Emmanuel Church
Sermon – The Rev. Peter M. Carey
16 May 2010
Setting out on a journey, we pack our bags. Carefully assessing what to bring with us and weighing the merits of bringing another capilene insulated shirt against the added ounces in our bag. Surely we will need to pack crampons to help us stay affixed to the ground when it becomes icy and snowy. Likewise, we will need to pack poles so that we might save some percentage of weight upon our knees when we climb, and especially, when we descend from the monastery high in the mountains. Shall we bring extra fuel, in case the nights get colder than predicted? Shall we pack an extra hat in case of storms that will leave us wet and cold?
Packing for such a journey is but the beginning. We get ourselves ready for the climb and we trust that we are ready in body, in soul, and in mind – and we trust that we have packed what we need, and that among our fellow travelers we will be able to offer comfort and receive help when needed. Our fellowship with one another is our true and tangible strength, and it is a visible and outward sign of the fellowship offered to us by God in Christ. We are one with one another. We begin the journey through the green and moist foothills. When one needs to stop, all stop. When we feel the urge to move more quickly, all must be of one mind and heart and legs before we tromp with greater urgency. When we lose our way, we all have gone astray, but trust that with compass and map we will return to the path. We each are needed for our gifts, and even our weaknesses. When one falls, we stop to help, when another sees a better pathway, we all follow and benefit. The work is strenuous, but there are also adequate breaks. As we trudge along, we have time for talking, and time for silence, time to joke and laugh, and time for bittersweet reflection upon where we have been and where we are going.
While we walk, hike, traverse, and climb, the pre-eminent preposition is not “on” as in “on the mountain,” but rather “in.” We are “in” this together, “in” fellowship with one another, we have entered “into” a world of very simple actions – putting one foot in front of another. Eating food for fuel; concentrating on the person ahead; and beginning to see that the group has become “one” with one another and we are most definitely “in” this together.
After a long and arduous journey we round a bend and see the monastery that awaits us. There in the high mountains, with a simple stone gate around it, with a large wooden door, we see a large simple knocker. After a bit of water for each one of us, we knock, and wait. A monk in a brown robe comes to the door, opens it, and beckons us to enter. We enter a courtyard with brick in the center, and beautiful plantings of boxwoods, and forest flowers and ferns, and we sit. After many days of climbing and hiking, we no longer are used to sitting on chairs, and we sit down on the ground, and we sip on water bottles, and we hold our prayer beads in our fingers. Glorious silence falls upon us and we wait. Not the impatient waiting in an auto repair waiting room with CNN blaring. Not the anxious waiting of so many hospital waiting rooms. But something like the waiting for a new birth. Something like the waiting for our beloved … We are waiting there among these others who are now us; we are waiting there among so many individuals who have been transformed into “one.”
At some point, we realize that another monk has joined us, and is praying, or perhaps chanting, or perhaps singing, or is it merely in our minds and hearts.
