Narrow Roads 2010:5

I preached in Mass this morning. One of my students who was schedule to preach today had his appendix out last week so he's out of commission for a while. I took his place.

The text was the assigned gospel reading for the day - Matthew 7:7,12-14. Last night at dinner, Wael, a student in Level 1, came up to me at dinner and said, "Pastor Amy, What is this "pastor"?" I had explained this word in class last week, but Wael's English is quite limited so I'm not surprised he didn't catch on. So I tried to explain again.

"Abuna Esshak is a priest, yes?"

"Yes." He nodded.

"In America, a pastor equal to a priest. (pause) Do you understand?"

Eyes getting wide. "Pastor equal to Priest?"

"Yes."

"Ohhh. . . You . . . will lead the mass?"

"No. I will not lead the mass, but tomorrow I will preach in the mass."

"You will preach? Tomorrow?"

"Yes."

Then in very broken English, "I pray that the Holy Spirit will help me know your words."

This was my prayer for Wael this morning . . . and for you too. The words are simple - intended for young men with good minds and strong faith, but limited English.

I love that when Jesus speaks, he often makes pictures with his words. I think Jesus understood sometimes people have a hard time understanding ideas and thoughts, but if you show a picture it can help people to understand.

In our reading for today there are many pictures you could see. You could see someone knocking at a door and watch it open up. You could see a large gate or a small gate. Or you could see a wide road or a narrow road. In all of these pictures Jesus is trying to teach his followers about a life of faith. For this morning I would like you to think about two pictures only from the gospel – a wide road and a narrow road.

In your mind picture a wide road – any wide road that is crowded with cars and people and traffic. Maybe the Corniche el Nil, maybe a road in the center of Cairo, maybe a road in your city, but imagine any wide road that is crowded with cars and people and traffic.

In my mind there is one picture that I see. I am thinking about the first time I came to Egypt and was driven to the seminary from the airport on a very busy wide road. There were cars and trucks and buses and motorcycles and donkeys carrying carts of watermelon and people trying to cross 6 lanes of traffic where there should only have been 4 lanes. Everywhere I looked outside my window there were shops along side of the road and signs and things to see. All of this and it felt like we were going very very fast in this car. I had never seen anything like this before. I was both very excited to be experiencing so many new things and very afraid. I wondered would I make it the seminary without an accident. This was my very first sight of Egypt and I didn’t know – would every road in Egypt be like this road?

Sometimes our life of faith is like a very wide road. There are many things that call our name and seek our attention. There are many things we have to find our way around. There is work that keeps us very busy and very focused. Much of the time this work is good work – maybe we are studying English – this is very good, hard work. Maybe we are helping a friend or caring for someone who is sick.

But there is a danger to us if our life of faith is like a very wide road. We can become so busy working hard, or trying to keep up with the people around us that we face the danger of a crash. Something happens and we run into an obstacle. We hurt someone we love because we were trying to move to fast. We make ourselves sick because we are so focused on our work or caring for others that we forget to take care of ourselves. Or the worst thing of all – we become so busy with our work that we lose our faith in Jesus because we don’t give him the same attention that we give everything else.

Now I want you to picture in your mind a narrow road – any road that is small. Maybe there is room for only one car. Maybe there is not even room for a car, but only a space for one or two people to walk. Maybe it is a secret road – only those who take this road know it there.

Sometimes our life of faith is like this narrow road. It is a road that we only travel with the people who are closest to us. It is a road that we sometimes find ourselves on in worship or in reading the Bible or in prayer and meditation. It is the road where we seek ways to connect with Jesus. It is the road where we meet Jesus. And with Jesus by our side it is the road where we face our failures and sins and experience the grace of forgiveness.

Jesus wants our life of faith to be like this narrow road. This narrow road is the place where we find Jesus waiting to walk with us and waiting to help us through the difficulties of life. This narrow road is not always an easy road to travel. Like the wide road, there will be times where we find obstacles placed in our way. But on this narrow road Jesus meets us and gives us the great life, the full and abundant life that he wants us to have.

A great poet in America wrote about two roads that separate in the wilderness. He wrote:

Two roads [separated] in [the wilderness],
and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Jesus calls us to this narrow road. And he promises to meet us along the way.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen