Sermon: Real Scouters, like Christians, live by the spirit of the book, not by the book itself
I used
to be a Wolf Cub, and I was okay at it.
I liked the uniform and the pack meetings. I liked learning the Law, the Promise and the
Motto – “do your best,” and the way we’d chant “dyb dyb dyb, dob dob dob.” I earned badges and learned to shake hands
with my left. I learned other stuff too like
knots and First Aid, and was on our pack’s First Aid team at the city-wide Wolf
Cub First Aid competition where we missed winning the trophy by only a
point-and-a-half. By the time I
graduated from the pack I was a senior sixer, helping teach some of the newer
members what they needed to know.
I
didn’t move up to Scouts, though, because even though I was good at learning and
doing Wolf Cub things, I didn’t really have a Scouter’s heart. I think of some of the badges I earned. There weren’t as many then as there are now,
and some had different names. One was
called the Nature badge and in the interview for it, one question I was asked was
what bird is a sign of spring in Winnipeg.
I said “the robin” because I didn’t really know, and when the
interviewer said, “No, it’s the crow,” I knew that he knew that I didn’t really
know very much about nature – and also didn’t really love it enough to really
want to find out. I just wanted the
badge. He gave me a pass, I got the
badge, and that was the end of it.
I see
now that Scouting wasn’t really in my heart.
I didn’t have a passion for the Scouting life and its way of exploring
and caring for the world. I learned and
did what I needed to learn and d0 to pass as a Wolf Cub, but beyond fulfilling
the letter of the law, the Scouting spirit just wasn’t in me. And I didn’t know how to get it – how to help
myself feel it.
Since
then I’ve come to know people who do have the real spirit of Scouting and
Guiding. There’s you in this sanctuary
today, and I’m glad you’re here. Someone
else who comes to mind – who isn’t here anymore except in spirit, is Scouter
Doug Robertson who with Pat, his wife, was a member of our church.
Some
of you may have known Doug as the Camp Chief at Camp Wetaskiwin, where he lived
in the cabin at the entrance, greeted all who came, and watched over the camp
and all that went on there. It was his
life, his calling and his deepest joy to be a Scouter, and in the midst of
anything else he faced in life and had to struggle with – of all he did right
and wrong, Scouting gave his life meaning and good direction, and helped him
live in the world in good and healing ways.
One
example – some of you may have known Bandit, the raccoon Doug rescued at camp
as a kit, that he and Pat nurtured back to health – even giving it a room for a
while in their house, and then successfully reintroduced to the wild back at
camp where Bandit got on with a good raccoon life and would visit Doug from
time to time on the front porch of the cabin.
There’s nothing in the manual about rescuing raccoons and in fact the manual
may have rules against having wild animals indoors. But when Doug saw Bandit in need of help, everything
that he and Pat did for Bandit was exactly what Scouting was all about.
Doug knew
the rules and the letter of the Law. He
followed, taught and enforced them as best he could. So he knew there were probably Scouting and
camp rules about taking in wild animals.
He knew that the rules of animal rescue are not to domesticate any
animal you plan to return to the wild.
He
knew he was going against some of the rules he knew as a Scouter. But he did it because he was a Scouter at
heart. He had the spirit of Scouting
deep down in his heart, and it was that – that deep-down love of life, of
neighbour, and of the natural world that guided him, told him what to do, and
helped him do the right and good thing, more than any rules ever could have.
In
Scouting and Guiding there’s a difference between the letter of the law and the
spirit of the movement – between what’s in the manual that can be learned, taught,
obeyed and tested, and what’s in the heart of a real Scouter or Guider that can
never really be taught, can only be lived.
It’s
the same with Christianity. In
Christianity we have a book – the Bible, with all kinds of stories, sayings,
advice, laws and even poetry and fable written down by people who had different
experiences of God in their time. And
all these things can be learned, taught and obeyed.
And
then there’s the spirit of it all – what Christianity is really about and what
the Bible is meant to inspire us towards, which is openness to God and real love
of the God that the Bible talks about, that can only be known in the living of
it.
The
words of the Bible are just words, and knowing the words and even obeying them does
not make us God’s people in the world, any more than learning to tie knots and do
basic First Aid and earn a few badges ever made me a real Scouter. What the Bible is for is to point us beyond ourselves
to learn something about the God who is beyond us all – enough that we can
learn to see God a little bit better in all of life, and then let our lives be
guided by a heart-felt love for this God and for all that God loves – even if
it means sometimes acting and living in ways that seem outside the rules and
the literal words of the Book.
And
this is what the world really needs. It
needs people who know the spirit and not just the words. The world and the Scouting and Guiding
movements need Scouters and Guiders like you to have real passion for what you
are, and carry the real spirit of Scouting and Guiding in your hearts to help
you know what to do. And the world and
the church needs Christians like us to really have a heart for the God that the
Bible tells us about, and to let the Spirit of that God helps us know what to
do – that spirit of compassion, forgiveness, justice, openness, healing and
peace that make the world good in ways that rules and laws just can’t.
So I
wonder – thinking back at my own short time as a Wolf Cub, and my long up-and-down
time as a Christian, what it takes to move beyond just book-learning and
fulfilling the basic requirements, to really grow into the heart and the spirit
of the movement? How do we help that happen
in our lives?
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