PROPER 8C – June 27, 2004

"No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God" -- so says Jesus at the end of today's Gospel reading. Sounds rather harsh, doesn't it? But it is also so very, very true, isn't it? Life is lived by moving ahead and not by looking back. I'm not a farmer, but common sense tells me that if I am out plowing a field, I had better keep my eyes straight ahead or else there is no telling what the field will look like after I've finished plowing. It's like trying to drive down the road while looking in the rear view mirror. It can be done, but at what price?

Yet we do that, don't we? We often look into the rear view mirror. But then it is either too late or not the same. By the time we catch sight of the police car in our rear view mirror, it's already too late. And, as Thomas Wolfe reminds us, we really cannot go home again. It's not the same any more. The first priest I served under right after seminary had been in that church for two years. He had succeeded an institution, the founding father almost of the parish. He longed for the parish he had recently left. A year later the bishop sent him back to his beloved flock. Two years later he asked to be moved. In the three years he had been gone, things changed, people changed. You can't go home again and you can't look back.

No, what really keeps us, or attempts to keep us from keeping our hands to the plow are not so much the distractions of the past but the distractions of the present. It is the exit off ramps of life that distract and tempt us. I love exit off ramps and I hate exit off ramps. When traveling from here to somewhere, those off ramps can be truly wonderful or they can be totally disruptive. McDonald's, Burger King and all the fast food chains; the motels and gas stations -- all have grown larger than life because of all the exit off ramps on our Interstate highways.

When traveling, we do need places to eat and to sleep, places to rest and relax, so we take an exit off ramp. But also off those off ramps are many other distractions that keep us from our appointed journey. The billboards along the highway call out to us to take the next exit and entice us with promises of experiencing life as we have never done so before. There are sights to see and deeds to be done that can only be seen and done by taking the exit off-ramp.

Last weekend I went back to my seminary for a high school reunion. When I went off to seminary in 1957, it was located twelve miles north of the center of Columbus, Ohio. We were in the middle of nowhere back then. Back then we walked to Dublin, which was a gas station. We walked five miles to Westerville, which was a tiny college community. There were no more than a dozen houses along the way. There was a golf course next to us and a golf driving range and small airplane landing strip across the highway, and nothing else. The seminary authorities liked it that way too. There were no distractions and no temptations, like no young ladies. There were none because we could see none. We students could keep our hands to the plow, which meant for them, studying, praying and recreating.

In 1957 the government was constructing Interstates 70 and 71 that now intersect Columbus. Then Interstate 470 was built to circle Columbus. Today my seminary is on an exit off-ramp of Interstate 470. The driving range and landing strip are filled with motels, restaurants, movie complexes and much more. There are now distractions galore for the seminarians -- even women on campus.

When there was no off ramp, back when there was no interstate system, the Josephinum was a place where love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control could flourish in abundance. There were no distractions. We seminarians could keep our hands to the plow and plow ahead towards ordination. It was after ordination that all the distractions became larger than life -- as I soon discovered.

Not so today as I said. That does not mean that instead of love, joy and peace, there is fornication, impurity, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels and the like that Paul enumerates in the Epistle. It simply means that the exit off ramp has now placed the seminary in a completely different atmosphere. The temptations were always there, of course. But now they are more obvious; and, of course the more obvious they are, the more enticing they seem. The authorities probably have a more difficult time keeping the seminarians hands to the plow these days.

The temptations will always be there, temptations to be distracted from the task at hand, whatever that task. Today's readings make that clear and evident. There is nothing wrong with kissing our parents good-bye before we head off on a journey or begin our adult life. There is nothing wrong with doing family duty, like burying the dead, before setting off. The point is that we must always remember what our primary task is as followers of Jesus Christ. And that is, as Paul reminds us, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, or, as we would say, fulfilling "Matthew 25…and all that jazz": using the gifts we have been given to love and serve everyone we meet wherever we meet them.

And the only way to do that, the only way to love our neighbor, the only way to love ourselves, is to keep our hand to the plow. My suspicion is that the reason why we don't love others enough and the reason why we don't love ourselves enough, is either that we keep looking in that rear view mirror or we take too many off ramps. Either we keep remembering the past sins that others have committed against us or that we ourselves have committed, or we get too distracted to do what we know we should be doing in the first place.

We cannot love when we live in the past, when we constantly are reminded of what others have done or we have done. We can only love when we put the past behind us and plow ahead. Yes, it is difficult to do at times because we are weighed down by the mistakes and sins of the past. Our past foolishness causes the road ahead to be more difficult to navigate. The past foolishness of others makes it difficult for us to love them. But plow on we must or we are doomed to live a life of remorse and regret.

While it is true that we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from the task at hand -- which, again, is to love our neighbor, especially our neighbor in need, there is something to be said for those exit off-ramps with all their distractions. Yes, the distractions are often calling us away from the neighbor, calling us to enjoy, enjoy and enjoy. And. Yes, those distractions are very strong and they are everywhere along the road. And, yes, those tempting exit off ramps seem to be at every bend in the road.

However, without those exit off-ramps in life, we might never discover much of what life is about. Those off-ramps are there not simply to distract us, not simply to delay us from our appointed rounds, but to help us grow as well. I lived for twelve years inside the walls of that seminary. I was educated well and learned much. But it was not until I took some exit off-ramps in life that I learned what the seminary could not teach. And I am still learning, often when I take an off-ramp and venture down an unknown road and see or encounter what I have never seen or encountered or experienced before.

Those exit off-ramps in life can be frightening. They can be distracting. They can be enjoyable. They can be true learning experiences. We must be wary of them but we must never be afraid of them. They are there to refresh us on our journey and to remind us that life is more than can be seen from the road we are travelling. And those off-ramps are there to help us, after we have taken them, to get back on the road wiser and more purposeful, keeping our hands to the plow and living out our faith even more fully.