Table of Contents | 13. What is the shape of faith?
There are voices insisting that the Christian life rooted in images of arrival in "Beulah land" or "the land of promise" or "heaven and hell" is losing its power/potency for change. So what does the Christian life look like if it is imaged as "sacred journey" or "pilgrimage" or "process" instead of "destination?" Do images of movement such as "sacred journey" or "pilgrimage" or "process" have potential to describe the life we lead? The entry called My Sacred Journey: "Glimpsing the Mystery" expresses what I see in detailed biographical form. Here is where I am in my own musings about my pilgrimage. Those earlier images are eschatalogical. They tend to negate the ethic of the Christian view of life as joyful journey. But, even though geographical images are more descriptive of my journey, I still wonder whether my glimpse of another way of following Jesus as "a perpetual journey to an unreachable destination." Maybe, like Moses, it isn't for me to cross over to the promised land. Maybe I am to be simply a pilgrim wandering in the desert. But as long as I have companions for my trek and Jesus at my side, I am content. At least, as Marcus Borg puts it, "Jesus is the side of God turned toward us." So, somehow, he is more than a guide or beacon. Moses saw God's back side and was content. Maybe, what I have sighted from afar is enough too. And I am grateful for the gracious life my pilgrimage has been because of Jesus. Maybe, just maybe, I can set the direction of my life in companionship with the one who haunts my dreams and who beckons me into the unknown but daunting future. Maybe, just maybe, that is the "shape" of our life when "Beulah land" is unreachable destination and sacred journey is joy! Then, "Beulah land" will be the embrace of God's arms around us. Maybe, I'll try to hum or pat my foot even if I can't "sing the Lord's song" in that land of grace. Yes, I have beeen chastened and mellowed by events and struggles. My head may be bloodied but it was for the best of reasons! The years ahead are given to us so that we can use them to broaden and deepen our commitment. As for me the words of Dag Hammarskjold, General Secretary of the United Nations several decades ago, in Markings express what I feel. "For all that has been, thanks! For all that shall be, yes!" What about the years ahead? Without a doubt that future will continue to try my understanding of church. That understanding has been badly battered by disappointment many times in my life. But the truth is that the church at its best has withstood the storms! It is still a place that seeks to create a sense of the holy, that uses language, particularly liturgical language, "clunky words that stumble in the presence of mystery," says Marcus Borg in The Heart of Christianity, to mediate the sacred and that refuses to set us free for any madness that ignores or rejects any part of God's cosmos. No heavenly breeze has swept the ship of Zion out to sea yet and the skipper's hand is still unsteady but I love her and I'm not going to jump over board. Yes, there may be a stench on the inside but the storm outside isn't much like wading in a bubbling brook either. So I'm here when the folk gather, the story is told and the bread is broken. When that happens at some "rare holy place" of grace and acceptance, I "want to be in that number." And someday, someday, someday, maybe soon...when I enter the banquet hall, I will find God's children already gathered at the table of grace. They'll be laughing and singing and drinking and feasting because God has invited them and set a place for them at the table! And they will be my brothers and sisters who have come from the rich diversity of class and race and nation and gender and sexual orientation, from the east and west and from the north and south. Then, when I hear the words from them, "Here's your place," I will know that it has been worth it! Jesus will be presiding at the "foot" table and he'll break the bread and pass a morsel to me, to me! And I'll be dining on the sumptuous menu of acceptance and love and peace and justice and openess at the table of God's grace! What a day that will be! What a day that will be! |