Global Positioning Systems
Psalm 16:11
John 20:30,31
Today is a Good day. It’s the second Sunday of Easter and so we continue the celebration that began last Sunday. Also this is a Sunday where we welcome new members into our congregation. For this reason I have prepared a brief sermon so that we will have time to hear and savour the stories that Billy and Alicia Good will share with us in a few minutes. Did I mention it is a “Good” day, today?
Billy and Alicia Good, as with all new members to our congregation, have been invited to share with us parts of their individual faith stories. And as they do so we will get a glimpse into the unique way that God has walked with them and guided them along the way.
As we listen to their stories we may find ourselves reflecting on our own journey toward God and how that journey also led us to become part of this congregation.
If we pause to think about it for a moment we might recall that during each of our spiritual journeys unique signposts have guided us along the way. Guideposts for your journey might have included important mentoring relationships, service experiences, childhood and/or youth group experiences within the church, retreat times, and educational experiences or formative occasions in your church or family of origin – for better or worse. All of these events/experiences are part of how we understand where we are or where we have found ourselves. They provide for us a kind of Global positioning system. As I thought about using The Global positioning system, or GPS as we have come to call it, as a metaphor this morning I had to find out a bit more about it. Apparently it makes its calculation of position or location by taking information from four satellites and the GPS receiver only works if it has an unobstructed view of the sky. With this metaphor in mind, I took a look at our scriptures for today.
And as I did, I was struck most by the last verse of both Psalm 16 and the last two verses of John 20. I’ve always wanted to preach about just one verse and today I think I’ve narrowed it down to three, so I guess my one verse sermon will have to wait for another time. This morning I will preach about these three verses. Let me refresh our memories.
Psalm 16:11 says, “You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
John 20:30,31 says, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
I want to note first what these two verses share in common. First, they are about life and a certain quality of life. In the Psalm –“You show me the path of life.” – one full of joy and pleasures And in John, “that through believing you may have life in his name.” – life lived in Jesus’ name. In each case their emphasis on life continues our Easter season theme and celebration. Second, in what way does our metaphor about the Global Positioning system enliven these texts? Do these texts and others like them help us to know our location?
In Psalm 16:11, it seems fairly obvious – “You show me the path of life.” Already I think our metaphor is breaking down a little bit. A Global positioning system shows us where on the path we are, but really doesn’t care a bit about what path we are on. We could be 200 km from where we want to be and the GPS system is just happy to pinpoint us there, unless of course we have told the GPS navigator ahead of time where we want to go. Then it seems happy to talk to us about our relationship to our destination. It might say things like “you are approaching your destination.” Or I love what happens when you make a wrong turn, overshoot your destination or change your mind about your route without telling the GPS navigator – then it says, “recalculating,” or something like that. Have you ever wondered if it gets annoyed when you do that?
Getting back to our texts –
Knowing where we are is one thing. Making some sense of where we are or finding meaning in the journey and knowing where we are headed – having a desired destination – these are entirely different things. These are things about which the inanimate nature of the GPS can’t help us.
This is why our scriptures are different. We don’t believe they are a disinterested inanimate object in our lives simply providing us with helpful information – and not caring where we are or where we are going. The scriptures can be inanimate or dead if you will, if we read them as the “letter of the law” and interpret them as such, but in general when we come to them believing that they are God breathed and inspired or in other words one way that God chooses to speak to us, then everything changes. John 20:30,31. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
This morning I’m choosing not to unpack all the things verses like this may trigger in you – like questions about belief and what exactly we believe and do we all believe exactly the same things. The point I wish to make about this verse this morning is that the Scriptures, the things that were written down for us have the potential to go way beyond Global positioning systems. Global positioning systems – locate us within life. The things written in this book have the potential to bring us to life – a Life that can be lived in Jesus name and can be filled with Joy and pleasures evermore.
Yesterday at the Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada Gathering we heard from several people what they heard the Spirit of God saying to the churches.
Each person provided us with an inspiring and deeply hope-filled word. (Videotapes of those addresses will be available to us in the future) One of the persons who was asked, “what do you think the Spirit is trying to say to the church?” was Ralph Lebold, however, Ralph is now too elderly and infirm to speak publicly, so David Martin Executive minister of MCEC and Lisa Carr Pries went to his home and recorded his response. One thing that he named as important for the church was to find ways to relearn the joy of studying the scriptures, maybe by committing parts of it to heart or to memory again. After the presentation by Ralph yesterday, an animated woman from the Jane Finch community here in Toronto got up and reiterated some of the things that Ralph had said and there was one thing that she said that really struck me – She said, “Study the Scriptures and God will reveal life to you.
Study the Scriptures and God will reveal life to you! May we take these words to heart. Way beyond what a Global positioning system can do, through this treasure, God will show us the path of life and these things are written that we may have life in Jesus name. Amen.