Perhaps you’ve heard the popular saying that “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” This proverb is a slight corruption of a story from Lewis Carroll’s classic children’s tale, Alice in Wonderland. You may remember the conversation between a disoriented Alice and the mysterious Cheshire Cat. Alice asked: “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” replied the Cat. “I don’t much care where” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
The story we just heard from Luke’s Gospel is often described as Jesus’ mission statement. I also like to think of it as his coming out: the moment of his maturity and self-awareness in which Jesus both knew who he was, and took it public. To the synagogue in his hometown, no less. And like so many who have been brave to tell our truth to our families and faith communities, Jesus didn’t get the warmest response at first. Do any of you know what happened next, as Luke’s Gospel recorded it? Spoiler alert: his own people tried to throw him off a cliff. But Jesus—who actually did know where he wanted to go—walked right through the crowd and went on his way.
Do you know your mission? Do you know your way? These are perhaps some of the most important questions any of us will ever ask ourselves. John’s gospel records Jesus asking his first disciples a similar question “what are you looking for?” These are foundational questions of identity and purpose for us, as people and as a Christian community. Not because there’s a single right answer, much less an answer that remains fixed through our lifetimes. But we have to ask them of ourselves, because if we don’t know who we are, what we want or where we are going, no road is actually going to get us there. And here’s the good news: for those who turn to Jesus with our questions, the answer is always one of hospitality and inclusion. Or as John’s Gospel recorded it, Jesus invites us to “come and see.”
My friends, come and see what’s happening at Trinity. Let’s learn about our history and our hopes and our neighbors. That’s how we will find our way together. Because there IS a road that will take us to the vital and thriving Christian community—the light for our city and diocese that we are called to be—and God in Christ has already made the way straight for us. It might not look like the roads we’ve traveled before, though. The long pandemic and changes in our community and in ourselves invite us to chart a new course. One that reflects who we are now, with renewed clarity about who we are and where we ought to go, in our mission and in our ministries.
Today, right after our 10:30 service we’ll be hosting our annual meeting. Both will be online, on zoom, so you can log in at 10:30 or 11:30. We’ll keep the zoom room open for you. Obviously, we would have preferred to host this meeting in person, because we all miss each other so much. But we also want as many of you as possible to be able to participate. To come and see, as it were, and give thanks for all we’ve been able to do together this past year. We’ll present our budget and vote for new leadership for 2022, as we always do at an annual meeting. But we’re also looking forward to your participation as we lay the groundwork for a strategic planning process. Whose purpose is to map out the way Trinity and Guadalupe ought to go, for years to come.
Jesus knew which way he was going. He knew who he was and what he wanted. He embodied God’s abiding love, manifested through good news to the poor. And also through release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor. The latter being a reference to the long promised jubilee: the every-50th-year forgiveness of debt and freeing of slaves. The jubilee law provided that even the land itself was to rest in that year, so that it could be restored to fruitfulness. Forgiveness, freedom and fruitfulness: the mission of Jesus and of his church.
Jesus’ way took him from mission statement to cliff’s edge, and then through uneasy Judean byways to Jerusalem and to Golgotha. I believe he always knew where those roads would take him, and… he went there anyway. There’s a kind of directional clarity that emerges once we know what we’re called to do. Even when it’s not the easy way, there is joy in going the right way.
And because Jesus has already made the journey from the cliffside to the cross, he showed the whole world that God’s life-giving power is greater than the power of coercion and shame . Which frees us to find and to follow our authentic mission as well.
Any search for our true mission, as a Christian community, should always start with Jesus’ example. So let me offer a few questions and observations upon our scriptures that might help to orient us, both in our review of where we’ve been, and in our planning going forward—
Who are we? Well, in order to find out, we’ll need to revisit who we’ve been in the past. Thank goodness we have some great historians in our congregation! Because people of faith always value the witness of our foremothers and forefathers, and build upon it. Jesus himself learned from and leaned into the tradition of Biblical prophets, like Isaiah whom he quoted when he announced his own identity. Whatever else we may be now, we want reflect the identity and hopes of Trinity and Guadalupe people who’ve gone before.
What do we want? Well, if we listen to the Psalmist, the law of the Lord is more to be desired than gold. And by law, the Psalmist is speaking about the long Jewish tradition of agreements and statutes and practices, given by God in order that the community flourish together. Whatever else we may want, we’ll want to practice mutual respect and compassion for each other.
Where are we going, and what way will get us there? Well, if we pay attention to Paul’s deep community wisdom, only the whole body working together can say for sure. That’s why—as we plan the next phase of our lives as a cathedral community—we’ll want to listen to the hopes of everyone. And we’ll give particular respect to the least among us. They—the children, the differently abled, those who speak other languages and come from other countries—can teach us what it is to be one body. Moving into our shared future together, energized by the one Spirit.
When Jesus announced that “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing,” he announced that the liberating and life-giving work of the Spirit was present in his very person. As it is in us as well, for that was his Pentecost gift to his disciples. Friends, today these scriptures are being fulfilled though us, for we are what his voice and his hands and his heart. The Spirit—discerned in our community—tells us who we are, points us towards where we are going, and puts us on the entirely right road to get there. And to that, let us say Amen.
