Lent 2: Lead Thou Me On...

Genesis 12:1-4a
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

The journey of faith begins always by taking a leap into the unknown. Undoubtedly it is a leap in faith, but a leap into the unknown nevertheless. Whether it is Abraham leaving his home among the Chaldeans and beginning a journey to a land promised him by an unknown God, or Moses who without any viable plan trusted his experience in front of burning bush, and goes back to Egypt to free those held in slavery; whether it is Ruth – for love of Naomi alone – going to live in a foreign land and among a foreign people, or Jesus himself who – as we heard last week – allowed himself to be “led by the Spirit into the wilderness to tempted by the devil”. (Matthew 4:1). For them – and for many others – the journey of faith was that stepping onto a not completely elucidated path, and doing so simply because they were beckoned by something beyond themselves. Their spiritual journey and temperament allowed them no other decision – better the leap into the invitations of an unknown God and unknown possibilities, than remain in safety and betray the journey altogether. This dilemma is at the heart of the conversion experience. Un-nuanced and simplistic language about conversion would have us believe that once we have “turned to the Lord”, as it were, we are scot free, we have arrived; but, that “turning to the Lord” is a process, and when taken seriously can have some scary consequences. The leap of faith can be far from a leap into the comfort of the everlasting arms. Rather, the leap of faith is always a leap into the unknown, a leap in the dark. As we are reminded in the letter to the Hebrews: “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10.31)

John Henry Newman is one of the finest religious and literary figures of the 19th century. In 1821, at the age of twenty, he graduated from Trinity College, Oxford. He was ordained deacon in 1824, and priest in 1825. By the mid 1830’s he and a close circle of friends had inaugurated what would later be called the Oxford movement, and which sought to re-discover the catholicity of the Church of England, and Anglicanism more generally. Almost all that we recognise as “church” today in the Episcopal Church is a direct result of the Oxford Movement. For us particularly at the Church of the Saviour, our buildings would not exist in their present forms were it not for the Oxford Movement. Newman was one of the greatest apologists for the Church of England being in all aspects part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and wrote extensively to defend that truth. However, by the start of the 1840’s Newman was entering a very personal and internal struggle as he began to doubt what he had up until then so eloquently defended. Finally, seeing no other way to be a Catholic Christian than by becoming a Roman Catholic, he did so in 1845. In his time as a Roman Catholic he founded a religious community and was eventually made a cardinal. He died in 1890. His beatification last year by the Benedict XVI was welcomed by both Anglicans and Roman Catholics, so revered is Newman by both denominations. His life was not an easy one, particularly on account of his faithfulness to the inner voice which consistently seemed to call him to make the leap into the unknown, into the dark. An Anglican before the Oxford Movement, he defended an unpopular understanding of Anglicanism as he and his friends sought to recall the Church of England to her spiritual and liturgical roots, and attempted to save her from being simply the religious arm of the state. Having won renown and no small notoriety in the Church of England, again he followed that inner voice into the Church of Rome, losing many of his friends in the Church of England. In 1833, before it all began, he wrote a poem entitled The Pillar of Cloud, which seems in retrospect to foreshadow his future. Most of us know it in the form of the hymn, Lead Kindly Light:

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home –
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene, – one step enough for me.

In the many junctures – conversions – of his life, Newman was all too aware that the only action of faith is to allow one’s self to be led into the darkness and to trust, no matter the fear or cost.

All this notwithstanding, we all want to walk with our eyes open into the light, rather than stumble helpless into the dark. But wanting does not make it so, and the great spiritual traditions, as well as the life and witness of holy people in our past and present teach us differently. Perhaps it is no accident that the writer of John’s Gospel has Nicodemus seek out Jesus by night. Nicodemus comes to Jesus seeking clarification, seeking light. He even begins his conversation by saying that he understands, or better yet, sees things clearly: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” (John 3:2b) Jesus on the other hand points him right back into the dark, challenges his nicely spoken clarity with an image of darkness, the darkness of the womb: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Jesus challenges Nicodemus by insinuating that it is not enough to know who Jesus is, but that one must make the leap for one’s self into the darkness, into the struggle of re-birth, and discover one’s own self, one’s re-newed self, in God. That is the journey of the great saints of the Church, and the journey each of the faithful are called to as well. It is the agony of Gethsemane and the way of the cross.

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10.31); nevertheless, we all want our coming to God – conversion – to be clear, conscious, manageable and controllable: “I loved to choose and see my path…I loved the garish day”. But nothing except the “pride that [rules our] will” would suggest the path leading to transformation can be discerned in the light. Ultimately, the life of the believer is a life of trust; and there is no trust in the “garish day”, because there is no need for it. The purposes of God seem to be formed in the dark – the darkness of Christmas night, the dark noon-day of Good Friday, the darkness of the tomb, the dark waters of baptism. There is light – undoubtedly there is light – but it is God’s light, not ours; and it is revealed to us only to the extent that we are willing to be led into the dark “o’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent”, only to the extent that we are willing to let go of our own sense of light, only to the extent that we are willing to say and live “Lead Thou me on”. Then, and only then, and perhaps not even in this world, will we find that “the night is gone; and with the morn those angel faces smile” with all who faced the darkness while trusting in the light.