Some Thoughts On The Journey . . .
By Dr. Colin Harris
"Journey" has become a popular word /metaphor for referring to the life of faith. From its use in books and articles and its frequency in conversation, it seems to connect with what many experience the life of faith to be. It implies that faith is a process rather than a fixed condition or a body of beliefs. A journey has a starting point, a destination, a reason for travel, baggage, fellow travelers, significant landmarks and experiences along the way, various forms of guidance from those who have traveled before, and challenges that enrich, impede, and sometimes change the direction of travel. These parts of the analogy do seem to resonate with the experience of covenant faith that we share.
There is probably is good value in having travelers along this journey study together the features of the pilgrimage. No travelers have exactly the same experience, yet all are part of the community of pilgrims; and the journey of each one can be enriched by the perspectives and insights of others.
Let's think about the features of the analogy of the journey as we have mentioned them:
1. STARTING POINT
Every traveler began his or her journey somewhere, with particular understandings of what the journey is about, where it would lead, and why one should undertake it. The earliest stages of the journey established a travel pattern and either reinforced or modified expectations about what was in store. This foundational stage has a powerful impact on both the understanding and the meaning of the journey, and there is value in giving careful thought to it, for it is indeed a part of who we are. Our task will be to help each other both appreciate and analyze/critique our respective starting points.
Reflection:
Think about the "starting point" of your journey of faith: was it your home? a church? a retreat or revival experience? What were the important things that surrounded you as you began the faith pilgrimage - ways of thinking and believing? customs and traditions? the people who were with you?
2. DESTINATION
Journeys that are more than just "riding around" or "cruising' set out to go somewhere. In a sense, a pilgrimage is defined by its destination, whether it be a holy place or an assembly from many places of a family of faith. A variety of images describe the destination of the journey of faith: a promised land, heaven, the kingdom of God, full fellowship with God, etc. A helpful question for each traveler to explore has to do with the destination of his or her journey: What is the "there" to which we travel?
Reflection:
As you have traveled thus far, how have you answered the question: "Where are you going?" (Where do you see your journey of faith leading?)
3. REASON FOR TRAVEL
Why make the journey rather than simply stay in the comfort and security of one's own place? Some choose not to (maybe a part of all of us chooses not to), because the appeal of comfort and security is often stronger than the invitation and the willingness to risk the uncertainties of the road. There seems to be a part of us, however (maybe part of the image of God in us?), that is drawn to the path of discovery, to the experience of new vistas, deeper understandings, and more profound mysteries than are available at "home." Is it part of being human to explore and investigate? The evolution of human history would suggest a positive answer to this question.
There is another piece to the answer that is reflected in the biblical record of the experience of the covenant faith community. Recall those whose stories are the vehicles of the biblical testimony of faith: Abraham, Moses, the prophets, the early Christian disciples, the apostle Paul - all were called from their places of comfort and security to begin a journey, sometimes to other places, but always to other ways of thinking about God, themselves, each other, and life itself. Is their story a report of faith for us to admire, or is it an invitation to a journey for us to join? Our answer to this question has an important effect on the kinds of disciples we become.
Reflection:
How do you answer the "why" question to your choice to be a follower of Christ? Why would you leave the security of your previous ways of thinking, believing, and relating to undertake a journey that will lead to unexpected discoveries that will most likely change some of your values and priorities? To make you richer? More popular? More prestigious? Happier? If not that, then what?
4. BAGGAGE
The "baggage" of life consists of those experiences, influences, ways of thinking, habits, attitudes, likes, dislikes, phobias, obsessions, and animosities that have become a part of our lives and are "with us" wherever we go. Some of this baggage is essential and helpful, and some of it just "weighs us down' and makes the journey more difficult. In the journey of faith, there are essential "tools" that enrich the development of our covenant relationship; and there are beliefs, ideas, and behaviors that interfere with effective travel. An important part of our responsible participation in the life of discipleship is our careful reflection on this "baggage" to discern the helpful and the unnecessary - the things we need and the things we'd be better off without. Some baggage is useful for a time, but then is no longer needed. Faithful judgment involves knowing what to keep and when to discard and replace.
Reflection:
What baggage have you "left behind" in your journey thus far? What baggage do you suspect you might still need to discard?
5. FELLOW TRAVELERS
Unless one is on a solitary journey, travel involves companions. There is little to support the idea that the Christian pilgrimage is a solitary one. Personal, yes; private, no. Throughout the biblical record (and quite pointedly in the "greatest commandment" - Matthew 22:34-40), our relationship with God is inherently connected to our relationship with others. This connection is both a blessing and a challenge, because we are at all times at different stages of the journey. There are those ahead of us, whose experience and guidance are helpful as we negotiate the path. And there are those not so far along, whose less experience reminds us where we once were and who need our help, carefully offered in terms of their readiness to receive it.
The journey of faith is a community effort, with no status or honor attached to any point along the way - only the delicate balance of the need for each other's help and the opportunity to be helpful. We're in this together, and faithful travelers are aware of their need for each other.
Reflection:
Think of how your fellow travelers have helped you in your faith journey. Who are they, and what contributions have they made?
6. LANDMARKS
Every journey has its combination of routine, uneventful stretches of the road that do not make significant impressions and those attention-getting sights and experiences that mark the stages of the trip and perhaps even interrupt its momentum and change its direction. The journey of faith is seldom a routine one - there are landmarks, figuratively speaking, in that journey that give us pause, change our progress or direction or both, offer vistas that reveal things we had not imagined, and become the "memory points" of the trip itself.
Reflection:
What have some of these "landmark" experiences been for you?
7. MAPS AND GUIDEBOOKS
Though we journey into a wilderness in the sense that we have not traveled that way before, others have been there before us; and they have shared in various ways the wisdom of their experience. Maps and trail guides help us avoid making some mistakes and misjudgments, though they cannot guarantee a perfect trip. Again figuratively, the journey of faith has available such maps and guidebooks in the testimony of those pilgrims who have gone before us. The Bible is a repository of such testimony, selected by our ancestors in the faith on the basis of its helpfulness with the questions of the journey: Where are we going? At whose invitation? For what purpose? How shall we travel and treat each other? After what or whom shall we model ourselves? What can we hope for at the destination? Faithful travelers do well to study the maps and guidebooks - failure to do so exposes us to unnecessary risks. But it is good to remember that they are only that - maps and guidebooks - and no amount of knowledge of them can substitute for the journey itself.
Reflection:
How do the Bible and the testimony of other pilgrims affect your personal spiritual journey? How do they help you? Does your experience in the journey sometimes lead you to revise your previous understanding of the map or the guidebook?
8. HURDLES
Many trips are remembered in terms of the unexpected challenges that were encountered along the way. The snowstorm that brings a backpacking trip to a halt, the accident or breakdown that interrupts a weekend drive through the mountains, the illness that changes the schedule of a vacation - we could add to the list. The possibility, even probability, of challenges along the way of any journey keeps us from being over confident that any trip will go exactly as planned.
Again, the journey of faith is no exception. We begin it with the hopes and dreams that are part of the promise that accompanies the invitation. After a time, perhaps a very short or very long time, we meet the challenges that change the journey from smooth and easy to challenging and difficult; and those challenges change the journey - and us - as we respond to them. We can try to avoid the challenges, ignore them, deny them, or give in to them and quit the journey. Or we can meet them and respond to them with trust and the resources available to us, refining our journey and ourselves in terms of what we learn from the challenge.
Reflection:
What are some of the challenges that have met you on your journey of faith? How have they refined your understanding of yourself as a Christian pilgrim?
Perhaps you can find time to reflect on these questions and converse with others about your thinking. The people I've been privileged to listen to over the years in the classroom and other places have helped me so much in my own thinking about the life of faith, I'm always anxious to be part of a context where this kind of conversation can take place. Let's hope and work together to make our fellowship one of those settings.
If you would like to explore the questions mentioned in this article with a group of fellow travelers, we invite you to join The Discovery class on Sundays at 9:45 am in room A116.
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