Rev. David Boyd

Text:  Psalm 84

I probably should saying something about John's gospel and how difficult the language is. I hope the background that Bev read did some justice to the passage so that you might understand it a bit better.

What is of interest to me from John's gospel is the question about where we find bread to eat for our spiritual journeys. The question I wonder about is where we find spiritual renewal, bread for our souls. There are so many ways to spend an hour or two or three these days, that it is all too easy to never even consume bread for our spiritual journeys. We can get caught up in the internet, and while there may be some bread for the spiritual journey found there if you know where to look, there are also lots of snares and false hopes. We can get caught up in compulsions or worse, addictions. I remember Frederick Buechner, an American preacher and writer, once saying that the definition of gluttony is opening the fridge door looking for spiritual sustenance. We, who have poor eating habits—and I'm one of them—fall into this dilemma: while looking for bread for the spiritual journey, we confuse that with real bread and eat too much. It's all to easy to expend our energy and our time so that we have nothing left for real, life-giving, spiritual bread.

If I hear another common spiritual complaint these days it is that people have difficulty finding the thing that feeds their souls, the thing that provides the bread of life that leads to a fuller life. Part of the problem is that there are too many choices. Just as you can get all kinds of different bread—and I love bread, there are all kinds of spiritual practices and this can be overwhelming. In terms of bread, we have rye, pumpernickel, white bread, whole wheat bread, French bread, spelt bread, Challah, raisin bread, braided bread, flat bread, corn bread, tacos, tortillas... and the list goes on.

In terms of spiritual practices, we have tai chi, qi gong, yoga, meditation, prayer, journaling, meditative walking, Lectio Divina, worship, participation in a faith community, reading, rituals... and again the list goes on. It sometimes can feel like arriving at one of those smorgasbords and not knowing where to begin. Sometimes too much creates a poverty in us where we don't know where to begin and feel powerless to start. I know that some people I have spoken with find that they don't know where to begin.

But as the Chinese saying goes, A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. When the choice seems endless, take the step of choosing one path and trying it out. The spiritual journey begins with the simple step of deciding to nurture your soul and your spirit. And then the pilgrimage begins. It may have a few starts and stops; it may have a few forks in the road. It may take you over mountains and require hard work or into valleys where life is green and easy and the temptation is to stay there.

Psalm 84 is a pilgrimage psalm and provides some illustration about our spiritual journey; for the Jews of Jesus day and before, this psalm would have been sung as they were making their way on an actual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to go to the Temple for one of the important yearly festivals. The Jews would have sung the psalms as a way of encouraging one another; they sing the praises of God who gives life, who provides nests even for the birds of the air, who provides strength to the powerless, water in the desert and a sun and shield for weary pilgrims.

After visiting the desert last fall, a landscape that I find fascinating and spiritually intriguing, I can imagine what it is like when the spring waters come and the desert suddenly erupts in life. A little water in the desert can go a long way in creating life. That's the line from Psalm 84: "Going through the valley of Baca they find a spring from which also to drink; the early rain also covers it with pools of water." After spending a short while in the desert, you come to appreciate the gift of water. God is very much like that in our lives, sprinkling rain into the dry places of our lives bringing forth blossoms. The valley of Baca can also be translated as the valley of the nettle tree. It was both the last stage in the pilgrimage of the Jews before Jerusalem, but it also speaks of the difficulty of making one's way through a valley of nettle trees.

Have you ever walked through nettles? They are annoying and sometimes painful if one has a mild allergy to the nettles. It is as if the Psalm writer is saying to us, "just when you think you've almost arrived, you have more struggles to go through." It's a metaphor for life, isn't it? Just when we think we've arrived, we stumble a bit and find that the journey still goes on. The spiritual journey can be like going through a valley of nettles.

The journey of life begins with the first step. I think that Jesus would have appreciated that wisdom. It is helpful to know that God is the One who creates new life and opens the doors and windows to transformation and change in our lives; but at some point, we have to step through the threshold. We have to take the step that will lead to life. We have to break off a large piece of the bread of life, the spiritual bread, and take a bite.

The wonder of today's post-modern, emerging Church is that young people and people who haven't thought of the Church as a place of spiritual enlightenment are starting to ask people in faith communities to help them find a spiritual path, to help them find bread for the spiritual journey. That's encouraging because some Church theologians like Dianna Butler Bass, Fred Buechner, David Giuliano and others have been telling us to get back to what we do best... providing a sense of community and an opportunity for folk to explore ways to be nurtured and fed. And so, take that first step. Go to a yoga class. Learn to meditate. Take Qi Gong. Begin to journal. Start with a simple prayer thanking God for the gift of this day, of this moment. Speak to a spiritual mentor. Close the fridge door and go and sit quietly for a few minutes and think about the gifts that God has given the world.

The first steps of a spiritual journey also have to do with providing real bread to the hungry and the means for the hungry to never know want or hunger again. Or maybe this step is to accompany those in war-torn regions. Or maybe it is to say enough to those who would abuse and pollute the earth. What I mean to say is that finding spiritual bread is connected to finding real, life-giving bread that not only changes us, but changes the world. The two are not separable. Your journey may begin again with a cry for justice against the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma or the cry for peace with justice in the Middle East for Palestinian and Israeli or the cry for better health care in our own province or more affordable housing. Your journey may begin again with tai chi, yoga, the ancient practice of Christian meditation, prayer, journaling. However our spiritual journeys begin again or continue, they converge together in the common quest to experience and share the love and compassion of God through action and through contemplation.

In this common quest together, we find ourselves in God's sanctuary, in God's court, in God's dwelling place as Psalm 84 says. And that might be a Church, a Temple, a Synagogue. It might be a copse of trees, a valley bottom, a desert place, a mountain top. It might be a food bank, a needle exchange place, a street corner. Wherever we find food for the journey of our lives—both real and spiritual, there God is, bringing life and hope.

Amen.