Proper 5a “Food to pilgrims given”

Not all of us have the luxury of knowing what we want to be when we grow up.  Some of us wander through our youth, lost and as blind as a person in a thick fog. And like someone caught in one of those fogs that come up the Ohio, we can’t tell a tree from a stone, and we can’t see our goal.   Some of us wander in our midlife, in and out of marriages, in and out of careers or families forgetting time, fighting our shadows, and with no clear vision of our goal.  And when you get to be my age if you are still treating everything as a question, if you are always tugging at things for an answer instead of letting them be themselves, well then you are still wandering in a fog. I know from personal experience that it is hard not to know what you want to be when you grow up when you are already grown up. Whether we have wandered or we are still wandering, all of us have at some time been wanderers.

 

Abraham was a wanderer too. The bible tells us he was a wandering Aramean.  He was a nomad, living in tents and herding his sheep to whatever green grass he could find and to whatever dry stream bed promised a little drink for his livestock.  But one day, that came to an end.  It ended when God found Abram (you know at first he was called Abram) and God said “go to the land, I will show you.”  From then on Abram was no longer a wanderer in the fog, he was a pilgrim. And don’t think that Abram suddenly figured out where he was going.  Abram didn’t logically discover what his job was, what his next career move was, or his inner self.  God spoke to Abram, and he became a pilgrim. God spoke to Abram, and Abram gained clarity of intention.  Abram wasn’t a pilgrim because he knew where he was going.  Abram was a pilgrim because God knew where he wanted Abram to go, God knew Abram’s next career move, and God knew Abram’s inner self.  God spoke and said this is where I want you to go.  Abram heard his voice and trusted in his plan.  The OT tells us that Abram had an easy familiarity with God.  We don’t know whether God spoke to Abram in his ear or in his heart, but we know that Abram heard and suddenly his whole life made sense, Abram knew that he had to pack up his tents and herds, and go on to the next place God showed him.  Abram was now and forever a pilgrim.  He was no longer just a wanderer.  He embarked on a spiritual journey, and the goal of his spiritual journey was not just the next green pasture, the next spring or creek, the goal of Abram’s spiritual journey was God himself. Isaiah calls Abraham the friend of God.

 

What of us in this 21st century?  We are restless nomads searching for answers and solutions.   We get tired of wandering; we are tired of the useless search for answers and solutions to problems where there are really few problems or none at all.  There is something so simple and appealing about Abram. The way Abram opens his heart to

God, the way God calms his rage, our rage for answers, our itch to have and solve questions.  God’s only answer to our question is not another program, but simply life itself in peace, humility, simplicity, and thankful praise.  The psalmist tells us: Rejoice in the LORD, you righteous; *
    it is good for the just to sing praises.

 

If we could just sing praises, if we could just rejoice in the Lord, iff we could just accept this Eucharist as manna for our pilgrimage.   The key, the turning point, is not to come up with answers and solutions.  The turning point is to know and accept our lives as they are given to us—as God’s gift to us. “All God’s creatures have a place in the choir, some sing low and some sing higher.”   We become pilgrims when we know we have a place in the choir.  We become pilgrims when we become who we already are: beings who thank and praise the source of all life for being just that: the Source of all life.  Amen.