14^th November 2014

Rev Dr Max Champion at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 28 September 2014

Lessons - Psalm 25:1-10; 2 Esdras 7:3-9; Matthew 7:13-20.

'The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.' (Matthew 7:14 NRSV) '

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less travelled by; and that has made all the difference.'
(Robert Frost, 'The Road not Taken'.)

Roads are often used in books, films and music to symbolise adventure and pilgrimage, where people turn their backs on home and security for exciting, unknown destinations and also the way they return, after their dreams are shattered.

In 'The Road Trip that Changed the World' (2012) Mark Sayers outlines the crisis facing Christianity in Western civilisation. In a modern take on Jesus' saying about the 'wide' and 'narrow' roads, he contrasts two conflicting world-views in our society about the path on which we are travelling.

He notes that since the 1960s a big change has taken place in how we understand our life journey. The road has become a symbol of escape from commitment. It signifies open-ended 'choices' that we can use to experience spiritual health, sexual intimacy and material well-being.

To maximise happiness many people now live for the moment. They are not interested in overarching stories about where we have come from and where we are going. The past and future are blocked out as they focus on 'the journey'
rather than 'the destination', thus distracting them from 'asking the big questions'.

They fling themselves into fleeting relationships and amuse-ments that make them feel good. This creates an amiable but self-satisfied shallowness that is detached from other people. Those who question this pleasure-seeking narcissism are regarded as repressed fundamentalists whose sin is to deny their desires and seek 'truth' that is not in tune with our natural inclinations.

Sadly but inevitably the dream that many hoped to realise on the 'wide and easy road' has become a nightmare. Though entertainers, sports people and media gurus talk up the 'wow factor' to heighten emotions and energy levels, many have become easily bored, apathetic, anxious, and resentful, with some turning to drugs to deaden the sense of futility.

The road symbolises a very different journey on the map travelled by Jesus in the footsteps of Abraham. Like the post-1960's road, this road leaves the security of what is familiar. Unlike it, this road is taken by people of faith who know where they came from and where they are going. This road is not 'the way to self-discovery' based on limitless 'choices'. Nor does it detach us from other people or the quest for truth.

This road is travelled in the knowledge that God has called the Church to pack her bags and make the journey of faith is the Creator, Redeemer and Consummator of history - the One whose goodness-and-mercy fills life and history with love and purpose from beginning to end. This is a 'narrow road'
along which fullness-of-life is to be experienced.

The 'narrow way' of Jesus is not, as is often thought, fanatical, bigoted or fearful. In his company, life's journey is immensely challenging and richly blessed - in good and bad times alike. Those who travel down this road discover true freedom because life is seen in the light of the cross and resurrection. They know that, incredibly, they are 'chosen' to participate in the grand purposes of God.

Therefore, they are freed from the shallowness, restlessness, anxiety and self-centeredness that accompany travellers on the other road. They know their sins have been forgiven and evil overcome by the One who walked the path of suffering love to the Cross, and who revealed himself as the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13ff). They rejoice in the company of all who are called to give themselves fully for the life of the world. Along this road, commitment and sacrificial love are to be found. In Cormac McCarthy's grim novel and film, 'The Road' (2006), these qualities are found in the father who, in the aftermath of a cataclysmic event that has killed most living things, destroyed civilisation and led to his wife's suicide. He does all in his power to protect his son and lead him to safety.

Despite the father dying in his son's arms at the end of the road, this dark, haunting vision of a future without life, humanity and purpose is tinged with hope! After sitting with his dead father for a highly symbolic three days, the son is given a way ahead when he is embraced and adopted by a loving family who embody the love of God.

Instead of embracing the modern escape from commitment, responsibility and purpose that is typical of those who travel the 'wide road' to self-discovery and unfettered pleasure, 'The Road' can be seen as a parable of the 'narrow road' on which Jesus' disciples are called to travel. It illuminates the redemptive place of sacrificial love in the midst of unrelenting suffering and evil.

Today, this road as M Scott Peck memorably described it (1979) is The Road Less Travelled. Unlike the other road, it requires discipline to restrain emotions and delay pleasure. It commits us to be honest with ourselves, to face problems, conflicts and disappointments and to devote ourselves to the pursuit of truth so that actions - not feelings - will be the basis for genuine love for other people.

Above all, as Peck realised later, it commits us to the costly path of discipleship in the service of Jesus Christ who embodied God's sacrificial love for small, fragile and flawed mortals. It is a miracle of grace that insignificant people like you and me should be chosen by the Creator of this unimaginably vast cosmos to take part in his redemptive purposes for the world.

That such a miracle should come to light, not on the 'broad road,' where satisfaction of desires, feelings and choices are thought to be limitless, but on the 'narrow road' of self-giving love, is an occasion for deep gratitude. For, unlike exclamations about the 'awesomeness' of banal happenings in our tiny self-enclosed worlds, the event of Jesus Christ is the one event that truly has the 'wow factor'.

To experience this wow factor we cannot be spectators. We must set out on 'the road less travelled', not the all-too-frequently chosen path to instant gratification. As disciples of Jesus we share with them the desire to break free of traditions that stifle adventures in faith and action. However, we do so, not to satisfy selfish personal desires or bend the world to our wills, but to participate in the triumphant, suffering love of God for the strife-torn world.

Our path in a dark world is illuminated when we re-examine the road Abraham and others trod to share God's gracious purposes for humanity and the way taken by Christ to the Cross and from the empty tomb. It becomes clear that fullness of life is to be found, not on the road marked 'choice', but on the often perilous road of sacrificial love.

Such costly living for others springs from gratitude for the blessings that God has undeservedly showered on us as we walk - falteringly and imperfectly
- the road of faith.

The blessings and hardships of this journey are beautifully portrayed in Ezra's vision:

'There is a city ... set on a plain, and it is full of all good things; but
the entrance to it is narrow and set in a precipitous place, so that there is
fire on the right hand and deep water on the left. There is only one road
lying between them ... so that only one person can walk on the path. If now
the city is given to some as an inheritance, how will the heir receive (it)
unless by passing through the appointed danger.' (2 Esdras 7:5-9)

There is something unsettling about preaching on these texts today. As Christians we do not usually think of ourselves as pilgrims on a perilous journey in a hostile world! Our faith makes us grateful for blessings. It gives us comfort in tough times. It encourages us to be tolerant of everybody and everything. Unlike our fellows elsewhere in the world we do not risk torture, imprisonment or death for our faith.

We need to open our eyes, ears and hearts to the fact that the road along which the vast majority of people in our day are walking is destructive of the good purposes for humanity that are revealed on journeys travelled by men and women of faith and exemplified in Christ.

That truly is 'The Road Trip that Changed the World'. Whilst this 'road less travelled' is not always easy to walk - and opposition from those who have gone down a different track is to be expected - we can rejoice because God has accepted each one of us by grace and surrounded us with fellow recipients of grace.

Undeservedly blessed by God, we are free (as the Basis of Union puts it) to accept our calling as 'a pilgrim people who are engaged to confess Christ's death and resurrection on the way towards the promised goal'.

Thanks be to God for this high and responsible privilege!

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Rev Dr Max Champion is Minister in St John's Uniting Church, Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia.

Dr Champion is a member of the Council of the Assembly of Confessing Congregations within the UCA.