We had taken off from Fort Wainwright army airfield near Fairbanks, Alaska on a beautiful fall day. It was probably late August since we got our first snow on Labor Day that year.
We were flying an AH1 Cobra. They were the hot rods of helicopters in those days, the P51 Mustangs of the helicopter world. In fact I had an old P51 pilot sit in the pilot seat at one time and state that this was the P51 cockpit – it even had the same rocket sight he used in WW2. That convinced us the rumors were true; Army Aviation got all the obsolete equipment the Air Force had thrown out.
We sat one behind the other, pilot in the back seat, co-pilot gunner in the front seat. And since it was designed to do what the army is supposed to do; hurt people and break things, it was a pretty no frills airplane.
I had scheduled this flight with another pilot to practice low level navigation; basically following a topographical map, referencing geographic features against the compass, flying less than 100 feet above the ground at a cruise speed of about 100 knots, so things go by pretty quickly. I plotted out a somewhat circuitous course that would take us north through the mountains to the Yukon River and back to Fairbanks.
We had not been long on the course when I began to realize something was wrong. We hit the first couple of checkpoints fine because there were some manmade points on the map that helped: the haul road, and the old siphon that carried water to the old gold fields.
But I soon realized that my compass course did not match what I had plotted on my map, to what was on the ground.
It was not long before I told the pilot to reverse course to the siphon, the last place I knew where we were, because I was lost. We got there and we climbed to some altitude to get a better perspective on exactly where we were and it became clear what the problem was.
Both our mag compass, which is not too accurate that far north anyway and our RMI, the gyro compass, were not working. There was a bunch of army terms that I probably used at the time to more accurately describe the equipment failure but suffice it to say in church language: they were broken.
I knew where I wanted to go. I knew how to get there but my references were off. The compasses were taking me in the wrong direction and I got off course.
Our spiritual life can be the same way. We can know where we want to go. We can know how to get there, but we can lose our way because our compass doesn’t work right. We have to pull up, get some altitude to see where we really are. We need to reorient our compass.
All our readings this morning talk about this spiritual situation, knowing where you want to go, knowing how to get there but being a bit off course.
Isaiah the prophet is speaking to the people newly returned from exile. God’s promise of restoration had begun, but it was far from complete. Things were unsettled; far from perfect. So he proclaimed to God’s people to check their moral behaviors, adjust their moral attitudes then check their compasses. “If you call the Sabbath worship a delight, if you honor it,” then God would bless them and lead them and build them up.
Paul in his letter to the Hebrews reminds the Jewish Christians to remember where they are spiritually to pay attention to the place, the kingdom, to which they are heading. As Mount Sinai had been the holy and terrifying experience that shaped the Israelites for the earthly Jerusalem and kingdom, so Jesus and his blood become the entry point into the new Jerusalem, a new kingdom, an eternal and unshakable kingdom. Therefore, he says, let us be thankful for what we have received, let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, check and reorient the compass.
And Jesus attempts to reorient the Pharisees who seem to have gotten lost as he questions Jesus for healing a woman on the Sabbath. On the very day of worship, when the Jewish community is reminded how God gave them life and freed them from bondage, Jesus frees a woman of an affliction, gives her new life, and they criticize him. They misread their compass; they were off course.
If the word of God is our map, if the Word lays our course and the checkpoints by which we know we are on course, if the Bible is the map that shows us the way, depicts how the course looks and ultimately points us to the goal, the kingdom of God and a life of holiness,
and if our goals, and purposes and priorities, are like our compass in life pointing to what we think is important and true, then Sabbath worship, true worship, is akin to a compass reorientation, reorienting our minds and hearts to God.
Worship, the Sabbath, established by God as his day commanded to his people as part of their covenant with him, is the authentication of their identity as God’s people. It is a spiritual compass check.
Anchored in God’s magnificent and munificent (generous, bountiful) works of creation and deliverance, it is the time and place-moment: God’s people remember who we are, and whose we are. Akin to Mount Sinai, and the temple, it is the intentional place of personal encounter with God in Christ Jesus.
For us the Sabbath worship is the moment to come intentionally into His presence. We choose to be here, to seek him personally where we can feel his intimate kiss of love on our souls, where we should feel his nudging us on our course, his redirection in our life.
Where the magnetic fields of the earth push and pull a compass needle to show north and south, so do the many distractions tend to pull our spiritual compass needle off center. So worship should point us true, toward God, and point where we are off.
The Sabbath encounter should remind us of who our God is and what he has done for us and in us.
It should be a moment both awe full and awesome. If we don’t feel both encouraged and convicted, both humbled and edified, feel both joy and sadness, maybe we haven’t been in that Sabbath-moment, haven’t worshipped, been in his presence.
If we haven’t felt our needle pulled toward the Lord and pushed away from other things, maybe we are not paying attention. Maybe we are getting lost. When, where we are in life are not consistent with what’s on the map; the bible, and our compass are still telling us to go on, maybe it’s time to pop up and look around. The maps never lie though compasses might.
Every Sunday we have the opportunity for Sabbath; to be in God’s presence, to have our compass checked. But there are also other opportunities to experience Sabbath moments, daily Eucharist, bible studies, accountability groups, prayer groups, other times we intentionally set aside to be in God’s presence, to check our compass.
Today is Rally Sunday. It is the day we officially start off Sunday school and myriad other opportunities for all of us, regardless of age, to have Sabbath encounters other than Sunday morning, opportunities to help us stay on course. I would encourage you to pick one offering this semester, and one next semester and see if it doesn’t make a difference in your spiritual journey.
A funeral director asked a young minister to do a graveside service for a dear man who had no family or friends. The funeral was to be in an old family cemetery adjacent to the old farmhouse way out in the country. Since the deceased was Scottish the funeral director arranged for a bagpiper to play at the service, if the minister would just pick him up.
On the day of the service the minister picks up the piper and they head off to the cemetery, with a map between them and neither having any sense of direction.
Two hours late they arrive at an old farmhouse, with a backhoe and pile of freshly turned earth with no hearse in sight, and the diggers sitting eating their lunch.
The minister went up to the open hole, where the concrete vault had evidently been sealed. He took out his bible, preached a compelling and sensitive sermon, and prayed a beautiful committal prayer which brought tears to everyone’s eyes, whence the piper commenced a series of beautiful airs culminating in Amazing Grace which had the minister and diggers sobbing loudly.
The service being over, the minister thanked the diggers for their participation in the moving service, to which one replied still wiping tears from his eyes: Oh sir, it was my privilege. I have been putting in septic tanks for 25 years and I have never experienced anything like this!
Knowing where we are going, even having a map is often not enough. Without the sense of direction, knowing in what direction we are traveling can lead us to surprising and undesired destinations. At the end of our lives we all want to be at the right place. Are we taking the time to ensure we are going in the right direction? That our compasses are pointing true?