Maze or Labyrinth?

Folks pay for the privilege of walking this way and that through the field, constantly changing direction and encountering barriers, until at length they get through and back to the beginning.

The visitor may spend lots of time in fruitless dead ends.

Is our life like this?

Do we constantly have to back up and try something else, never being sure that we will get through the maze before time runs out?

There is another possibility; let's think of the labyrinth.

Have any of us ever walked a labyrinth?

There was a portable one available here in Williamsport some time back, printed on heavy canvas to be stretched out on a fellowship hall-sized floor.

They are often modeled on the one inlaid in stone at Chartres Cathedral in France many centuries ago.

Others are constructed outdoors, with the paths lined with low hedge plants.

One begins to walk the labyrinth, at a deliberate pace, taking each twist and turn as an opportunity for prayer and reflection.

There are no dead ends; the one path is continuous throughout.

Row by row and section by section, the pilgrim moves closer to the goal. Sometimes it seems as though it will never end; sometimes one seems to be close and suddenly the path takes one farther away.

But the goal is secure, and will be reached. That is the compact that was established when the pilgrim began to walk.

Are our lives in Christ like this?

Do we sometimes feel closer the goal than at others?

Do we begin our walk in following Christ with a promise of a goal, and of encouragement along the way?

Is the labyrinth better than a maze as a paradigm for the Christian life?

We cannot back up, we cannot rewind time, and live something over again a different way.

That only happens in the movies like “Groundhog Day”.

Each day brings its own opportunities for worship, learning, service, and prayer, that we can use well or poorly.

Sometimes a particular length of the path will be slow and difficult, as the Slough of Despond in the classic Pilgrim's Progress.

At other times we will move with ease and dispatch, but nevertheless we keep on moving year after year, throughout our life in Christ.

Is there reason and purpose?

When will that become clear?

One of the effects of Baptism is that we have been given a story,

a story which tells us that there is a point to all of our living,

that life is neither a bunch of dead ends, nor just one stupid thing after another;

but that life has origin in the intention of God,

and also that life has a goal within the very life of God our Father.

We're headed toward that particular goal, not wandering pointlessly.

We're walking a labyrinth, full of twists and turns, but with a point, with a goal at its center.

What is granted to Naaman the Syrian and to the leper in front of Jesus

is that they are given a little sample in the present of what that final future, that goal of God, will be like.

They have the privilege of knowing at least part of the things that are put right when God completes his creation,

leading to the responsibility of sharing that vision with the rest of us.

And do we need it!

When a pilgrim is walking a labyrinth, it may be hard to see how that person can ever get to the center.

Sometimes the difficulties of managing the next step seem to be overwhelming.

Those of us who have never had the experience need only talk to folks such as Jane or Lou, or Riley among others who have had a serious fracture or joint replacement.

The pain and struggle of that day's rehab is all that the person can see at that moment.

We can talk with a cancer patient who has a poor prognosis.

There we may discover a person with so much to do and say, but with little time or energy to accomplish it.

We can talk with persons who, after years of service in a company is suddenly “downsized” out of a job.

There are so many real worries compounded by other anxieties that can obscure the center of things.

In these and other circumstances, it is easy to lash out, to say that God doesn't know what is happening, or doesn't care, or there isn't any God to know or care.

Pr. Frank Seilhamer (now of blessed memory) once wrote:

I have worked with such angry people often enough to know that when they realize that our being with them [in that time of crisis] is a sign that we care, and that the God who moved us to be there is also on the spot, caring and present even when we aren't, they are then on their way out of the [quicksand on the path.]

But the problem for us all in the midst of so many of our problems is that God seems so distant because he is not there in the way we think he should be.

Naaman is ready to reject the word of God through the prophet because it is not what he expected.

He is only turned around when a servant risks his wrath and points out God's presence to him in the action of washing in the muddy, inconsequential Jordan River.

One of the gifts we receive here today is the reassurance that the God who loved you and me enough to willingly submit to the cross, and there give his life for us

will never willingly let go of those upon whom he has placed his mark of ownership in Holy Baptism.

That does not mean that life will be easy or pain-free.

When we slip into thinking that way, we are then easily led to ask questions such as:

“Why did this awful thing happen to me?”

That is a dead-end question.

Since we are not in a maze, and instead are on the path of a labyrinth, the question is:

“Now that this has happened, what can I do with it?”

And wrestling with that question will move us along our way.

One of the glories of being in the church of Jesus Christ is that we don't have to do that all alone – we can call on each other for assistance.

Again we need to give thanks for the work of our Stephen Ministers across the years, as they listen carefully and speak a word of hope and care and the love of Christ to their care receivers.

They can be the agents of exactly what the persons may need from God, if they are ready to engage in conversation.

And what do we learn as we walk along the certain but twisting path?

that it is more blessed to give than to receive,

that it is impossible to serve both God and wealth,

that those who lose their lives for Christ's sake will find them,

that serving the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and imprisoned is serving Jesus himself.

Sometimes we can stride briskly in these things, and other times it is slow going as we learn these things and shape our lives in this holy way.

Sometimes our vision of what Jesus gives us is confused. What we need to do then is to look even more intently at the goal, the center of the labyrinth, Jesus himself, remember where we are going and why, and pick up our feet and get going.

It will be in our joy in the Good News and in obedience to the command that the fearsomeness of the labyrinth is diminished.

We're using the word “pilgrim” a number of times today.

It is a word that describes someone not at home in the present situation,

whose home is elsewhere,

who is on a journey but pausing a moment for rest and refreshment.

That is describing us, here today.

After the leper was healed, Jesus didn't say to him “Well now, have a nice day!”

Instead, he gave him specific things to do. “Go,” he said.

Each Sunday morning our walk in the labyrinth brings us here, closer to the center and closer to each other.

But we can't stay here.

There is all the rest of life to be lived.

“Go” Jesus says to us, “and show your healing to a confused and sometimes hostile world.

And you and I are still on that path, trusting that it will bring us back here again and again for refreshment until the day when we reach the very center, the full presence of Jesus.

Until then there is just one little word: Go!. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.