4:11, not 9/11. The hands of a huge old-fashioned clock in Times Square were frozen witness. This was the time the lights went out in New York, rather than the date we lost our national innocence. The blackout in the Northeast this week was the biggest in history. Terrorism wasn’t to blame, although it’s a sign of the times that we all jumped to that conclusion. Seems it was a failure in the Niagara Mohawk power grid — whatever that is.

More interesting is what happened all over the powerless cities as people tried to wend their way home in the dark. Instead of taking advantage of the situation, New Yorkers drew together, again. I’m sure people in other affected places did the same, but the media and I both have a special interest in what happens in New York, don’t you know?! What happened in short was kindness and community, over and over again — “the better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln beautifully put it. People were stranded in dark subways for hours, which isn’t totally unusual; but it was scarier than usual this time. They worked together to get out and head toward the light. Cabbies were giving rides for free. Motorists were filling their cars with strangers. People were walking together amid the cars on freeways, across the Brooklyn Bridge, trying to make their way home. Restaurants were passing out water and food, and not trying to make a killing. Many hotel rooms were locked down because keys are electronically coded, so hoteliers passed out pillows and blankets and even tablecloths to make people more comfortable as they slept in the lobbies or on sidewalks. Street musicians were in heaven with captive audiences. Tourists and commuters both had one objective: to wend their way home. And everyone helped each other on their way.

This is something like the journey the church is on toward home, toward the kingdom of God — a journey from darkness to light. We are a chosen community, flashlights in the night, as we have seen in this series of sermons from the book of Ephesians. We have been thrown together by the grace of God as one big, sometimes happy, sometimes unhappy family. We have already in previous chapters been instructed to welcome one another as family, to make room in our lives for strangers, to walk the road home together, to make peace with one another along the way, and to behave in a way that makes life livable and enviable to a world that knows only conflict. If we aren’t sure how to act, Paul says we ought to imitate Christ, who got it right every time that mattered. So now we come to these words in the fifth chapter that remind us again that we are a moving community, not settled. We are going somewhere. We are, to coin a phrase, a “purpose-driven church.”

Be careful how you live … is the way our translation has it. The Greek is better: Look out for how you are walking … or Watch your step … or Keep your eyes on the path ….The whole idea of faith as a walk is rooted in Jewish tradition. The formative story of Israel is called the haggadah: the narrative of who Israel is as a covenant community. The halacha, then, is the walk, the commandments that teach Israel how to live as a chosen people. There are 613 to that end, but the idea of them being a walk or a journey is compelling.

God’s people have always been on the move. From slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. But even after arriving there, the language of faith as a journey or a path to walk has been a key image. We are soul pilgrims, never settled in the world, not yet arrived.

So if you are visiting today and wondering if you have found the church that has all the answers, you’d better keep looking, because this one doesn’t. Here’s a little hint, though: even the ones that claim to have arrived really haven’t. We are on our way, and we need you to join us as we wend our way home.

More important than the image of faith as a journey is how we make the walk. How we wend our way while we wend our way is what is at stake for the church. Good news here: God does not make us a people without giving us an instruction manual. God does not send us on a mission without orders. God does not give us a job without equipment to do it.

We begin with the image of being careful how we walk. Paul says we should walk carefully, or accurately. The church is not out for a sauntering stroll. We are trying to get somewhere. We are marching to Zion, so to speak. But we are not just trying to get ourselves there; we are picking up all the hitchhikers and stragglers along the road we can find, because the church is in no different shape than anyone else in this blacked-out world, except that we are heading toward the light and not staying put. But we must navigate the way artfully and mindfully.

Live not as unwise people but as wise. Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom; asophia is foolishness. With my son about to start college, this is a constant theme around my house these days. The fact that Kim would like to get an apartment near campus to keep an eye on him has nothing to do with whether we think he is ready. His father is totally unconcerned, of course. It’s just that we know there is a thin line between wisdom and foolishness, the key difference being that the wise are never sure they are, while the foolish never doubt it.

There’s a new word being coined by atheists who think atheism is too off-putting a term. They are calling themselves “brights,” as in enlightened ones, smarties who trust their own intellect as the fount of all wisdom. They are opposed to any supernatural worldview that would allow for a god to be involved in the revelation of truth or the discovery of wisdom. They figure if the term brights catches on, maybe more of them will come out of the closet and go public with their high-wattage enlightenment. Right.

Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. If you are trying to find your way home, wouldn’t it be wise to seek directions from the owner of the house? God is only too willing to feed our minds with nutritious insight, to light our path step by step, to guide us along the way. But you have to put your mind to work to receive it. Christianity is not for know-nothings. If the brights fail by relying only on their own minds, many Christians fail by denying their own minds. A mushy mysticism is growing in Christianity. A good and sturdy mysticism leads us into deeper love for Christ; and many great mystics were also great intellects. But the mushy I-just-want-to-feel-the-faith kind just leads to stupid beliefs. Christianity has a rich intellectual history because it is committed not just to feeling love but understanding truth. In a New York Times editorial this week, Nick Kristof says he fears this trend will lead to mind-numbing positions of extremism like those of religious terrorists. He summed it up pithily: The heart is a wonderful organ, but so is the brain.

Paul says we must also make the most of the time. “Redeem the time” is another way of saying it. Don’t waste time. Carpe diem! Seize the day. Again, Paul sees the church’s journey of faith as more than meandering. The days are evil, he says. Danger lurks all round: ready to deter the church from its mission, and eager to throw it off course.

Back to school again to extend the analogy on this Promotion Sunday. When classes start, you have to redeem the time every day. Learning is a journey, too. If you miss the day the English teacher covered near and far demonstrative pronouns, you’ll be grammatically challenged and playing catch-up.If you sleep in and miss class, not making the most of the time you are given, you’ll get lost soon enough. My sophomore year of college was a disaster. I lost all focus and discipline, cutting classes, losing ground. When I finally realized that shooting pool and playing pinball was my academic enemy, it was too late. I had squandered my time and came across the finish line with the C group for the only time in my life.

The Greek word for time here is kairos, as opposed to chronos: an experience of time rather than a measurement of it, quality rather than quantity. Paul says to stay alert for surprises that might come on the road. What love may spring up? What hope may surface? You can’t have a flash of faith from Bible study at 10:00 on Sunday morning if you aren’t in your class when your moment comes. You make the most of the time when you are present in the moment, keeping time with God.

Next, Do not be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit. Paul knows that some spirit is going to intoxicate us. The question is whether it will be alcoholic spirits that end up deadening you to life when taken in excess, or the Holy Spirit, which cannot be overindulged. You can stay filled up on the Holy Spirit and be more alive to life at every moment. In any journey you have to stay hydrated. You have to maintain your energy. When you run or play golf or tennis in this heat, or even when you mow the lawn, you need to replace those lost electrolytes with Gatorade or Red Bull. Wine and beer and gin are passive spirits that depend upon you for the filling up; the Holy Spirit is pouring the divine life into you at every moment. Will you burn clean off the high-octane Holy Spirit or try to run off some cheap ethanol you have to pump yourself? When the church gets insecure about whether it has adequate resources and starts protecting instead of giving or tries cheap substitutes for authentic spirituality, it stumbles on its way.

Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, Paul says, making melody in your hearts to God. Worship is a group event in the church. And music is at the heart of worship. Those of you who come chronically late, thinking that getting there in time for the sermon is enough, miss something crucial about the life of the church. We are a singing people, praising God for the privileges we enjoy as people of God. Music is the joy center of the church’s life. It keeps us hooked into God’s presence, keeps us grateful along the way. They say Martin Luther did more damage to the devil through his hymns than his sermons. And a church that sings from the heart to God is bound to chase Old Scratch from the premises.

Finally, as we travel this salvation road together, let us give thanks to God for everyone and everything. Look around you, people. These people are God’s people. We can concentrate on what we are missing or on what we have. But remember what are we are up to. We are wending our way home to God. And we have everything and everyone we need to get there in one piece and in one peace.

So none of that crankiness from you children in the back seat. We’ll get there when we get there. Soon enough. For now, let’s make good time and have a good time of it. It’ll be a trip. Going our way?