Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Genesis 32:22-32
June 30, 2002
Let’s start with a short list. The third dumbest thing I ever did in my life was to park my car on the rim of an Upper Peninsula dump near the town of Paradise on a Monday night in 1968, so that I could watch scrawny bears come out at dusk, paw through a mountain of trash bags and forage for garbage. The second dumbest thing I ever did in my life was to go back to the same rim, of the same dump, to watch the same bears paw through the same garbage on Tuesday night in Paradise. And the first dumbest thing I ever did was to go through the same drill, with the same bears, on Wednesday night in Paradise. Which only proves that Paradise isn’t. Or that “yours truly” is easily entertainable. Although I was far from alone on that rim, given that my then-very-young wife was beside me, and 20 or 30 cars (which, by Wednesday, had become quite familiar) were parked around me. For once the sun slid over the yardarm in Paradise, the bears and the garbage were the only game in town.
Truth be told, I know next to nothing about bears. I hear that there are some in Chicago….little ones at Wrigley Field….monster ones at Soldier Field. And I know that bears tend to group themselves under common family names like Brown, Black, Polar, Kodiak and Grizzly. I hear that some are more dangerous than others….although we non-north-woodsy types had all fear domesticated out of us as children by the likes of Teddy Bear, Yogi Bear and (especially) Pooh Bear, whose adventures with everything from honey pots to Heffalumps brought me great pleasure once and, whenever I stumble upon them, bring me great pleasure still. And while you are pondering your own youthful associations with bears, I would have you consider this. It comes from an author named Lawrence Kushner, lifted from a book entitled Invisible Lines of Connection.
The first time my wife Karen and I were up in the mountains of Montana, we were awed and even a little frightened by the scale and power of the wilderness. Whether buildings or bridges or even hiking trails, the creations of human beings seemed by comparison precariously inadequate, hopelessly finite, fragile. Back East, nature must be preserved and revered. High in the Rockies, it was the opposite. Here we had to be wary of nature lest, in a blind moment, she consume us all. Everywhere, signs warned of bears. They can run, swim, and climb faster than any human being. And they have been known to attack without provocation. Stories circulated about an unwary hiker just a few months ago who…
Karen and I drove up to the end of the road at Two Medicine Lake, where there is a log cabin, general store and a little boat which can ferry you to the trailhead on the far shore. Inside, watching hummingbirds dart to and fro around a feeder, having a cup of coffee, I met Charlie Slocum, a retired biology teacher from Minnesota, who spends his summers working for the National Park Service. In the pristine Eden air, I understood why he had returned now for a score of summers. But I was also more than casually concerned about being eaten by a grizzly.
“Get many bears up here, do you?” I asked.
“Sometimes we get quite a few.”
“How about on that easy trail around the lake over there? Any chance of running into any this morning—so near the store…?”
He paused long enough to hear the question behind the question and took a slow sip of his coffee. “If I could tell you for sure there wouldn’t be any bears, it wouldn’t be a wilderness, now, would it?”
I thanked him for his candor and we went on our hike. Maybe that is all it ever comes down to: You can walk where things are predictable—or you can enter the wilderness. Without the wilderness, there can be neither reverence nor revelation.
All things considered, it is Carl Price who should be preaching this sermon. I am the city boy. Carl is the country boy. It is Carl who knows trails. And it is Carl who knows grizzlies. And if you are numbered among the seventy who are hiking in Glacier National Park later this summer with Carl, this is not a sermon meant to deter you. Yes, there are bears there. But Carl will tell you how to avoid ‘em and outsmart ‘em….everything but outrun ‘em (which Carl knew was impossible, even when he had good knees).
But both Carl and I know that there is more to the wilderness than Montana. And both Carl and I know that bears come in multiple sizes and disguises, to the degree that meeting one is nigh unto unavoidable.
Let’s start with the wilderness. It’s everywhere. One finds it in every region and in every religion. I know of no religion without one or more wilderness stories. They are universal. People wander in the wilderness. Others are tried, tested, even tempted in the wilderness. Still others are banished to the wilderness….or (having entered it) are given up for lost in the wilderness.
Fairy tales, too, are full of wilderness. In fairy tales, the wilderness is sometimes called “the woods”….other times, “the forest.” Such places are “enchanted” for some, “foreboding” for others. It depends on how you arrive there the first time you go there. Do you approach the wilderness merrily or warily? Does your fairy godmother guide you through it, or does your wicked stepmother abandon you in it?
I find it interesting….although not surprising….that Larry and Karen Kushner were not deterred from their hike by anything Charlie Slocum told them about grizzlies. As they wrote: “Maybe that is all it ever comes down to.” You can walk where things are predictable. Or you can enter the wilderness. But without the wilderness, there can be neither reverence or revelation.
Which is an interesting suggestion. For Kushner is suggesting that there are “good things” to be gained by going where the bears go. Certainly, there are Indian tribes who equate a fortnight in the wilderness with a young man’s ticket price to adulthood. He goes into the wilderness a boy. He comes out of the wilderness a man.
Today, girls make similar journeys. This nation (anyway) does not lack for Outward Bound type programs. There are many who believe that all of us could benefit from them, even as severely-troubled teenagers often find their last-best-chance of salvation wrapped up in them. To be sure, there are risks attendant to such ventures (as those kids from Cranbrook discovered a few years back). But I don’t see any lessening of their appeal. Which means that there must be benefits there….even blessings. Did I say “blessings”? Well, yes, I did. But for the moment, hold the thought, trusting that I’ll eventually circle back to it.
If I have any quarrel with Larry Kushner, it’s with his notion that you can choose to walk where things are predictable. You can’t. That’s because the wilderness is a creeping thing which has its way of finding you. Meaning that you can meet a bear almost anywhere.
Which brings me to a lady named Nurya Love Parish who met one in church….and she’s a preacher. I don’t know where she preaches regularly. But on a number of occasions, she has filled the pulpit of a large independent congregation in Grand Rapids which has spent three of its last four years without a senior minister.
The first time she preached there, she met the man who subsequently became her husband. That meeting took place in the hand-shaking, coffee-sipping, small-talking moments after the service. The second time she preached there, the queasiness she felt in her middle parts (she later learned) had less to do with anxiety than pregnancy. And following the third time she preached there, she learned that her husband’s 104 degree fever was not, as she thought, a precursor of the flu, so much as an announcement of lymphoma.
Three visits. Three sermons. Three surprises. Two good ones. One not so good one. Funny that she should equate church with wilderness. Funnier still that she should equate cancer with a bear. Which it is, of course. A real bear, I mean. Not the woodsy one. But a formidable one. Which only goes to prove that if you go walking long enough, you’ll meet a bear or two….maybe even four or more. So how, pray tell, will you live in their presence?
Hold that thought, too, for just a minute. Let’s jump to Jacob. Jacob of Genesis fame. Son of Isaac. Father of Joseph. Brother of Esau….whom, as you will remember, he screwed over royally. And pretty much got away with it. Sure, he had to vacate the country for a few years. But like the cream in the milk bottles I drank from as a child, Jacob floated back to the top. He had a beautiful wife. Multiple kids. Lots of servants. Lots of money.
Now, twenty years later, Jacob is coming home. His plan is to make peace with Esau. The final night of his journey, he camps (alone) along the river. Where something….someone….shows up and tackles him. Clean out of the blue. The fight goes on all night. First the stranger winning…. then Jacob winning….then the stranger winning. But as daybreak threatens to illuminate the arena, the stranger realizes that the tide is turning (slowly, but inevitably) back toward Jacob. So the stranger gives Jacob a low blow, throwing Jacob’s hip out of joint (permanently). Then the stranger….the nocturnal adversary….makes like he is going to leave.
Which is where the story gets a little bit weird. For, if I were Jacob, “leaving” is exactly what I’d want the stranger to do. “Yes, by all means, go. Get out of here. Sooner rather than late. You’ve ambushed me. You’ve battled me. Now you’ve crippled me. Be gone.”
Amazingly, Jacob doesn’t say that. Instead, while holding his adversary in a vice-like grip, he says: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
So who is Jacob fighting….in the wilderness….at night….all night….through the night?
God? Maybe.
An angel of God? Maybe.
His own guilt? Maybe.
All three? Maybe.
We’re never gonna know. And it matters relatively little if we ever know. All we need to know is that Jacob’s foe is an adversary with the power to cripple. And if you have never met one of those in your life thus far….an adversary with the power to cripple, I mean….you are darned lucky. Because there are bears in the wilderness. And because the wilderness creeps, so as to become unavoidable.
Well, what about the blessing, you ask. I told you I’d return to it. Notice, dear friends, that (in this beloved Bible story) the blessing does not precede the attack (“Hi ho, hi ho, how blessedly I go”). Nor does the blessing prevent the attack. No, the blessing is sought (and received) in the attack….from the attacker. It is as if Jacob is saying:
Can I….even from this….even in the midst of this….this, which I did not want, did not seek, and did everything I could possibly do to avoid….can I experience something….receive something….learn something….that will deepen my reverence for life and reveal something of God that I had not seen before, and would have missed, had this not happened?
It’s not totally unlike the little boy who, when confronted with a roomful of manure on Christmas morning, choked back his tears and began searching for the pony that he knew had to be in there somewhere.
I don’t pretend that this is easy. For, like you, I am not in the habit of seeking blessings after all-night fights. And, if the Jacob story is correct, such blessings don’t necessarily pop out at you (or fall like manna from heaven on top of you). Sometimes you have to hold on for dear life and scream: “Give me something….show me something….teach me something….that I can get in no other way.”
Go back to cancer, which hits many in the night. For even if you receive the diagnosis at high noon, the word (itself) tends to turn everything dark.
Sometimes I compare cancer to a stranger with a suitcase who walks up your steps….strolls across your porch….and rings your doorbell. But when you open the door, he says nary a word. Instead, he walks past you and starts climbing the stairs to your second story. Following him, you protest…. wanting to know who he is….wondering what he thinks he is doing. Tersely, he answers that he is moving into your front bedroom. You tell him that your front bedroom is not available for occupancy. You tell him that you have not advertised bedrooms for boarders. You tell him that you aren’t looking for someone to move in….don’t want someone to move in….and have neither time nor space for someone to move in. You even tell him you can’t understand how someone would just ignore your wishes and barge in anyway. But, all the while, the stranger is unpacking his suitcase….moving your stuff….making room for his stuff….socks and underwear in the dresser drawers….slacks and shirts in the closet.
Unable, at least at that moment, to evict him, you have to decide two things.
1. How are you going to live with your front bedroom occupied?
2. Is there anything that this experience can add to your life?
Some people wrestle with those questions. Other people run from those questions. The difference between the wrestlers and the runners is the difference between those who are living with cancer and those who are dying from cancer.
After hearing this sermon, I figure that 70 of you will pick up the phone tomorrow morning and call Carl Price….if, for no other reason than to ask:
Carl, pardon my bothering you in the middle of a busy summer. But, as concerns this place you are taking us, are there (perchance) any bears there?
Which is an acceptable question, deserving of an honest answer. But let it be followed by a second question (one that goes something like this):
Carl, as concerns this place you are taking us this summer, is there (perchance) any beauty there?
Bears? Beauty?
Bears? Beauty?
Bears? Beauty?
Funny, isn’t it, that life doesn’t offer “beauty or the beast.” No, the second word in that popular phrase is not “or.” The second word is “and.”
Note: Obviously, I owe a debt of gratitude to both Lawrence Kushner and Nurya Love Parish for their contributions to this sermon. For those not closely acquainted with First Church, Birmingham, Dr. Carl Price is a retired associate pastor who regularly leads hiking trips in wilderness venues across America. This year’s trip will include 70 members of First Church and will take place at Glacier National Park in Montana.
