 Rev. Rod Quainton |
No
Exit
Sermon:
Scripture: |
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Exits
are the stuff of life. This past week, I thought we would
never find the exit from the great Blackout of 2003. It is our
human condition to instinctively seek the exit when we are
trapped or in danger. Fear is a great motivator to seeking an
exit. When boarding an aircraft, the first thing we are told
is where to find the exits. On the freeway, we spend time
seeking the correct exit. I
grew up with Saturday morning western serials at the local
movie theater, where every Saturday our hero would find
himself trapped in some seemingly inextricable place from
which there was no apparent exit. We always had to wait until
the next week when, lo and behold, our hero found an exit from
his imminent danger, only by the end of that week’s episode
to end up once again in a seemingly no-exit situation. A good
mystery story, like The Da Vinci Code (which I will be
reviewing this week), often finds the hero facing situations
with no exit. Such is the stuff good mystery and adventure
writing is made of. My
good friend and mentor, John Claypool, brought the following
story to my attention. He recalled in a sermon that Pearl
Buck, in her novel The Big Wave, has this exchange
between a young boy and his father. The young boy, Kino, asks
his father: “What is death?” To which the father replies:
“Death is the great gateway.” Kino responds: “The
gateway where?” The father then provides an elliptical
response by telling the boy that he remembered how hard the
boy thought it was to be born. “You cried and screamed,”
he said. “You wanted to stay just where you were in the warm
dark house of the unborn. But the time came to be born.”
“Did I know that it was the gate of life?”
Kino asked. “You did not know anything about it and
so you were afraid of it,” said the father. “But you see
how foolish you were. Here we were waiting for you, your
parents already loving you and eager to welcome you.” The
boy once again stated that he was afraid of the death brought
by the big wave. The father once again responded: “You are
afraid because you do not know anything about death, but
someday, after you have gone through it, you will wonder why
you were afraid, even as today you wonder why you were afraid
to be born. Think of life as a process of unending births and
deaths. You die to the womb to be born. You die to childhood
to be an adolescent.” You get the picture. To sum up the
point of the story, John Claypool often told me that “every
exit is an entrance.” It was from his lips that I first
heard this statement of hope, which I carry in my heart. Another
example of the principle that every exit is an entrance was
Winston Churchill’s funeral held in the grand Cathedral of
St. Paul’s in London. Always one to be in control, the great
Prime Minister left explicit instructions for his funeral. St.
Paul’s was packed with prime ministers, potentates, heads of
state, soldiers, sailors and airmen, parliamentarians, even
ordinary folk. The service was brought to a close with the
playing of “Taps” from the Great Dome. But no sooner than
“Taps” had concluded, a trumpeter from the other side of
the dome began playing “Reveille,” signifying that death
is not the last word. Every exit is an entrance! Think
about all the Biblical dead ends. Imagine the Israelites as
they flee Egypt coming upon the Red Sea with Pharaoh’s army
in hot pursuit and no way to cross. Trapped, seemingly with no
exit. Listen to these words of scripture from the Book of
Exodus 14:10: “In great fear the Israelites cried out to the
Lord.” Fear is the emotion we experience when there is no
exit. Imagine if the story ended there and you had to wait
until the next installment to see how it came out. Well, you
know the rest of the story. God provided an exit that enabled
the Israelites to gain access to the “promised land” on
the other side of the Red Sea. Consider
this familiar story of Abraham and Isaac. Skipping to the
chase, the scripture tells us in Genesis 22:6 that “ Abraham
bound his son Isaac, laid him on top of the altar, on top of
the wood, then reached out his hand and took the knife to kill
his son.” What if the story had ended there? You know the
rest of the story. An angel of the Lord intervened and, for
Isaac, a seemingly no- exit predicament became an entrance. This
summer, Nanci and I journeyed to Niagara-on-the-Lake and saw a
play entitled Coronation Voyage, which had as one of
its central themes the Abraham and Isaac story. The play was
about a group of people trapped on an ocean liner together,
including a refugee seeking safe passage by fleeing Canada to
England. As the play unfolds, you get a sense that most of the
characters felt trapped with no exit from their respective
situations. Alice proclaims: “I see no exit from my
grief.” Another sees no exit from his injuries. The play has
two caged birds as a metaphor for the characters. But the line
in the play which grabbed me was: “Your passport is your
most precious possession,” referring to the character who
needed safe passage from Canada to England. Just
in the past few days, during the great Blackout of 2003, I
couldn’t help but feel for my New York City young adult
children. My fear being that they were trapped in the subway
with no exit, shades of 9/11. Much to my relief and thanks to
brothers and cell phones, they were discovered—one at 86th
Street and Central Park and the other on the Williamsburg
bridge walking home. But it was my fear that there might have
been no exit. Let
me share a personal experience. As you know, we have had
several scheduled blackouts in connection with connecting
power to the Christian Life Center. On one such occasion, when
the power was expected to be restored by 4:00 p.m., I returned
to the church from hospital calls and noted that the lights
were on and that we were presumably back to full power. So I
stepped into the elevator, punched “2,” and watched the
doors close and the lights go out and then nothing. I
frantically pushed every button I could find. I heard voices
outside. In what seemed like an eternity but probably was only
90 seconds or so, the door reopened. Facing a no-exit
situation was frightening. It is natural to look for an exit
from our troubles and our tough situations. Think
of the Bible’s most desperate moments. In Matthew 14:36, we
hear Jesus in the garden, after being condemned to death,
plead with God to “remove this cup from me.” Even Jesus
knew the fear of facing no exit. Remember these words of Jesus
on the cross as recorded in Matthew 15:34: “Eloi, Eloi, Lama
Sabacthani—My God, My God why have you forsaken me.” This
is our Good Friday cry for those moments in our lives where
there is no seeming exit. But in Jesus’ case, we once again
know how the story turns out. The stone is rolled from the
tomb so that as Jesus exits this life and is raised from the
dead, we can gain entrance to salvation. Every exit is an
entrance. This
fear of no exit was dramatically presented in the play we saw
earlier this summer in Stratford, No Exit by Jean Paul
Sartre. The story, if that is the correct word, is simple.
Three people are ushered onto an almost bare stage with three
ugly divans signifying a hotel lobby. These three people are
thrown together in a room for eternity with no mirrors, no
windows and perpetual light, no exit and no privacy. It was
intended to be a picture of hell—hell being a place of no
exit. The opening line from one of the characters is: “Where
are the instruments of torture?” Later in the play we are
told that “there’s no need for red hot pokers, hell is
other people.” Here Sartre got it wrong (or at least
partially right) if you imagine yourself locked up for
eternity with two or three persons you don’t care for. The
play contains many provocative lines signifying hell such as
“How shall I endure my own company?” and “I’m all
dried up, I can’t give and I can’t receive.” Then we
hear some saving words: “You are your life and nothing else.
None of us can save himself or herself; we’re linked
together inextricably.” Sartre was writing in France during World War II, during the Nazi occupation of France. No exit was a frightening possibility. Would you welcome a message of no exit? Is hell really a place of no exit? The great biblical stories always provide an exit. This morning at our five baptisms, we will welcome the newest members of the Christian faith with the words that they have been baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection. The irony and good news is that through baptism, the sacrament of new life, we receive the promise of salvation, forgiveness and hope. Baptism is irrevocable, reminding us that Jesus died once for all. In a nutshell, the Gospel good news is that there is NO EXIT from God’s grace. Remember the line from Coronation Voyage: “Your passport is your most prized possession.” Baptism is your passport, the one you can never lose or misplace, with no need to renew and with no expiry date. Remember the line from No Exit: “None of us can save himself or herself; we’re linked together inextricably.” That is what baptism is all about. We are linked into the community of Christians here and around the world in the present, in ages past and in the future. The great Christian riddle is that in life’s darkest moments, there is an exit, because there is no exit from God’s grace.
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