Luke 10: 1-11, 16-20
Sacrament of Holy Communion
If you're a fan
of J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), you'll recognize the title for today's sermon. "There and Back Again: A Hobbit's
Tale" is the title Bilbo Baggins gives to his memoir of high adventure,
his discovery of the magic ring. There and Back Again was Tolkien's
alternate title to his book The Hobbit. It came to mind, the title, that is, almost a
month ago when I put the bulletin together for today, knowing that this would
be my first Sunday back after being away for three weeks. I was hopeful that I would get there and back again. I didn't get
lost in a cave or find a magic ring (although there were magical moments) or
meet up with disturbing characters such as Gollum. But I did go on an adventure of body, mind,
and spirit, an extraordinary journey over thousands of miles and years: Dulles to London to Mumbai to Coimbatore to
Coonoor, back to Coimbatore to Delhi. The journey included a four-day tour of
the Golden Triangle: Delhi, south to Agra (the site of the Taj Mahal), west to
Jaipur (the stronghold of ancient Hindu kingdoms before the arrival of the
Moghuls), then back to Delhi, the capital of the Moghul Empire and later the capital
of the British Raj (or Rule) of India until independence in 1947. Then I flew
from Delhi to London to Edinburgh (because all roads lead through Scotland)
before returning on Wednesday via London and Toronto.
The reason for this adventure was an
invitation from the St. Andrew Centre for Human Resource Development in Coonoor
to teach a seminar on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung
(1875-1961). The St. Andrew Centre was founded by the India Sunday School
Union, which was itself organized in 1875. The director, Dr. Ajit Prasadam,
received his doctorate from Princeton Seminary, and worked closely with my
mentor James Loder. Jim went to Coonoor
in the 1990s and lectured around India.
Two years ago Ajit said, you must come and teach in India. I thought he was going to ask me to teach
something related to Loder. But given my
recent interest in Jung, he asked me to do an entire seminar on Jung's theories.
It was both an honor and a privilege—a
joy—to offer this seminar. I'm so grateful for the experience. I had 41 in the course from all over India,
including seven who traveled from Sri Lanka; the group consisted of counselors,
pastors, and students in psychology.
They were all people of deep faith.
It was ecumenical, from mainline Protestant to Assembly of
God/Pentecostal to Roman Catholic (one priest and one sister). There were some who had serious doubts about
Jung, who didn't know he had an interest in religion and Christianity. I also had to disavow some of their anti-Jungian
views informed by textbooks written with a Freudian bias. I had to convince them that Jung has
something important to say to Christianity.
I had to convince them that while Jung was not essentially orthodox, he
cared about the church and it's message.
And I had to convince them that I wasn't a heretic for liking Jung. But I made the point and proved myself and by
the end of the week it was very difficult to say good-bye to the remarkable
people in the class.
It was a very busy week. Chapel every morning at 8:30 a.m., class
began at 9 a.m., lunch was at 1:00 p.m.; the afternoon session started at 2:30
p.m. and went until 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. I
preached at the community worship service on Sunday, 16th June, and preached on
Monday at the opening worship service. Ajit
also asked me to preach at the closing worship on Friday. We covered a lot of material in the class. They worked hard; we worked hard. Despite
feeling exhausted each night, I was really energized by the entire experience.
Ajit
also asked me to give a public lecture on Jung.
And so I gave a version of the lecture I offered here in April. There were 100 in attendance from the
community, made up of Christians and Hindus.
In appreciation, they presented me with a shawl, an Indian tradition
given to a professor.
Jung
really resonated with the seminar participants.
On the last day, for the last hour, they reflected with me on what the
seminar meant to them, what they were taking away with them, what they would
take with them back into their ministries.
This is not a travelogue, but a
reflection on a text on a Communion Sunday.
But they are related. The gospel
text for this morning is like a travelogue, a travelogue that preaches the
gospel. Jesus sends out seventy in
groups of two. He sends them out on an
adventure, to explore, to share, to preach, to let people know that the kingdom
of God has come near them. He gives them
guidelines and then he releases them.
They go and they return and in returning they share their experiences
with Jesus. What they discovered about
God, about themselves, about the world could only have been discovered through
the journey, through the adventure, through the experience. They couldn't have discovered these things in
a book or through stories second-hand.
There are some things about the faith that can only be discovered on the
way. There are things that can only be
discovered when one leaves home, like Bilbo Baggins.
It's not surprising that early
Christians understood the life of faith as pilgrimage, as peregrinatio, peregrination, of journey. It is a journey, an adventure from life to
death to life to death to life again.
Jesus himself, who clocked a lot of miles on foot, knew the power of
such a metaphor. "I am the
way," he said (John 14:6). In
other words, I am the road you travel to
find life. Jesus takes us
places. A sermon, too, is supposed to
take us some place and leave us in a different place. A sermon might actually
start us off on a journey that leads to new lands, new experiences, down
uncharted roads, and unexplored terrain.
On Wednesday at Heathrow airport I
came across a marvelous book by Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot. It's a fascinating book about walking,
traversing ancient pathways and routes.
Macfarlane explores the connection between external topography and the
soul, the outer journey mirrors the inner journey. He explores the relationship
between topography, both land and sea, and how when we are in particular
landscapes, something happens to us.
Landscapes, especially strong landscapes, touch us deeply. He says they ask two questions: "What do I know when I am in this place
that I can know no where else? And then,
vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?"[1]
To walk, to journey, is to learn, to
discover. Richard Kearney, a
contemporary Irish philosopher writing on the Irish scholars, those Celtic
Christians of the 4th to 7th century, reminds us that the scholars "were
known for their practice of 'navigatio'...a journey undertaken by boat...a circular itinerary of exodus
and return... The aim was to undergo an
apprenticeship to signs of strangeness with a view to becoming more attentive
to the meaning of one's own time and place -- geographical, spiritual, intellectual."[2]
To go to India was for me, as a
Christian white man from the West, to be an apprentice to strangeness and
in doing so I became more aware of the world and myself. I was in the minority. There are
approximately 1 billion people in India, 2-3% of the population is
Christian. The majority is Hindu. Thomas (d. 72) the apostle brought
Christianity to India in 52 AD and was martyred there. The descendants of his communities are still
in India, St. Thomas Christians are known as Nasranis (can you hear Nazareth in
the name). Ajit's family descends from those
first Christians. The Roman Catholic
Church arrived in the 13th century, later the Portuguese brought Roman
Catholicism in 1498. Protestants arrived
with the Danish and the British, who both had colonies in India. Today, India is religiously diverse,
Christian, Buddhist (home of Buddhism), Hindu, Moslem, Jain.
It's
a very different world. It's a
challenging place for Christians: How do we remain faithful as an isolated minority? How does one remain faithful to one God in a
land of many gods? Maybe in this sense they have much to teach us in the West,
as Christians here become a minority, as the church becomes isolated by the
larger society. And, we, too, have many
gods.
This
is what the students shared with me. The
participants in the seminar were definitely on their own journeys of
faith. We were all different people by the
time the week was over. I'll be sharing
a little of what they shared with me, about what they learned and discovered.
There was something profound about sharing stories of faith across cultures,
identifying differences and striking similarities.
One
of the joys of the Christian life is that we get to travel with others; we
don't really walk alone for we journey together. We are part of this larger community. And we meet new friends along the way. The Lord is always sending us out and calling
us back and inviting us to share what we discovered on the way. The Lord is always sending us out and calling
us back, sending us out and calling us back—that’s what we do week after week,
we scatter and return—and then we share what we’re discovering along the way. And as we go the Lord provides bread for the
journey, food to sustain us, bread and wine, the gifts of God for the people of
God. Amen.
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