Lent 3

March 11, 2012     John A. Baldwin

From point A to Point B is about 200 miles, a little less than the distance to Charlottesville, Lynchburg or Danville. I wouldn't want to walk to any of those places by choice....but if I had to, I might be able to do it in several weeks of hard walking. I'd have to add on to that time, of course, if I had to make detours to find water or food; if the terrain were particularly rough in spots; if I were traveling with an older or younger person who couldn't walk as fast as I can; or if the sun were too hot to walk in the mid-parts of the day....but can you imagine it taking 40 years to travel that distance even in the worst of conditions? Yet that's how long it took Moses and his people, as well as their flocks and herds, to travel the distance between the Red Sea and Jericho in the Promised Land (roughly 200 miles).

What on earth were they doing, poking along like that? Was life in the desert so wonderful that they didn't want it to end? Hardly! Famine and thirst, squabbling amongst the rank & file, attacks by enemies, and sad, though unrealistic, remembrances of the good old days in Egypt....that was the Exodus experience. Why drag your feet for 40 years?

Actually a lot more was happening in the desert than trying to get from point A to point B. The Hebrew people were in transition from slavery to freedom, from dependency to self-reliance, from a simple and rudimentary faith in God towards greater spiritual maturity. In effect they were living out our theme for Lent this year - Letting Go and Returning Home....letting go of slavery, and returning home to the Promised Land, the land flowing with milk and honey. This couldn't possibly happen in a several week hike from Cairo to Jericho, even under the best of circumstances. It took a whole new generation to leave the old ways behind & create a new, strong & vibrant community.

Our Old Testament reading this morning (the receiving of the 10 Commandments) is a very important part of that transition from old to new. The Book of Exodus relates that it happened early on in the Wilderness experience, during the third month after they left Egypt. Moses has gone up Mt. Sinai to pray, reflect and open himself to guidance by Yahweh. He comes down the mountain to his people bearing a covenant - a new vision of what it means to live in community, and be the people of God. There is a focus of allegiance....I am the Lord your God - NO OTHER. There are guiding principles, making possible a strong and vibrant community.....regular, built-in times for rest (the Sabbath) ....honor for the older generation ....respect and decency towards one's neighbor.

Adoption of those principles for living didn't just happen overnight. It took years of experience and hard-living for the slaves of Egypt to become a people united in their allegiance of God, a people ready to enter the Promised Land, overcome fierce resistance, and establish a new society rooted in the land. The Exodus story is a classic example of the importance of times of transition from one way of living, thinking, experiencing and being, to another. Without that 40 year transition period, a motley crew of dependent people would have wandered into Canaan, and either lost their identity through assimilation by the Canaanites, or been wiped out by their enemies.

Some years ago I was introduced to some theories of transition that are borne out in the Book of Exodus, and have also been validated in my own experience. Transition theory tries to bring meaning and understanding to those turbulent times in human existence when things come to an end, and we are faced with change, whether we like it or not. Our lives are filled with transitions: the loss or addition of family members; changes in leadership (political, religious, cultural); getting married or divorced; moving to a new community, retirement or loss of employment. On top of that are the societal forces of change which we are powerless to resist, but against which we desperately want to push back.

Transitions involve an ending to things that are comfortable, established or predictable. Before we are ready and able to move on into a new beginning, we must of necessity go through a "wilderness" experience much as the Israelites did......a time of disorder and disorientation, heightened emotions, anxiety and fear, but also of longing and anticipation....a period that Transition Theory calls "the Neutral Zone".

Most people are anxious to get through the "Neutral Zone" as quickly as possible, seeking some semblance of stability and order in a sea of change. To rush through transitions, however, is to miss a wealth of opportunity for personal and spiritual growth. A helpful analogy is that of the change of seasons from autumn to winter which, on the surface, seems to be a movement through dying into a void of life and vitality. In reality, however, beneath the soil, plants and animals are gathering their strength for renewal & rebirth. Some may remember those powerful lyrics from the Bette Middler song The Rose: "When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky & the strong, just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows, lies the seed that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes the rose."

Transition theory asserts that the "neutral zone" between endings & begin-nings is a fertile period when people are potentially more open to personal and spiritual growth than at any other time. Without a firm anchor of routine, with our world out of balance, we are more open to vivid dreams, mystical experiences, and unsettling questions about who we are, our value and worth, our directions and purpose, than when things are rolling along smoothly.

Against these realities, then, perhaps we shouldn't feel overly frustrated at the slowness many have in embracing change and getting on with living as quickly as we might want them to. Nor should we be so quick to despair when we ourselves have difficulty realigning ourselves to new leadership, new ways of doing things, or new directions of the Holy Spirit. In fact, it may well be in the times of transition that God is speaking to us more clearly and directly, if we take time to listen and reflect.

Over the past 50 years our church, the Episcopal Church, and other mainline Protestant churches,  have been in the midst of significant and powerful transitions. In the 1960's we were deeply in the midst of the civil rights movement. In the 1970's and 80's we grappled with changes in our Prayer Book and forms of worship, along with movement towards affirming the ministry of women at all levels in our church. In the 1990's and the new millennium we have been moving through contention and controversy over human sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular.

 For some, these transitions towards affirming the worth and dignity of every human being have been unsettling, filled with anxiety and uncertainty, and even at times pretty painful. They have also been also a fertile period, as women have moved gracefully into leadership, as gay people have experienced God's love through the Church in ways unimaginable in the past, and as new and vital liturgies and music have emerged, lifting us to soaring new heights of awe and wonder. Some have felt these transitions to be richly infused with the Holy Spirit of God, while others have felt we were heading down paths contrary to scripture and the way God means things to be. These have not been easy transitions at all. People we love have departed for other faith communities, or thrown in the towel completely on involvement in organized religion. We are still in the Wilderness, but hopefully ultimately on the journey to a Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey.

Here at Emmanuel in Kempsville, we are in transition too, make no mistake about it. The realignment of Princess Anne Road from our front door to the back of our property is challenging us. How will this affect us in the years to come? How will we transition from one reality to another? The jury is still out. Another involves a new financial reality....moving from a time when we were blessed with an abundance mentality, anything we wanted to accomplish we could, to one of greater scarcity. How will we respond to the challenge to dig more deeply into our own personal resources for the sake of our spiritual community's well-being? We are facing unsettling questions as we look to our future about who we are, our value and worth, our directions and purpose. Yet if we listen faithfully, God's Holy Spirit will guide and lead us as it has so powerfully throughout human history.

As much as we might like to, we simply cannot avoid transitions in this life unless we are dead. Even then, theologians would argue passionately that at death we are embarked upon the greatest transition of all, from mortality to immortality in the nearer presence of God.