All Who Wander Are Not Lost!

 Matthew 6: 24 – 30

“No one can serve two masters; 
for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, 
or be devoted to the one and despise the other. 
You cannot serve God and wealth.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, 
what you will eat or what you will drink, 
or about your body, what you will wear. 
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 
Look at the birds of the air; 
they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, 
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 
Are you not of more value than they? 
And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?
And why do you worry about clothing? 
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; 
they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, 
even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass [or grain] of the field, 
which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, 
will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 

Gospel of Thomas, Saying 42– “Be passersby/wanderers/itinerants”

There is a lot of scripure on my mind today.
We began our worship with words from the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books in the Bible.
It is often linked with Psalms and Proverbs as Wisdom Literature, 
and there is much wisdom to be found here.
It was the first book in the Bible to attract me as a teenager
and it is often the favorite of young people.
probably because of its search for wisdom 
and candid expression of doubt about most everything.
We learned in the past that Ecclesiastes meant "the preacher," 
but the newer Bibles translate the Hebrew to "the teacher," 
more appropriate for a book of wisdom, not sermons.
This teacher was searching for the meaning of life 
three centuries before Christ.

He said that “all is vanity” or “all is meaningless” and
"there is a season and a time for everything."
We conclude that he was a practical man 
who tried many life-styles and occupations:
He entered the business world and sought and gained wealth.
He studied the learning of his time 
and found all that he could about truth.
He found satisfaction or happiness in none of these 
or in any other way of living.

\We could say that Ecclesiastes was a passerby 
who observed and gathered information, as passersby often do. 
He kept moving on to new areas of study. 
He concluded (and he repeats it three times in the book) that we should "eat and drink and enjoy our toil, for they have been given to us by God."
He was one of the first perhaps to see that we should enjoy each day 
and live one day at a time, 
and enjoy what we have rather than striving for what we do not have.
This sounds a lot like what Jesus says about eating and drinking.

He was accused of profligate living:
“John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, 
and you say, ‘He has a demon’; 
the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, 
and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, 
a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ 
Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.” [Luke 7:33-5]
Jesus seems to have thought that there was great value 
in eating and drinking together with sinners and outcasts.
It was the setting for his teaching of wisdom through sayings and parables.

When I look at the passage in Matthew, about serving two masters,
I ask “Why does Jesus go from serving God or wealth
to not worrying about food and clothing?”
And how is it that we quote these verses about our not needing to worry
and “the lilies of the field” without remembering that 
they are the antidote to seeking wealth?
As we approach Thanksgiving, this is important.

TG is a national holiday with religious overtones.
Rather TG is primarily a ritual gathering of extended families 
who eat together in homes.
It is a secular holiday about our national origin, 
tied to the stories of a 1619 TG in Virginia, 
and the more famous Pilgrim landing at Plymouth Rock.
We have been taught to remember their first good harvest
and the help they received from natives.
So it is about gratitude and fortitude, and it ignores 
the murder of those same natives soon after that first gathering.

When we have enough food, even when we have more than enough,
we are not much inclined to share with others.
The Amish, as I mentioned last week, saw in Jesus’ teachings 
the need to live modestly without luxury or too much ease.
Many scholars who study Jesus now see that he was 
more of a teacher of wisdom than a religious leader.

The Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1947, opened this door
to understanding Jesus as a sage rather than a savior.
Many of the sayings of Jesus in Mark, Matthew and Luke
are found in the Gospel of Thomas, now often called “the fifth gospel.”
Some of the sayings there that are not found in our four gospels
are strange to our ears.
This shortest saying of two words, #42, is most puzzling.
As I said earlier, the meaning or translation of the word is unclear.
“Passersby” is a translation of a Greek verb which means 'to go past (something or someone)' 

        so it is “one who goes past.” 
I have the picture of someone walking past my house.
They may speak to me when they are in front,
but as they walk away they cannot speak to us or we to them, 
And they appear smaller as they walk finally out of sight.

This reminds me of the euphemism we often use for death,
that someone has “passed away,” or simply “passed.”
I used to not like that phrase, but as I get closer to passing,
I find that I like it a lot.
I will pass on from this life in the world and I will be gone.
This is my time for living, and my time will pass by.
Others will fill my space and have their time.
It is as if I walk or pass through history, as billions have before me.

A great philosopher, Heidegger, wrote about our sense of “thrownness,” 
Of our being arbitrarily “thrown into” ongoing existence 
without answers concerning our existence and fate. 
He noted that history was already running when we entered it
and it will continue on after we are gone.
In this sense the world will pass us by
but the verse suggests that we pass by the world.
All of the world will continue without me, 
so I should let go of the world and all its things
at least those things that I have accumulated.

When the people of Jerusalem 
were taken as slaves to Babylon 
in the sixth century before our common era,
the writer of the short prophetic book of Lamentations 
speaks for those who remain, saying
“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? 
Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,”
[Lamentations 1:12]
I know this verse because it appears on the front of an episcopal church 

on laSalle st in Chicago; 
The verse is below a great crucifix of Jesus on the cross, 20' high.
Many days we passed by it driving into the Loop.

I learned that Epitaphs on Greek tombstones often saluted the 'passerby' 
as if spoken by the one in the tomb. 
Some suggest that we should view ourselves as passing by the world, 
waiting to move on to the next. 
Move on, don't build your spiritual house in this world.
I think we should each contribute what we can 
to the on-going life of the world, or as Jews say, to repair the world.

It is a fact that Jesus was an itinerant; a homeless wanderer.
A scribe approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; 
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 
Another of his disciples said to him, 
“Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 
But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” 
[matthew 8:20f] 
He asked his followers to do the same.

Luke 9:62 – “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back 
is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Matt 10 - Jesus sent out the 12
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 
but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 
As you go, proclaim the good news, 
‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. 
You received without payment; give without payment. 
Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, 
or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. 
Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, 
and stay there until you leave. As you enter the house, greet it. 
If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; 
but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 
If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, 
shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.

In Luke 10 Jesus sends out 70, two by two, with similar instructions.
In each case the disciples are asked to be radically dependent 
on the grace of others.
We are asked to do this.
All the disciples are asked to Trust, share resources, 
accept and give hospitality.
They are dramatically unequipped, 
followers of Jesus must be resourceful.
Jesus said, “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; 
so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”

Last week I mentioned that Jesus was like a stand up comic,
and I talk about him giving us parables 
as puzzles which raise deep questions.
This may be comical.

Here he is asking the impossible: 
“Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves?”
How do you do that?

Paul tried.
He was an itinerant with his mission to the Gentiles, 
but as a follower of Jesus, 
he felt a need to be as free as possible from worldly cares.
The call of ministers in the Presbyterian Church used to say 
that the pay package for pastors should be sufficient for ministers 
to be “free from worldly care.”
Somewhere along the line the church concluded that in modern times 
that requirement was not needed.

I have been wandering through scripture this morning
I leave you with this song from Lord of the Rings by Tolkien:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say”

The last verse reverses the uncertainty of the journey.

Now there is hope of returning home, even when that is unlikely:

Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then [it is imagined] world behind and home ahead,
We’ll wander back and home to bed.