An Unknown Journey

Talk given by Ray Anglesea to the West Durham Methodist Circuit Pilgrimage -

 

21 September 2013

 

In a couple of weeks time my wife and I will be taking our long-awaited holiday to North America; we are heading out to the Florida peninsular, later to the Grand Canyon, Nevada and Las Vegas for a birthday party ending in Ontario, Canada at my sister-in-law’s home at Niagara-on-the Lake. Yet we know very little about the details of the break; all we know is that we have to be at certain airports at a certain time on a certain day for flight connections. It is rather like a mystery holiday; it will be left to Ki and I how we spend the days. Although I suspect there may be a programme of sorts it will be left to us to make our own choices of what to do during the day; we will be left to make our own decisions.

Our journey through the Christian life is often likened to a pilgrimage. Setting off on a pilgrimage may be compared to our journey to America. There are often no clear detailed signs, we have to infill the details of daily life trusting that we make the right decisions, the right major choices. The various models of a pilgrimage/journey are of course endless – one can keep journeying in circles around many roundabouts; we can park ourselves in a quiet lay-by for many years: we can be on an amber hold, don’t want to journey forward, yet don’t want to stop. As I said in a sermon at my niece’s recent wedding “marriage is a joining of two people to the unknown; you do not know the road, but you have committed your life to a way, with each other and with God.” In the English playwright Robert Bolt's play, A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More says: "God made . . . man . . . to serve him wittily, in the tangle of his mind." We are not called to robotic compliance, but to intelligent, lively discipleship, and the Bible paints a sometimes messy picture of the outcome. This type of faithful journeying is dynamic, it involves a constantly evolving relationship with God. There is no travel plan, no detailed itinerary.

How then do we find guidance for our Christian journey? I like the story of a young missionary who was always looking for clear divine guidance. He said he had gone to work in South America because when he was seeking guidance he had suddenly seen a bar of chocolate with Brazil nuts in it. He was, therefore, clear that God was guiding him to Brazil. His sceptical friend asked “What would he have done if it had been a Mars bar?” Or the synod moderator who wrote to a minister to offer him a new post. The minister replied that he must go away and pray about it. The minister’s wife went upstairs to pack. The way that some Christians look for God’s guidance suggests that you might need to have a kind of code-breaker mentality, as if God loves setting cosmic codes or a series of puzzles for us to solve as we journey from A to B. Prayer is an essential part of finding our way ahead of course, but God isn’t hiding some vital clue until we crack the code. I like to think that guidance can be explained in this way -  God, I believe,  opens up possibilities on our journey; he is with us at every juncture of our pilgrimage journey helping us to make our decisions and then working with us to make the most of the choices we have made. Perhaps then it is worth thinking that God has a vision for us, more than a plan. Plans expect no real variation while vision allow many routes to their fulfilment.

But we do travel from A to B in faith. Like Abram we walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is a relationship, not an abstract construct. We strengthen our faith as we set our lives in the context of the Bible's overarching story."Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith Abram . . . set out, not knowing where he was going." He had no sat-nav, no daily schedule, no travel programme, no plan. Having left a settled city life, at God's call, to become a nomad, childless Abram believed God's promise that his own son would be his heir. Despite many further childless years, he kept going, his vision before him, sometimes having vigorous words with God about his doubts. This was faith. It was not merely the spiritual equivalent of following a plan, no robotic formulas, no codes, no maps.

Faith is a response to an invitation to adventure. It is not mind-over-matter blind faith, or (to quote the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass) believing "six impossible things before breakfast". Neither does living by faith involve sitting around waiting for a vision or step-by-step instructions to emerge from heaven. It is our active, informed, and loyal response to the bigger story of God's ways with the world. We nurture it each time we recognise signs of God's activity, the signs confirming that we are on the right path; and we express it, by being dressed for action, waiting to respond and do our duty even at inconvenient times.

If we are to nurture our faith, it is good to have an ample supply of faith-engendering memories.  I always find it helps my journey of faith to hear these memories, often from older people up and down the circuit, who I find have remarkable faith in God, because they have more history to draw on to remind them of God's past faithfulness. It is never too soon, or too late, to start laying down memories of God's power, shown in God's mercy and pity towards us.

This approach to our faith journey applies whether we face life in general, specific decisions, or entrenched difficulties such as ill-health, family problems, unemployment, or bereavement. Living faithfully requires tenacity, and sometimes is as unglamorous as doing whatever the next thing in front of us is, keeping on keeping on, doing the best we can in the circumstances.

We all have to start somewhere; even Abraham, the man held up to us as a model of faith, had to set out afresh each morning. So I pray that God may accompany you today on your circuit pilgrimage.