Monday, April 3, 2017

Lent - Dark Woods - Lost

Dark Woods:  Lost

            My earliest memory of actually being lost goes back to when I was very young.  I was with my mother at a department store and before I knew it, I had gotten separated from her.  I have this very vague memory of being taken to an office where they made a loudspeaker announcement about a lost child.  I feel like I was so scared I couldn’t even tell them my name.  But the memory is so fuzzy that I am not sure of anything other than being separated from my mom.  It was traumatic and probably the reason that reason that I just don’t do well when getting lost.  Not only do I not like getting lost, I don’t even like minor detours. 
            This past Thursday night our dinner conversation question was about routines.  I am a routine person, I have my route to work and although I have learned a few other possible ways to get here, I don’t like to stray.  On the other hand, Jeff likes to vary things up and knows all the back roads and always seems to be trying to create short cuts or alternate routes to where ever we may be going.  At first, I would panic, where are we going?  This isn’t the right way?  Where are we?  But, after a few years I started to relax and just let him drive. 
            The invention of the GPS has been, for me, an amazing gift to my personal well being.  I can plug my intended address into the gadget and off I go.  That is, when it works.  I few weeks ago I was trying to have lunch with a good friend, I set the GPS address, and off I went.  And it sent me completely in the wrong direction.  NJ is confusing with all the different townships, boroughs, and it sent me to the wrong the place.  Although I was disappointed that I missed having lunch with my friend.  At least I did know where I was as I passed at least 4 Presbyterian churches as I circled the area. 
            We can get lost physically, I’ve heard horror stories from church members at various congregations about losing children at the airport, grocery store, and other places.  Today we are exploring what it means to be lost spiritually.  Just being in the dark woods of life may make us feel lost.  But what if, when in the dark woods, we get even more lost?  When we are lost, often there are tools to help us find our way.  We are all here today, most likely with our own stories of being lost, but we did find our way home.  We have maps, we have GPS, we have cell phones to call people to come and get us, we have the ability to stop and ask for directions.  But we have to stop and use them.  If we just keep going, we may find ourselves further and further from our intended destination. 
God gives us tools as well.  Our map is our scripture and we can turn to it in times where we find we need direction in our lives.  Prayer is a tool as well, if we are willing to stop and allow ourselves the space and time to connect with God, and listen to God.  In a time of being lost, listening is essential to finding our way out.  Our first scripture reading is that of Samuel.  The text describes the day in which Eli, the priest lives, as a dark time.  Even his own sons are described as scoundrels.  It seems as if the future of the priesthood in Shiloh is lost.  Eli has grown old, his sons are not living in a way that honors God, who when Eli dies, who will continue the teachings of God of to the people? 
But even in dark times, even when all seems lost, God provides.  A devout woman, Hana has a child name Samuel and she dedicates him to the Lord and allows Eli, the priest to raise him in the temple.  One night, Samuel keeps hearing a voice and he is sure it is Eli calling him.  But Eli tells him it is not and to go back to bed.  This happens a few more times and Eli suddenly realizes it must be the voice of God calling to Samuel.  God’s voice to Samuel comes in the stillness of the night.  Eric Elnes, in his book:  Gifts of the Dark Woods, suggests that it isn’t even an audible voice, but rather in insight or a gut feeling, intuition.  If it had been a real voice, Samuel would have known that it was not Eli’s voice but that of another, but he keeps responding to Eli.  Eli is his teacher, his mentor, so that is the person to whom he turns.  Although it is not Eli that is calling Samuel, Eli serves as a guide, he continues to mentor Samuel and instructs him to listen and gives him guidance as to how to respond the next time he hears the voice. And sure enough God calls him again, and Samuel responds to the voice that he is listening and is then given a fuller understanding of his purpose in God’s plan for the future.  It will be Samuel, not Eli’s sons that will be the future religious leader of God’s people. 
In dark times, God will provide.  When we are lost, God gives us tools to find our way.  Jesus knows and understands that people can be lost.  He uses the parable of the lost sheep to emphasize this.  If a shepherd has 100 sheep and one is lost, he leaves the 99 to go find the one.  All of the sheep are valuable, important, worthy of being protected by the shepherd and gathered within the safety of the flock.  In the day and age of Jesus, the lost involved so many different types of people.  There were the outcastes, the lepers, the sinners, the unclean, the sick, the tax collectors.  It definitely seems as if more than one sheep has left the fold.  He had his work cut out for him, reaching out to the lost and embracing them, and calling them, and healing them, and teaching them.  And over and over again, he seems to say:  your faith has made you well.  Faith, even the size of a mustard seed, can be what we need to help us anchor ourselves as we twist and turn through the uncertain paths of the dark woods. 

The author of the Gifts of the Dark Woods begins his chapter on being lost with how much easier traveling is when we have an itinerary.  We want to know where we are going.  If we are traveling, we like to know what we are doing each day or where we will be.  A cruise ship cannot just drift about hoping that it will find an island for the travelers to explore.  There is a clear itinerary of ports for the journey.  God does not give us an itinerary as much as we desire to have one.  We take each day as it comes, we have choices as to how we encounter the day.  We can wake up in the morning and proclaim:  This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it, or we can stay in bed, wrestling with getting up, anxious about what may unfold.  Unexpected things happen all the time, but when they do, God is with us, God gives us direction, God calls us to listen, to ask for directions, to be present to our gut or intuition, and to pay attention to where the Holy Spirit just might be whispering to us or nudging us or pointing us in another direction.  The GPS has made my life so much more relaxed and less anxious as I drive from place to place.  Let God be your GPS as we journey through this path of celebrations and struggles, joys and concerns, peace and stress together.  Amen.