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Being Led

A sermon by George R. Pasley

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13

I’m asking you a favor today. The favor is this: Imagine a boy named Marvin.

Imagine that boy at age 13, and imagine him with an older brother, 16 years old, named Joe.

Imagine that Marvin and Joe have their share of squabbles and rivalries and, of course, fights. But imagine them also doing things- challenging things- together.

Hiking up Deer Mountain on the last day of school.

Riding their bikes all the way up

Imagine Marvin and Joe talking about the things they wanted to do with their lives.

Imagine some of those things being very different- and lots of those things being things they would do together.

Going to different colleges, but taking one summer to go to Kodiak and work on a crew together.

Sailing through the Panama Canal.

One studying law and the other medicine, and together changing the world.

Imagine too that Marvin loves Joe, almost idolizes him. Imagine that to Marvin, Joe is the epitome of every good possibility.

Imagine that Marvin and Joe talk.

They share secrets.

They share questions about life and wisdom they have gained.

Imagine that Joe goes to college, and meets a girl.

Her name was Judy, and she was beautiful of course- but not THAT beautiful. In fact, she rated herself a 7.6 on a scale of 1-10.

But Marvin loved Judy the way he loved his brother, because she was joyous and determined and thoughtful. Joe and Judy dated each other for three years and everybody KNEW that they would get married as soon as they graduated from college.

But something happened one day that changed everything, and the something was this: Joe was killed in a traffic accident.

That accident took Joe’s life, but Joe’s death almost took Marvin. It turned his world upside down, then it stepped on him like a bug, and then it walked away and left him there suffering in the extremes of despair and anger and grief.

Marvin was a senior in high school when it happened. If it had happened early in the year, he might not have made it to graduation. As it was, he could barely concentrate on school. He could barely sleep. He offended almost every one of his friends somehow, and they call kept their distance. His parents were terribly worried about him but they were so caught up in their own grief they hardly knew what to do.

So Marvin graduated, and then he disappeared.

He stumbled into a rough life of alcohol and jobs he couldn’t keep.

He was angry, and he took it out on anyone and everyone.

Why did Joe have to die? That was Marvin’s big question, and the answer he kept coming up with was, “He didn’t have to.” But that answer made him even angrier.

But Judy, bless her heart, found ways to keep in touch. She bought Marvin a cell phone, and paid the bill, and told him to call her anytime he wanted.

So he did.

Sometimes he was drunk.

Sometimes he was afraid.

Sometimes he was sad, and ashamed, and almost pathetic.

But it didn’t matter to Judy. She listened and sometimes, if Marvin would let her, she’d say a prayer before they hung up.

Years went by, and Judy met someone else. They got married.

Marvin didn’t know what to think about that. Of course he wasn’t ANGRY about that- my goodness, Joe was dead- so why should Judy be a martyr?

But Marvin kept thinking about what could have been, about what WOULD  have been, and it didn’t make sense. So it was a long time before Judy heard from Marvin again. But when she did, it wasn’t over the phone. It was from a knock on the door.

Judy hardly recognized Marvin, but she knew who he was because she had imagined a thousand times how terrible he must look. Still, she invited him in. She introduced him to her husband, Will. She fixed him a cup of coffee, and a sandwich. She asked him where he’d been, and how he traveled, and if he’d been to see his parents.

Finally, she asked him “Why?”

Why, after all those years, had he decided to look her up, and knock on her door.

“How do you do it,” asked Marvin. “How do you pick up the pieces of your life and move on?”

So Judy answered, “We’re not alone- I’m not alone, that’s how.”

Marvin was puzzled- “You mean Will,” he asked.

“No, answered Judy, “I mean God. We’re not alone, no matter who we are, when we enter a time of trial.”

So Judy explained her faith in God to Marvin.

She explained her belief that God accompanied her everywhere, and that God would eventually lead her through every dark valley, every barren wilderness, every time of trial into something good. Not that the good always outweighed the bad, just that God would get her though it. So knowing that, she could persevere.

Then she invited Marvin to church.

Well, Marvin wasn’t ready to convert BUT he was still confused and he was still looking, so he said he’d think about it.

In fact, he thought about it while he was riding the bus to his parent’s house, and he thought about it while he was fighting the temptation to go out and get drunk, and he thought about all night long while he was not sleeping, and the next day he went to church.

The minister preached about Jesus in the wilderness. He said that Jesus was filled with something called the Holy Spirit, and the preacher said that the Spirit led Jesus THROUGH all those hard times- times when it was easy to be afraid, easy to doubt, easy to wonder off in a bad direction. 

In fact, the preacher said it’s not a question of if we will encounter times of great turmoil and confusion- the question is, will we believe enough in the goodness of God to have faith that with God’s help we will arrive at an inheritance on the other side. The preacher said it was that kind of faith that gave Jesus the courage to face the cross on which he died.

That word inheritance made Marvin think about something he’d inherited from Joe. It was a book of poems, dog-eared and worn, and one of them was about hope he had it in his back pack. He was going to have to look that poem up when he got back to his parent’s house.

Meanwhile the preacher was still talking. He said God leads us through those times, but not like a dog on a leash. More like a friend, he said. So Marvin had a lot to think about, and one of those things was Judy.

Why had she given him that phone and paid that bill all those years?

Why had she let him into her house when arrived unexpectedly and unannounced at her door?

Why had she introduced him to her new husband, and fixed him something to eat, and sat and talked with him and finally invited him to church?

So on the way out the door, he asked her.

“Because Joe loved you,” she said, “and because I didn’t want you to be alone.”

Well, right about then Marvin saw something unusual. He knew what it was, he’d just never seen it before. It was a blind person, with a dog.

Marvin knew they were called leader dogs, or guide dogs, but as he watched- well, he couldn’t tell who was leading who. He knew the blind person was pretty dependent on that dog, to keep him safe- but it didn’t look like the dog was leading his master on a leash.

In fact, thought Marvin, they looked like friends. They looked like he and Joe used to look. They looked like the preacher said God looked like, when leading us.

So when he got back home, he looked up that poem in that old book, and here it is, by

Raymond A. Foss:

A kernel of hope
Lives
Deep inside
Protected
Against the pain
The struggle

Grows
When tended
Memories ignite
Nurture
Reward

Fades
When tested
Hurt
Discarded
For graven choices

Echoes
In the dark
Against the shadows
In my heart

His brother Joe had underlined three lines: Protected Against the pain The struggle, a and that underline made Joe think- I wasn’t alone then, and I’m not alone now, and I won’t be, not ever.

No he won’t- and neither will you.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.