Where do you want God to lead you?

We've all seen railroad tracks. Now in case you've never measured before, the distance between the rails is exactly 4 feet, 8 inches. But why would that distance be such a strange number like that? Well, train tracks in the United States are 4 feet, 8 inches apart because that's how far apart they are in England. And the first railroad lines that were built in this country were built by people from England. But why are the English train tracks that odd size? Well, it's because that's the size that they used in England for the tramways, which was sort of the forerunner of the train.
And the tramways used that size of 4 feet, 8 inches because that was how far apart the wheels were on wagons. And when they built the tramways, they were mainly using the same equipment that they used to build wagons. But then, why were wagon wheels made 4 feet, 8 inches apart? The answer there is that they wanted the wagon wheels to match up with the ruts that had been made in the roads. Well, who made those roads in England? The answer is the Romans, about 2000 years ago. And those same roads have been used ever since. But why were the ruts 4 feet, 8 _ inches apart? It's because that was the width of a chariot back then. So it seems we’ve been in a rut for quite some time, doesn’t it?
Lead us not into the rut, O God.
Thor Heyerdayl, Norway’s most famous adventrer is internationally known for his sea travels and for the balsa raft he built called Kon Tiki. He sailed Kon Tiki from Peru to Polyneisa to prove a point about animal migration patterns. But what he found was that the dangers on his trip were not the ones the lie far out at sea, but the ones that lie close to the shore. Near the shore a boat can run aground on a sandbar, it can get dashed against the rocks, or swamped by pounding surf. But at sea, Thor felt freedom, and life of the wind, and the mystery of the deep water and the unknown. Thor knew that the joy of his sea travels was meaningless if he only stayed in the safe places.
Lead us not into the rocky shore, O God.
The Dean of Duke Chapel tells the story of his youth remembering a book he had about the Lord’s Prayer. Each page was outlined with a picture describing a section of the prayer. He distinctly remembers one page with a boy and his hand in the cookie jar with his head turned backward to see his mother’s disappointed face looking onward.
Lead us not into temptation, O God.
Where on earth is it that we do want God to lead us?
We stand here in worship on this second Sunday of Lent and I have to admit that Lent always seems like such a long and dusty road. At least until you get to the very end. It isn’t nearly as sweet and loving as the virgin birth at Christmas. It isn’t nearly as exciting as the Resurrection on Easter. There aren’t any wild flames of fire causing disciples to break out in foreign speech like Pentecost. No, Lent seems like this long and often somber road of contemplation and introspection. 40 days of analyzing is a long time, even for me. But as we trek on this journey together, where do we want to end up?
Where is it that we do want God to lead us?
We hear in the gospel of Luke today that Jesus was led by the spirit into the wilderness for forty days and while he was there he was tempted by the devil. He was hungry and the devil challenged him to turn a large stone into a loaf of bread. He was alone and the devil led him to the mountain top and promised him authority over all people. He was weary and the devil told him to throw himself off the temple for the scripture promised that God would lift up the Messiah with his angels who would never let him fall.
Jesus knew where he wanted God to lead him and when the temptation for the simple life came,
Jesus replied: Man does not live by bread alone.
When the temptation for personal glory came,
Jesus replied: Worship the Lord your God and worship him alone.
When the opportunity for doubt came,
Jesus replied: Do not put the Lord your God to a test.
But as we sit in the wagons, in the trains, in the cars, as we dwell in the path of this life that we lead, the moment we are in right now, doesn’t it sometimes feel like we are just in some sort of holding pattern that isn’t really headed anywhere?
When we begin lent, even planning for lent, there is a collective groan. Oh… what do we have to give up this year? How many Sundays do we have to endure before we get to hear the trumpets again? Some churches go as far as stripping the church of all vestments and adornments during the season. Others light 8 candles at the beginning of Lent and week by week extinguish a light to draw us nearer to the crucifixion.
The amusing part of it all is that the word Lent has nothing to do with our religious season. It comes from the Latin lengthen referring to the lengthening of days as the spring equinox approaches and the northern hemisphere grows closer to the sun again. Lent is actually the process of drawing closer to the light, instead of wallowing in the dark. How fitting.
The way I see it is that we are leading lives of the 4 foot 8 inch variety. We wake up each day, eat our favorite cereal, plow through our routines, cook something for dinner, watch our shows, and head to bed. Over and over again. And don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about some consistency in life, even some preferences for a few of your favorite things over and over again.
But when it comes to Christ, and to our faith, and to the church, eating the same meal over and over again, watching the same show over and over again, these things can cause us to wonder, how did we end up on this road? Why does it seem like we keep banging into the same rocks along the shore line? Why does the cookie jar look so appetizing?
One minister made the mistake of asking the children how they felt about being in church on Sunday morning and a five year old raised his hand and shouted “It’s so boring!!!!”
Boring is not a new word around the church, for sure. How many people do you think we’ve lost from our pews and pews all over the world, because folks thought church was boring? Folks who sat in the same seat in the train for miles and miles and never saw anything new. Never experienced new life, never felt God lead them anywhere.
How many people attend worship regularly and agree with the sentiment of the little boy? Who wish they could speak up and share how incredibly bored they are?
I was that little kid. Not in church, I always loved to be in church, but at home. I was constantly bored, constantly nagging my mom for something to do, for some game to play, for some activity. And yet, as a child, the best times you can have are the ones where you venture off on your own and find a few random things, and make a fort, or invent a game, or build a kingdom or meet a friend.
But how many of us instead tug at God’s shirt sleeve and whine, I just can’t get up, it’s my day to sleep in, it’s boring, or nobody will miss me, or it just isn’t very exciting, god. How many of us sometimes feel that our faith is in that rut, that our life seems to bang against the shores again and again, and that the cookie looks a little more enticing than a church committee?
Folks always say that the world is so different now… that they are so many more options for families and children than just church and Sunday school, there’s too much competition. But as Jesus sat in the wilderness temptations came at him from every angle, experiences that might have looked a lot more exciting than sitting in prayer and contemplation but Jesus knew where God could and would lead him. He sacrificed the easy things for the things that truly satisfy.
And so when we are bored, stuck in a rut, God says, open the bible – have you read the stories in there? They are a million times more exciting than reality TV! Have you prayed like you really mean it, like you actually believe God can change your life? It is so easy for a faith that doesn’t know where it’s going to become bored and reach for something quick and easy and unsatisfying.
This is why we are here together in lent. Perhaps to use the original meaning of the word – to draw ourselves closer to the light – to sacrifice the darkness carries more meaning than intended. Lent is a time for new beginnings, new discoveries. Lent is the time to see how far you can go, how much you can endure, to see how far you can push your faith so that you can experience resurrection, taste new life.
You see, here’s the rub. We prefer to stay close to the shore just in case, so that we can run to solid ground quickly when something is more challenging then we are prepared for. But when we do this, when we choose what we know over the new adventure, we will become bored!
But for Jesus, he knew that to do what God wanted for his life, he couldn’t stay in his regular routine. He couldn’t stay with his disciples who professed their faith in him. He couldn’t stay in the towns and perform miracles, no, he had to leave what was familiar in order to give new life to the world.
In The Present Age, Soren Kierkegaard tells the story of skaters on a large frozen lake. There is an enormous treasure resting in the middle of the lake where the ice is most thin. While everyone would like to obtain the treasure, no one is courageous enough to skate out there. So instead, the skaters have learned to skate around magnificently near the thick ice near the shore of this lake. Instead of obtaining the treasure, their obsession becomes ever more intricate and skillful skating, until thoughts of that treasure are lost. This is Kierkcgaard's picture of the church. The church has forsaken the cross in its mission. Growing comfortable and not taking chances, the church has an impressive appearance in the midst of the abandoning its original purpose.

Where do you want God to lead you?

The answer is so totally up to you. How close you want to become to God, how much of the darkness of your life you want to sacrifice is in the palm of your hands. Many people say they don’t know how to experience god or the holy spirit,, they don’t know how to know jesus. Well, it starts by making a sacrifice… perhaps just 10 minutes a day of commitment to prayer. I promise if you do that you will notice God working in your life. If you sacrifice a half hour of your night to reading bible stories with your family, I promise that you will see your children learn and grow from the best role models they can ever have. If you sacrifice one magazine in the bathroom and replace it with a devotional, I promise you will leave every moment in the toilet more focused. Celebrate all of these little ways that you can make sacrifices to draw yourself closer to God, farther from the shore, farther from the rut, and closer to the light in your life!!!!!

I believe that we want God to lead us someplace holy. I believe that each and every one of us wants to experience the divine, to sense God’s presence in our soul. I believe that each one of us longs to be the person God has set out for us to be.

And we have really good intentions, but to do this lent thing, to really do this, we must sacrifice, we must take risks. We must break out of the rut that we have been in for god knows how long, turn our back on temptation, sail out in the deep wide open and risk falling through the ice, because I know, I am sure, I promise, that what we will find will wash over us in a way that will give us new life and new breath, a way that will show us salvation, a way to celebrate all that God is doing through our sacrifice so that we too can experience resurrection.

Where do you want God to lead you?


Amen