First Presbyterian Church of Watertown

Matthew 21

“A Clear Direction”

The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

March 16, 2008

What is it with kids and vacations? No matter what you do, where you go, how much you spend, the highlight is a dingy hotel with an over chlorinated pool? I can remember pulling into a Holiday Inn in Eire. It was just Zoe, Ethan, and I. We got up to the room and Zoe walks over to the couch and runs her hands over it as if it were some sort of exotic fur. “There’s a couch,” she said with wonder. Yes I said not wanting to diffuse her moment of happiness by reminding her that we have four at home. Yet, somehow that there was a couch was a moment of glee.

Once during a visit to Cape Cod we stopped by a lobster shack on the side of the road. One pool in the market had normal size lobsters. In the other cement pool were the super lobsters. And on top of the super lobsters was the monster lobster. This creature was a good three feet long. Making him even more impressive was the lack of a band on one of his claws. Our eldest, Josh, was quite disturbed by this obvious lack of safety so he tracked down the owner. Josh wasn’t much more than eight or nine at the time.

The owner of the store followed him and when Josh made clear his concern he said in a great Cape Cod rasp, “You think that lobster can smash your arm?” Josh said, no. So he took a large clam and put it in the claw of the monster lobster. As if the clam were made of butter it was crushed on cue. Josh’s mouth was agape. To my father, who was standing next to me, I said, “No matter what we do, no matter how much we spend, we will never eclipse the monster lobster.” And it was true.

What is really irritating to a parent or grandparent is to take a child and treat them to a day out, a vacation, or a special treat and it is greeted with a yawn, or a groaning query, “Can we go home now?” I am not sure what this is, but it’s not good. You would think that having fun with children should be the easiest thing in the world, but it isn’t. As a young boy I saw a moment where this came through in spades. It was a ten-day trip to nowhere.

I know it’s illogical but the monument to the Four Corners- which was our destination- is in the middle of nowhere. Even though there was a supreme court decision to determine it’s exact location and given that the whole point of Four Corners is that it is exactly in the spot where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico meet; despite these things being true, it is just as true to say it is the middle of nowhere.

As a young teen all I was told was that Four Corners was our destination for a vacation in a motor home. To be honest the destination could have been Yuma, Arizona and I would have been just as excited to go. For those of you who have no good reason to know where Yuma, Arizona is or what it is intended to convey, it is as if I said, we are planning a vacation whose destination is Croghan. Nothing against Croghan, but I think you know where I am going.

I was told to pack a bag and be ready. A small Kodak camera was purchased for the trip and a little spending money secured and I was ready. Again, all I was told was that we were heading to four corners. As an adult looking back, a big part of me wants to question the sanity and foresight of such a trip. Why would my aunt and uncle who had never raised children collect four of them and drive off to the middle of nowhere?

Yet, that is exactly what happened. Filling the small motor home along with me were three cousins ranging in age from 10 – 14. The clearest memory of the trip was the motion and the experience of seeing a new world. In order to reach four corners you drive through the vast reservations of the south west Native Americans. The land is colored by the minerals in the soil and changes dramatically with the quality of light at any given moment of the day.

As we drove along my uncle, the driver, sought to create some fun by slamming on the brakes when people tried to walk or use the restroom. You learned to wait once you reached the restroom, lest you be thrown into the shower by his emergency breaking technique. Another attempt to make the trip fun was each morning we were rousted awake to Willie Nelson blared from the tape deck singing, “On the Road Again.”

There were some really dramatic moments to the trip such as being taught to fire a pistol or driving through Las Vegas and being allowed to pull the handle on a slot machine. Yet, after this, there was not so much. A few days of this was doable with four young cousins, but not 10. After a few days the driving became monotonous even for me.

The real omen of the trip was reaching the four corners. This was our goal, the intended highlight. It was a huge slab of granite with a bronze disk in the middle of it. There was no one in sight save a few folks peddling beads. There was no roller coasters, no interpretive centers, not even a concession stand with postcards. I want to say that was when things started down the cranky path.

I am guessing it was nothing but good intention that led my aunt and uncle to take the four of us into the middle of nowhere for 10 days. After Four Corners the veneer started to really rub off. Tempers got short and we were no longer referred to by name, but by special nicknames only an uncle can conjure. Mostly though, a spirit of ingratitude emerged. Every moment that was not dramatic made any possible moment boring and being bored was taken as an insult.

Needless to say this didn’t become an annual event. It was my one and only motor home trip with my aunt and uncle. In fact it was the only time I have traveled in a motor home. As a kid it was a real eye opener. Each mile after the Four Corners was a fight to be happy. This was a trip; it was supposed to be fun. I could hear that in my uncle’s diatribes. But he didn’t have to sleep with my cousin Joey. This was the second road trip of my life and my excitement over the desert sights held sway in me, but then something would happen. The potato salad had celery, which is a disaster as any good potato salary is not supposed to have celery.

Never from that moment on have I presumed having fun was easy. I’d love to tell you that I dedicated the rest of my life to simply having fun as it came and not sweating the small stuff. Yet, like most people do, I simply lowered the level of my expectations and grew accustomed to the likelihood that it would rain. Mostly though it opened up a real fear of planning fun.

The week before last I was in a great discussion at the jail with a group of inmates. They were sharing with me how being in jail sharpens your intent to do what is right. I was surprised by this and asked them to elaborate. The consensus of the group was that being incarcerated made them goal oriented, made them hunger for what is good. From this we headed down the path of what is it that is good, and how can you achieve it. Ultimately we ended up with the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The fun with me never ends it would seem.

The Westminster I explained was a kind of primer developed by the people who took over England in the 1640s. Although their eyes glassed a little when I mentioned Puritans and church leaders, the first question of the catechism intrigued them. What is the chief end of man? What is the goal God has for you? What are you supposed to do with your life? There are two goals, I said. The answer of the Westminster is that we are to one, glorify God, and, two, enjoy him forever.

The first one is pretty straightforward and so was the discussion that followed. Glorifying God is what we are meant to do. These were all men who had experienced the moment we watched on television and read in the papers this week, the moment where you don’t bring glory, but shame. For them, it was a clear direction. Don’t do anything that brings the shame of wearing prison stripes; don’t live your life in such a way that brings dishonor to yourself, your family, or your God.

It was the second goal though where things grinded to a halt: enjoy him forever. Joy was not as clear, not as straightforward. Here the conversation drifted back and forth between feelings of helplessness and worry to the extreme conviction to find a good life and enjoy it after being imprisoned. What was most interesting to me though was how easy it was to define a life of glory versus how difficult it was to describe a life of joy.

This is a Palm Sunday sort of question. Palm Sunday is ever the annual spiritual check-up where joy is concerned. It is a day to speak of joy, to speak of how it is the intent of God that our joy should be complete. Today is a day of children waving palms and shouts of hosanna meant to evoke the celebration and revelry that was Palm Sunday almost 2000 years ago. The only problem I have with this, and I am big fan of Palm Sunday, is the expectation of joy. Making things joyful is not an expectation I take lightly. Make things intellectually stimulating, challenging, filled with arcane research into the nuances of Greek or Hebrew; I am ready. But deliver joy . . . that makes me nervous.

In a way Palm Sunday is just the opposite of this, as Jesus didn’t tell anybody to be happy. The only direction he gave was to go find a donkey and a colt. Usually the disciples failed to follow directions or failed to live up to the expectations Jesus had for them. And maybe Palm Sunday is such a moment of joy because it was not the intent, the direction. The direction of the passage is to go and get a colt and a donkey, and bring it. Nowhere does Jesus say, we are going to walk down Mt. Olivet and I want you all to be happy. Do you hear me in the back? I don’t want any more fighting. Don’t make me pull this donkey over. This is supposed to be fun. We are going to enjoy this!

Perhaps it was this aspect of joy that made it so hard for the prisoners to comprehend: joy is spontaneous not commanded, let alone demanded. You cannot conjure it or control it. Joy is a moment of splendor, a sense of being connected yet free at the same time. Being in a controlled environment doesn’t conjure a great deal of spontaneous images of life.

Jesus could tell the disciples to go and get a donkey and a colt. He couldn’t tell them to go and get happy. Maybe this is why I am still reluctant so many years after that fatal trip to Four Corners to plan for things to be fun. Fun happens along the way, when you least expect it like a good laugh or a moment of delight. Vacations make me nervous because there are so many expectations of joy.

Having said this, though, the Westminster made joy one of the two chief ends of life. They made it equal to glorifying God. Hence joy is a huge expectation. The claim of the Westminster is that if you haven’t achieved a sense of joy you have failed in life, you didn’t reach the end for which you were made. That’s not a minor blunder or an oversight.

After more than a few attempts to cajole my children into happiness and the ever painful attempt to placate a gathering of family members into a fun time, let alone the vain attempt to keep a church or a staff or a group all jolly like I haven’t given up. I have just changed the way I look at it. I’ve come to believe that joy must be a persistent expectation, even an assumption, but never a prediction, never something I believe I can create.

Joy is something to abide in when it arrives, not something to demand or provide or even promote. It may be easier if it was as simple and clear a direction as finding a donkey and a colt, but I am convinced it wouldn’t be the stuff of Palm Sunday.

The great character Pollyanna explained to any who would listen the Bible is filled with calls to rejoice, to be glad, to be filled with joy, to be happy and sing. Palm Sunday seems to be the embodiment of all these calls. It seems like it should be so easy. Joyfulness should be effortless. And maybe it is. Maybe being joyful is effortless as it is when we say to God let my heart be so, let me see and know the joyfulness of salvation.

Open your heart today to this prayer. Let me see and know the joyfulness of salvation. It is so easy to live without it or to demand it of others without any real hope of it materializing. What if joy is our chief end to which we must be brought? What if it is the direction we give to God? Amen.