August 23, 2007
Journeying
Pentecost 13/16C (Lk 13.22-30)
Sister Mary Anonym was meeting with a small group of us some time ago, reflecting on a forthcoming episcopal election in our diocese. She mused, “What we really need for a bishop is someone who, crosier in hand, will walk afoot throughout the entire diocese, teaching and journeying toward the see city.”
“Fat chance,” someone said. “Not so fat bishop,” chortled another. Maybe the Sister had Luke’s morning story in mind.
“Jesus went on his way through towns and villages, teaching, and journeying toward Jerusalem” (Lk 13.22).
Maybe not. At any rate, her counsel is both ancient wisdom and, for the fortunate, refreshing daily discovery. Its practice, of course, is not all that likely.
But it is an admirable way to consider ourselves and our lives in Christ, whoever we are. A life of teaching and journeying. Sharing by word and by deed as we move through each day in a manner not unlike our Baptismal Covenant’s reminder… continuing “in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers” (BCP p 304).
Teaching and journeying. They are so much a pair, these two. Anyone alert to life’s journey, a word meaning so much “life’s dailyness,” and in the least curious about it, cannot help but learn, and then teach. A fellow writing friend and colleague has got herself a new pacemaker and not without considerable fear and discomfort. Yet, she’s given it a name and she writes about it, typing temporarily with only one hand, and she celebrates the joy in such things, learning, journeying, teaching.
Not so long ago, I got a new acrylic lens in each eye, only six millimeters in diameter, “pacemakers for vision,” replacing what God put there in the beginning and I clouded over by my ribald longevity. I’ve not named them, but my friend inspires me to. So far, they are only Left and Right, each with its impressive little descriptive note to accompany it and to be kept on my person. Seeing now the world suddenly has new life — the cosmos, the newspaper, the Book of Common Prayer, the laptop (the omnipresent laptop!). Teaching and journeying.
It is not easy for some of us to learn that life comes only one day at a time. It is so easy to forget the wisdom of Sister Joan Chittister that “Nothing we do changes the past. Everything we do changes the future.” Journeying — and journaling, its close companion — can always ring changes on that counsel. It is a foundation stone in twelve-step programs, warning us to honor, but not to live in the past, to create a new past as we change the future, and, for good measure, to walk our talk one day, one journey, at a time.
Jesus learned, affirming and reaffirming, keeping patience with us, long-suffering with us on his way to his ultimate suffering for us. In his walk, as in Luke’s accounting, someone will inevitably ask, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” It is not an uncommon wonder. And it is not uncommon that he answered with a story, a stern and challenging story. “Strive to enter by the narrow door… ” How might we answer such a question?
I remember one way. A priest turned to see a man standing in the doorway to his office. The man said, “Reverend, I want to be saved.” For his effort, and, as well, for his risk, the man was treated to a 30-minute lecture on the proper use of the word “reverend.”
I was that priest, one and the same, albeit then a very young one full of himself and expecting daily to bring in the kingdom single-handedly. I hope that we might improve on that, teaching and journeying. I hope that I have.
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