Rector's Sermon - Sunday, August 31, 2003

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Deuteronomy. 4:1-2, 6-9		James 1:17-27	Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

    Years ago, canoes weren't made with the space-age materials of today so that they bounce off rocks with ease and dents come out with a hair drier. Even the aluminum canoes that came to be so popular with the amateur canoeist were hot, noisy, and could be wedged between rocks, bending in half within minutes. The preferred canoes for extended canoe trips were the old stand-by, wood and canvas. There was considerable give in the spruce ribs if the canoe did get wedged in. and you could patch the canvas by drying it with warm flat rocks and smearing on plenty of ambroid. Nonetheless, you had to exercise care for it was pretty easy to rip open a large gash if you weren't careful.

    Despite all preparation, it was expected that on a week long trip with your canoe loaded with your food, tents and equipment you would pass through some fast water, and that a young inexperienced camper in the bow of the canoe would see the spray of rocks in front of him, get scared and stop paddling. This would make the person in the stern have to work harder, for he would not only have to steer, but also provide all the power to maneuver the craft. If you are paddling downstream in the current, you generally need to paddle so that the canoe is going faster than the current in order to safely avoid obstacles. When someone stops paddling, you go slower precisely at the time you want to maintain or increase your power.

    In other words, to stop paddling and going slower in a current with dangerous rocks around you, is putting your craft in more danger than if you continue paddling full speed ahead. Most of the time, the person in the stern yelled forcefully enough that the bow person resumed paddling, or the canoe just grazed a rock. Sometimes though, the canoe hit the rocks head-on, turning broadside, and was either swept downstream stern first or even tossed its occupants out. If that happened, other canoes would come to the rescue as the two wet canoeists fought with each other over who was to blame. Of course by this time as all helped retrieve the floating gear that hadn’t been lashed down, it didn’t really matter who won the argument.

    The other inevitable learning experience occurred after getting through the fast water with a scare or two and entering a stretch where there was deep choppy water on one side and slow shallow water on the other. Sometimes it looked so tempting to paddle over to the sand bar where things looked so calm. What happened then was that the heavy canoes would eventually run aground in the soft sand. The person in the bow would blame the person and the stern and the person in the stern would blame the person in the bow. All the while the canoe sunk deeper and deeper in the sand and became really stuck. They learned that they both had to get out of the canoe and sometimes even had to put a duffle bag on their back for them to move the canoe at all. As they pushed the canoe, they sank into the sand-mud often up to their knees, and when they got the canoe near the deeper the water the current began to pull the canoe back, and the sand back quickly dropped away, making getting into the canoe again without capsizing, somewhat difficult. They usually did it, but not without again getting more wet than they would have preferred. Yet after that, they learned that heading off for shallow water and getting out of the main current is not the wisest thing to do. It doesn’t get you where you want to go. It only delays the progress of your journeys and it becomes more difficult to get back into the flow of the river.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus and the disciples were not on a canoe trip, but they were in a sense camping out, going from town to town, and didn’t have the luxury of observing all the religious customs as a scholar or temple official in the city. Who knows how the argument started. The point of this story was neither to perpetuate criticism against a certain group of people nor to denigrate the practice of piety or customs of cleanliness. Rather Jesus used the fruitless wrangling to note the Gospel is always challenging us to stay in the current and not be tempted to slow down or think that if we try to hold at bay the continuing revelation and understanding of God's Word, that this will protect us from having to face difficult obstacles.

    I suggest that Jesus was telling us that discipleship is staying in the mainstream, not trying to avoid it. Yes there are rocks, and shoals and hidden obstacles that threaten to undo us and which we have to pay attention to. Yet we are still safer and our spiritual life be stronger and healthier in the current than heading for a stagnant backwater and thinking we are continuing on our way. Excessive fussiness or blaming others for our troubles more often than not is an excuse for letting peripheral issues to take over and forgetting what comes first, what is the proper order of our priorities, and for becoming passive with self-pity or smugness rather than being active with confidence in God’s grace. It is as fruitless an exercise as two canoeists who yell and fuss at each other as the canoe runs aground.

    Now I have no idea what kind of canoe Jesus would have paddled. I wonder if such arguments do not degenerate into precisely the wandering, unprofitable arguments the Gospel is warning us against. But I don’t think Jesus would have liked these new Kevlar canoes that bounce off rocks with impunity. I think Jesus would have wanted a craft with wooden ribs and planking, handmade, not molded by machine. Instead of using the mundane analogy to plates and kettles he would have drawn his examples, using the innate beauty of an 18 foot guide model Old Town canoe and drawing lessons on how to handle it in the streams of life.

    And I offer this to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.