A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on Feb. 17, 2008, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

            I have it on good authority that the African antelope the impala is a terrific jumper and yet can be contained behind a very short fence.  In the wild the impala has been known to leap 10 feet into the air and to cover distances of more than 30 feet in a single bound.  Yet I’m told they can be confined behind a wall only 3-feet high. Apparently the impala won’t jump if they can’t see where their feet will land.

            That’s true for a lot of us who live life prudently.  We need to know what the outcome will be before we make a move.  But our spiritual lives--the life of faith—keeps asking us to leap when we can’t see where we’ll land.  The pioneer of faith in three traditions is Abraham who is asked to set out without knowing how his journey will end. In our first reading this morning you heard Abraham’s marching orders: “leave your country, leave your family and leave your house.”  And the promise is that Abraham will become what he is meant to be.  Note that God doesn’t promise Abraham that he will be better off, just that his new life is the right thing for him.  What Abraham is being asked to do is to jump without knowing where his feet will land.

            Most of us resist making such a leap.  We cling to the stories in which it all comes out for the better: like the baby thrown from a burning building in Germany a few weeks ago.  We like to focus on the catch: a policeman was there and took the child into his strong arms and everything turned out O.K.  But the baby’s father didn’t know how it was going to come out.  In the moment of decision he had to choose in faith—and it was an agonizing choice.  We make a lot of such leaps in our own quiet ways throughout life.  We choose to be in relationships: to give up the safety of being alone and trusting ourselves with another person.  We choose jobs.  We relocate. We choose to become parents.  We make ethical decisions. We like to pretend we know how these choices will come out, but we don’t.  I remember the midnight telephone call from a parent who believed her new child might be autistic.  “What am I going to do?” she asked.  And the only answer possible is this: “We are all going to love him, that’s what we’re going to do.”  And life is full of these choices and decisions.  Giving yourself up to acting out of love is always the right thing to do, but we can never be certain where our feet will land.

            Jesus, in our Gospel, had several metaphors to explain the spiritual journey we are on in the hands of the Living God.  It is like a birth, he said.  At some point you just give yourself over to what is going to happen to you in spite of the pain.  It is like the wind, he said. It takes you wherever it will, like a dry leaf, though you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.  It is like being a part of God’s plan to save the world.  It may lead through the cross and grave before it gets to where it is going.  Letting yourself fall into the hands of the Living God is never safe.  The only thing certain is what was certain for Abraham: your new life will lead you to where you need to be in God’s kingdom.

            Choosing to be in relationship is never safe.  The new job will probably come with a painful adjustment.  Relocating will take you away from your support system.  Becoming a parent—or choosing to be someone’s child—is full of uncertainty.  Making the right moral decision is probably going to make you unpopular with someone.  Today we remember the four chaplains who have become symbols of the power of faith.  When they chose to serve God by caring for soldiers, they could not have known that their choice would mean dying in the North Atlantic , but they certainly knew that was a risk they were taking.

            There’s a story about a man who was shipwrecked on a desert island.  He built a little shelter out of driftwood and was tolerably happy for a time.  Then one day returned from scavenging for food to find that lightening had struck his little home and it burned to the ground.  He thought himself the most miserable of creatures until the next day when a ship arrived to rescue him. When he asked how they knew he was there, they replied, of course: “We saw your smoke signals.”

            Our clouds don’t always have that kind of material happy ending.  Sometimes the rescue we get comes in the form of becoming bigger people.  Choosing to love someone may not make you happier, but it always grows you as a person.  Sometimes the rescue we get comes in the form of greater integrity.  Choosing to do the right thing may not make you more comfortable, but it always makes you more whole.

            May God give us the grace to live our lives as Abraham did, as Jesus’ followers did, as the four chaplains did: going on with our lives without knowing where our feet will land.  May we have the grace to go beyond the little walls of safety that surround us, and jump into the lives God intends for us.                                     AMEN