah. So Herod sent the wise men in search of the new king, with a map to Bethlehem, on the condition that they report back to him.  Now they had no intention of returning to his palace, but the amazing thing to notice is that Herod had served as an instrument for their guidance. As Auden writes, ““For God’s goodness,” Auden writes, “even sin is valid as a sign.” We never know from where needed insight will come.

            The wise men also had each other, “the fellowship of the star,” if you will, as Frodo had his friends. There is wisdom and guidance in community for all of us. For Christians the power of community is especially important. There is where we come to learn and pray and struggle together with what it means to be human, to be on journeys of ambiguous meaning, to follow the light of Christ. Christ was quite clear that his followers were not to be alone, that in this life, and on this path, we need one another.

At the foundation of Christian community is our relationship to Christ himself. The priest I grew up with used to say to us, “don’t follow me. I don’t know where I’m going. Follow Christ. He knows the way.”  I didn’t understand what he meant then, but I do now.

There’s is a story in the gospel of John, typically read at funerals, in which Jesus is preparing his disciples for the fact that he will soon leave them. Death, if you think about it, the ultimate journey of unknowing. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he tells the disciples, “Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father’s house there are many mansions. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. Then,” he adds mysteriously, “you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas, always the one to doubt, protests, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way and the truth and life.” “I am your way,” he tells us. “I am your path and your destination. I am in your stars, in your scriptures, in the people that surround you, and in your dreams. I will show you where you need to go, if you but trust in me.”

            So there we have it: a call, a path, a life, a destination—all safe in the heart of God, and given to us, bit by bit, as we do our part and accept both the invitation and our soul’s transformation that the journey requires. Putting one foot in front of the other, as Jung said, trusting that this life, and this path, is given us for a reason. It is the path to which those of you being confirmed are called, a path that will be utterly unique to you, yet also grounded in our common experience as people of the star.

We follow the light, though we do not know the way. Yet we need not know everything to follow Christ. We need only trust the invitation and the One extending it. “Lead kindly light,” go the words of an ancient hymn, “lead thou me on. I do not need to see the distant shore. One step enough for me.”

Works Cited
Auden, W. H. (1991). For The Time Being / W.H. Auden Collected Poems. Vintage International.
Jaffee, G. A. C.G. Jung Letters, 1906-1950.
Taylor, B. B. (1999). Home By Another WAy. Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications.