THE JOURNEY “John M. Buchanan
Kxadus 14:5-18, Mark 1:16-20 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
June 23,1985 Columbus, Chios
Tt’s a marvelous story. Under the cever of darkness, the chiddren of

Israel pack up and leave Egypt. After a series of plagues ond calamaties and
some uncompromising negotialigng by Moses, Pharoh is flnally ceanvineed hat
there is a connection between his domestic problems and the presence of these

resLless Hebrew tribes. And so at night the order comes: "Ge. Pack up and
Jeuve, Take your cattle, your herds of sheep, your belongings and yet out of
here." and oso they left, loaded dewn with the unleavened dough and the

Jewelry they had taken from the Egyptians on the way out. They strapped (heir
kneading bowls to their backs, got the grandparents. and the children organ:
iged, rounded up the poals sud the sheep and the cal and deg, looked around at
the old neighborhood one Iasi time, and walked — into the wilderness.

Promised land? Not for forty years....For a whole generation it's going lo
be wilderness, homelessness, lostness. ¢ they headed south, but they didiu't
take the good Philistine roads, the shortest route te the Mroumised Land.
Moses Jed them on a tortuous, circuitous, reudiess route, "by wav of the wil-
derness," Lhe ancient writer tells us, te the Red Sea. And the sense of it is
thal whatever’ else ais going on with them, tha journey itself da tmporteant.
It’s not simply the quickest, most convenient way to get’ From slivery toe
froedom. The getting there is lilcrally half the fun and more than half the
significance. There is growing and deepening and becoming that has to happen
on the journey.

As thoy make camp al one of those places wilh an unpronounceable name, Che
people back at Pharoh’s palace are. having seme second thoughts. Tf you have
ever acted out of deep emetion, duep feeling and then, in the clear light of
morning, after sleeping on it, found yourself wondering jiow you so tutally
teok Toave of your senses; if you have over written a letter in anger und qwade
the mistake of mailing it instead of carrying if around ak Teast bee days
before sending it, you know this dynamic. In the dausliliesd tight of morning
the Egyptian advisers to Pharch pather and are overheard saying things like:
"What in the world have we: done? Whal came over us? ive lave del our shaves

ott

go free! There went Lhe labor force..think ef the economic tuplicatians!

So ~- Pharoh mobilizes his forces, gathers his chariots and infantry, and
they head eouth taking Lhe Philistine reads one. assumes and their advance
parties Lell thom thal there is a very large eneumpacnl at Pi-hahireth, near
the Sea of Reeds.

Meanwhile, in the carp the Hebrews are just besdmdug: to denl with he
enoriily of the decisim they had made. They had been tiving in Egypt for a
Tony tame -- longer thoi we aud eur ancestors have lived on this continent,
Their sojourn in Egypt was for several centuries. It was home. And here they
are oon the edge oof a wilderness! There are no houses. The availability of
food and water depends on their Finding it. Thre are no sanitoryv facilities,

no hospitals, schoota, resturants, -bLennis courts! There is nothing at
FPi-hahivroth, or in the wilderness ahead thal. resembles the accoutorments of
civilization which Lhey hawt dn Egypt. The enormily of all that was just

beginning to sink in when one morning they noticed dusl on the south horizgan.
Apart from a great wind Lhere was only one thing in the world that made a dust
cloud like that - the horses and chariots and carts aud wagons and tramping
feck of an advancing arnyy. One can only beyvin to imagine how that aust have

been: the terror, the dry tightness in the throat. and chest, the men - the
women ~- the fathers and Lhe mothers - the ones, who in the final analysis, had
made the fateful decisions, the ones who had roused their sleeping children
and made the leaving sound like an adventure: the ones whe had shaken their
aging parents awake and said, "Now...come - it’s happening! We're odnget
home...You’re not going to die in an Egyptian bed and be buried in Epyptian
soil.”

One can only begin to tnagine the intensity, the fear and anger that raged
within them when they saw that advancing cloud of dust, One can even
understand the bilterness of what they said lo Muses; “Were there no graves
in Egypt, that you should have brought us here to die in the wilderness. Ser
whal you have dene to ug. Ts this not what we meant, when wo said in Heypt,
Leave vs alone. We would rather be slaves than die here in the wilderness.*"

Given the intensity of all of thal, there is no more pathetic, nor brave
answer than whet Moses snid to them: “Fear not: stand firm. See the salva-
tion of the Lord which he will work for you today."

—~ What comes next, of course, is the unlikely escape, the crossing of the
Sea of Reeds, and the commencement of Forfy years of wandering in the desert
wilderness of the Sinai. JI like this part of the story best, however: the
part at the beginning when the enormity of life’s decisions becomes very
clear; when everybody staris having second thoughts ~ Phareh ubout letting
them go, the Israclites about going, and with their backs to the sea and the
army advancing, the people make a simple observation that this wilderness
journey is risky business, Lhat life was ai fot simpler and safer back in
Egyptian slavery.

} Jike this part of the slory because it is so very human. You and ft may
not know what it means te have a burning bush religious expericnoc: we may
never have a shining moment of relipious clurity on some ML. hina, bul we
surely know what Lhose peuple were saying and feeling. We know abaul con:

plaining in the wilderness, bt Fike dt because oof Lhe sense that the fler
nonting, unsettling, disturbing power in Lhe slury is coming frow God. God
leads tham out of bundage - into the wilderness - on Lhe way to seine distant

premised land a lot of them are not going to see. The journey js it for hem:
the tiip ais the loous of religious experience. Moses himself is uel gol to
make it over the final river; the journey is what his life will be about.

God apprehends them in their wilderness: comes te than, finds them, loves
thom; Judges thew, gives order and reason to their life, and makes Lhom inte
who he wants them Lo be - on the journey.

I like what this story says about God and Lhe journey “of life which each
of us travels, a journey which sometimes requires us Lo Jeave comfort and
socurity and to sejourn awhile by the wilderness, Eoolike ib because the
journey is a powerful mctaphor for human Life, and its meaning ia enhanced by
the close personal experience of moving.

Apart from that, the precess of simply living life is @ journey, the
destination of which none of us really knows. the first mojor life task ony
of us underlakes is moving away From the security and sufety of eur mother’s
womb and fer the next two decades, the task of preparing for life apart Prom
the security and safety of our parents will occupy us totally. Psychiatrist
Brune Betileheim, in that wonderful book ‘The Uses of Enchantment, points out
thal this dynamic as a major molif in children’s stories and fairy tales.

- —3-

"Heing pushed out of the home stands for having to become oneself. Self-
realization requires leaving the orbit of the home, an excrutiatingly painful
experience.” (p. 79)

Among Lhe more painful experienees T can reeall are the days en which mv
parents abandoned me in a college dormitory, helped me meve inte a room, and
actually pol back into the Dodge and drove away without me...and the cuys
three decades later when T did the same thing. The every day normality of
Jife calls us to the journey and it is often a matter of leaving safely und
security. Tt hurts and it is frightening both wavs - beth as younp porsan and
as parent. But owe know the wisdom of it. We know that the ereator’s plan is
implieated in the separalien, the packing up and moving oul.

Life is a journey. Taking a new posilion, assuming now responstbilities,
moving te uv new community carries with it the unseitled anxieby of leaving
behind a job one knows, a communidiy one has; come to calli‘liunne, and friends one
has come to love deeply. (It has teken us a dacade to verbalize our Jayvalty
to Ghie State football wilh our Purdue friends to the west and eur Poman Slate
and Pittsburgh friends {to the east and truly the purple casd4to this presoul
wilderness is at leasi in part from the colors of Northweslern University.)

What viskier Lraveling than chesing - at Zi or 22 - our life’s work! Whe
Inows where it will Load, or even if we're on the right road? Wheat amore
hazardous journeying then to stand here in our early Lwenties beside one
person and promise to lave, honor, respect this womansman wha To dan’ bh reatiy
even know, and whose emerging persenhood, whose prowing inte whatever she wil!
become is every bil as much of a hidden mystery, ag mine is to me. Whe knows
atl 25 if vyou*re going to love the person that bride will become two decades
from now?

ea
Every fprowingg, cvery becoming is something of a journey inte a new fan,
eut off from safe security. Every intellectual or spiritual peoewioe is

accompanied by a sence of uncasiness, wariness, fear, because it inwel ves
leaving behind honered and time-worn certainties. Whether the bopie ds thal

the world is round, nol flat -- or thet God bas ineloed ecrealbed all peuple
equal, or that women ure as capable of profeasionnl expertise as mei - oor thal
agit popular revolutions in the world are net mecessariby mortal} lhieuits fe our
nationgl security. And ali of us need Lo hear this old, old story with iis

intriguing sugvestion that Ged is the one whe deade us on that jenrtey ane
that the uncertainty of traveling is part of the plan and also the place where
ha will find us.

Semelimes the wildarness dees nal seem toa Tit in any plan. houetimes Lhe
wilderness iokes no sense, and we are literally dragged into il by ferces oul
of our control. Sometimes the wilderness descends on us of its own velilion,
er appreaches on the far horizon ominously like thal Epypbian dust cloud. A
spouse dies, withoul wirning, wilhoul reason aud one day we are in a wilder
ness of alonness, cut of f from every skrueture of meaning and joy and semur-
ily...or...the position for which we have been grooming, Prepariny, veadying,
opens and passes in front of our eyes and is given to someene clse and we are
jn a very deep wilderness of disappointment and self depracalion...or...the
yuungesl child approaches graduation and our universe of meaning, the tasks
which have comwmondod our attention, summoned our strenplh and given reagan Lo
our being, are clearly at an end, and—the—name~of-thts wilderessts-nesning~
lessnegs;..or...soctal cocktails have become a twiee daily ritual, and we keep
denying whal we read about addiction as we ,feel it happening and we can’t
summon Lhe strength to admit te ourselves thal Lhis witderness is alcoholism

~A- . =

...0r...3t igs net death, Eat dying: ft is net diveree but the slew atrophy of
a onee lively and ecstatic love; it is net life in full revelt but the Sunday
morning sense that the alheists of liistory knew more than the people of fatth
and a once comfortable faith has turned brittle dry in the wilderness called
hopelessness.

Nene: of us will avoid all of those wildernesses, and when we mre Lhe, if
will be good te reeall that in the Bible the wilderness is precisely the place
where God apprehcuds his peuple. The journey away from all the safe, secure
certainties is the time and place where God choses to do his Joving and
saving.

The Life of Christian faith is a journey. Tt hag been so since Jesus of
Nazareth walked by the Sea of Galilee and called Simon and Andrew, James iand
John to discipleship. Even though our propeusily is to define religion as

believing certain ideas about God to be truc, Jesus forever defined ii us a
journey, a petting up from where you are, antl ai following, a leaving behinel
thea security and certainty of families, fishing nets, ani traveling with
Jesus: iu nearer temas - a lelting go of ideas, political certaimticos, secial
truisms, financiul realities and going along with the Lord. We Preshyterians,
particularly, need to recover that. Our faith is expresseri in our ihewtogi -
zing and theorizing about Lhe hunan situation. It is expressed iu our orderly
traditions, and our IJituryicat statetliness. But faith ultimately is Lhat
singular act getling up and walking away from something, following Jesus on
the journey of discipleship.

Weid like do now the destination. We ore careful people. Our prudence
and caution serves us well wostly and we are suspicious of the kind of
religious zealetry that might walk away from the geod Life im order to be a
missionary. We might even do Lhat if we had some intellectual clarity. Weed
like to know who is Jeading us. We'd Vike, finally and oublimately, ta know
thal there jis a God and that Jesus is his son and this business hius, if not an
eternal puarantec, ab’least a Tife time warranty.

And the mystery of if all is that on the journey God apprehueatds his
people. Alf he does wilh them ahend of Lime is make them vestless. Whea they
Follow inloe the wilderness, when Lhey leave fishing nets, bebind aud futlou. he
apprehonds Chem, cameos lo thes, judges them, loves them,

The thedjegians have underslood it, none were precisely thou Dietrich
Bophoeffar whe helped us see Lhat you don?t believe in Jesus until you whey
him. The mystics, at Uheir best, have experienced it. God comes, fied suves,
as we sojourn in Lhe wilderness of solitude. And we too have known. Gow has
come - on the journey - God will continua to come inlo cur wilderness. In Lites
words of the old Welsh Wyn:

"When ZI tread the verge of Jordan

Rid my anxious fears subside.

Death of death and Hell’s destruction
Land me safe on Canuan’s side."

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far nore
abundantly than all we ask or think, to God be glory in the ecburch and in
Christ Jesus, to all generations for ever and ever, Amen.