Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way. (1Corinthians 12:31)

A while back I got myself a SatNav for my car because I can get lost in my own living room. One time I was driving three kids up to Paisley and it took me more than three hours because I kept getting lost. And, to be fair, Glasgow does have rather aggressive signposting. It tells you nothing until you hit that junction where you turn off to five different destinations and you suddenly find you’re completely in the wrong lane and heading for Inverdinnaeken. Many’s the time I’ve gone round in circles scratching my head and seeking the way.

The ancient Israelites had it easy didn’t they? “Which way should we go now?” “Don’t know, but maybe that pillar of fire might be a clue.” That didn’t stop them wandering off, though. It didn’t stop them bellyaching about how hard the journey was. It didn’t stop them knocking up a golden calf while Moses was up Mount Sinai getting the commandments of God and bowing down and worshipping it instead of the God who’d been beside them, before them, behind them, all the way from Egypt.

Folk get lost sometimes. We all do, sometimes. The commandments God gave the people of Israel were meant to guide them in his way, but sometimes they sought other ways. They wandered. But that pillar of fire and the column of smoke never went away. Sometimes we wander. Sometimes we don’t follow the guidance God has given us what life is for. We get swept up in the temptations of greed or desire or anger or pride and we can suddenly find ourselves living lives we don’t really want to live, becoming people we don’t really want to be. We can find, sometimes, we’ve lost touch with God that we need to seek the way.

Fortunately God doesn’t lose touch with us. Just as the pillar of fire and the column of smoke remained constant with the Israelites, God’s love for us is constant. That is the Gospel of Jesus Christ: that through Christ’s death on the Cross and his resurrection we are assured of God’s forgiving grace and love. Sure, there may be times when we let God down - when we let ourselves down - and we wander from the way. Sometimes we are all the one sheep that wanders off and needs brought home by the good shepherd, but we are always welcome back into the way. The forgiveness and the grace of God are beyond measure and there is no place too dark for him to see you; no place so distant from him that he can’t reach you; no path you can walk where he can’t find you, if you only seek the way.

We know the way. Jesus said it himself, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”. More than that. He also said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” In Jesus God came into the world not merely to tell us the way we should live, the road we should walk, what we are meant to be, as he had done in the commandments he gave to the Israelites. He came to show us.

“Sire the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger. Fails my heart I know not how. I can go no longer.” “Mark my footsteps good, my page. Tread thou in them boldly. Thou shalt find the winter’s rage freeze thy blood less coldly.” While I was thinking about the theme of ‘seeking the way’ and of Jesus being the way, the truth and the life, the words of Good King Wenceslas kept coming back to me. As Christians we haven’t just been told the way, as a SatNav might tell me which turn to take or as someone might give you directions; we have been shown the way. We are not merely to hear the teachings of Jesus, but to follow in his way, to mark his footsteps and tread in them boldly.

One of the earliest ways the early followers of Christ had to describe themselves, before they were known as Christians, was “People of the Way.”. Not just a way of believing, but a way of living. A way that sought to follow Jesus. What would that look like here, today? What it has always looked like. “I will show you the most excellent way.”

We had what is possibly the most famous chapter in the whole of the Bible in our readings this morning - Chapter 13 from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. It gets read a lot at weddings, which  I can understand because it talks a lot about love. It rather misses the context, though. Paul was writing to the Corinthians about this “most excellent way” because they weren’t actually walking in it. They were arguing about theology and about whose spiritual gifts were more important. They were split into groups that met for Communion in different times and places. They were following the rituals but they were missing the point. 

“I will show you the most excellent way.” Above all theology is love. Love is patient and love is kind. God knows there are people who get on our wick sometimes, but who knows what troubles they have in their lives? Who knows what a difference you might make in their lives through a simple act of kindness; a simple blessing? Are you seeking the way? There it is. Simple as that! walk in that way and you walk in the way of Christ.

“I will show you the most excellent way.” Above all spiritual gifts is love. Love is not proud. It does not dishonour others. We are taught so often in the world to look down on others: to look down on the homeless and the beggar on the street; to look down on the drug addict and the woman who sells her body in her need; to look down on folk who live on Benefits Street. Because we’re better than them? Maybe we can recognise those who haven’t lived as comfortably as we have as our brothers and sisters and that, if things had been different, we might be where they are. Are you seeking the way. There it is! Simple as that! Walk in that way and you walk in the way of Christ.

“I will show you the most excellent way.” Above all ritual is love. Love is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. God knows that other people do things, say things, that rile us. They let us down. They have habits that niggle at us. They sometimes seem to forget that we have feelings at all. Maybe we can recognise that we are, sometimes, those people. Maybe we can just let that all go. Maybe we can try - at least try - to forgive others as we have been forgiven by God. Are you seeking the way? There it is! Simple as that! Walk in that way and you walk in the way of Christ who, as he was nailed to the Cross, cried our, “Father, forgive them!”

“I will show you the most excellent way.” So it is. God came into this world out of love for you and me and all his children. Out of love he came into this world to show us what we can be - what we are meant to be. Light for the world. In a world of selfishness and greed; in a world of bigotry and hate; in a world of hurt and pride, a life lived with love is a column of fire in the darkness. It is a SatNav for those who seek the way

Father guide us in your way. May we love as we have been loved, forgive as we have been forgiven, give as we have been given. May we follow the way of your son and be a pillar of fire to the world

Preached at Gretna:St. Andrews Parish church