Some things will never change. That's just the way it is. But don't you believe them!

The title today is a lyric from the classic Bruce Hornsby song The Way It Is and clicking the title will take you to his website.

This is the opening of a sermon I gave a while ago. I reworked it for the post and took out about seven pages of less powerful writing. There is a larger less churchy point to be made with this analogy, but I thought it was a good follow up to my Pat Robertson gripe session. Hope you guys dig it.

A familiar scene in my childhood, Wile E. Coyote unrolls a scrolled blueprint for his latest ACME product, a bulging box of things to assemble into the perfect weapon. Soon we see him construct a wall made of explosives arranged like brick with a tunnel painted on it. Above the wall on a teetering cliff edge sits a massive boulder. The idea is that his nemesis the tricky Road Runner will ‘meep-meep’ his way naively into the trap and burst into charred ash of a once elusive prey, lay in the smoking ash long enough for the Coyote to push the boulder down the lip of the cliff, and be smashed once and for all. For extra measure Wile E. has a rocket strapped to his own back with a long hanging wick, and a single match to light it with. The stage is set for what he is certain is the last time he’ll have to deal with that pest of a bird.

The desert rings forth with a simple joyous utterance, ‘meep-meep’, the sound barrier breaks into a gentle jet engine purr, and a cloud comes rolling in a straight line through the desert canyon.

From his perch on the cliff above the road the Coyote smiles as the Road Runner comes flying toward the wall of rigged explosive and mirage asphalt. The Road Runner, cool smile, head down, eyes focused, speeds toward the barrier and waiting boulder. ‘Meep-meep’, yards from the wall, feet from the wall, inches, and suddenly, the Roadrunner doesn’t hit the wall at all; no crash, no splat. To the Coyote’s dismay the bird keeps right on running on the path painted on the wall by his would be assassin.

So what does the Coyote do? As the Roadrunner speeds out of sight in the wall, he runs toward the wall to follow, the rocket on his back, he lights the match, then the fuse and speeds ahead to catch the bird. And just seconds before he follows the path it occurs to him that he is speeding toward a solid wall of wired explosives. The path is fake. All attempts to blow the fuse out are in vain and with a painful look on his face the Coyote smashes into the wall, his teeth are knocked out, his ears mangled, his eyes swirling but he is okay, but just then a thud can be heard and slowly a giant boulder comes toward the now crippled Coyote. His efforts to run also fail, and in a large cloud of dust and crunches and cries for help, as he holds up a sign that reads “Who Knew?” the Coyote is buried under a heap of his own creation. All he can do is wave a ragged arm and a white flag from beneath the rubble.

This I offer to you as the two fates of the modern Christian. We will either be buried in our own crumbling structures or we will find a path onward where once we thought none existed. We will either race on into an unknown path with a clear vision or we will be buried beneath a toppling set of schemes and shortsighted visions. The Coyote is diligent, and a modern world would tell you that technology is the answer, the more gadgets and gimmicks we can utilize the better, but this is not true. For the Coyote can’t see past the walls he himself has created. All the ACME toys in the world cannot help you see beyond yourself. The Roadrunner isn’t especially in tune to the Coyote’s ploys, his part in the story is quite simple. The Roadrunner has a clear vision, and puts to work his greatest talents to get him there, his speed and vision.

The Coyote fails because all he can see is the wall, and the Roadrunner succeeds because all he can see is the way.

So that we’re clear, let’s talk about the differences between walls and ways.

What does a wall do? It keeps things in or it keeps things out. A wall is meant to separate one space from another. Think of all the famous examples, The Great Wall of China or The Berlin Wall for instance. Walls are structures that divide, in from out, east from west, neighbor from neighbor. Walls are defined by space. A room extends just as far as it need to and then stands a wall. At the same time walls define space. Walls provide clear markers for what constitutes a border between things.

Sometimes these divisions are good. They provide shelter and warmth and safety inside.

But often we get so hung up on who is on what side of our walls, or what side we find ourselves on the walls we create in our hearts that we distance ourselves from people.

We suffer a loss, personal or spiritual, insignificant to the world or catastrophic, and we build a wall that the next person who wants to love us has to chip through to get to the real us. And so we build doors, passageways in that we allow only certain people to open. But this is not really sharing, this is screening. Jesus was a man of wide open spaces, not walls. How can you love your neighbor or your God with all you have if you’ve guarded it? Being a Christian, being a human means hurting and loving and hurting and loving and ultimately understanding that the love received is bountifully more powerful than the hurt endured. So we must live not seeing the walls, but seeing the way.

A way is a continual thing, a journey, something we are always traveling on, until we reach some desired goal.

A way is defined not by space, but time, the very moment determines the way. For what was a logical path 50 years ago is no longer logical. But also the way defines the time. Like disgruntlements nailed to a church door the way is constantly telling the moment what it is. And so we must be travelers on the way, not spectators at the wall. A way consists of stop after stop, that compound themselves. The past and the future both influence the present and the watchful eyes of the travelers learn form both experience and vision. If we see the way, we’ll not have to contend with walls, because they won’t matter.

See if I hit a wall my options are few, go through it or go around it, and if we live life seeing the walls it must seem like one sprint after another, like the Coyote, rockets blazing, faster, faster, faster, SPLAT-Wall-Recovery, start over. And I admire the people who can always relight their rocket, but I do not envy them. Can’t we learn from our mistakes? When we see life as a way, a continual journey, we take the past with us and we never stop looking at the future. It’s a marathon and so each stop is just that, a stop, not catastrophe, not a painful impact, just a tap on the brake, a ‘meep-meep’ perhaps and then back on our way. The mainline Protestant church pulled up to a wall and stopped sixty years ago. And how long ago did we stop honking our horn? Some of the people in the car got out, they left, they walked around the wall and kept going. But here we are parked in front of a wall. So what now?

We must be like the Roadrunner, we must use our talents to make it further on the way.

We must focus on where we are going, not what lies between us and our goals.

The Roadrunner is wise, he has but one talent, speed, and he uses that to it’s fullest. He is simplistic, he says, I want to go there, further down the road, and he goes. Beep-beep and he’s off. We must also find our talents and decide where we’re headed. This is a new world, I’m not saying its better, but it exists. The world I grew up in and many of you grew up in are night and day from each other. That can be a wall that separates us, or the very thing that brings us together to move forward. We have to be able to say to the world, this is where we’ve been, and this is where we’re going.

By the Red Sea, the Israelites must have felt like there present dilemma must be surely leading them to a future much like their past, or worse perhaps. Pharoah and his men were waiting to rush toward them and return them to slavery or kill them or who knows what. I imagine myself there looking at Moses like he was Sgt. Bilko. “Real good, Moses, we’re trapped between a wall of fire and a huge body of water. Thanks a lot!” But Moses did not see the walls, he saw the way, and with God as his focus, head down, staff high, he parted the sea, and the people found a way across. What will get our church across the sea we now stand before is the same kind of faith and talent. For starters, we must all see the way in which we can help. What can you do, what’s your miracle?

The church today must make the church of tomorrow reflect its membership, not its leadership. There are creative people in the church, and talented people, and conservative people, and liberal people, and old people, and young people, white, black, yellow, brown, red cheeked people, big people and little people, loud people and quiet people. But the world looking in can’t see this. We’ve put God in a cookie cutter and every version of Him is politically correct and socially lukewarm.

It is time we started to find a way foward, by looking around and realizing who we want to travel with and what part we're willing to play in getting there.