Mt. Ashland Meadow, Pacific Crest Trail
Trail Food
Proper 14B
9 August 2015; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass with Holy Baptism
Proper 14B
9 August 2015; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass and 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass with Holy Baptism
Homily Delivered by the Rev. Fr. Tony
Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
at the Parish Church of Trinity Ashland
Diocese of Oregon
Elena and I love to hike. We have many wonderful memories of hiking
along the Appalachian Trail in the mid-Atlantic states, in the backcountry
parks in Hong Kong, along the Great Wall, in the Olympic and Mt. Rainier
National Parks, among others. We miss
close intimate connection with nature since her illness started to affect her
mobility, and remain passionate in our love for it.
Part of the challenge is figuring out what
you can reasonably carry, and then going through the Zen exercise of deciding
what you will do without. Simplified
meals are part of this, as is finding appropriate body fuel for the way, trail
food. Light, easy to consume, but
substantial enough to give the calories and sugar lift we need to keep on
going, and keep enjoying the walk, even when it is arduous and challenging.
When I first read J.R.R. Tolkien’s
classic The Lord of the Rings in High
School, I was struck by the love of walking in nature expressed in that epic
tale. Despite hardships and risk on the
trail, the beauty of walking in the natural world remained. This was summed up in part by Tolkien’s
description of lembas, the way bread
made by elves. The elven High Queen, the
Lady Galadriel of Lothlórien, gives it to the company before they set out for
the most hazardous part of the journey.
Light brown on the outside, creamy on the inside, crisp and wrapped in
golden leaves from blessed trees, the bread keeps for months and, when
consumed, revives not only the body, but lifts the heart and soul as well.
Lembas
may be likened to the hard-tack crackers we eat to this day in hiking, just a
bit more appetizing. You may recall that
Tolkien was Roman Catholic. It is clear
that his description of lembas, also
called life-bread at one point in Tolkien’s writing, comes in part from his devotion
to Christ in the Holy Eucharist. The
Lady Galadriel, giving this bread and hope to those finding themselves in the
dark, echoes his devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
Today’s Hebrew lesson is about trail
food provided by an angel to the Prophet Elijah. It sustains miraculously far beyond what one
or two meals might. Like lembas, “one bite makes a person full,”
and gives strength and the will to go as long as the journey lasts.
The other texts, while not talking
about trails and walking, are about support and sustenance. The Psalm affirms hat we can rely on God, and
says wonderfully, “Taste and see that the Lord is good, happy are they who
trust in him.” The Gospel is a
continuation of the story of the Bread of Life discourse. It contrasts those who partake of this bread
and those who let other things get in the way of partaking of it. It suggests that the real trail food for us
in our life’s journey is Jesus.
The fact is, it is easy to get worn
down by life. If is easy to lose our
way. It is easy to get hungry, and
tired, to the point where we may want to stop putting one foot in front of the
other and move along. If we take our
packs off for a moment to rest, we may not ever want to put them on again.
The epistle, continuing our last few
weeks’ readings in Ephesians, makes a series of suggestions of how to get on
well in our life journey. Here,
behaviors and habits are seen as ways of getting strength and sustenance: stop being phoney, be open and direct out of
a sense of shared endeavor with others (those on the way with us), go ahead and
let yourself have the emotions that come with life (anger, for instance) but
don’t let these make you harm others or be malicious. Deal with them on a daily basis, and don’t
let them pile up hidden in your heart ready to break out and overwhelm
you. Don’t steal. Rather, pull your own weight, again out of
your sense of shared journey with others.
Don’t bad mouth people or tear them down. Instead, build them up. Put away bitterness
and cultivating wrath, arguing and slandering each other. Eschew malice, and be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another. This
will helps us on our way. Jesus, again,
is the model and source of such benevolence.
Jesus is our sustenance.
Today at 10 a.m. we are going to
baptize young Maddie Barber. This
sacrament is the start of a great journey, our life in Christ. The baptismal covenant gives us rules of the
road and suggestions for daily recharging.
It even mentions our trail bread.
In it, we:
·Affirm
our trust and hope in the basics
of the Trinitarian faith outlined in the Apostles’ Creed.
·Promise to continue in the apostles’ teaching and
fellowship, the breaking of bread (the Holy Eucharist), and the cycle of
prayers of our community.
·Promise to persevere in resisting evil, and to
repent from sin we may fall into, and return to the Lord.
·Promise to proclaim by word and example the good
news of God in Christ, seek and serve Christ in all persons, and strive for
justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human
being.
These all involve relationship: with
God, with Jesus, with the ministers Jesus sent and those who came after them,
with the living tradition of faith and practice they have given us, and with those
about us. By making and keeping these
commitments, we follow the example Jesus set when he was baptized by John in
Jordan.
We turn away from, “renounce,” the
things that detract us from our forward movement in our journey. We commit to keep on walking and carrying our
packs for the way, and to do the things we need to recharge and refresh
ourselves for the hike.
Paul makes the journey
image clear in Romans, where he says that baptism makes us “walk
in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).
One of the things we promise here to do
is to persevere in the breaking of the bread.
The Eucharist is the way bread, the lembas,
that helps us in our journey with God.
This is because in it we experience Jesus, and reconnect with our
model. We eat his flesh and drink his blood, and we
find we can keep on going where before we were about ready to give up.
Let us pray.
Loving Jesus, you are the bread of heaven, the food of angels, the water of life, the wine of joy, the source of all life and strength: help us to keep our baptismal promises, reconnect with you each day, find strength for the journey, and enable us to love and serve our sisters and brothers, and care for your creation. Make out burdens light, protect us from losing our way, and bring us safely, with all your children, to your great hearth, home, and banquet. For your tender mercies’ sake we pray, Amen.
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