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Today’s readings remind us that
immediately before Jesus went into the Garden of Gethsemane,
he shared the Passover meal with his disciples, instituting
what we now call the Lord’s Supper. Table fellowship is
followed by prayer fellowship. The context for today’s
worship is Holy Communion, which coincides with the theme
for week five in our Lenten study book, “At the Garden.”
As I read the news headlines
about the state of our economy and specifically the news
swirling around the auto industry, GM and Delphi in
particular, and yesterday’s article in the Wall Street
Journal about Bloomfield Hills and the auto fallout in
our surrounding communities, I feel like we are collectively
(and some personally) “at the garden.” Jesus’ time in
Gethsemane is often cited as “the agony in the garden,” the
place where he displays his full humanness combined with his
complete trust in God. That is an important example for us,
because at the time of our pain and agony—be it job-related,
health-related or relationship-related—it is easy to pray
“if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” but it is
more difficult to add “yet not what I want, but what you
want.”
Perhaps it is important that as
we gather today as a community to celebrate the Lord’s
Supper, many of us will leave this table to enter the garden
wondering about our own livelihood. Interestingly, after
“they had sung the hymn,” we are told “they went out
to the Mount of Olives.” (Mt. 26:30) Perhaps that is us. As
we leave today, some of our friends, neighbors, perhaps even
ourselves, will be entering the Garden of Gethsemane. The
question becomes: Will we be entering a maze or a
labyrinth?
Just this week, a member of this
congregation called me to pray with her about her adult
child, who was facing an ethical job decision which could
result in her being without employment. She had moved out of
town, across the country, to a new and unknown community to
take this job. On the day I was called, the newspapers
announced that Delphi was cutting health benefits for
retirees. Adding to the stress, her spouse was retired from
Delphi. I realized that she was asking for the community to
stay awake and pray with her at this time of high anxiety.
She had entered her Garden of Gethsemane, and like Jesus,
didn’t want to be alone.
I suspect she felt that life was
like entering a maze, a path fraught with twists and turns,
blind alleys and seemingly no way out—a journey of
frustration, fear and anger. I can remember my first time in
a maze. It was at Hampton Court in England. It was a
daunting, frustrating and even frightening experience as I
kept running into dead ends at every twist and turn. I
collided with equally lost people. I crashed into other
equally frustrated persons. You didn’t know whether you were
on the right or the wrong path. Each turn seemed fraught
with uncertain choices. In his book, Traveling the Prayer
Paths of Jesus, John Indermark says: “In a
maze, you never know if a path represents the way through or
a dead end – or worse yet, a deeper penetration that leads
to a series of choices, all eventually going nowhere except
to greater confusion.” (page 118) Our Gethsemane mazes can
seem equally bewildering.
When Jesus commands his
disciples—us—to stay awake, he is seeking the companionship
of community as he enters his own personal time of trial.
That is what church is about: a community to stand and pray
with us at our times of trial. Like Jesus, we want someone
to be with us when we fear losing our job, losing our
health, losing our relationships. We don’t want our prayer
companions to fall asleep while we agonize. We want their
support. I firmly believe that at the center of the
labyrinth of life are communities of faith.
Indermark suggests that a better
image for Jesus’ Gethsemane experience is a labyrinth. I can
remember my first labyrinth experience. It was outdoors at
the Episcopal Retreat Center in Amarillo, Texas. I was
skeptical at first, and frustrated that (for a Type A
personality) you didn’t get to the center by a straight
line. “Cut to the chase” had been my modus operandi. But
here you had to meander and pace yourself in what at the
time seemed like endless twists and turns, emulating life,
finally arriving at the center. Unlike a maze, a labyrinth
is formed of one single path which leads in to the center
and back out. The path always leads to a central point or,
as Indermark calls it, the “heart.” When we enter a
labyrinth, we have only one choice, and that is to follow
the path set before us. Like a maze, a labyrinth also has
twists and turns, but never dead ends. A labyrinth winds its
way to the center and back out, yet the path is never
straight.
What centers do we seek? What do
we find at the center? What do we do when we get there? How
do we know we have gotten there? When do we leave to return?
These are questions I leave with you.
I would like to suggest that the
centers we seek are communities of faith where we find
companions who stay awake and watch and pray with us as we
pray alone, yet together. What appears to be a solo event, a
unique event, a personal event, is transformed into a
community event by a community of prayer companions. We all
enter our own Gardens of Gethsemane from time to time, and
we want our companions in prayer to stay awake with us. At
the center we find a place to stop, pray and prepare
ourselves to continue on life’s path as set before us. We
follow in our own unique footsteps of Jesus, with our own
times of agony and trial.
A story many of you have
previously heard from my lips is my experience of community
at tiny St. Alban’s Anglican Church in Tokyo where on our
first Sunday some thirty years ago, a young family kneeled
at the communion rail with a congregation of
strangers—persons from every continent, every race, but all
one in Christ at His table. We knew then that whatever
trials we would face in this strange land, we had traveling
companions and prayer companions. The twists and turns of
the labyrinth of life which had led us to Tokyo had also led
us to the center.
Where do we find those centers?
Here and everywhere. At the communion table where we break
bread together, nourished for the path of our labyrinths of
life. One source of a center is belonging to a small group
such as a Wesley group, a GRIP group, Companions in Christ,
a Disciple Bible class, Parents of Adolescents or
Pathfinders. The list is too numerous for me to list them
all, but perhaps I am tantalizing you to explore what groups
we have that might suit your needs.
Gethsemane is an invitation to
prepare to join a bigger community. We find God at the
center. The center isn’t the end but the beginning of a
renewed journey back into the world from which we entered
the garden in the first place. Prayer is our companion on
the journey. When life feels like a maze, we need to
re-imagine it as a labyrinth. Life is full of twists and
turns but not dead ends.
Listen to
this prayer from Indermark’s book:
Walk beside me, O God, for I
need your presence. Walk behind me, Spirit, lest I fall or
turn back. Walk before me, O Christ, for it is you I would
follow on the way. Amen. (page 120)
Remember,
as Jesus said, “Get up, let us be going.” (Matthew 26:46)
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