January 26, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.

On the Way

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 4:12–23

The obvious thing seems to be to start today’s sermon as every conversation seems to start lately—with some commentary about the winter weather. This is my seventh winter in Chicago and I grew up not far from here, so cold weather is no great shock to me, and between winter sports, staying in to cook good meals, and getting warm by the fire, there’s plenty to love about it. It seems to me that in order to live here for long, you have to have at least some feeling like that inside of you. But in the last week or so I’ve heard the conversation changing. As we move into another week of frighteningly cold temperatures and see by the calendar that we are still stuck right in the middle of winter, everyone seems to be saying, “Is this ever going to end?” We seem to be stuck in these cold, dark days, and although we all know in our heads that June will inevitably come once again, in our hearts it feels like we may be stuck here forever. It is that feeling that I want to talk about this afternoon.

Our recent weather is a metaphor for a place we find ourselves so many times in life. Think how you feel after the death of a loved one, after a job loss, or a breakup; how does it feel to parent a baby who won’t sleep through the night or to report to a boss who doesn’t respect you; how does it feel trying to live down a mistake in your past? Isn’t it the same as this feeling of winter? In our heads we know that things will get better, but in our hearts it seems as if the struggles of today might never come to an end.

I’ve said in the past that the Bible does not always talk about good times or amazing things. It’s not all miracles and healing stories and resurrections. The Bible is full of ordinary days. All of the people in this old book had, as we do, lots of days that were mainly composed of going to work, finding something to eat, filling up the hours with the necessities of the day. Do you ever make the bed or fold the laundry and think, “I’m just going to have to do this again next time?” Well, Bible people did that same stuff. But the Bible doesn’t only tell us that there are ordinary times; it tells us that there are dark times, times at which it seems like there is no light at the end of the tunnel and no relief in sight, and today’s story makes reference to that.

The story begins with a reference to an event that just took place: John the Baptist was thrown in prison. For those of you not familiar with the story, John the Baptist is the revolutionary prophet who comes before Jesus to announce his ministry. John was despised by the political establishment: he was some mix of civil rights activist and whistle-blower in the sense that he named the injustices perpetrated by the powers that be and warned that Jesus was coming in order to do the same. So they threw him into prison. This happens right at the start of Jesus’ ministry, and it’s worth noting what Jesus does at this time: Jesus withdraws to Galilee. Jesus doesn’t have an instant solution or a quick fix; at a time when his public presence would have been risky, Jesus leaves the city for the countryside. It’s clear that Jesus knows he is under a threat.

You can imagine how his followers might have felt, those who had waited a long time for justice, seeing John thrown into prison and Jesus retreating to the countryside. They had heard their troubles were over and now everything seems to be on hold. The prophesy that is quoted in today’s lesson describes the time in which they are living: “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and the shadow of death, light has dawned.” The people are sitting in darkness. They have seen that a new day is coming—they know in their heads that things are bound to get better—but right now things are bad.

It is important to note that, in this dark time, Jesus is not doing nothing. He begins to go through the countryside doing some recruiting. Finding fishermen waiting for their catch, he says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” And you know who they will become—his first and greatest disciples. This is where it all begins. The story of Jesus’ unparalleled influence on the world, the beginning of his message of grace and peace and love for one another, begins in a dark time, a quiet time. Moving through the wilderness, running from the authorities, with his greatest supporter in prison—this is where his great preparations begin.

It is in these dark times, these quiet times, these times when we feel the most separated, that God often does the most important work in our lives. It is often when we feel like the bad times will never end that God is quietly preparing our hearts for something new. But we need that quiet time.

Theologian Rodger Nishioka tells a story about his childhood. His father, who was a minister, used to insist that every Sunday the family watch Wild Kingdom, a nature program, a precursor to today’s Animal Planet channel. Watching animals from the savannas of Kenya to the barrier reef in Australia to the jungles of Borneo, they would hear the commentary, and inevitably his father would say something about God’s creation.

Rodger writes about the experience,

One episode I remember fondly was about the elephant seals of Argentina. The show focused on a mother and her seal pup, who had just been born. Soon after birthing her baby, the mother, now famished, abandoned the pup on the shore so she could go feed in the rich waters off the coast. After feeding, she returned to a different part of the beach and began to call for her baby. Other mothers had done the same, and all had returned at a similar time; I remember thinking they would never find one another. The camera then followed the mother as she called to her pup and listened for the response. Following each other’s voices and scents, soon the mother and pup were reunited. The host explained that, from the moment of birth, the sound and scent of the pup are imprinted in the mother’s memory, and the sound and scent of the mother are imprinted in the pup’s memory. This fascinated me especially when Dad turned to me and said, “You know, that’s how it is with God. We are imprinted with a memory of God, and God is imprinted with a memory of us, and even if it takes a lifetime, we will find each other.” (Rodger Nishioka, Feasting on the Word, Year A)

It is often during the dark, lost times that we find God doing some of the most miraculous work in our lives, preparing us for the time when the light returns, when we feel at home once again, when we learn that we were not really as lost and helpless as we felt at the time.

If you think about it, it makes sense not just in our relationship with God, but with each other. The strongest and most important relationships any of us have are the ones in which we go through some sort of dark and difficult experience and find on the other side that we can still love one another, that we are not expected to be perfect and can be accepted and cared for even in the face of our shortcomings.

I was once told an analogy for this, one that seemed a bit hokey to me when I heard it first, but as often as the image has returned to my mind in my own hard times, I thought I should share it with you.

Imagine two people in a tug of war, pulling with all their might, two people individually struggling but engaged in a game they share in common. If they struggle long enough and pull hard enough, perhaps the rope breaks, and there they are sprawled on the ground, stunned, much further apart than they have ever been. They may choose to quit the game. But if they choose to continue, they cannot reassemble the rope just the way it was—no. They must tie a knot in the middle of it, a knot that takes up some of the space in the rope, and as they begin to play again, they are even closer than before.

It is a wonderful thing when life is good and makes sense and goes according to plan. But often life is not like that and we live through dark times. For reasons that are not always clear, this is true—that the greatest strength, love, and security we find in life does not come just from things being good. It comes from living through times when the good goes bad, when light turns to darkness, when something gets broken, and when on the other side we find that goodness does return, that light shines once more, that we live in a world where repair is possible. Thanks be to God. Amen.