Ephesians 5:8-10;
Psalm 27
When I was five years old, a certain
family television show first appeared. Forty-three
episodes then aired over a two year span.
I was too young to watch it at
that time, but I was glued to every one of these when the show began its life
in re-runs on Saturday mornings back in 1985.
It’s was a science-fiction adventure about a human dad and his two
teenagers who had mysteriously gotten trapped in an alternate universe. This was quite a captivating and somewhat
relatable premise to my sixteen year old self. Maybe you remember it? The now cult-classic T.V. series was called “Land
of the Lost.”
You definitely remember it if the
word “Sleestak” just popped into your head.
These characters were really creepy human shaped lizard creatures with a
little horn ridge atop their head. And if eyes are the windows to the soul, as
I’ve often heard it said, then the oversized, glassy black orbs of the
Sleestaks revealed them as absolutely soulless. They were intriguing predators of the show
protagonists -- Rick Marshall and his kids Will and Holly. At the
beginning of every episode, we are reminded that this family ended up exiled in
the alien universe of Sleestaks and other hostile creatures after an earthquake
opened up a space-time rift during a white water rafting trip.
The captivating goal of the whole series
was for the Marshall family to survive being utterly lost … to return home to
the world where they truly belonged. And despite the very campy early 1970’s styled
rubber Sleestak suits and other primitive special effects, I recall how real it
felt relating to this family’s anxiety-filled adventures. Their identity and unity and, on some level
it seemed the whole human race, was under threat.
In all the ways it’s creatively
interpreted, this epic theme of being dangerously lost but yearning for and
fighting to get safely home is easy for every human to relate to. Nobody ever wants to be in the land of the
lost. We all want to be in the land of
the living. We don’t want to be confused
and anxious about our lives, constantly fleeing in fear from all sorts of emotional
and physical enemies to our well-being.
We want to be where we and our families are fully able to live securely,
growing and thriving in places inhabited by goodness, love and peace.
Yet we all live with the reality of
human sin. This is no science-fiction. It’s biblical truth. And it means we all inescapably have times of
feeling lost – lost to ourselves, to those we most love, to our God who created
and loves us uniquely and unconditionally.
Let’s be reminded that the origin of
all such anxious times in the land of the lost is told to us in the Book of
Genesis. There we read about the first
human beings, Adam and Eve, falling to the temptation of believing they could
be just like God, then realizing their rebellion, experiencing their isolating
shame, and establishing spiritual exile as our human norm. Living in sin is like an alternate universe because it’s not what God planned for
us and this world. Instead of the perfect
paradise of feeling secure, fully accepted, always willing to use our spiritual
gifts to God’s glory and for the benefit of all God’s children and all of Creation
… sin pushes us through a spiritual rift where we find ourselves dangerously confused
about where and with whom our true home is.
This epic struggle is held up before
us like a big mirror in Psalm 27. When
we read it, we see ourselves feeling trapped by enemy forces all around us, feeling
forsaken by family, coping with false witness against us, and living in a land
where all human breathing leads to violence.
I’d rather live with the slow stalking Sleestaks!
Blessedly, through Psalm 27 we are
also able to clearly and inspirationally see something else of ourselves. We see ourselves returning to live securely
in the house of the Lord every single day.
We see ourselves confidently lifting up our heads to sing praises to our
Lord in the face of every manner of enemy.
We see ourselves glad to be taught God’s level way of living and
exuberantly beholding divine beauty all around us. In this mirror to our soul, we see
salvation. We see all darkness being completely dispelled by holy light. We stand in the reflection as children of
this light, believing we will see all that is good and right and true. We see ourselves in the land of the
living.
But life in the land of the living
is not easy. It’s usually not like we are crawling through
pitch-black spaces one moment and then a sudden flood of radiant light shows us
we are actually safe in our homes. It’s more like what the ancient Israelites
experienced. When the sun went down in the
days of Psalm 27, there weren’t any light switches to flick on. Nor were there any street lamps, floodlights,
super bright LED’s, rows of high intensity stadium bulbs. To be in the land of the living at night
meant trusting in the little bit of light provided by simple, single wick and
flame pottery lamps. To follow God’s path, God’s will, meant not
knowing what the road right ahead looked like and trusting that God gives just
enough light “to take a few more steps.”[i] It’s always easier to see and trust the
goodness of God when there is great illumination, like here in this sanctuary
and when in the security of our homes.
It’s harder to experience this when you can only see a few feet ahead of
you – literally and figuratively – out in the midst of dim and dark places and
times.
Psalm 27 invites us to keep seeking out and stepping into this little
bit of divine light and welcoming it to guide us through the land of holy
living. It calls on us to find those
places where we too can confidently declare, “The Lord is my light and my
salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord
is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Where are these places for you?
The way back home to them is always
through the gracious power of Jesus Christ.
And there is a traditional Christian perspective that can help us better
balance our days in the land of the lost and the land of the living. We are reminded about this every time we pass
by the stone cross on our way into this sanctuary.
This perspective comes from people
who lived long ago in Ireland and Scotland.
It’s a form of Christian living that they practiced known to us as
Celtic spirituality. That’s a Celtic
Cross out front. Central to this way of seeing
God’s goodness in the land of the living is identifying what they called “thin
places.” Fortunately, this has nothing
to do with our diet and where we choose to stand! It has to do with both geographical locations
and specific moments in time where what is holy becomes clearer to the eyes of
the human spirit. You are in a “thin
place” when you experience a profound encounter with ancient and eternal
reality within our present time. It’s a
place of homecoming, of reunion, where God seems particularly real and close by
and all seems good with the world. It’s
a place of meeting where it seems the veil between heaven and earth is so sheer
you can almost step through it. In
“thin places” you feel less lost in sin and more securely part of all that is
sacred.[ii]
When I hear folks talk about feeling
close to God when out in nature, I hear it as their being in “thin
places.” Can you take a moment and
picture one these places for you? Are you
overlooking the ocean or some other body of water? Gazing at or from a mountain
vista? One place I like to go for this
is by the Black River right behind Cooper Gristmill in Chester. And, of course, there are so very many spots
up at Camp Johnsonburg.
But again, it’s not just about
certain locations. “Thin places” happen
when you locate yourself as being in a particularly holy moment too. Since we all suffer inescapably anxious
moments, of feeling as though we just surviving in a land of the lost, it takes
constant practice to identify these and thus to focus on believing and seeing
and thriving and truly living in the goodness of the Lord.
So I’m going to end today with
telling you about an excellent suggestion by author Dorothy Bass. She has written about how often we ask each
other the question, “How was your day?”
This is a question that usually comes from someone who deeply cares,
such as when we ask it of spouses and kids the moment they get home from work
and school. It’s often met, however,
with kind of vague response like “Not bad.”
Or it opens up space for a litany of complaints. She goes on to tell about a mother she
knows of who therefore chooses to ask a much different question. When tucking her children in at night, she
asks, “Where did you meet God today?” Then
witness to thin places is shared … by the tree with beautiful blooming flowers,
as my teacher was helping me, when my eyes met those of a homeless person. So “before the children drop off to sleep,
the stuff of their day has become the substance of prayer. They enter a thin place and the presence of
God is very near.”[iii]
Amen.
