Sunday March 31st 2019 4th Sunday of Lent (Cycle C)
The Journey Home
The tie in between
today’s readings: In a Far Country
The purpose of a
journey is to be transformative. I’m not talking about your daily routine
commute. That’s just a rut. I mean the vacation to a new and exotic place, the
cruise where you meet exciting people, or the test of a rugged wilderness trek.
While we plan and anticipate these kinds of getaways, daily life can be forays
of discovery in themselves if we decide to not merely see, but observe. This
makes me think of the Wizard of Oz, where
the answer to Dorothy’s yearning was right there in front of her. The quest
that took her over the rainbow was needed to open her eyes. God challenges us
to walk with Him daily in life’s adventures to open our eyes to a better
understanding of Him and ourselves. Because I think their messages conflict
somewhat, I want to contrast the Wizard of Oz against our Bible readings today
to see how each of them gain their happily ever afters.
The Escape Journey
Dorothy Gale and
the Prodigal Son cannot get away from their farms fast enough. The problem with
escaping from something is that you are always escaping to something else. For
both of them the saying “the grass is always greener” quickly turns into “be
careful what you wish for”. Dorothy went over the rainbow and wanted to get
back as soon as she arrived in Munchkinland. Our Prodigal was too busy partying
and needed more time to come to his senses before he looked homeward. Either
way, it’s the moral learned from the journey that’s important. Our heroine from
the Heartland returns with the epiphany that she should look within herself for
her power and live her truth. She becomes her own goddess; therefore, Dorothy’s
definition of truth is Dorothy. It’s
the sum total of her knowledge, prejudices, and desires. It will shift with
time and situations. Changing truth is a contradiction of terms and, in the
end, is no truth at all. The key to the Prodigal Son is “My son was dead and is
now alive!” After landing in a pig pen,
the Prodigal looks outside himself and discovers the eternal and changeless
God. He comes to his senses and is restored when he aligns himself with the One
who is Truth. In examining both conclusions, we find that truth is really a
person, but which person? Dorothy looks inward toward her relative truth and,
even while being at home, she is lost. The Prodigal, who is lost, connects himself
to God; Truth personified, and is found. Who is your truth person?
The Journey of
Circumstances
David’s experience
in Psalm 34 shows a person as a victim of circumstance, like when a tornado
picks up your house and takes you away. He is praising God for getting him out
of a close call with the Philistines. His father-in-law, King Saul, is hunting
him down (so much for family). David, desperate to elude him, slips into the
enemy Philistine city of Gath and ends up out of the frying pan and into the
fire. So what do we do when we don’t know what to do? David improvises. In
order to save his life, he pretends to be out of his mind, counting on the
thinking at the time that it was wrong to kill an insane person. He puts on a
pretty good show: drooling, odd rantings, and scratching on the doors, all the
while praying desperately in his head for God to get him out of there! His
gutsy move pays off and the king expels him in disgust. In our Wizard
of Oz story, we have a Gale in a tornado plummeting down to a strange
world. In Munchkinland, Dorothy comes out of her house to discover that she is
guilty of involuntary witch slaughter and needs to get to the Emerald City to
escape the wicked sister. Her path is laid out before her: follow the yellow brick
road. The question is how did the yellow brick road get there in the first
place? It had to be mapped out, surveyed, leveled, and constructed by someone
who knew it would be needed. She must reach out of herself and trust the
Engineer of the road to get her where she needs to be. Fortunately, that’s what
she does. Suppose, though she said, “You know, this yellow brick road thing
doesn’t work for me. That wheat field over there reminds me of Kansas. I think
I’ll head off that way.” Sounds foolish, but don’t we do exactly that when we
ignore doing what we know God says is right?
In fact, in one scene, with the Emerald City in sight she does leave the
road and gets in trouble in the poppy field. Whether you’re winging it like
David or following guidance like Dorothy, when we are in troubling
circumstances the Bible tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and
don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He
will direct your path” (Proverbs 3:5-6). It’s all the difference between
confidently skipping down the road and carelessly dancing in the dark. Whose
road are you walking on?
The Shared Journey
In any fictional
adventure, there is a message. Besides spinning an awesomely good yarn, the
author wants you to be absorbed in the story, implant the characters in your
mind, and have them linger there. You share in their journey by laughing with
them, crying with them, and, in the end, their triumph is your victory too. In
this experience, the writer asks you to consider his message and become
changed. People have read between the lines of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz and have found a friend or
an enemy in it. Either way he has influenced countless people over the years
with his classic. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob wrote an epic all His
own: the Bible. In it, He rescues the Hebrews out of slavery, feeds them manna
in the desert, miraculously provides water, keeps their clothes intact, and
defends them against much stronger enemies. All along the journey, their triumphs
and tragedies bond them together to their God.
In our reading in Joshua, they have crossed the Jordan River into the
land of Canaan. It’s their graduation from the Exodus struggle! The children of
Israel are resting, reflecting, and regrouping as they prepare for the next
chapter in their adventure with their God to claim the Promised Land. In the
real world, the Author, God, can go beyond influencing people and move to
having a relationship with Him, because, in essence; it’s a love story about them.
The Calvary Journey
God climaxes His love story on the
cross. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 tells us that this relationship with God is
through His Son Jesus Christ. The curtain is lifted in verse 21 where it is
written, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we
might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
In the greatest story ever, told we journey to Calvary with Jesus and by
faith join Him in the crucifixion. The
great switch happens and we become changed. We become a new creation. Forget
the past! Our sins are GONE! We become
new people with a new job: ambassadors of Christ. We go on our earthly
missionary journeys commissioned with the directive of the good news of
reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ. And so, I beg you to make peace
with the Almighty. By faith, accept
Jesus as your Savior and Peace Maker with God for the forgiveness of your sins.
It will change you too and when you die, you will have a new home in heaven,
far over the rainbow. There’s no place like home!
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