21 October 2012
1st Presbyterian Church
Granbury, TX
Isaiah 35:1-10
John 16:16-20
Jude 1:23-25
I was driving home from the airport on Sunday night, well,
Monday morning. It was almost 1 in the
morning and I was tired, but filled with joy and in the midst of praying thanks
to God for the beautiful trip I had had to Detroit. I was also asking God for inspiration for
this sermon when a sound coming from the radio caught my ear and caused me to
pause. It was a beautiful, lilting piano
and violin tune that immediately made me want to sing along. The words to that song were perfect for my
feelings – and I knew as soon as I heard them, the inspiration for this sermon…
Thereis a joy in the journey (click to listen)
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey
 |
| http://durangotexas.blogspot.com/2011/01/fort-worths-shanty-town-for-homeless.html |
It is
a perfect description of how I feel about this journey into the mission field
that has taken me from the housing projects to the homeless shelters to the
most depressed schools in the city and on to the the streets of Ft. Worth. In
all those places I found a joy beyond all understanding and then found it had
expanded during my time in Ethiopia and kept on multiplying as I made my way
around South Sudan. Every time I think
my joy in serving can’t get any bigger, God shows me that it can.
We
all know it hasn’t gone quite the way I planned or I wouldn’t be standing here
talking with you today. When I think
back on my time in South Sudan, flashes of joy are what stand out in my
mind. I don’t know what I expected when
I got there – perhaps a bunch of sad, broken people. Don’t get me wrong, there is sadness in their
eyes, but there is a joy as well. They
experience joy in a way we cannot.
The
flashes take me back to the day I arrived in Akobo. Before I went there I had
asked what it was like. The only answer
I received from any one was “three days from anywhere”. On that flight from Juba, I learned what
three days from anywhere looks like as we flew over these vast expanses of
African beauty. It was harsh and barren
with small villages and footpaths vanishing in the distance. At times we were so low I could see women
working and children playing. I could
see the smoke from farmer’s preparing for the coming planting season. And as we followed a ribbon of river through
the barrenness it occurred to me this is the Nile River – the Nile river that connects me today with the words of scripture
since time began. And my heart lept with
joy.
Our arrival in Akobo was spectacular. I am not sure, but I can’t imagine arriving
in heaven being any more glorious. We
waited under a tree for the church leaders to come and come they did, far off
in the distance we heard the sounds of native drums beating out praises and
voices singing songs of joy and soon I was surrounded by women dressed in blue
cloths praising God for sending me to them.
I think we all had tears of joy pouring down our faces and the words of
the Isaiah had come true. I entered Zion
with singing, gladness and joy had overtaken me.
There are many moments that are now a part
of the fabric of my life. A few days
later a little boy came to fetch me, his face beaming from ear to ear as he
kept telling me over and over – Kreesmas dinner, kreesmas dinner. I wasn’t sure what he meant but I soon found
out. A group waited for me surrounded by a slaughtered calf laying on the
ground. They wanted to share the
preparation of their Christmas dinner with me. They wanted to share the joy in
the gift they had been given. They are
the people who had fled their homes and come to the church for protection. Someone had left a cow at the church on
Sunday for their offering and it had been given to them so they too might have
Christmas dinner.
There was joy in the teaching as the women
gathered to teach me their language. I
can’t even begin to count the number of times we laughed as I stumbled through
their language lessons. But the joy was
not my own. It was theirs as well as they celebrated each new word that I
learned to say correctly.
There was great joy as I learned my way
around the market, how to buy things myself and to stop and visit with the
shoeshine boys along the road and play a game of football or two with the boys
tending the cows.
A short time later I thought the joy was gone when I boarded
the UN plane that took me away to Malakal further north. It was sitting at the docks on the Nile River one afternoon that the
words of John came to life. In our
scripture reading today we find Jesus explaining to his disciples that in a
while they won’t see him anymore and they were questioning. He said to them, “Are you
asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me
no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? 20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will
grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
 |
| ywamsudan.org |
I was sitting
there in a complete contrast of time and culture. Large modern boats were moored along the dock
and the shore nearby. Women and children were camped on beds lining the
walkway. Dock hands were shouting commands at each other, and the street behind
me was lined with people hawking their wares and one was lined with people who
had lost all and were stretched out on whatever pieces of cardboard or
discarded plastic they could find, laying in front of bombed out
buildings. The tea shop ladies were
heating their kettles on small charcoal stoves and we laughed as I joined them
for a cup of tea. The scent of poverty was thick in the air. Ferocious looking armed soldiers were eyeing
me with a cross between curiosity and complete hostility as I stood talking
with a few teenage boys.
| bbc world services |
I stayed for
a while and as I looked across the river it was as if time had transported me
back to Biblical times as I watched two men, one older, one younger and a young
boy making their way through the swiftly moving current in a dug out log canoe with
nothing but a stick to steer them as the elder man patiently taught the young
boy how to navigate the current and then stood back and watched as he tried. As I continued to watch, gazing across the
river, boys grazing their cattle in pristine green fields came into focus as I
caught a glimpse of a small village down the way with a stream of smoke coming
through the roof of a small mud hut.
Behind me, I
could feel the tears of the people who were waiting and hoping along the docks
for other family members to make their way from far off places. You see, these were the refugees – the returnees
– people making their way back to the south from the north after years of
war. They were the internally displaced
people who had fled the fighting that had caused my evacuation. And in the midst of it all there was joy and
there was laughter.
You see, they had wept and they had mourned, they had left those
behind that they prayed they would see in a little while, and in their waiting
their grief had turned to joy. And, in
the watching, so had mine.
I left the dock that day
feeling a little better, a little lighter, and as I made my way back to my
compound, to the sounds of joy and laughter from people in the market I had
come to know greeted me all along the way and, my grief had turned to joy as
well.
The joy continued all the way to the border
between the north and the south, along a dusty, dirt road filled with dirt moguls
half the height of the land rover we were traveling in. It was the only road
connecting Khartoum with South Sudan during the times of war. The moguls were built to slow down troops
coming from the north. It is the road
that is responsible for me hurting my shoulder and being here today and the
road that is responsible for taking me to a place filled with great joy and
teaching me that Helen Keller spoke great truth in the words “One can never consent to creep when one feels
an impulse to soar.” in the women I met there.
Women
who told me they would take what they learned at the Women’s Leadership
Conference back into places like Khartoum, Abeya, the Nuba Mountains – sites of
great Muslim fanatics – they would teach what they learned and they would die,
but they would go any way. Those women
were not going back in creeping – they were going in soaring. They were soaring in faith in the words of
Isaiah Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful
hearts, “Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with
vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.”
Even if God coming
to save them meant Jesus’ words, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then
after a little while you will see me.” should come true. I know they
would go marching into Zion with a complete and total joy in their hearts.
I know because I
watched. We had layed in our beds the night before listening to the sounds of
soldiers marching outside our window and mortars and gunfire in the distance,
only to hear them return a short time later and the sound of bodies hitting the
ground before they marched on again. We
had laid in the darkness, afraid to breath, afraid to move, waiting for what
would come next. I watched them greet the morning after with great joy and
songs of praise.
When I think about those days in Akobo, in Malakal,
in Renk, I look back on the poverty – by our standards – that I saw there. And
when I tell the stories – too many to share with you today – people often ask,
how can I work there. The answer is in
the words from the Diary of Anne Frank – ““I
don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” And that is how I can work there and
that is how I find the joy in the journey.
It is because there is so much beauty that remains in spite of the harsh
conditions, in spite of the poverty, in spite of all the obstacles the people
of South Sudan face as they begin to build their new country. That beauty is the joy in which they face
each new day, grateful to a God who protected them through the night because
death comes to their villages in the night, to Jesus Christ who waits to greet
them in a little while and to the Holy Spirit who wraps them in a web of love
and care in spite of the harshness of their lives by our standards, they greet
each day with joy, they look for joy and
they have found joy and shared it with me.
“Joy throbs throughout Scripture
as a profound, compelling quality of life that transcends the events and
disasters which may dog God’s people. Joy is a divine dimension of living that
is not shackled by circumstances. The Hebrew word means, “to leap or spin
around with pleasure.” In the New Testament the word refers to “gladness, bliss
and celebration. To have...joy...in our lives is to recognize the journey involved in getting there."1
My prayer for you is that you will seek and you
will find all the joy that God has to offer you in your journeys, that you will
find the wonder and wildness to life and the freedom that comes when you
obey. And, that in finding it you come
to know that “Joy is the infallible sign
of the presence of God.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)
24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to
present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power
and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and
forevermore! Amen.
Note: Since a lot of my photos were left behind in Addis or Malakal or Akobo...I admit, I used some photos I found on the internet because they were good representations of the stories I was trying to convey. I am grateful to the photographers for sharing their work on google images and I have shared their links below the photos. If the photo does not have a link, they are my own.
Isaiah 35:1-10
New International Version (NIV)
Joy of the Redeemed
35 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into
bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful
hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.”
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the
lame leap
like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning
sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the Lord has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Psalm
28:6-8
New International Version (NIV)
6 Praise be to the Lord,
for he has heard my cry for mercy.
7 The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.
8 The Lord is the strength of his people,
a fortress of salvation for his anointed one.
John
16:16-20
New International Version (NIV)
16 Jesus went on to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then
after a little while you will see me.”
17 At this, some
of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no
more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and‘Because I am
going to the Father’?” 18 They kept
asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t
understand what he is saying.”
19 Jesus saw
that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I
meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a
little while you will see me’? 20 Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will
grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
Jude
1:23-25
New International Version (NIV)
23 save others by snatching them from
the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even
the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.[a]
Doxology
24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to
present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power
and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and
forevermore! Amen.
