Today I had the opportunity to preach at the Base Chapel here at Fairchild AFB, WA. This was my first chance to preach in almost a year. Thanks to the chapel staff and all who continue to support my in my ministry in this community and the world. Just as an aside, this Wednesday, I will begin facilitating an ecumenical group at the chapel in reading The Journey by Adam Hamilton. We are starting our Advent study early enough to work around the various holidays, and will finish so that we can examine the whole Advent and Christmas story before we get distracted by the busyness of the season. This scripture and message seemed to be a good introduction to the whole concept of journey.
Sermon - Going With God (November 4, 2012)
The bible is a collection of literature… history, poetry, wisdom, letters, prophecy… no matter what the genre, each book and chapter is written with a solitary purpose in mind – to tell us about the nature of God and his intentions for our relationship with Him. The book of Ruth is special to me because it’s really just a simple story – a narrative about a woman who found herself as an integral and even necessary part of God’s story. Read the whole story here: Ruth 1:1-18
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” Ruth 1:16-17
I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of time trying to control the unpredictability of my life. Not that I’m all that successful at it, but I do have the illusion on some days that I have a handle on it all. Twenty years ago, that would have meant something very different than what it means today. Twenty-five years ago, if you have told me that this would be my life, I would have called you crazy, just to be polite.
I look at the last 25 years and I see a very crooked road. 25 years ago this fall I was in my first year at Duke Divinity School… a 28-year old, second career student with a bachelor’s degree heavy in chemistry and microbiology and 6 years of experience in blood banking. That was my dream career, all I had wanted since I was in junior high school. But then the road took a turn, and as far as many were concerned, I was throwing it all away to be a “do good’er.” Underpaid and taken advantage of, that’s what many people thought my life as a United Methodist minister would be all about. It was such a foreign concept that a friend at work kept referring to my leaving as “going to the convent.” She could not understand that I was going to study to be a pastor. It was just not in her paradigm.
I loved seminary. But at the end of four years, I was ready to go into the parish … to make a difference in people’s lives. I thought I would get a couple of small churches in South Carolina – I was hoping to be appointed near Clemson so I could keep my season football tickets. Instead I went to Summerville, near Charleston, where I was a youth pastor in a large congregation. It was hard work. The expectations were high. The hours were long. And since I was 32 and not married, no one really expected me to have a personal life. But quite remarkably, I met a young Air Force pilot in the church choir, and the rest is history.
So in March of 1995 I took on an additional duty, so to speak… I became a military spouse. At first, being a military spouse didn't really change my life very much. There was the opportunity to shop on base, and a spouses' meeting every once in a while. But this was just the calm before the storm.... our first PCS (permanent change of station) changed everything. My carefully planned life was now coming apart at the seams. Instead of staying within my home conference to pay my dues and move up in the ranks, I was moving into uncharted territory.
The details are still etched in my memory... driving away to a new life, a new house, and new jobs for both of us. I was very fortunate to receive a church appointment in southern Illinois... and fortunate again in North Dakota three years later. But in 2001, the appointment well dried up. We began a series of one year moves... one year in New Jersey, one year in Georgia, then one year in Alabama. For the first time since high school, I was not working outside the home. In my head, I was just somebody's wife, and a big day might include doing laundry, or finding a good deal on chicken breasts at the local store. We couldn't find a church that felt like home.... I felt cut off from friends and family.... I really didn't know where to turn.
But on September 11, 2001, all of that changed. My phone started ringing soon after 10:00am. And as the day went on, a small community formed to ask the questions that everyone asked. "How could this happen?" "Where is God in the midst of this tragedy?" "How do I explain it to my children?" And it was as if God said, "Just because you're not serving a church doesn't mean that there isn't work for you to do." From that week's conversations, a bible study was started, true friendships were forged, and I found my way back to my call.
In the Old Testament book of Ruth, we hear a story of a young woman who left behind all that she knew to follow someone she loved and respected. But those heartfelt words from the wedding liturgy are not the words of a woman to her beloved husband... they are the words of a young widow to her mother-in-law as they sought a better life. Ruth says, "Where you go, I will go..." but she also says, "Your God will be my God," signifying a trust in Naomi’s God to make sense out of a senseless situation. In reality, Ruth’s detour fulfilled a very different purpose. And if you read the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Matthew, it becomes evident that God uses Ruth’s faithfulness is a very special way.
We live in a society where "control" is a big issue. We don't like the feeling of not being in charge. We want our lives to work the way we have envisioned, planned and designed them to work. We are like the Israelites… we have rules and they need to be followed. We are like the Pharisees… we have expectations and they need to be met. But there is something to be said for trusting that our control is not always the best way forward.... for trusting in a higher power - in God - to make something good come from something for which we had no backup plan.
Jesus’ ministry among his disciples brings this kind of trust into new focus. Jesus called the disciples, and they went with him. Their behavior and understanding were not always exemplary, but they kept following, day by day, until the Christian church was born. And while order and disciple can become an entrenched way of life, there is something to be said for being more like the disciples, the ragtag group that they were, and simply pick up our lives and follow Jesus.
At its very core, the story of Ruth is about unconditional trust. And especially as military families, it’s a story that reminds us that in the midst of the chaos of our lives, we are not alone. Things have sometimes looked dark… multiple deployments, unfilled professional desires, moving to unexpected places, illness, separation from family, deaths… these are just a few of the challenges and disappointments that I have experienced in the last 20 years. They may pale in comparison to the struggles you have experienced in your life and faith journey. But I pray that you, like me, have recognized that in the darkness there has always been a light… a light that reminds me that whatever happens, it is all for good if I just rely on my trust in God. Maybe that light is found in the prayers of friends and strangers… maybe in a hand or a shoulder… maybe in a kind word which brings peace.
In 1993, I sat before the Board of Ordained Ministry for final approval for ordination. Their last question and my answer now seem eerily prophetic when I look at my life almost 20 years later. When asked, “Where do you see your ministry in 10 years?” I sat back, took a deep breath and responded, “You know, I've spent a lot of time telling God what I would and would not do, and he just keeps allowing me to go down roads I never even knew existed. So…I have no idea where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in ten years or even five. But I do pray that wherever it is, whatever I’m doing, that it’s all for him. And that I trust him enough to follow wherever he leads.”
I cannot be the judge of how well I have followed or led or listened along the way. But I do hope that I have been a little bit like Ruth, open to the opportunities that came my way, and faithful in living a life of faith in God and Jesus Christ. Ruth’s story can become our story if we will only let it. And in the world in which we live today, that takes a lot of faith to commit fully to a life which will probably be filled with twists and turns which we know will happen, but never really expect.
Each of us is on that same journey, a journey to God and a journey for God. Oh, how much easier it would be if there were a AAA Trip-tik for our faith life – how cool would it be to know where the detours are, and if we could preplan our stopovers along the way. Maybe vacation planning occasionally works out that way, but it seems that real life never does. In life, our trust in Christ must become our anchor. We are fed at the table of Christ’s sacrifice. We come to worship and bible study together, and form Christian communities so that we can be prepared to face together whatever comes our way.
German reformer Martin Luther once said, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.” May we all be willing to place our lives and our loves in God’s hands… there are many roads yet left to travel. Go with God.
In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
