Trail Markers                        Jeremiah 33. 14-16; Luke 21. 25-32

It is that time of year again.  Six nights a week when I settle into my chair facing the fireplace in the family room, I page my way through the pile of catalogs our mailman stuffed into our roadside mailbox.  The other night I chanced upon a T-shirt which captured a bit of wisdom I have come to love.  In white letters against a black background it announced:

People who wonder if the glass is half empty

or half full miss the point.

The glass is refillable!”

            Isn’t it amazing how the same sight can lead people to jump to totally opposite conclusions or miss the point entirely?  Take the title of today’s sermon, “Trail Markers.” It could refer to an axe blaze or a paint splotch or a bottle cap nailed on a tree so people can find their way a-long a trail. Or, it could refer to the people who took the time to swing the axe, paint the splotch, or nail the bottle cap to the tree so that the squiggly line on a map becomes a path one can follow. Then again, it might be a double entendre de-signed to tease the brain to promote both looking for signs along the way and posting signs to help others coming along later.  By the time I’m done I hope you’ll figure it out.

            One day during the last week of his earthly journey, Jesus was teaching in the beautifully rebuilt temple that would be reduced to rubble a few decades later.  He told those who gathered around to listen to notice the signs of God’s activity around them. 

            Minutes before, he had pointed out a poor widow putting two copper coins into the temple’s collection box, telling his disciples her simple gift was of more value than the large sums others put in out of their abundance.  Here is what Luke says happened next:

            “When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”  They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”[i]

            Today’s reading from the Gospel come from the end of his answer. The words and images stand in stark contrast to the sweet pictures we’ll sing about later in the season.  Instead of Phillips Brooks’ hillside vision of the “Little town of Bethlehem,” sleeping deeply as silent stars make their nightly rotation across the sky,[ii] we are offered distressing signs in the heavens, on earth, and in thundering waves of roaring seas.

            Like the glass that is both half empty and half full, yet refillable, and the different meanings of “trail markers,” the signs in the heavens Jesus spoke of lead to three very different responses.  One commentator outlines them for us: “The nations react in bewilderment” and “people faint from fear,” these first two responses are inappropriate for God’s people. In his address to them, Jesus counsels [a third option], confidence (standing with raised heads), assured of God’s intervention. For them, the Day of the Lord is not an occasion for dread, nor is it a day to be avoided. Rather, it is the realization of God’s good news: “your redemption is near.”[iii]

            Our scholarly guide adds: “What makes the difference  is not a different set of events. They experience the same signs.  They experience those events and read those signs quite differently.  They grasp their significance as people whose frame of reference is guided by Israel’s Scriptures, particularly as these have been interpreted for them by Jesus.  Like fig-tree farmers who can set their calendars by observing their trees, those whose lives are shaped by Jesus’ proclamation of God’s reign grasp what time it is by what is happening around them.  They see the same things as everyone else, but, formed in relation to Jesus’ message, they see with different eyes.”[iv]

            To see with different eyes requires training. To follow the trail markers up to the Lookout at Camp Lackawanna requires that you have become familiar with the signs that distinguish that trail from the others. Not only that, as you are walking along, you must look up and look ahead to spot the next marker, especially when another path presents itself or a game trail invites you to veer off course. Add adverse weather conditions like a thick fog or one of today’s forecast snow showers and finding your way gets more difficult.

            Both of our readings this morning were written at times when the way ahead was not easily seen.  Conditions on the ground made it easy to conclude there was no possibility of God stepping in and stepping up to show the way. The chapters of Jeremiah known as the Book of Consolation were written while the people of Israel were living in exile. It wouldn’t have been easy for people to see the prophet’s vision of a day when the Lord would make good on the promises of old.  A day when all would be right again seemed beyond possibility.

            When Luke was writing his two volume orderly ac-count of the mission and ministry of Jesus and the church that sprung up to follow his word and continue his work, the people were in dire straits. The peaceful coexistence by which they had survived under Roman rule had been shattered; the temple had been destroyed just as Jesus had said it would.  The foreign power had dealt viciously leaving carnage and corpses across the land.  To read a book like Luke, that began with Mary’s Magnificat promising great reversals by which the mighty are brought low and the low-y lifted up, contradicted what was going on right before their eyes.  To hear Jesus begin his ministry saying: “the kingdom of God has come near,” and near its end claiming “your redemption is drawing near” was hard to hear.

            Maybe it still is.  A quick glance around our world reveals much that shows no sign of God’s kingdom come! Leaders can’t speak respectfully to or about one another. Lies, half-truths, and unmasked prejudice are rampant. A Christmas parade is transformed into a massacre by a driver fleeing after being involved in a domestic dispute. Unsportsmanlike conduct on a youth football field escalates to include parents and ends when one of them drives a car onto the field striking another. As the pan-demic ramps up once more, we hear warnings about the uptickin teenage depression and suicide.

            Is all this not an indication that we live at a time when a message of hope is needed?  Does this not make this a moment in which to cry out, “O come, O come Emmanuel?”

            Indeed it is. Hear what one woman who has studied our text says, weaving the past and the present together in way that calls us back to the Way:

            “When the present reality includes wars and political tumult (distress among nations), climate catastrophe (signs in the sun, moon and the stars), global pandemic (breathless from fear and fore-boding), unemployment, hate crimes, racist ideologies, death-dealing illness, displacement by terror, or anything else that traps people in fear or despair (weighs down hearts), it is then that we look for the coming of the Son of Humanity, the Christ whose promised future makes all the difference today.”[v]

            We might look at the signs of our times and conclude there is no reason to hope, that the downward spiral is unstoppable. Or, we might hear in them a call to look for the signs that God is at work around us.  We can find in them a call to follow the trail that has been marked for us and to mark the trail for others.  Presbyterian scholar Donald McKim puts the challenge before us this way: “We can live out God’s promise to Jeremiah, especially in Advent, when we look for signs of God’s reign in Christ around us, and when we plant signs of God’s reign in Christ with others.”[vi]

            I think he’s talking about trail markers; both kinds.

So let me share some of the signs I’ve read about. The first is a story that hits home as many of us lament that our children’s generation have distanced themselves from the church.  This story of hope comes to us from Jeanne Donstad Olsen, a chaplain from Bettendorf, Iowa. Rather than attempt to retell it, let me read it just as she wrote it in a submission to The Christian Century as part of The Buechner Narrative Writing Project.

            “He’s rude!” “He’s obnoxious!” “He’s volatile!” “He kicked all of us out of his room, and it wasn’t pretty.”

Three nurses agreed, “You don’t want to go in there, Chaplain!”

            “So be it—I’ll be the next one booted out—or not.”

            When I entered, the shades were closed and Butch was sitting on the edge of his hospital bed staring at the door The urine jug sitting on the tray table was half full, and that gave me pause as a possible weapon of anger. Butch was wearing a Harley Davidson T-shirt. I looked at him and asked, “So, have you got a Harley? From what I’m told they are the best motorcycles out there.”

            “Yeah, I do,” he said.

            “One of my sons has a Ducati and the other a BMW,”I said as he frowned, “but that Harley name seems to have the most followers.”  This was almost all I knew about motorcycles. “So which model do you have? How did you get started riding?” I asked.

            With a lot of colorful language, the conversation began to unfold. He told me all about his Harley cycles, showing his pride in the several models he owned, bragging about their tremendous power and the thrill he experienced riding them.

            “Have you ever been to Sturgis, South Dakota, for the annual Harley gathering?” I inquired.

            “You bet,” he said, “Have you?”

            “As a matter of fact I have! Quite the display of bikes and bikers.” I had been there for about 20 minutes among leather jackets and roaring cycles, but when I saw a woman chained to her man’s cycle I knew I was out of my comfort zone. Butch talked about his trip to the mecca of Harley: “I should be out there tonight riding, drinking beer with my buddies, meeting up with my gal. Instead I’m here.”

            I nodded. “I hear you, Butch, and now you are fighting a disease you never expected to have.” He talked about how he got AIDS and the repercussions of that. “I lost 50 pounds, lost my job, take drugs that make me weak and nauseous. I don’t have the strength to party with my friends, and I had to move in with my parents. I am scrawny, gaunt, and useless.  I hate being here! I am a walking shell of who I used to be.”

            About 40 minutes into the visit, he looked up at me and my name tag and asked, “Who the hell are you?” I held out my hand to shake his. “I’m Jeanne, the chaplain, and it has been a de-light to get to know you. There are a lot of things you have to do here to feel better and control your disease, but my visits are optional. I will stop by tomorrow and pop my head in, and you can say yes or no—your choice.”  He continued staring at me and then said, “You can come back.”

            I visited Butch most days of his two hospitalizations. He continued to share his story and his feelings of anger, longing, and frustration. Once after a sleepless night, he whispered, “Do you know what I do when the pain is so bad I can hardly stand it?”  I held my breath, given his past coping mechanisms.

            “I turn to him.” He nodded toward the Catholic crucifix on the wall.

            “I didn’t know you knew him,” I answered.

            “Oh yes.  I went to Sunday School as a kid. And he comforts me. He does. I guess I’m returning to my childhood faith, aren’t I?”  I put my hand on his thin arm, and said, “Yes, Butch.” He nodded with a tear in his eye.

            He died two days later. A nurse told me that his last expression was a smile.”[vii]

            A sign seen. A sign planted. Hope bursting forth in an unexpected place. Here’s another sign.

            By the end of the day we’ll probably hear about travelers behaving badly in airplanes or airports. Jill Duffield, then the editor of The Presbyterian Out-look, found herself in the busy Atlanta airport we’ve heard so much about lately.  She was awaiting the connecting flight that would bring her home.  She was eating her dinner in the food court.  Behind her was a woman tapping away on her laptop.  A young janitor came along to empty the trash can next to the laptop lady’s table.  The woman looked up from her work and struck up a conversation with the young man. The woman’s accent telegraphed where she was from before she told him she was from Minnesota.  She asked him if he was in school. He told her “no,” and explained that he had to work because he had a son on the way. “How exciting,” she exclaimed. “You have no idea how much your heart will expand.” She told him she had an 18-month old at home. The two continued to chat for a while, and before he moved on to the next trash can, she got the fellow’s name and address so she could send him baby clothes her son had out-grown. “Nothing fancy,” she said, “but good for every day.” He thanked her and told her to have a good flight.  She wished him well, and they each got back to their work.

            Jill got up to go to her gate and on the way stopped to thank the lady with the thick Minnesota accent. She told her she was moved by her kindness. The woman replied, “We need to be kind to each other.” Jill agreed. Reflecting on those moments, she later wrote: Neither earth nor heaven shook, nothing went dark, but that small exchange brought about a seismic shift in my attitude. Their shared humanity over impending new life bolstered my faith, and gave a glimpse of love and unity that is too often unseen. It gave me hope that redemption isn’t as far away as I feared.”[viii]

            One more quick story that struck me because it flies in the face of so much of the divi-sive, us against them talk that has fill our airwaves:

            Mindy Douglas, pastor of First Presbyterian-Durham NC put a picture up recently on the Facebook group, Happy to be A Presbyterian. It shows members of her church sitting outside at tables pitching in to assist their sister Presbyterian church, Iglesia Emanuel, in their weekly food distribution to their neighbors. The caption reports: “We made short work of repacking 3,000 pounds of beans and 3,000 pounds of rice into 1-quart bags. Each week, this small, but mighty, church distributes staples, including the beans and rice, fresh produce, milk and eggs to approximately 500 families that drive through the parking lot. It was a glorious, sunny day of "work" with lots of laughter and joy in being together.”[ix]

             Every day our redemption is drawing near. We have to look for the signs; we’re called to plant them so others can see them too. We are called to be trail markers in every sense of that phrase. Amen.

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[i] Luke 21. 5-7
[ii] Phillips Brooks, “O LIttle Town of Bethlehem,” Hymn 121, Glory to God, The Presbyterian Hymnal, (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013)
[iii] Joel B. Green, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) p. 13
[iv] ibid.
[v][v] Audrey West, workingpreacher.com, commentary on Luke 21. 25-36 for 11-28-21, p. 2-3 of printout
[vi] Donald J. McKim, Connections – A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, (Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), p.5
[vii] Jeanne Donstad Olson, “Return” in The Christian Century, November 21, 2018, pp. 23-24
[viii] Jill Duffield, from her blog, Looking Into the Lectionary, 1st Sunday of Advent, The Presbyterian Outlook, Monday, November 26, 2018, p. 2-3
[ix] Mindy Douglass, picture caption posted in Facebook group, Happy to be a Presbyterian, November 13, 2021.