Abram and Sarai
This summer I got the chance for a third time to hike up Silver Peak in Killarney Provincial Park. It is one of the most iconic and epic hikes in Ontario. Silver Peak is the high point of the La Cloche Mountain Range, that ancient range filled with its unique and stunning mix of pink granite and white quartzite that covers Killarney. The only way to access Silver Peak is either as a side trail to the 5-7 day La Cloche Silhouette backpacking trail, a trip I have pondered but never been brave enough to do, or to canoe by water to one of a few access points to the trail system. Our group of 4 came via canoe from our interior wilderness campsite on David Lake.
This is no easy hike. (https://wildnerdy.wordpress.com/2021/08/03/killarney-provincial-park-silver-peak-hiking-guide/) We were gone from our campsite for at least 7 hours – the bulk of the day. We brought snacks and lots of water, and still ran out of water for our parched lips by the last stretch. It is a long hike. From where we started, you begin by climbing up and down and across a long ridge. Then you descend into a valley, cross a creek, and head up through a forest, before beginning the really tough ¾ hour sharp incline to the open peak, a climb of 543 meters or 1781 feet – where you suddenly have a 360 view for miles around you– from Sudbury to Georgian Bay to the French River System. The destination makes it all worthwhile. The views are spectacular. It’s like a promised land. But you are also exhausted!
But back to the hike and the trail. Some of it is in clearly marked forest with little red or blue markers so you still know you are on the right path. But much of it, especially along the ridges, is wide open rock. No obvious trail is left by the people who have walked there before. And the route is not necessarily just straight – there is lots of up and down along this ridge, even as you go roughly in one direction. So how do you know where to go? Well, someone, sometime, has taken the time and effort to build a bunch of stone cairns, stone altars, to guide the way. You look ahead to find an altar, and then can usually see the next one in the distance to set the direction and keep giving you your bearings. These altars keep appearing along the open rock, until you are back in the forest. They were a God send. I tried to imagine the people who built these. That is a lot of rock and weight to have dragged and carried to just the right position, and then to build so it could withstand the wind and rain. Did they ponder the meaning of what they were doing, or how helpful these would be years later? Did they say a little prayer as they stacked the rocks, or acknowledge that they were a small part of something much bigger than themselves? These cairns, these altars, were not intended as religious objects at all, but they felt holy and sacred to me. They guided our way. … So, we followed the cairns and the paths and managed to make our way along the ridge and then up the steep climb to the peak, and back down again.
It is funny how a path that you just walked in one direction, can look and feel very different going back the other direction. We were back down in the valley and up again to the long open ridge and forests, and maybe it was because we were so tired, or too confident in ourselves, or not paying attention anymore, but after getting to the end of a long open rock space, we realized that there was no forest path in front of us, and we were actually lost – either above or below the actual path. Rather than turn back and try to retrace our steps, we forged ahead in the general direction, and probably got further and further away from the correct route. We finally came to another open ridge – and there in front of us were some mini-cairns, min-altars – like the one on the table in front of me. This was not the path, but it did mark a way forward. Others had gone here before us, and perhaps been lost there too. These little mini-altars started to guide us and slowly wind us up we found out, closer to the where we should have been – and after a bit of bushwhacking at one point, we finally came across the true path again, and soon were done the hike and back canoeing to our campsite. (Take down the last photo)
Abram and Sarai must have been pretty good at hiking too, and travelling and guiding their crew and their caravan along unknown paths. I showed Rachel a photo of the 4 of us on Silver Peak, and she said it just looked like a bunch of old men, and as we hiked we were starting to feel our age! Well, Abram and Sarai were much older yet, Abram 75 years old, when they received this direct call from God, from Yahweh, to ‘go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’ (v.12) Can you imagine what that call must have sounded like to a pretty well established family system, and to a couple of their age? They had actually moved once already – with their father Teran from Ur of the Chaldeans – part of ancient Mesopotamia, and they had landed north in Haran, near the mouth of the Euphrates River. They had left behind a son and brother who had died young – ironically also named Haran, father of Lot – What grief was being held, and what family dynamics? They had established themselves again. But now Abram and Sarai are invited, called, with responsibility for nephew Lot, to leave the comfort and security, and the familiarity of their family clan, their home, and simply go, but with no clue where they are headed. As the Shine Curriculum notes say – ‘God’s call brings discontinuity… to live alone in a harsh, potentially hostile world.’ They are invited to live by promise. There is promise of a great nation, descendants for this childless older couple, and many blessings, but blessings that are not just for them, but so that ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ I love the wide inclusiveness here, something the story and the Bible keeps struggling with as they deal with what’s called a chosen people. Are they chosen just for their own benefit, or to be a blessing to all?
In my reading of this text this time, and the chapters around it, I followed more closely the actual geographical journey they took. They moved from Haran further South into the main parts of Canaan – first to Shechem and then to the hill country east of Bethel and then journeying by stages, by lots of small stops, towards the Negeb – the dessert in the South. But then you read a whole story of going down to Egypt – and this fear that causes Abram to pretend Sarai is his sister. And then back to the Negeb and then a scene back at Bethel where Lot is allowed to pick the fertile lands East to the plains of Jordan and Abram and Sarai West to the oaks of Mamre at Hebron, the poorer land. They did not sit still. I wonder how often they ran out of water! One source counted that Abram visited 17 locations – some of them several times! This was not a straight journey. There was no map. They never knew the destination. They double backed on themselves several times, and never really had a permanent home. You could say that they wandered, and it was a wandering that lasted with them and with their descendants for centuries – the so called Promised Land always just out of reach.
In the midst of this wandering, the one thing they do do, is built altars, cairns, stacks of rocks. In the verses we heard, they built an altar at Shechem – where the Lord had appeared to them, and another one at Bethel – invoking the name of the Lord – and then more in chapters to follow. And they and their descendants keep building altars all over the place – Isaac at Beersheba, Jacob at Shechem and then again at Bethel after fleeing from brother Esau, Moses, saying ‘The Lord is my banner,’ the 12 stones built into an altar after finally crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land – what do these stones mean? There is also the altar or ‘Stone of help’ of Samuel, yes after the defeat of enemies, that was named Ebenezer. This is the Ebenezer referred to in the hymn near the beginning of the service – ‘Here I raise my Ebenezer, my pile of stones, hither by thy help I’m come.’ As one commentator said, ‘they honour God for helping them through a tough time.’
In building an altar, you are claiming that God was somehow present and alive to you, in that moment and in the place of uncertainty. You are claiming that God is real and tangible. You are reminding yourself that you may not know the direction, but you can count on God for guidance, and that God will always go with you, even if you are lost. You are declaring that even if I am ‘prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love,’ – that one’s heart can be taken and sealed again and again by God. Like the art work we saw with Abram and Sarai, there is this pondering, this looking back and looking forward.
I wonder if these altars acted a little bit like the ones in Killarney. Someone stopped to pay attention to where they were and to build a marker claiming that this is indeed the right place, the right direction. If you get here, you can probably move ahead and get to the next marker. And yes, you might end up re-tracing your steps and ending up back here again, or you may get lost and have to slowly find your way back. But that is okay. God is with you. Sometimes all you’ve got is some trail markers to guide your way. And just maybe, you will have epiphany moments, when it feels like you reached the top of the mountain, and you can see for miles, before returning back to the valleys of your life. At our first very satisfying pastoral team meeting on Tuesday with Don Penner joining Janet and I, as we searched into this story together, Don made the comment that ‘we start to build a track record of God’s faithfulness.’ These stones, these altars, point us to the track record of God walking with us and showing us the way.
On Wednesday evening we had our first meeting of this new church year with your Leadership Council, and then on Thursday with Sunday Morning Ministry. I was impressed again with the wisdom and dedication of all these volunteers. Within Sunday Morning Ministry, we dreamed ahead to the worship life of this congregation in the coming year and opened our hearts to where the Spirit may lead us, what Scriptures and Themes do we need to hear, who we can all involve in participation, and what might guide our worship. At the Leadership Council meeting, we reviewed some of our regular agenda, but then we simply had an open-ended time of conversation – where are we going as a congregation?
We were reminded of the sticky note exercise in the Spring and the hopes and dreams expressed there – to be inter-generational, to be present in our community, to deepen our spiritual walk with God. We commented on the feeling that about then the congregation ‘woke up’, even as we struggled with what to do about our pastoral FTE and hiring, and we have become so engaged in our life together following the pandemic. We expressed appreciation for the new members who have joined us and brought such neat gifts and energy. We gave thanks for that almost spontaneous community welcoming idea of Thursday ball hockey, and wondered what other community ventures might follow this. And we wondered, not with anxiety or a pressured timeline, but with open hands, about how God might call us like God called Abram and Sarai. As a congregation, what new things might be born in us in our old age and brings us to places we would never have imagined? Maybe more than anything, we had a posture of trust – trusting the Spirit, trusting the guidance that will come – we do have a track record of God’s faithfulness with us. We do have our altars of faithfulness. God will continue to be with us
This Fall we are going to follow the stories, the adventures, the misguided steps and the altars of the characters and families in Genesis and Exodus. They are a mixed up group, with so much family dysfunction, and problems and often lack of faith. We see their full humanity. They are not that different from you and I. And yet, there are these moments of clarity, these times when they realize their calling, and when they trust in the promises of God, and they become a blessings that can then bless all the families of the earth. And in doing so, we join their journey. We look to and build our own altars. We join them with an open spirit that trusts the track record of God’s faithfulness for God’s people. Amen.