Sermon- Finding Our Footing
Text-- Psalm 40: 1 – 11 and John 1: 35- 42
Written by Rev. Kathryn Nelson, Peace UCC
January 20, 2008

The first three verses of Psalm 40 have been echoing around in my head all week, “ I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”

I read these words over and over this week : at the Chum Drop In Center, at the St. Louis County Jail with the women there, at the Bible study here on Wednesday night. These words of the psalmist helped in a week when I felt swamped, bogged down shall we say. I was needing to find my footing.

“ The Lord Drew me up out of the miry bog and set my feet upon a solid rock.” I was drawn particularly to these words, because bogs have taught me a lot. A few years back I went camping for 3 days with 13 eleven- year- old girls.. I was for 7 years their troop leader. We stopped on the way over to Camp Rondelay at Amnicon Falls State Park. It is a beautiful place. We hiked along the Amnicon River, an amazing river running near a fault line with huge rugged cliffs. We made balsam boats, little twigs with balsam sap at one end that propel them in the water. We waded in the shallows, looking for minnows or other critters. The girls got a little grumpy hiking – and so I fed them lunch, and the stash of candy didn’t hurt. They worked together pretty well. You realize in a new way how important cooperation is when you bound together on a camping trip. You have to share the load when there is lots to carry and wood to gather.

That night it was a little brisk—there were frost warnings. The next day we managed to move the girls out of their sleeping bags and out to the fire to make breakfast. Cocoa helped but we forgot a part of the stove and so pancakes were slow to cook. We fried them with the bacon over the fire.

The girls were cold and it began to drizzle. Homesickness began to creep into the group. Olivia announced, “three of us want to go home!” What could I do to save this trip ? I was worried about homesickness becoming rampant in my camper, the two crying girls were enough. Desperate I yelled put on your bog clothes! Please change your clothes, and change your mood. They screamed in excitemen. They love the bog, we had gone the year before at camp. We hiked out of the woods and into the bog that exist between the two lakes at camp. We had on the camp bog shoes which was good thing too for the mud threatened to suck up the shoes with each step. We walked on until we got to our destination . . .the hole . . . .a wonderful hole in the bog filled with mud—bog stuff. The girls rolled in. They loved being dirty. The tricky thing about the bog is that you have to relax. If you struggle you go deeper, and deeper. And you never get out by standing up or struggling . You have to lay back and roll out . The girls cheered each other on—get muddy! The mood changed, new clothes, dirty clothes and .new attitudes. “We walked back to camp singing, “ We’re bog bouncing, we bog bouncing, we’re rolling in the mud and we’re bog bouncing . . . “

Life at the bog is a little like life . We can’t be afraid of getting dirty, of digging in, but we also have to relax a little, let go of the struggle and roll on through and out “ He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. ”

The disciples of Jesus know about being drawn up – not from a bog , but out of the Jordan River. And in the gospel for today, they are given a new song in their mouths . The disciples of John the Baptist are gathered around John when he notices Jesus walk by. John calls out-- Behold the Lamb of God. Two of his disciples-- Andrew and another decide to get a closer look, They start to follow Jesus. Jesus feels their eyes upon them and turns and earnestly asks them, “What do you seek?”

I imagine them pausing, taken aback by the directness of his question. What do you seek? These two had already been on a journey. As disciples of John they had left the city and traveled to the wilderness, the desert. In the desert they lived a simple life, a life trying to turn toward God. John had given them a way to begin, a baptism of repentance. It is this same baptism that Jesus has just experienced in the Jordan River.

John participated in this baptism, being the one who dipped Jesus into the water.. And now John points his disciples now in a new direction, a movement toward Jesus. And so they follow not ready yet for the question that will be asked-- What do you seek? And so they volley another question back-- Jesus, Where are you staying?

And Jesus says-- Come and see. Come and see and be part of a new community. And they do. They stay the night--sharing food, shelter and lives. And then Andrew runs to get his brother, Simon. that he too might experience the grace that he has found. Andrew and Simon Peter become a crucial part of Jesus’ community, a new community of hope, of possibility, of justice. The disciples asked, “ Where are you staying?” And in daring to follow they found what they were seeking, a new kind of community.

Community is central to what most of us seek. As Vincent Harding wrote in Sojourners, “ In their different and sometimes similar ways, Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King represented a spirituality solidly based in one place, among one people, . . .Just as Jesus of Nazareth represented a spirituality based in one place, among one people. At the same moment (Jesus) king and Thurman reached out far, far beyond that ground and that base and saw no contradictions in being grounded and reaching out as part of one motion of spirit and life. Their roots gave them power, not to control, but to share. “

King and Thurman were deeply connected to one another. Legend has it that Martin carried a copy of Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited wherever he went. King lived what Thurman wrote—“that if you are living the Spirit of Jesus you cannot live in the spirit of fear, you cannot live in the spirit of deception, you can not live in the spirit of hatred. None of these is the journey of Jesus.”

We are part of this journey of Jesus too. We can not live in a spirit of fear or hate. And remember there are lessons to be learned from the bog-- We are in this mess together in this place called Duluth, in this church called Peace, We must relax and trust the one who holds us as we roll on out and find our footing . . We must trust that there will be a new song of hope in the midst of our dreariest days. We will find our footing.

I spent a lot of time this week with Mark Nelson and Karyn McLean of our congregation. Mark is at Solvay Hospice House because of his colon cancer, he turned 50 yesterday. In the midst of these days it has been an honor to hear the stories of his life and their life together-- Mark and Karyn are both musicians and met that way, but their very first date – was at a bog-- Mark is a water conservationist-- Karyn wasn’t so sure about it—a gathering at a bog. When she got there she saw the flags marking the way to the gathering, she dared to follow it to a fire and new friends and music played together. The bog was a place they moved out from and found solid ground in their life together—a new song.

The bogs are solidly frozen these days. We must watch where we step on the snow and ice, trusting the one who calls come and see . Come and see the new life that is yet possible.

On Thursday afternoon I took a walk in the woods with Beth Bartlett and Dave Winchester, it was the 20th anniversary of their wedding. We stopped at an overlook by two trees growing together with a smaller one near by. There we stopped for a prayer and hey renewed their vows-- solid ground for the next part of their journey. It is a new journey they were never sure they would see—given that Beth had a heart transplant over 15 years ago. And yet here they were a new day, a new song, trusting the one who holds us all.

As we walked out of the woods, Beth bent down on the path and there made out of ice was a perfect heart larger than the palm of her hand. She held it up in her hands. . . . it now sits now outside their kitchen window.

We are making this journey together -- it’s a messy one at times, we will get dirty and hurt, and yet it’s all worth it.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”