Thin Places

Pentecost 3, Proper 8

June 26, 2022

Fr. Tim Nunez

I was very blessed to spend the last week at Camp Wingmann, serving as chaplain as I have done every summer since 2004. I always find that week to be among the very best weeks that I have every year for one simple reason. There are a lot of pieces that point to that one simple reason: great worship time, joyful music, the delight of watching children enjoy their time together under the mantle of learning more about their faith including prayer, watching the staff function and grow in their capacity for leadership. And, there’s lots of comfort food!

All of those point to the one thing. It is this: Camp Wingmann is what the Celtics would refer to as a “thin place,” where the veil between heaven and earth is thin. We are blessed anytime we get to visit such places. The Church of the Good Shepherd is one of those places.

Just about everyone who comes to Camp Wingmann remarks on their sense of God‘s presence in that very special place, whether or not it is filled with kids and counselors and activity. Every time I go there, I think, why don’t I come down here more often? That’s especially true now that it’s so very close! But what are we looking for when we find that special place and we return to it?

Such special places invite us to set aside the demands and the stresses of our lives, all the swirling controversies, to put a pause on the ever present to do lists, to settle our minds and reconnect our spirit with our Lord, the Holy Spirit and Christ himself. We may do that, should do that, daily in our prayer and devotional time. But there’s a real gift in setting our hearts and minds on God and then experiencing the clarity that flows from that and the peace that follows with it.

Most often when I’ve read this passage about Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem, I’ve taken into account that it is the pivotal point in Luke’s Gospel. Everything moving forward from here is moving towards that final conflict of Holy Week, toward the cross and towards his ultimate victory over sin and death in the Resurrection. All of that is clearly present and ensuing chapters are largely filled with teaching and healings as he goes but we don’t know how long this piece of his journey took.

In another, deeper sense, Jesus’s journey to Jerusalem is an approach to that thinnest of places. There is no denying the centrality of Jerusalem as the thinnest of places for people seeking after God. We can see that prophecies laid out by Isaiah and Micah are true. They have come to pass, they are happening right now.

“In days to come the mountain of the Lord‘s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all nations shall stream to it. (Isaiah 2:2)

“In days to come the mountain of the Lord‘s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: ‘Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” (Micah 4:1-2)

The route Jesus took was not direct. He first went into Samaria, where they did not receive him. Recall from John’s account of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, that the Samaritans believed that worship should happen on their holy mountain, Mount Gerizim, not the Temple in Jerusalem. Then he will drop down into the Jordan River Valley, where travel is easier and aided by readily available water. He will work his way down to Jericho, one of the oldest cities in the world and also the lowest city in the world. And from there he will make what all Jews call the rise to Jerusalem.

It is always a rise to Jerusalem. From Jericho, it is a big rise of over 3000 feet over  little more than 20 miles. But it doesn’t matter from which angle they’re coming, it’s always the rise, and not because of its height.  Mount Moriah upon which the Temple Mount stands is high, but it is not even the highest point visible. But it is the place of the Temple, which is built on the spot where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac. Rising to Jerusalem is a spiritual ascent to engagement with God and his Word.

So what did we teach these children who came to our thin place to encounter God and his word? The theme verse for the week this summer is Ephesians 2:10, “for we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.”

That little verse holds a whole lot of weight for our faith. It affirms that we are created in God’s image and that out of his grace to us we are to perform good works, which he has prepared beforehand to be our way of life. So how do we explain to the children how that looks in real life? Or better yet, get them to acknowledge the truth of God’s word? Well, we can look at that list of Christian virtues that we had in Paul’s letter to the Galatians just now. We were teaching the kids all about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As you can imagine, when you’ve got 45 elementary kids running around, there’s a lot of talk about self-control!

But if we put that list opposite the works of the flesh, it’s easy to see how the fruit of the Spirit is not only opposite of those things, but provides the solution to them. That’s very clear, right? That’s exactly what we should be teaching our children, right? I don’t see any way to argue with that list no matter what you think or believe. It’s just true. It’s just good. It’s just right.

So it’s great for the kids, it must be right and true for us adults, too. How’s that working for you? It is so very clear to see it in print, it is so very clear to embrace it in prayer, especially in a thin place and especially with the support and encouragement of our faith community. Yet we find that we are continuously challenged by our circumstances and events, provoked into precisely the sorts of attitudes and behaviors that our Lord most clearly prohibits and we can see how bad they are!

This is why it is no good being two minded. When Elijah shared God’s call with Elisha, Elisha dropped everything, sacrificed his tools and livestock, and followed Elijah. When Jesus called his disciples, they left their boats and their nets and followed him. When Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem, he would not allow discomforts, opposition or any other distractions to get in the way of following his Father’s will.

So perhaps a good goal for this summer will be for each of us to find our “thin places” whether they be a special location, perhaps a destination, a pilgrimage of sorts, or in the quiet of our own home in a special time. Jesus told the Samaritan woman the time would come when we would worship neither at the Temple nor on the mountain, but in Spirit and Truth. However we do it, our hearts and minds should be set, always set, on rising to Jesus. The pilgrimage is helpful, but our destination is always him, and he is the means by which we are able to live the life he’s calling us to live.

AMEN