When I was in high school, my friends and I loved to take road trips, even if we had nowhere to go. Perhaps that was the product of growing up in a small town before the availability of the internet and we just didn’t have anything better to do, but we just loved the adventure. We loved the memories we were making together. They bonded us together. One of our favorite adventures to take was to get lost and have to try to find our way back home. At least it seemed to be a favorite because we did it a lot. This was, of course, in the days before everyone had cell phones or GPS’s. We sometimes had paper maps, but we were teens, so even if we had one that might help us, we wouldn’t always consult it. And if we did consult, that didn’t guarantee that we could read it properly, especially when we didn’t really know where we were or what we might be close to. It was particularly complicated if we got ourselves lost in the middle of the country where most maps don’t help too much. As teens, we rarely had anywhere we HAD to be, so driving around for hours trying to find any sort of landmark that told us where we were and how to get home wasn’t the panic-inducing experience that it might be for me today. It was merely an unexpected expedition that provided us with shared memories and deeper bonds of friendship.

Now, over 30 years later, I don’t go on the same sort of adventures with my friends as I did back then. Getting lost is much more difficult when everyone has a cell phone with a GPS built in, but beyond that, the types of expeditions we take are usually more planned out and involve time frames and are bound by financial restrictions. We don’t have the same freedom or serenity for unexpected adventures that we once had. But that doesn’t mean that our adventures don’t still create memories and the bonds of friendship. Today, adventures look like concerts and weekend trips, trying new restaurants together and enduring the same boring meetings or presentations, that Uber driver who had gaming YouTuber videos playing on his phone while he drove us to the airport and going to a concert only to be handed instruments so we could join in the song. Bruce Epperly recounts an interaction between Pooh and Piglet where Pooh “asks Piglet about his first thoughts of the day. To which Piglet responds, ‘I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?’” About that, Epperly writes, “To me, this phrase is the heart of the book. Adventure is in the smallest and largest details of life, whether you are Piglet, a parent of young children, or an active baby boomer.” Our adventures as adults may not be the same as childhood adventures, but they create memories and strengthen the bonds of friendship nonetheless.

However, the beauty of the adventure comes when we return home. Experiences that may have felt a bit stressful or jarring in the moment become the fodder for laughs and conversations and friendship when we return to the comfort of home. Epperly writes, “Grace brings all of us home, and tragedies become comedies when we discover that within the dark valley, a hand reaches out and guides our path.” In both of our passages this morning, God gives God’s people a description of what home should be. Our passage from Leviticus is a passage within the section of Leviticus that is known as the Holiness Code. These chapters lay out a series of rules about holy living. The central theme of this portion of Leviticus is what verse 2 of our passage for today says. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Within these 10 chapters, there are A LOT of rules laid forth, many of which we no longer subscribe to.

What we do still subscribe to are the central themes. This is what Jesus talks about in our passage from Matthew. He is asked what the greatest commandment is. And he responds, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” For me, this is a good description of what home should be. Home is where we love God and love one another. And home is where we are loved. Epperly talks about houses and homes in his chapter on Piglet. He writes, “Christopher Robin asks Piglet what he’d do if his own house were blown down. Before Piglet can answer, Pooh interjects, ‘He’d come and live with me, wouldn’t you, Piglet?’ Like a couple who have traveled life’s journey together, Piglet squeezes Pooh’s paw, and responds, ‘I’d love to.’” For Piglet, a house is a house, but Pooh is home. He loves Pooh and is loved by Pooh in return.

That brings me back to those adventures and the memories they built. Our friendships grow through adventures, but they also grow in times of doing nothing. Back in high school, a friend and I would often sit in the car when I was dropping him off at home and talk for hours, sometimes until 2 or 3 in the morning. My entire friend group loved to play card games or board games and just talk and laugh and joke around. My bachelor party was a late night game of Phase 10 with my closest friends. Nowadays, I love to sit around a dinner table or the living room or out on the back patio and just talk. It is in those moments that I really get to know my friends and they really get to know me. It is in those moments when we see some of the best and worst characteristics of one another, and it is in those moments when we learn to love our neighbor as ourselves. When my best friend Michael and I get together, I have no greater joy than when we just sit and talk. Those are moments of grace, moments that feel like home.

The same is true of our relationship with God. Epperly writes, “In the 100 Aker Wood, there is Sabbath rest and Sabbath play. God takes care of the lilies and the birds of the air, and all those who pause long enough to experience divinity doing nothing on a summer’s day.” God instituted the Sabbath, a day of rest, to remind us that life is not just about doing things and having adventures and creating new works of art. Life is also about resting in God and doing so in the company of our friends and neighbors. Sometimes friends do things that disappoint us. Sometimes God does things that disappoint us. But Sabbath is about mending those tears in the relationship and drawing back together in a time of rest and play. When Jesus says that they greatest commandment is to love God and to love neighbor, he is calling us to do so both in the times of joyful adventures AND in those moments when we rest in one another’s pain and struggle.

Those moments of doing nothing can be holy moments. Epperly writes, “The realm of God, the 100 Aker Wood, is the place where doing nothing gives us everything we need.” Doing nothing sounds like a pretty easy thing to do, but I would wager that for most of us, doing nothing does not come naturally. We have been trained by our society to go go go, work harder, do more. Resting is wasted time because it doesn’t seem to produce anything. But I think that is wrong. I think that what resting produces, more than anything, is love. When we rest in God, when we rest in the presence of our neighbor, we learn to love them. Jesus showed us this truth. Epperly writes, “The meandering Jesus healed and welcomed, told stories and gave talks, and he also simply wandered about, spending time with friends and opening himself up to whatever new thing emerged along his pathway.” Jesus showed us how to love God and love our neighbors through the expotitions and through the times of doing nothing.

There is a quote often attributed to Winnie the Pooh, though not found in the original stories, that says, “People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” How often do you do nothing? How often do you step back from life for a bit and just rest in God and rest in the presence of others? When we rest, we let our guard down. That can be scary, but it is also the only way we can truly love and be loved. While much can be gained through adventuring and creating things, we stand to gain at least as much through rest…and doing nothing.

Near the end of his chapter on Christopher Robin, Bruce Epperly writes, “It’s difficult to do nothing once you’ve left the Wood or when the intricacy of life has intruded on the simple pleasures of childhood. But, every so often, we pause and notice again the beauty that flows within and beyond, and gives life to all our days.” Go on adventures. Discover new lands. Have new experiences. But always pause for a moment, every so often, and see the beauty around you. Get yourself lost with a friend, and rather than stressing out about it, try to enjoy the beauty and joy of the adventure. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and rest in God’s love for you. Love your neighbor as yourself, and find the beauty in expotition and in doing nothing. And may you discover a life full of love, friendship, and stories to tell. Amen.