The Long Trek

Scriptures:     Isaiah 61:1-4, Luke 1:39-56

If you look at a map of Israel, Nazareth is far to the north, fifteen miles from the Sea of Galilee to the east.  It’s a small, rather unprepossessing town, as it was in Biblical times and as we discovered as we drove through it on our trip last month.  Even though the Sea of Galilee has fertile farmlands surrounding it, Nazareth itself is in mountainous country which is not very fertile.  And, even though it’s on the Roman route to Jerusalem, it’s quite a distance to that capital.  In Jesus’ time to travel from Nazareth to Jerusalem would take you through dry, barren regions, such asSamaria (where hostility existed between Samaritans and Jews), past Mt. Gerizim and the important Jewish holy site of Jacob’s Well. From there the road goes due south until we are in the province of Judea, and coming up on Jerusalem which is built on tall hills (we drove into Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, and it is quite an impressive sight to see the height of it looming on those mountains).

But now that camera which is your mind’s eye looks south at the map, and discovers Bethlehem – a mere 65 miles from Jerusalem.  However, the psychological distance is much greater than that – today, as well as 2000 years ago.  When we went to Bethlehem our tour guide, who was Israeli, could not accompany us, because Bethlehem is under the Palestinian Authority.  We had to go through check-points and have soldiers come onto our bus to check our passports.  Having gone through all this just to get to Bethlehem struck me as being a lot like what Mary and Joseph had to go through, as well.  Then, when we got there today’s Bethlehem is a fairly large town and highly commercialized with all the booths surrounding the Church of the Nativity (I don’t think I will ever be able to sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” with a straight face again), along with all the (probably erroneous) claims which struck me as a kind of “Jesus slept here” approach.

When you look at that map and you contemplate the distance between Nazareth and Bethlehem you have to marvel at the journey that Joseph and Mary must have taken – that long trek. The Gospel of Luke in its stark simplicity tells us little about this journey, so that gives us quite a bit of latitude to imagine what might have taken place along the way.  It is even possible that the journey never took place since the Gospel of Matthew indicates that Joseph is already in Bethlehem.  But this historical quibbling doesn’t really matter, for it is clear that the journey did take place in the minds and hearts of Joseph and Mary, even as the continuing journey of the church takes place in the minds and hearts of its members.  This was a journey in which fear and doubt and faith rode together, but with faith in the lead, for something had happened to Mary which she could not discount or negate through Joseph’s doubts or her own fears.  It was a dramatic journey, and like any good drama it had its beginning, middle, and end.

In the beginning there was simply the necessity of going.  The Emperor Caesar Augustus had made the decree, and he wasn’t about to alter these august plans (pun fully intended) just for one woman near her time of delivery.  If Mary’s situation had been brought before the monarch we can imagine his response (much like most people in high places) would be something like, “Well, of course, I’m sorry about that, but we can’t start making exceptions.  There must be plenty of others in similar circumstances.  If we started making individual exceptions, pretty soon the whole enrollment would have to be called off!”  (Not that it was likely that this situation would even have come to the emperor’s attention anyway.)

And so it is that Caesar’s decision helped to shape the response that Mary and Joseph would make to their faith.  The same is true now:  it is the world that shapes the agenda for the church.  Churches – certainly not churches like ours – do not have lobbyists in the courts of the powerful asking for exceptions (OK, maybe our tax exemptions are a somewhat different story…..but that’s a whole other sermon).  At its best the church accepts the demands, the agenda, the itinerary that the world gives it to go – to go out onto the roads that lead away from comfort and safety. But the unexpected thing, the surprising thing, is that the Caesars of the world cannot anticipate how the going will be accomplished in faith – and it is this faith that changes the necessity to go into the desire to go.

Mary wanted to go – to be with her betrothed (as the Revised Standard Version refers to Joseph, although the NRSV simplifies it to the one to whom she was engaged) – because of her faith that replaced doubt with confidence (“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” – have more stirring words ever been spoken!?)  Had she been under a doctor’s care today, modern medical practice would never have allowed her to take a trip of these dimensions that late in her pregnancy.  Similarly, modern theological practice – sometimes overly anxious about the health of the institution – has not always been quick to acknowledge the faith that leads to risks and that transforms the demand to go into the desire to go.  That famous phrase from the 1960’s – an “edifice complex” – sums up this risk-aversion approach to the church’s work.

And then there was Joseph, who, out of love for his betrothed had serious doubts about the wisdom of beginning now.  We can almost hear what’s going on in his head:  “Perhaps…perhaps…we could go after the baby is born, or when he has grown up a bit, or maybe even when he has completely grown up and left us – you know, when there are no more risks to the journey.” It’s like the line from that song in the musical For Heaven’s Sake – “Use me, O Lord…but not just now”; you might as well wait ‘til I am dead.  Sure, Joseph had doubts – wouldn’t you?  But then he saw something in Mary – a new thing – and he marveled at the change that had come over her and that she articulates so powerfully:  “…for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”  And so a decision was made – a decision for going and acting, not for staying and stagnating – a decision, in other words, of faith.

Along the way Mary and Joseph must have met many people – friends and strangers – who reacted in different ways to their long trek.  Sure, it’s a bit fanciful, but just imagine that as they were leaving the city limits of Nazareth a friend, who was also of the house of David and should have been making that trip to Bethlehem, came up to them and said, “You know, I’m one of you, yet I’m afraid to make this long trek.  There are dangers along the way and from the reports we get Bethlehem must be terribly over-crowded.  I’m going to hide out here.  Surely, Caesar’s men won’t be able to find everyone.  I wish I had your courage.”  With a smile of assurance toward their friend, yet a sadness of heart at his lack of faith, Mary and Joseph leave the city and watch him turn back.  How Mary wanted to tell him:  “It doesn’t take courage; just a faith that gives you all the strength you need.”  (“His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation.”)

Journeying on, they come into the hostile province of Samaria.  As they stop to refresh themselves – physically and spiritually – at the sacred site of Jacob’s Well, perhaps they meet a Samaritan woman who, seeing Mary’s condition and learning of their destination, invites them to come with her.  We might imagine her saying:  “You want your baby to be safe, I’m sure, don’t you dear? – not exposed to the cold of a winter in Bethlehem or so close to that worldly city, Jerusalem.  Why, anything could happen to him in that barbaric province of Judea!  Stay here with me.  My husband has a position of some prominence in Caesar’s court; I’m sure he could pull some strings so that you wouldn’t have to go for the enrollment right away.  I understand your great faith that wants to get you there, but for the safety of your baby wouldn’t it be better to compromise just this little bit?”  Ah, temptation.  So often it comes in a guise so pleasant and comforting, doesn’t it? But Mary just looks at her and then remembers her own words:  “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly…..”

As the weary travelers make their way into Judea perhaps they meet a priest travelling the same way.  He marvels at their endurance, but he, too, questions their wisdom.  “After all,” we can hear him saying, “the law – neither Caesar’s nor God’s law – does not require such sacrifice.  All you have to do is follow the rules and regulations, but this trip goes beyond what any human law should expect of you.  Besides, what if you should lose the baby!  Does your faith really intend for you to take that much of a risk?”

As Mary and Joseph meet and listen to these friends and strangers-who-became-friends they loved them and recognized in them kindred spirits who knew something of the love of God but who had not yet been challenged, in the way that Mary was challenged, to take the risks of faith.  Had there been a Christian church at that time, they might even all have belonged to it.  And with all of that love and concern flowing towards her maybe, just maybe, for the first time a seed of doubt began to grow in Mary:  “Perhaps they are right.  Perhaps I am risking too much, and this is not faith but foolhardiness.”

Before this seed could take root, though, Mary might have recalled the prayer of her spiritual sister, Hannah, who more than 1,000 years before, had prayed in almost exactly the same words Mary had used:  “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God.”  Hannah, who was old and childless, had been blessed with a child by the grace of God, and then she gave the boy to the temple priests to bring up for the Lord’s work – this was the boy who became the prophet Samuel.  This faith, Mary now recognized, must have been very difficult for Hannah and full of risks for her future happiness; yet, she could rise above those risks and exult in the Lord, thereby magnifying her faith.  Even so, do we, in those times when a strain is placed on our faith, look back to the faith of our forebearers or see around us examples of heavenly courage and faithful risk-taking.  So, Mary recalled her ancestor’s faith and was reassured that she was not being foolhardy:  “He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendents forever.”

Under the influence of this now renewed confidence in God, Mary and Joseph reached the hilltop overlooking Jerusalem.  I’ve already told you what an incredible experience that is, even in an automobile, to come up over that hill and see that great city laid out before you.  Imagine how it must have appeared to these two on their long trek coming from the small village of Nazareth. Yet, its very size revealed the underbelly of indifference, of suspicion, of hurried, brutal callousness that was there, and Mary felt the baby moving within her – she almost thought she could feel the tears beginning that one day would fall from his eyes as he stood in the same spot.  So, they hurried to the end of their journey.

But to their surprise Bethlehem, for all its smallness then, was not that different from Jerusalem (and, I would contend, is not all that different from it today).  Here, too, was indifference as the people, concerned for finding their own places to live, could not find time to help a couple who had come a long distance and knew no one there.  Here, too, was suspicion, for each new arrival was just someone else who was jockeying for a room.  Here, too, was a sense of hurried callousness – “everyone for themselves” was the order of the day.  Once again Joseph’s fears (“I knew I shouldn’t have allowed her to come.”) and Mary’s doubts (“Perhaps I was not worthy enough.”) grew until fear and doubt were close to overwhelming their faith.  “Perhaps,” Mary begins to think, “perhaps the world is not yet ready for this event; perhaps my confidence was too soon; perhaps I should have waited and let him come into the world with more safety; perhaps it is only later that the world can be shown what a great gift this is; perhaps the risk was too great.”

Yet, even with these fears and doubts beginning to overshadow the faith that had once been there, they moved on, bucking the tide of indifference and hostility, refusing to say that their faith had been in vain – until there is this one man.  That’s all it took:  one man, an innkeeper, with a bit of openness about him, so that he could go beyond himself even a little and say, “No, we have no rooms left, but perhaps in the stable…..”  Mary prays softly, “May there always be just one person…..”

If we had been a documentary crew filming this long trek, by now we would realize that it is in fact a serial with a “to be continued next week” as the closing credit.  We have followed a journey from its beginning through its middle to its seeming end, yet the actual event is yet to come.  The church, too, continues on its journey, knowing that the event both has come and is coming, knowing also that hostility and indifference will never allow us to succumb to those fears and doubts that seek to inhibit the risks of faith.  Mary and Joseph go to the stable now.  Something will happen there – about which we know, and yet we do not really know it until it happens in our own lives.  The long trek is over.  The moment of intense joy is still to come.  In two weeks we will learn of the actual event and perhaps join with Mary and Joseph in following the long trail that leads through the risks of faith.

Amen.

Dave Pomeroy

First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
December 11, 2011