When I left this area seven and a half years ago, I entered a whole, new world. As a liberal, northern suburbanite, I knew I would be learning many new things by residing in a conservative, southern rural community. But that is where God had called me to serve, and God has a wicked sense of humor.

By my arrival in 1997, my Florida community had seen the end of commercial citrus agriculture - the dominant business - thanks to a series of killing freezes in the 1980s. Citrus had been officially dead for barely ten years but the agricultural milieu remained. The community still sought the rhythm of the growing season, and life in some ways was unchanged. For a driven personality like mine, suited to bustling metropolitan ambitions, this was a big change. Things take time to grow and people take time to get things done. People were quite different.

There are dozens of stories I could tell; our post office knew we were going on vacation before we told them; if you call a wrong number, the party can often tell you the right number (I've helped folks like that a few times myself); the smallness where most everybody knows most everybody else or someone who does know them; where being pastor at the church on the hill means you're a local celebrity; and people know more about you than you think is possible, like what you were doing just an hour ago, even though you don't know them at all. And all the things that I've seen in my wooded backyard - not just possum, rabbits and squirrels, or hawks, vultures, osprey and eagles, but goats, horses, ATVs and best of all, the pigs.

One morning, I heard my dog barking ferociously out the 14 foot long glass sliding doors that open to the backyard. I looked out and saw two pigs. I couldn't believe it. Pigs! Pot-belly pigs. What do I know about pigs? I thought I'd just walk away. Then I walked back, and they were still there. I had no idea what to do. The dog seemed to know more than I did at this point, so I leashed him up and went out to confront the pigs. I let him get within inches of the big pig, snapping, growling, and barking. I expected the pig to run in fear like any normal animal. Instead, the pig turned his head, just scowled at my dog and then resumed his digging and eating acorns from under the oak tree.

There are loads of characters, rich men in worn out, old pick-ups, shady realtors, trailer trash, lakeshore millionaires, and the generally unmotivated. My mechanic, for instance, is a nice guy who really doesn't want to work. "Jerry, I think I may need new brakes. Could you take a look?" "Weeelll, what's the matter?" "They're making a lot of noise, Jerry." "Well Bruce, I don't know. Is it really that bad?" "Jerry, if I turn up the radio and turn off my hearing aid, then I don't hear anything." His face brightened at the thought but then realized I was kidding. "Well, I don't know. I guess I could take a look." He's saying this while sitting on a chair in an empty garage. The good thing about Jerry is that the job is done quickly because he doesn't want to be concerned with work waiting to be done.

The folks in the family compound behind my house have two small houses and an old mobile home with a few odd additions extending it, like what we saw in Maine on that youth mission trip. They moved another old mobile home on a trailer onto a vacant lot next to granny's house. I figured some member of the family was going to be moving in. It sits there for a month or two. Then there's a flurry of activity, lots of banging and tearing as some of its insides get dumped in a pile outside the trailer. It sits for another month or two. Then suddenly there's more activity and stuff coming out. Another couple of months pass, then there's more tearing up and banging around, but they also move enough furniture to fill a house - but outside the trailer, spreading it across the yard with a few plastic sheets thrown here and there as covers. By now it's summer with almost daily downpours. The stuff is wrecked in no time. A few months later, more banging and tearing inside the trailer. Then all the stuff outside mysteriously vanishes. A few weeks later, there's more banging and tearing. I see that even the walls of the trailer are now gone and only the flatbed is left. And the flatbed is gone a few days later. Over a year this mobile home came, was gutted, destroyed and vanished. Now, just what on earth was that all about?

In this strange and fascinating land I've come to thoroughly enjoy, I crossed the border from 41 years of one reality into something totally different. Only God could have made it happen and then made it work.

We find a border crossing in the reading from Acts when Paul and his crew find they're kept from an intended mission to the province of Asia on the northwest coast of Turkey. Paul receives a vision to cross into a new mission field, to cross the Aegean into Macedonia. Paul follows this calling and comes to Philippi. In search of a synagogue by the river, his group encounters a cluster of women on the beach. One woman, Lydia, is identified as a worshiper of God, not a Jew necessarily and quite possibly a Gentile. Paul uses this opportunity to share the good news of Jesus Christ with her. She accepts faith in the Lord and, together with her household, gets baptized. As a merchant in purple cloth - garments of the wealthy and powerful - and having a household, and being able to offer hospitality to Paul's group, Lydia is a woman who has some wealth - a great foundation to establishing a ministry.

Several borders end up being crossed, not only the geographic one that brings the gospel onto the European continent. His synagogue search brings Paul to women, leaders in the local Jewish community. Women don't even count in forming a minyan or "quorum" for a worship service. It doesn't sound like Paul ever made it to the synagogue, finding these women instead. They become his first converts, not men, not likely even Jews. Among the women is one who becomes a significant benefactor for the rest of his mission.

Paul's faithfulness to God in crossing the borders of his intended direction, the boundaries that he had imagined for his ministry, resulted in great reward and surprising success. But didn't Paul have doubts? Wouldn't we have doubts about crossing well-established, understood borders for what we would do and experience? If you didn't, I'd think there was something wrong with you. Doubts aren't the defining energy and don't decide the direction. The strong faith and spirit of the believer who has experienced the power of God and the transforming power of new life in the risen Christ has this reservoir of trust and empowerment to overcome doubts and move boldly in faithfulness. Christian disciples today will still follow the adventurous pathways that the Spirit opens for faithful servants like Paul. God always has more for us who will cross those borders and discover his promise for us in new ways, new directions, and with new lives.

This confronts our common patterns, challenges our hectic routines, and counters our well-defined lifestyles. In considering what we do and why we do it, we may discover that much of it is not terribly important, and much of it we really don't want to do, and much of it doesn't accomplish much. But we keep doing it because what drives us has the appearance of necessity. Actually we chose to do many of these things. We wouldn't say no to our kids. We want to please someone in our family. We think our boss will notice that we're worthy, or more worthy. We want to succeed, without ever asking what success is, what it actually accomplishes and for whom. What we may find is that we've set up some haphazard definitions of what we do in our lives. That's how we form boundaries, confining our reality, our experience and our lives.

Consider where that left the man by the pool at Bethesda in the reading from John's gospel. It seems the pool at Bethesda was believed to have healing powers when the waters stirred, likely from an underground spring. There are people with all kinds of ailments gathered about, a rather depressing scene. One man, lame for 38 years, was lying on his mat when Jesus came and asked him how long he'd had his condition. Learning the long time involved, Jesus asks, "Do you want to get well?" The question implies that the man seems content with his condition and the fleeting hope offered by the healing pool. Indeed, the man whimpers that others with less disabling conditions get into the waters ahead of him every time, and he has no one to help him move more quickly. Overall, this guy is rather pathetic.

Jesus has compassion on him, as evidenced by his actions. But the original point of the story likely portrayed the futility of this man's vain efforts to find his life's healing in the gurgle of water from a spring. His life's efforts have been reduced to waiting for the pool to stir to life and then, quick as he can, drag himself to the edge, and then down the steps before the water stops. It's like a cruel game he's forced to play, despair amid his only hope, trapped by his life's condition. Or so it seems.

Jesus comes to reveal the hope of God to his people. Jesus comes to challenge the invalid's assumptions, "Do you want to get well?" ' 'Cause if you do, this is not going to do it for you, pal.' Jesus wants to show him new territory, a new path, a new way to realize his promise of life. The man does nothing to warrant this blessing, and Jesus has no verbal point to make - he lets the healing speak for itself.

Jesus challenges us in the same way, "Do you want the promise of your life to be fulfilled?" If you think the way you're headed now is doing it, think again, pal. Cross the border of your commonplace and step into the faith life that you've heard about, studied, and wondered about. There's a whole new world outside our treadmills of existence, the futile paths we trod with such tedious familiarity. There's a better way if we'll cross those borders we've set ourselves in.

And indeed Jesus is speaking to this church, too. For over fifty years, certain paths have become well-worn, and perhaps worn out. Can the Spirit of the living Christ still bring passion and power to his people? Can the body of Christ find new things on its horizon that cause us to cross our borders? Of course. We simply need to find the edge where God is calling, where the Spirit is leading.

I know my church is being called that way, to do something different besides continue solely within a sanctuary that's over 110 years old and has no real future except as a nostalgic relic of a by-gone era. The Lord is calling us into his world, to be bold, daring, and ground-breaking, to cross the borders that have defined us so rigorously and enter his promise of life. Whatever our path or call, may we always seek his way, knowing the Lord is always ahead of us, waiting on the frontier for his faithful disciples and inviting us to the adventure that crosses our borders.

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