Tending the Path

A year ago, I went on a personal renewal retreat up at Camp Magruder for a week. At Magruder, there is a labyrinth marked out in a sandy field towards the beach from the cabins. I decided to start my mornings after breakfast with a slow meditative walk through the labyrinth. As I walked the labyrinth, I would pull a weed here and there, replace stones that once marked the sides of the path, clear out sticks that blacked the path. I tended that path. As I sat in quiet reflection and meditation in the center of the labyrinth, I was flooded with the realization that we have been given a Path by Jesus to tend. It is a lifelong path of growth and discovery, of risk and adventure, of deep mystery and boundless joy. And I believe that Jesus wants us to get back on this Path.

All around us, society is changing. Attendance patterns in churches are changing. Article after article attempts to parse various generational behaviors regarding faith expression and group involvement. Core-level values and foundational worldviews are shifting, with new values threatening older values, resulting in a fractured and conflicted culture. Religion has come to be viewed not as a unifying factor, but as a divisive factor. In very many ways, the usefulness and significance of religion (defined broadly) is being questioned and challenged. This is a time in which the collective soul of humankind and the church is being tried and tested. How will we respond in ways that are not reactive and reactionary, but are culturally creative and will contribute to the well-being of all humankind and the earth itself?

All of these factors are converging upon us in ways that are resulting in high anxiety among church members, uncertainty among the leadership, mistrust of pastoral and congregational leadership, and can be expressed in negative and divisive ways if not addressed directly, honestly, and compassionately. When this societal uncertainty and confusion is added to an individual congregation that is going through its own pastoral leadership change, it can create a great deal of stress.

I have felt this stress in the churches I have served or been involved with for the past 37 years. We are all struggling with what it means to live our lives with integrity as followers of Jesus Christ. We all come to this adventure of following Jesus as wondrously broken and flawed individuals. We can be cranky, sometimes downright mean, we have out prejudices and biases, we carry wounds of war, abuse, shattered dreams, betrayed love, broken promises. And we can find ourselves packing kits to send across the world to be used by people we will never meet, buying food for a stranger who is hungry, breaking bread with people whose politics we disagree with, and praying for the health and well-being of people we barely know. We are wondrously flawed. And that means we are just exactly like those people who walked the dusty roads of ancient Palestine, of Galilee and Judea, tagging along after this man they barely understood, but who spoke words that stirred their hearts with visions of their eternal worth as beloved children of One God. 
We think our problem is getting people inside these walls to sit in these pews alongside of us and join us in our projects and programs. We think our problem is raising enough money to pay the pastor (by the way, thank you for your gracious faithfulness in that regard) or keep the lights on. We think our problem is… well, you fill in the blank. We have all spoken the words, voiced the fears, registered our concerns. 


But somehow, reading the Gospel stories from the Bible, I don’t think these were Jesus’ concerns. He came to show us the love of the One he called Abba, Father. He came to show us how that love can heal our hurts, change our misdirected ways of thinking, and make enemies into friends and perhaps even brothers and sisters. He came not just to perform miraculous works, but to transform human hearts and human societies. He said he was the Way to that source of loving transformation, and he taught and lived that Way of Being. And it is that Way of Being that he gave to his followers and commanded them to hand on to others, all around the world.

Tending the Path

The churches I serve are in the midst of a year-long focus upon Tending the Path of Jesus. We are directing our focus upon three main themes:

• “We’ve Always Been on the Move:” Historical background and development of church cultures and practices;
• "This Is the Way:" The way of life and spiritual growth that Jesus lived and taught;
• "Now Our Work Begins:" Preparing ourselves for the real work.

This unwieldy contraption called the Christian Church has accumulated a lot of accretions and additions over the centuries as it has knocked around the globe and been taken up as the official religion of kingdoms and nations. Sometimes it's hard to make out the actual shape and form of the Way that Jesus taught and his earliest followers caught. It's time to cut the crap off, scrape away extraneous stuff, and try and discern the basics of the Path, and how we can travel it in the 21st Century. 

I am completely convinced that the times in which we are living are calling us to return to the Path that Jesus brought. We are at a crossroads and we need to pause, get our bearings, and reassess who we are and what we are about. But most important: I believe that we also need to enjoy the journey while we travel it. And so: Onward!