The horse drawn carriage comes to the end of the road, at a river, a swollen river where there should be a bridge.
There is no way across.
They stand there looking at the water, they have no idea what to do.
The grandmother, steps out of the wagon walks to the water’s edge, has a seat, takes off her shoes and soaks her feet in the refreshing coolness, laughing in delight.
A father and his young son sit up late one night.
The son is overwhelmed by life, lonely, sad…hangdog.
The father stares across the distance, struggling to find words to express something that is hard to say, something hard to understand.
The father says, “Son I wasted half of my life taking everything so seriously, being miserable because things didn’t go the way I wanted. I don’t know what happened, but one day I was just glad to be here. It changes everything. I don’t want you to waste your life like I did for so long.”
The son looks back into his father’s eyes, and as usual he has no idea what that man is talking about. He couldn’t cross over that distance… until years later he finally understood.
Jesus sees all these religious people, who are lost in their own certainty, they call it faith, but it isn’t faith. It’s just simple pride, lording themselves over others.
Jesus looks across the distance.
He wonders about the human heart. When someone is rescued from a burning house, they are normally overwhelmingly thankful, walking through life just being glad to be there, a changed perspective.
Then why is it that when someone is given a glimpse of God’s grace, why do so many feel so entitled to be indignant and angry rather than… thankful?
Even a little mustard seed of thanksgiving will uproot a life and plant it into the waters of grace, into the endless ocean of God’s love.
How to cross the distance?
How to help people see that faith isn’t about certainty or privilege or hate, it’s about thankfulness.
We are all like mulberry trees that have been uprooted and replanted in the ocean.
That is the kind of change that happens when we meet Jesus, a distance is crossed, the heart is changed, the perspective is different. God’s faith uproots us and replants us.
We can no longer walk through life feeling like we are in the know or somehow better than others, we are no longer obligated to be told thank-you, we rather walk through life saying thank-you, our lives become an offering of thanksgiving to our Lord.
The difference between a tourist and a pilgrim is that a tourist demands, a pilgrim says thank you.
How to cross that distance?
The conversion from being entitled to indignation to having that humble surprised laughter of thankfulness? A vast distance, an abyss to cross over, how do we get there from here?
The simplest way is to just begin, over and over again, soaking our feet in those cool waters.
Today we conclude our 2020 pledge drive. This week we begin the follow up reminders for all who haven’t gotten around to their pledge yet.
I turned my pledge card in, a full 10% of my income is coming back to the ministry of the gospel here at Grace. We give in addition to this for special projects in the parish and for other ministries.
The Bishop wants the clergy to let their congregations know. So there it is.
The idea is to work up to a tithe, a little more every year, and then keep on going.
A friend told me last week to give not until it hurts but until it brings joy.
This isn’t really about having a fund raiser, or planning next year’s budget.
What this is really about is making our lives, both individually and as a parish, an offering of thanksgiving to the God whose faith crosses the vast distance that we might live.
This is about recruiting people to that cause, recruiting the world away from anger and resentment and toward simple thanksgiving. Tempting the world with thankfulness.
Being that kind of witness. Being that kind of example.
This is about our lives being uprooted and replanted in the ocean of God’s grace.
It is much more than feeling thankful, it is about being thankful, doing thanksgiving, living thanksgiving, inviting and recruiting to the cause of thankfulness.
This is where life begins, real life. This is about spiritual rebirth. This is about what faith is really all about, crossing the vast distance and being thankful for all the good news.
Plant those feet in the cool water and have a good laugh.