Advent 2

Friends,

When I was working for Susan, our National Bishop, I would often find myself in an ecumenical or multi-faith environment where at some point someone would say “What are you?” because, in those gatherings, we were all something.” “Mennonite.” “Quaker”. “Catholic.” In Christian circles, that made sense. It helped us to orient to one-another.

But in multi-faith settings, I would say “I’m a follower of Jesus.” I said it to Muslims who could connect Jesus to Mohamed and talk about their great reverence for Mary pointing to a specific passage in the Qur’an. We were able to find points of contact. I also said it to Jews and Hindus and even to some people who self-identified as First Peoples.

I preferred that to a denominational tag. It opened the door to a more personal and accessible take on what following Jesus means to me or to my people. Often, I would get to the simple phrase, “The first followers of Jesus were called the people of “The Way.” Or simply, “The Way.” And I could open the Scriptures and a lifetime of interpretation to tell a story of what that’s all about. “People of the Way.” “People of the Way” is a great point of contact with “People of the Land.”

In the lectionary from which we read, the first reading from the Hebrew scriptures is usually related to the gospel by some common motif or image. Sometimes the relationship is one of a foretelling action, of the Hebrew scriptures, and a fulfilling action of the Greek scriptures. And today we have both. And the link is the word or words, pronounced by Jonathan and by Preston, for “the way.”

Jonathan was reading a translation of Ha/DEH/rehkh in Hebrew. Ha, meaning “the” and the root DEH/rahkh meaning “way”. Ha/DEH/rehkh. Preston was reading a translation of Hé Ho/dos in Greek. Hé, meaning “the” and Ho/dos meaning “way”. Hé Ho/dos.

Now you don’t have to know any of this, but you do have to know that there’s always a lot going on beneath the surface of translation. Translators always must choose just the right word often forsaking other possibilities because you have to choose.

It is helpful to know, for example, that in both Hebrew and Greek, what is translated as “the way” could have been translated as “the road”; “the journey”; “the manner in which” or “the custom”, and likely in more ways than come to mind. The two most significant senses are “the way” as in “Do you know the way to Saint John’s?” and “the way” as in “Do you know the way to make Christmas Pudding?” I don’t, but I know people who do.

Well, it is likely the case that the first name, for the first followers of Jesus, was simply “The Way.” And it is more than likely that that was a name they took for themselves. But it wasn’t a way outside of, but a way inside, a way within, the Jewish community. Our first forebears oriented to Jerusalem and taught in synagogues as Jesus did. And “The Way” is used a half-a dozen times to describe the people Saul persecuted before his conversion. Before he himself became a person of “The Way” as Paul said of himself.

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” There must have been people of The Way in the synagogues of Damascus. And that was nowhere close. And further “I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons”. Saul was a nasty piece of work, and he could only have brought people back to Jerusalem with Roman help.

The word “Christian” appears only three times in the New Testament, and it’s used derisively of the followers of Christ. Those Christians. It wasn’t a nice name and it likely wasn’t chosen by the first followers of Jesus. But is stuck and we read “The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” Nowhere near Jerusalem or Nazareth or the region of Galilee. But in Syria, a long way away, in a place now largely erased from the face of the earth. But the title survives. Christians.

So, there it is. I like “People of the Way”. It implies that we’re on a journey, you and I, one which honours our Jewish roots. Preston is helming our journey. And greeters and choristers and organists, musicians and technicians and readers and intercessors and servers and cupbearers and preachers and people of the alter guild and our new Emma, who does the Bulletin, are all tending to our journey … together. So, what manner of way are they helming or tending for us?

In the mind and hearts of our forebears, the wilderness and desert of life, share, with humankind, the capacity for renewal and gladness and rejoicing and even the capacity for thanksgiving. They harbour a tremendous capacity for hope. These are all of the essence of the way. And “no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” What sort of journey is a journey where no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray?

Much of life is littered with foolishness and regret. They are allies. Being foolish is a large part of who Christians are, for we know that it is woven into the very strands of human DNA. It’s there in the helix. The “human condition” … where “all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.” We so often get it wrong but “not even fools shall go astray”. We call that “grace.” Grace is not just a New Testament –Greek Scriptures– thing. Grace was not invented by the reformed Paul. But he knew of it, and it is of the stuff of today’s first reading and of our Jewish roots. Grace.

But hope, too, is of the essence of the way. Hope for you and hope for me. Hope that we’ll sort out climate change; hope that we’ll learn to strip ourselves of our instinct and impulse for racism; hope that we’ll shed our foolish desire to have more than the many who have not. Hope for a nation overwhelmed by an aggressor led by a slimy despot, Putin, and a toady archbishop, Kirill, who’s lost his way. Hope.

Against hope, there is hurt, great big holes in the fabric of our journey: holes where people once were; holes where we never got it done; holes where we were never permitted to go. Holes, hurt. It seems to me that Jesus was always where the hurt was, salving the wounds of the bruised and broken places on the way. If I were setting the lines for Jesus I would have him say, “May I kiss the hurt?” as a mother might her child.

In 2011, I found myself in Winnipeg getting ready for a staff meeting. I’d flown in the night before. I wrote a version of this on St. Nicholas Day, 2011.

The coffee shop opens at 5 a.m. I believe I was their first customer. The young woman and young man who served me were lovely and easy in conversation. At some point, the man mentioned that he was taking care of a 14-year-old. “You have a 14-year-old?” He could hear my gentle incredulity. He smiled.

Turns out, he’s a respite worker in a foster home. As he went about his business, he spoke at length about a boy who came into care –a harsh youth from a harsh world; running drugs; aspiring to no good.

But this same boy will soon be getting a mechanic’s license, such has been the change in him, and the fresh possibilities afforded him, and his willingness to take hold. “You’ve journeyed with him”, I asked? “Yes.” “You must be very proud?” “Yes.” “Is he grateful?” He turned away, nodding as he did. I figured he must not be used to such intrusion. I think he was getting teary. I also think, given something he said, that he knew first-hand whereof he spoke, wherefrom he lived. It was a hole in the fabric of life and a place of great hurt. But also, a place of hope; Advent hope against the winter’s stormy blast.

I’m a follower of Jesus. I honour the way in which Jesus loved people whom others couldn’t stand; the way he prayed for his followers; the way he accorded women a place of pre-eminence in the fledgling church; the way a Samaritan helped a Jew, in one of his many stories; the way he made wine for the wedding; the way he said to love our God and our neighbours as ourselves; the way he sought life and life in all its fullness.

Following Jesus is not an escape from this world to some other but an invitation to hunker down in this one. In fact, I think the hunkering is at the core of the waiting and the watching we do in travelling the Way. At least that’s how I put it all together, a sort of treasure, for which I am grateful, in the Advent journey to Christmas.

Silence.

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in God’s sight. And let the church say “Amen.” R/ Amen.

André Lavergne, CWA (The Rev.)
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kitchener