ADVENT–URE
Malachi 3:1–4 • Luke 3:1–6
December 7, 1997 • Advent 2 (c)
The word of God came to John — in the wilderness.
What image does the word “wilderness” conjure up in your mind? [wait for responses] Barren wastelands? Deep, untouched forests? Absence of civilization? Wild beasts? The beauty of nature? Danger? The unknown? The unexpected? Adventure?
Ah! That’s it for me: ADVENTURE! A wilderness adventure!
Some of my best adventures came thanks to the Boy Scouts. I was a member of two different troops. One in Hickory. Another in Charlotte.
The scoutmaster of the Hickory troop was Mr. Gill. He worked for Duke Power and had access to Duke’s property around the lakes and rivers. He was also a kind of fat fellow — sorta shaped like Santa Claus — who’d rather ride than walk. So we were a canoeing troop. With Mr. Gill I went on amazing 200–mile adventures down the Catawba and Yadkin Rivers and the lakes those rivers feed.
The scoutmaster of the Charlotte troop was Mr. Anderson — we called him Mr. “A.” Our adventures took place on the hiking trails in the state and national forests of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. As part of that troop I earned four “50 Miler” awards on the Appalachian Trail — that’s the Scouting award given to those who go on a hike of at least 50 miles. What adventures those trips were!
I’ll never forget, for instance, when a big black bear approached our campsite one morning, and Freddie Parker threw a bar of soap at him; the bear ate the soap! Or the time at Table Rock when Mr. A shot a rattlesnake with his .22 pistol and we barbecued it — tasted like smokey white rubber! Then there was the time up near Clingman’s Dome, when we got soaked in the rain and I decided to hike in my underwear while my pants were drying on the back of my pack. I was just gettin’ it on down the trail, ahead of the whole troop, when around the corner came a bunch of Girl Scouts! I had to run for the bushes!
What adventures! Every boy should be a Boy Scout!
But adventure is not reserved for the young! It’s never too late to be an adventurer! Since 1952, Jean Feldman, of Chapel Hill, had wanted to walk the full length of the Appalachian Trail — 2,158 miles from Maine to Georgia.
Finally, in 1988 she began the trip — at age 69! That year, 1988, she walked from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Harpers Ferry, W.Va., roughly half the trail, before she got sick and had to stop. Each year afterwards she spent part of every summer trying to finish the trail, each year sidelined by everything from broken ankles to bronchitis. In 1992 she managed only 22 miles, but every summer she has made progress. She hiked with different partners, meeting her husband at road crossings and hotels.
On August 25, 1995, at the age of 76, Jean climbed Mount Katahdin in Maine, finishing the Trail. How did she celebrate? “I sat up there and ate pie, if you want to know. A friend of mine hiked with me up there, and she had carried part of a pie, if you can imagine. I guess some people take champagne, but she took pie. We sat up there in the wind and the fog and ate pie."
Thirty–six years in anticipation! Seven years to complete! What an adventure! Makes me want to get out my backpack!
We’re in the season of Advent. The word “advent” itself comes from the same root as “adventure.” But “advent” is a churchy word. It smells of piety, of musty robes, dusty wreaths, solemn hymns, boring sermons, and fidgety children. Say “advent” and eyes glaze over; it’s hard to keep from yawning.
But say “adventure” — and folks are on the edges of their seats! When you hear the word “adventure” what do you think of? [wait for responses] Indiana Jones, Swiss Family Robinson, and Jules Verne! Coumbus sailing on the high seas in search of new worlds! Neil Armstrong stepping out onto the moon! Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise “bravely going where no man has gone before!”
Adventure is a wake–up call to life.
Adventure is a shot of caffeine!
Adventure is a fire–cracker under the seat of laziness!
You can forget all about the church’s Season of Advent and still live a good life. But if you forget that you were born to be an adventurer, then you may spend your life on hold... in the waiting room.
That’s right! You were born to be an adventurer! And we, God’s people, are created for adventure. Indeed, according to theologian Stanley Hauerwas, this is fundamental to our mission:
The most basic task of any [church] is to offer its people a sense of participation in an adventure. For finally what we seek is not power or security, or equality, or even dignity, but a sense of worth gained from participation in and contribution to a common adventure.
Advent, then, is about adventuring together — in the wilderness.
John the Baptist is our scoutmaster and he’s shouting the scout motto: “Be Prepared! Get ready!” he says. “Be prepared! Be ready for anything. Because anything can happen in this life! Good stuff. Bad stuff.... Even love... Even the appearance of God. We’re going on an adventure in the wilderness, so be prepared!”
It’s not the place you’d expect to find God — the wilderness — but God’s there, nevertheless. Indeed, God is there in every wilderness, waiting for the adventurers. Those who hike the Appalachian Trail have their own word for the experience of finding God. They call it “trail magic,” and when you’ve been on the trail long enough you find it everywhere. Trail magic is anything good or beautiful or marvelous or unexpected that happens on the trail. It’s the experience of going through great difficulty, and coming to improbable beauty at the end of it. And for those with the eyes to see, trail magic is the very presence of God in the midst of the wilderness.
Ask the seven from this church who went to Haiti a year ago. That was certainly an adventure into the wilderness — a trek into the unknown. Kinda scarey in some ways! But we trusted God — and our fearless leader, Ross Fowler — and we found — every one of us — that when we came face to face with them, the things we feared from afar were not so fearsome after all! Indeed, God was in those scarey places, waiting for us! It was as if God had prepared a way for us in that wilderness, so that we might we might find each other!
I knew that would happen before I went to Haiti. I had been on a very similar trail before, and had experienced the same kind of “trail magic.” In Nicaragua. I was there working for Witness for Peace in the midst of the contra war. A war zone is a wilderness if there ever was one. Every day is an adventure, filled with dangers and unexpected events. Sure, I was afraid many times; you have to be crazy not to be scared when somebody’s pointing a gun at you. But I wasn’t alone. The Witness for Peace community was there with me. And the Nicaraguan people were there, accompanying all of us. And there’s no way for me to adequately describe to you the experience of God that I found there....
God is there in every wilderness awaiting the adventurers, and once you’ve been on the trail for a while, the magic is everywhere.
Am I saying that you have to go on an adventure to Haiti or Nicaragua or some other foreign land to experience God? No, you don’t have to go to there.
But you do have to hit the trail. You do have to set out on an adventure into the wilderness of your choice. But most of us don’t like the wilderness all that much. We choose not to go there.
We’re into security — and there’s always an element of risk in a wilderness adventure.
We like certainty — we like to know the plan, what’s gonna happen next — and there’s always the element of the unexpected on a true wilderness adventure.
And we like to give the appearance that we have it all together, we like to look good, no matter what — but if you’re gonna spend any time in the wilderness you’re probably gonna end up looking a little bit like John the Baptist — wild, unkempt, disheveled, rag–tag, and considerably worse for the wear!
We don’t like being vulnerable, and perplexed, and worn, so we most often avoid the wilderness when we can. We don’t want to deal with it. “Let’s not go there,” we tell ourselves, and so we stay put, refusing the adventure, prefering safety and security to trail magic.
And what are those wildernesses? Life is full of them, really. Sickness is one. Of course we avoid sickness when we can, and that’s OK. But what of those times when we cannot avoid it? There’s a world of difference between the person who responds to a discouraging diagnosis with nothing but anger, bitterness, and self–pity — and the person who responds with the courage of an adventurer.
Friday night I worked the Christmas tree lot. I didn’t mean to, but when I came out of the office at about 4:30 there were customers down there and no one selling trees, so I went down to help them out. While I was helping them another car pulled up, and then another. I ended up working by myself for four and a half hours and sold over $1,100 worth of trees!
One fellow came and asked if he could buy some of the greenery that comes off the bottoms of the trees when they’re trimmed for the tree stands. I told him that he could have all he could find. He collected an armload of limbs and as he put them in his van I saw that he had a handicap lift for a wheelchair. “We’re not going to be able to have a tree this year,” he said. “But maybe these branches will keep my wife busy.”
“Is your wife handicapped?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “This lift is for my brother–in–law, her brother. He’s a quadriplegic.” He then told me that his 34 year old brother–in–law, a carpenter, had fallen this year from the second story of a house he was framing and had broken his neck. He was now living in the room where they usually put a Christmas tree, so this year Christmas decorations would be more simple. Thus need for greenery.
Now that’s a scarey wilderness if there ever was one — both for the victim of the fall and family that’s chosen to care for him! I asked how they were dealing with the new situation. “Well, if it had happened to me I don’t know how I’d have dealt with it. But it’s taught me not to take for granted even the ability to feed myself, or turn over in bed, or go to the bathroom without help.”
Then he smiled: “But my brother–in–law’s just amazing! He was the most active man I ever knew before the accident, and I’d have thought he would be bitter, but he actually has a good attitude about it. Sure, he gets angry sometimes, but he has great hopes of regaining some of his capactities and he works hard at it... We’ve all learned a lot during this time. They’re doing a lot of exciting research in this area, you know!”
That man’s life — and that family’s life together — is an adventure in the wilderness, full of fears and tears and difficulties to be sure, but also full of courage and determination. There’ll be no Christmas tree in their house this year, but I could tell, just by talking to him, that there’d be plenty of trail magic.
Grief is another wilderness. Especially at this time of year. You’re supposed to be happy now, you know? “‘Tis the season to be jolly!” Which tends now to make a loss all the more bitter. Whether it’s the loss of a loved one, or of a relationship, or of a job, or the loss of a cherished dream — our hearts ache more now, or at least they seem to.
When faced with the wilderness of grief, the temptation is to hide, to pretend like it doesn’t hurt, to not talk about it, to cover it up with drugs or alcohol or some other addictive behavior, or simply to avoid those living situations that cause memories and tears to come to the surface. And in the process of avoidance we cut off from life.
Adventurers embrace the wilderness of grief, face into it, and force themselves, if necessary, to continue to live. Sure, they fall down a lot. And they cry many tears. But every morning they get out out of bed, put their boots on, and continue the trek through life, one day at a time, not giving up, putting one foot ahead of the other. For one of the things that an adventurer learns is that if you keep on walking, eventually you’ll get to where you’re going! And along the way — who knows? — maybe just around the next bend — you’ll be surprised by trail magic!
Yet another wilderness has to do not so much with our own sickness, or sin, or pain, but the sickness and pain of the world we live in. There too, the temptation is to avoid it. I mean, after all, what can I do about the suffering and injustice in Haiti or Central America — or even in west Charlotte? What can I do about crime or violence or poverty or the environment?
Adventurers know that you do what you can do, without worrying too much about the final outcome — that’s not our responsibility! That’s in God’s hands. And they find that there’s a real joy in embracing the struggle for peace, for justice, for righteousness — there’s even joy in suffering for such a cause. God really blesses those who take up another’s cross and make it their own. And they get beautiful glimpses of the end of the trail.
It happened one day in 1989, for instance, when Bishop Desmond Tutu preached in front of the South African embassy in Washington. Ugly apartheid was the law in South Africa then. Nelson Mandela was in prison and had been there for thirty years. The prospects for peaceful change were dim. But from the wilderness Desmond Tutu preached the non-violent gospel of God:
“Those of you inside, are you listening? Do you hear me? You have already been defeated. Do you understand that? You have already lost and we on the outside have won. Out here, we know how this struggle for freedom and liberation will turn out, for God is on the side of the oppressed. It’s not “We shall win.” Oh No! We have already won! Only you on the inside have not yet realized it. We outsiders have, and we know the future. We are the future.”
Such is the confidence of those adventurers who have been walking long enough to know that, no matter how dark the trail, no matter how many perilous curves, no matter how many potholes — God is the one who constructed it and God knows where it’s leading.....
So.... where is your wilderness? What adventure are you being called to but resist because you’re afraid? I cannot answer that for you. But I can assure you that you are being called.
Let me tell you about the wilderness adventure of one courageous man.
Though he does look like him, the man on the cover of your bulletin today is not John the Baptist. He is, however, an adventurer in the wilderness. His name is Henry Tanner. He’s now 24. He’s from Raleigh. When he was 21 years old Henry suffered a freak stroke while wrestling with a friend. Immediately he was plunged into a wilderness he never expected.
Physical therapy was strenuous and difficult. But Henry was determined. Finally he reached a point where he could manage a kind of wobbly, uncertain walk, and he decided he needed a way to heal, a way to coax his uncertain limbs to their fullest possible function, a way to teach his spirit that disability lives only in the mind. And so he challenged himself to a goal, a test — an adventure. He would walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail — or as much of it as he could — from Georgia to Maine. “I’m just gonna take it a week at a time,” he said, as he began in March, 1995.
At the beginning Henry fell at least a dozen times a day. His stumbling gate was so hard on his boots that by the end of trail he had used up nine pairs — most walkers use no more than two. Five times Henry found himself in hospital emergency rooms for ankle and knee problems or for disgestive complaints that plague hikers who work with impure water and uncertain sanitation.
When he began even Henry wasn’t sure he could make it, but on October 8th — 7 months after he began — he was climbing Mount Katahdin. Near the top he stumbled and fell one last time.
Looking up, he smiled, and said to his companion: “I guess my luck ran out.” Blood was running between his fingers, scabs and scrapes dotted his legs, but he looked as happy as anyone has a right to look. Henry had made it! Two thousand one hundred and fifty–eight miles.
The bulletin cover shows him standing beside the end of the trail marker.
Henry’s parents, Jim and Sally Tanner, had joined him on that last day of the walk, for the hike up Mount Katahdin. Just a few minutes after Henry reached the top they staggered up behind him. His mom wept as she hugged him, and his dad gave him a big, beefy, guy hug.
His mother had worried about her son from the beginning, but never as much as she did when she decided to hike Katahdin with him. "I think I got the most scared today, because, walking with him, I realized how hard this whole thing was."
She looked over at him, tearing up again. "A handicap is all in your mind," she said. "Sometimes a parent learns more from a child than a child learns from their parents."
That’s trail magic. That’s the presence of God. The God who greets those adventurers who courageously step into the wilderness and follow the path that he prepares for them.
God’s calling you! Into the scarey places in your life! The wilderness areas where you’re vulnerable and perplexed and things are kind of messy!
It’s the call of Advent. The call to adventure! The call of John the Scoutmaster! “Get ready!” he says to you. “Be prepared! Yes, get ready for an adventure in the wilderness! For anything can happen! Good stuff! Bad stuff! Even love! Even the presence of God!”
