Forty Years in the Wilderness - 12/17/23
We read in Second Samuel chapter 7 and Luke chapter 1 that the “Word of the Lord” came to Nathan, prophet to the shepherd king, David, and to a young woman in Nazareth in Galilee. The messages to both are astonishing and detailed. The consequences of both are far-reaching. And whatever we may think about such stories, experience has told me that this is in fact the way things happen if we are open to the possibility.
It's difficult to pinpoint when it all began, this journey of mine. When I was moving my mother from our home in Illinois to Maryland, I came across a Sunday School project I had made: a piece of cardboard, on which I had pasted on one side a cross with the words, “I am come that they may have life [John 10:10].” On the reverse side is a picture of Jesus, lantern in hand, knocking on a door. It is a reproduction of a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, William Homan Hunt titled, The Light of the World, 1851. I, of course, had forgotten this project my mother saved all these years. Perhaps it was a precursor, since I have since served two churches, including Rock Spring Parish, that have windows based on Hunt’s Light of the World, and I have used the image extensively in sermons and workshops throughout these forty years – curiously, the stated length of time the people who escaped Pharaoh’s Egypt were in the wilderness becoming a people of God.
The distinguishing detail of the image is that there is no door knob on Jesus’s side of the door. This suggests that when Jesus knocks on your door, it is up to you to open it. Which is, in part, how I end up here some sixty or more years since I first saw Hunt’s Light of the World. It was December of 1979, and I was in Kroch’s and Brentano’s book store in Oak Park, Illinois looking for possible Christmas gifts. For reasons I cannot explain, I pulled a book by Thomas Merton off the shelf. Merton, a famous Trappist monk and priest, curiously ordained a priest the year of my birth. I opened the book to an essay titled, Love and Solitude which began:
“No writing on the solitary, meditative dimension of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and the peace that is ‘heard’ when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say where there is no hearer? There is then a deeper silence: the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. That deeper silence must be heard before one can truly speak of solitude.” [i]
There was a knock on my door. I opened it. I found myself standing on the shore of the ocean, with waves crashing over my head. Each time a wave crashed, a voice whispered, “It’s time.” Time for what, I asked. “It’s time.” Time for what? “Time to go to seminary.” This went on for what seemed a long time, but perhaps was only a moment. The cash register rang, and suddenly I was back in a bookstore on Lake Street in Oak Park. I bought the book. I told my friend Bill about my experience. His father, The Reverend William Arnall Wagner, Jr., was an Episcopal priest. He said, “You better talk to my dad!” I did. And guided by his father’s wisdom, I began a journey which, as I look back on it now, took off at lightning speed – for the following September, 1980, I was in New York City beginning my first year of seminary. How that was even possible, I don’t know, and still can hardly believe.
I told my rector, The Reverend David Ward, at Grace Church, Providence, Rhode Island. He pointed out that there would be numerous ‘hoops’ to jump through. This included getting the Bishop of Rhode Island to Confirm me as an Episcopalian; complete vocational counseling in Boston; paper work to fill out; the writing of a Spiritual Autobiography; and a somewhat contentious meeting with the Standing Committee of the Diocese. I ended up at The General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America on Ninth Avenue, New York City, provisionally – and if my first semester went well, I would be granted retro-active Postulancy, which is the first stage of the ordination process. All because, like the prophet Nathan, and Mary of Nazareth, I took the risk of opening the door and letting Jesus into my life.
My first parish as a rector was St. Peter’s, Monroe, Connecticut. The window of Jesus knocking at the door was just to the right of the pulpit. It’s a scene from the book of Revelation, chapter three: Behold, I stand at the door and knock! If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me. [ii] Looking at that window, I realized that I had heard his voice, opened the door, and have been eating with him, and him with me, ever since. And this was a comfort. I also realized, however, that standing at the pulpit week after week the primary dimension of my task was to prepare others to hear His voice, open the door and let him in. To this day, I find this a daunting responsibility, and at the same time my greatest privilege. That I am still a part of a community of disciples of Christ whom I urge to listen for his voice and open their doors is truly astonishing. To think that I have been doing this as long as those who in the wilderness sought freedom from a truly brutal empire, made a covenant with the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus, and learned how we are all to Love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul, and to love our neighbors as ourselves – it all seems utterly impossible, and yet, a most wonderful circumstance, all at the same time.
Among the very first things we learned at General Theological Seminary was what we now call Centering Prayer, or Mindfulness, or Contemplative Prayer – prayer that is silent. Prayer that is about silence and solitude as Merton describes it. That is, we are to clear our mind of all else and allow God in Christ to speak to us; to knock on our doors; to come in and become our companion – literally, one with whom we share bread. Dean James Fenhagen, a son of the Diocese of Maryland, took all of us freshmen and women aside one day to teach us a simple way to enter into the world of solitude I had read about back in that bookstore in 1979. This form of prayer has become so important to my journey with Christ, that I have taught this simple method to countless others wherever I find myself. During the pandemic, we practiced this kind of prayer at Noonday Prayer online five days a week. It’s how many of us made it through, together.
In a world of increasing busyness, increasing division, increasing violence, increasing noise coming at us from all sides, we could all use a little solitude, quiet time, alone time, with the One who stands at our door, day and night, 24/7, knocking on our doors, wanting us to hear and to open ourselves to Him. When we do, it is like the wind whispering in the pines, and the rains wandering freely across the mountains and the forest. There is silence. There is peace. And there is his voice: You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased. Hear me, listen to me. I shall always be by your side, your companion along the Way. I will come in and eat with you, and you with me. We are One.
Amen.
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