The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost - June 12

The Household of God

Proper 6

Collect of the Day

Every Sunday when we worship together early on in the service we pray the collect of the day.  It changes every Sunday, so it doesn’t become familiar like the rest of the service and I think it often slides by without much notice.

That’s too bad because, they are wonderful prayers.  And as a collection, they are a rich expression of our faith, our yearnings, and our prayers as Christians.

Some of them have ancient origins.  English translations taken from medieval Latin mass books.  Some are new.  Like today’s, which was written specifically for this prayer book. 

The phrase that particularly caught my attention in today was the description of the church as the household of God.  The church is the household of God.

It’s not unique to this collect; it appears in other prayers in the prayer book.  It’s an interesting metaphor.  And, although this collect is modern, the portion of the collect that contains this phrase is old.  In the 1928 BCP, the collect for the 5^th Sunday after the Epiphany began:  “O Lord, we beseech thee to keep thy church and household continually in thy true religion.”  That collect comes from a prayer thought to have originated in the 6^th century during the time of Pope Gregory the Great.

God’s household.  A rich image.

Apparently, it’s not an image found anywhere in Scripture.  In the Bible “households” are strictly human.  In the Old Testament, faithful people are certainly called the “people” of God.  God’s house is mentioned, but it means the physical place of worship.  Jesus and others speak of the “children” of God often.

But the image of the church as the “household” of God seems to have arisen within the church’s experience.

To think of the church as the household of God stresses that the church is the people.  A “household” is people, people who live in some sort of close interdependent relationship with one another.

The collect is meant to stress that God is the head of this household.  It is a household, yes, but the focus is on God as head.

So think about what it means for God to fill the traditional roles of the “head of household.”

It is God who provides safety to this household.  Physical and emotional safety from threats.

God supports the members of the household.  In good times and in bad, God is there.  Always there.

God provides the sustenance for the people of this household.  Every time we gather there around the Lord’s table. 

God provides guidance and instruction, not only on running the household, but on how to live faithfully and with growing maturity as Christians.

There’s another quality of households that’s worth noting.  It’s not so much about the head.  But, ideally in households, the members have responsibilities for one another and for maintaining the household.  They take care of one another.  They do their chores.  What are your chores in the household of God?

It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of the household of God and certainly a good thing to pray for.

But, here’s the kicker.  That’s not what we’re praying for in this collect.  In this collect we are not asking to be included in God’s household or that we may receive the benefits of God’s household.

Collects always have a set structure.  The beginning, the opening phrases, the preamble, of a collect always states something that is given.  Something that is already true.  Often some reality or quality about God is proclaimed.

The description of the church as the household of God is in the preamble of this collect.  The church IS the household of God.  That’s a given.  That’s already true.  We ARE members of God’s household.

The intercessory part of the collect comes later:  We pray that, with God’s help, we may proclaim God’s truth with boldness and minister God’s justice with compassion.

That’s what we’re praying FOR in this collect.  That we may fulfill our mission.

And this is a place where the image of the church as God’s household departs from the idea of a human household.  The purpose of a human household is self-contained.  It is to provide the members of the household, the cohabitants, the benefits of being a part of the household.

The purpose of God’s household is not about what it offers to the people who are in God’s household, rather, it’s about what those people offer to others.  We can’t separate the two.  The purpose of the household of God is to expand the walls of the household, to include more and more people within it.

This is a good collect to keep track of.  It reminds us who we are without question.  We are members of God’s household and recipients of all of the wonderful benefits and blessings that come with being a part of God’s household. 

The collect also reminds us that, as members of God’s household, we are called to us to extend those benefits to others without judgment and without qualification.

Proclaim God’s truth with boldness, and minister God’s justice with compassion

The Third Sunday after Pentecost - June 5

Go and Do Likewise

Proper 5

Luke 7:11-17

(And from last week:  Luke 7:1-10)

The Gospel reading from Luke for today follows directly after the passage we heard last week.  Both are healing stories.  We are in “ordinary time” now, the long green season between Pentecost and Advent.  And Jesus is about his “ordinary” business of healing people.

Last week we heard the story of the healing of the centurion’s slave.  This week it is the story usually called the raising of the widow’s son.  The healing, or resuscitation, of the son of the widow of Nain.

Especially as I reflected on these two passages together, something interesting and important struck me.  It’s right there in the titles we give to these two healing stories.  The healing of the centurion’s slave.  The raising of the widow’s son.  Yes, they are healing (or resuscitation) stories, but there is virtually no focus on the person who is given new health or new life.  The focus is on the centurion and the widow.  It’s almost as though the healing, the miracle, is just a prop in another story.

I’m definitely not diminishing Jesus’ healing ministry.  Jesus heals!  And there are plenty of stories in the Gospels where that is the focus, and where Jesus interacts with the person who is being healed.

But in both of these stories, Jesus’ focus and interaction is not primarily with the person being healed.  (In last week’s story, Jesus doesn’t even ever see the slave who is healed!).

Today’s story begins with Jesus’ compassion for the mother.  That’s what sets this story in motion.  He had compassion for her loss at her son’s death.  But also remember she was a widow and this young man was her only son.  Without a man to protect and care for her, in that society she was totally bereft without any hope.  Jesus saw that and had compassion on her.  Notice also that when the young man is restored to life, Jesus’ action is to return him to his mother.  The point of this story is Jesus’ care for the mother.

If you remember last week’s reading, it’s about a Roman centurion.  A Roman centurion sends to Jesus because, as Luke says, a slave whom he “valued highly” was “ill and close to death.”  Remember, this is a Roman, not a Jew.  The whole passage is about the dynamic between the centurion and Jesus.  Jesus never enters the centurion’s house, never even sees the slave…   but heals him from afar.

At least in these two stories, let’s not let the miracle distract us from the message, which lies in Jesus’ interaction with the centurion and the widow.

This is important because we are the Body of Christ.  We are the hands, the voice, the action, of Jesus in the world today.  And we look to Jesus as a model for what we are called to be and do.  These stories are not just about what JESUS DID, they are about what WE SHOULD DO today.  So we look to Jesus’ actions with respect to the centurion and the widow to learn what it means to be the Body of Christ today.

The story about the centurion is interesting.  He is not a Jew.  He is a Gentile, a foreigner, not of the heritage or faith of Jesus.  He was a pagan, not a child of Abraham.  He sent intermediaries to talk to Jesus.  First, he sent Jews to persuade Jesus that, although he did not share their faith, he was a “friend to Jews,” he supported Jews and helped build their synagogue.  Then later he sent friends of his to say that, although he did not feel worthy to have Jesus under his roof, as a man of power, he respected Jesus’ power.  He recognized and respected Jesus’ power and hoped that Jesus would offer that power to help him.  Maybe he felt some yearning to know Jesus as the Son of God.  We don’t know.

The centurion was a foreigner of uncertain faith whom Jesus had never met.  And Jesus helped him.  The centurion was a foreigner of uncertain faith whom Jesus had never met.  And Jesus helped him.  Jesus might say to the Body of Christ today:  Go and do likewise.

Today’s story is a story of Jesus’ “active compassion.”  Notice that no one asks Jesus to help.  Not the widow, no matter how profound her loss or how precarious her social situation.  No one in the crowd.  Jesus recognizes her deep need and acts.  He does what he can to alleviate suffering.  Maybe we, as the Body of Christ today, can’t restore the dead to life on a regular basis, but we have the power to help.  We have the power to save people from death, to respond to needs around us, to ease suffering in our world.  We can act with active compassion.  Do not wait to be asked.   

We can do what Jesus did for the centurion and for the widow. Go and do what Jesus did.  We are the Body of Christ.

The Second Sunday after Pentecost - May 29

Sing to the Lord
Proper 4
Psalm 96

I love the beginning of today’s psalm.  “Sing to the Lord a new song.”  A new song.

I’m going to preach on the psalm today.  Not only do I like that first line, the other readings didn’t really grab me this week.  The Old Testament reading is basically, “my God can whup your god.”  The passage from Galatians speaks to a specific time in history.   The “false gospel” that Paul is railing against is the teaching that Gentile converts to Christianity had to become Jews first.  Not a pressing issue today.  The Gospel is a healing story, but we’re going to have healing stories for quite a few weeks to come, so we can come back to that.  It’s interesting, though, that what Jesus does during “ordinary time,” this long green season between Pentecost and Advent, is heal people.

Another appealing feature of the psalm is that it tells us plainly what to do.  It instructs us what to do as God’s people.  We are to praise God.  This psalm, like many others, is a summons to praise.

The first three verses of the psalm contain six verbs in the imperative tense.  If you remember your high school grammar, the imperative tense is the one with the exclamation point after it.  It expresses a command.  This psalm commands us to:  Sing!  Sing!  Sing!  Bless!  Proclaim!  Declare!

We are to sing, to declare our praise, to God.

We talk so much about praising God in church, have you ever paused to ask, Why?  Why do we praise God?  Does God need our praise?  Surely God doesn’t need our words to build up God’s own self-esteem.  God doesn’t need to be affirmed or coddled or stroked, to be told what a good job he has done.

So if God doesn’t need praise, if praise isn’t offered to benefit God, why are we summoned to praise?  Because praising God benefits us.  We need to offer praise to God.

Think about it…  Praise is always offered in the context of a relationship.  We forget that sometimes by watering down our praise of God into something abstract…  “The Lord’s name be praised…”  True praise is part of a relationship, spoken as direct communication from one person to another.  I praise you.  I praise you, O God.

And when we speak praise to God, we define our place our relationship with God, we reorient ourselves with respect to God.  Praising God orients us into a position of joyful humility.  Not just humility.  Joyful humility.  Celebratory thanksgiving.

Sing to the Lord a new song.  This psalm is the psalmist’s new song.  What is yours?  What is your song of praise?

The psalms of praise follow a typical pattern.  After the summons to praise, they recite the reasons God is worthy of praise.  In this psalm, the psalmist praises God because God is sovereign over all of the created earth and all the nations and maintains it in order.

Other psalms praise God for other reasons.  In Psalm 139, the psalmist writes:  I praise you because I am wonderfully made.

What do you praise God for?  What is your psalm of praise?  I praise you, O God, for…

For me, today:  I praise you, God for the beauty of the earth and the wonder of spring.  Also this weekend, I praise you, O God, for inspiring valor and service in those who have offered and continue to offer their lives to promote and protect freedom.

Remember, praise is voiced directly to God.  It’s you speaking to God.  I praise, you, God!

Giving voice to praise is important, but there are other ways to offer praise to God.  I love the places in the psalms where the sea, the fields, the mountains, trees and all creatures sing praise to God.  They obviously don’t praise God using our language.  Just by being a glorious part of God’s creation, they praise God.

Thinking about praising God also reminded me of a prayer from the Prayer Book, the General Thanksgiving from the Daily Office.  It comes at the end of Daily Morning Prayer and Daily Evening Prayer.

[W]e pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days.

What does it mean for us to praise God “not only with our lips, but in our lives?” 

I think we do that when we fulfill our vocation, whenever we do the work God calls each of us to.  The word “vocation” has unfortunately become associated with a very limited meaning—a “vocation” to monastic life or ordained ministry.  But it just means the work God calls us ALL to do.  Whether that is our life’s work over the grand arc of a lifetime or smaller tasks within an individual day.  I want to encourage you to think of the half-dozen or dozen mini-vocations God calls each of us to every day.

With that in mind, listen to this oft-quoted passage from Frederick Buechner on “vocation” (Wishful Thinking).

It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a [person] is called to by God.

There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest.

By and large a good rule for finding out is this.  The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done.  If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing TV deodorant commercials, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b).  On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your patients much either.

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do.  The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

Whenever we fulfill our vocation, we praise God.

Today and always, let us praise God:  With our lips AND with our lives!

Trinity Sunday - May 22

Who We Are and Who We Are Not

Today is Trinity Sunday.  One of the seven Principal Feasts of our church calendar.  One of the most important holy days we celebrate together.  And the only one commemorating a doctrine, and a particularly difficult doctrine at that.

This week I came across an interesting discussion of the Trinity.  It wasn’t so much focused on defining the doctrine, as describing the context in which the doctrine evolved.

The commentator wrote:  “The Trinity was the early church’s way of trying to grapple with a monotheistic belief in one God in light of their actual, lived experience of God’s activity powerfully in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and after an encounter with the power of the Holy Spirit” (HERE).

The Trinity was an attempt to describe the 4^th century church’s experience of God.  It did that by emphasizing both who the early church was not and who they were.  The church was very clear that its belief was monotheistic, not like those pagans, Greeks, with their smorgasbord of many gods.  But the church also wanted to say that they were people who experienced God in relationships and those relationships were multifaceted, especially across time.

The Trinity was the church’s attempt to describe its belief and its identity by saying:  This who we are not and this is who we are.

That was not the only time the church sought to define itself by outlining both what it was and what it was not.  We see the same thing in the 39 Articles, written in the 16^th century.  The 39 Articles are in the fine print in the back of the Book of Common Prayer, amid the historical documents.  They come from the Church of England, our denominational forebear at the time of the Reformation.  Some of the Articles say who we are; some say who we are not.

For example, we are people who affirm the doctrine of the Trinity as a description of God.  We affirm the Incarnation, that the Son of God took on human flesh and lived among us.  We affirm Christ’s death and Resurrection as the means by which we receive eternal life with God.  These are some of the more important Articles stating who we are.

Then there are these articles, that clearly articulate who we are not:

“The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.”

The early Church of England was very clear that it was not Roman Catholic.  Or this one:

“The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.  Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.”

The 16^th century Church of England was also very clear that it was not like those Anabaptists, extreme Protestants that arose at the time of the Reformation.

These days, we do not need to differentiate ourselves from the Greeks and their pantheon of gods like Christians did in the 4^th century.  Nor do we need to separate ourselves in the same way that the Protestant Reformers did in the 16^th century from the Catholics and Anabaptists.

If we were to describe ourselves as not something today, what would it be?  The first reaction for some of you might be to say: we are not like those Christian fundamentalists of today.  Others might say: we are not like those Unitarians who believe everything and therefore nothing.  We might learn from those conversations if they were done faithfully and respectfully. 

But it seems to me that what we most need to affirm that we are NOT these days is secular.  We are not like the secular world that surrounds us.  We are not like those people who see nothing in the world as holy or sacred.  We are not like those people who do not view other people as bearing the image of God; therefore other people are expendable.  We are not like those people who confuse busyness with purpose.  We are not like those people who measure their life’s work by the comfort they have achieved in their own lives.  We are not secular.

At all points in history affirming what we ARE is probably more important than stressing what we are not.  And that’s important for us, too, today.

We are people who experience God in relationship.  And that relationship is multifaceted.  We do not encounter God in just one place or in just one way.  We encounter God, we come into relationship with God:  in creation, in one another, in the Scriptures, in the sacraments, in prayer.  We also meet God as we do God’s work in the world.

And there’s a wondrous positive feedback loop about being a Christian.  The more we think of ourselves as non-secular… the more we decide to see the world and other people as sacred…  and the more we choose intentionally do God’s work…  the richer and deeper our relationship with God will grow.

Pentecost - May 15

Prologue to Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21

Today is Pentecost.  One of the great days of celebration in the church calendar.

You know the main story of Pentecost, I hope.  We heard it in today’s first reading from Acts.  It’s about the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus’ disciples were gathered together inside.  They heard a sound like that of a mighty wind.  Tongues that looked like fire rested on each one of them.  And they were transformed.

Pentecost was a Jewish holy day in Jesus’ time and continues to be celebrated today.  In Hebrew, it is called Shavuot.  It falls 50 days after Passover, and Greek speaking Jews in Jesus’ time called it Pentecost (Pente = “five”).  It was and is a festival of first fruits.  In the spring, the earth is just beginning to offer fruitfulness.  It also commemorates the God’s giving of the Torah to God’s people.

But for Christians on Pentecost we remember the promised giving of the Holy Spirit. It’s worth noting that it was a physical event, heard and seen by the disciples and even the people outside.  It happened in the physical world; it was not an interior, “spiritual” event.  And the effect was amazing.  It brought the disciples together into community.  They were no longer a group of individual followers of Jesus.  They became a community, bound together by the Spirit.  And that community was given a mission, and the courage and means to pursue it.   They were empowered for proclamation.  Given the strength and skill to spread God’s Good News with others.

As fabulous and important as the event of Pentecost is, this year I’ve been thinking about a different piece of it.  I’ve been thinking about the importance of the prologue.

As the author of Luke/Acts tells it, Jesus appeared to his disciples several times after his resurrection and before his ascension.  Just before his ascension he said to them: ‘This is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:4b -5).

Then he was gone.  Gone from their sight.  Gone from their presence.  Ascended to heaven.  They just stood there, staring upward until the two “men in white robes” prodded them to move, to return to Jerusalem.

They went to the upper room and “constantly devoted themselves to prayer.”

I have tended to think of the disciples at this point as fearful, uncertain, and passive.  John’s Gospel says that after Jesus crucifixion, the disciples huddled in the upper room, afraid of what was outside.  Passive.  Afraid.

This week I read reflections by William Willimon on this portion of Acts (Interpretation Commentary).

The community, rather than taking matters into its own hands, getting organized and venturing forth with banners unfurled, has withdrawn to wait and to pray.  The next move is up to God.  It is up to the risen Christ to make good on his promise to bestow the Spirit and to restore the kingdom to Israel.  In a sense this is what prayer is—the bold, even arrogant effort on the part of the community to hold God to his promises.  In praying, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,” we pray that God will be true to himself and give us what has been promised.  Prayer is thus boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he makes, confidence that God will be true to himself.

So the disciples gathering in the upper room for prayers wasn’t an act of fear and uncertainty, but one of boldness and confidence.  And the prologue that set Pentecost in motion.

The prologue to Pentecost is prayer.  Corporate prayer. 

“Prayer is boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he makes.”

And on Pentecost God did fulfill God’s promise to send the Spirit.  And the Spirit empowered and enabled the disciples to undertake God’s mission.  Our collect today describes it as “shedding abroad” the fullness of eternal life found in God to the ends of the earth.

“Prayer is thus boldness born out of confidence in the faithfulness of God to the promises he makes.”  Our prayers, our corporate prayers, are acts of boldness.

Have you noticed that every Sunday when we celebrate the Eucharist, the invitation to the Lord’s prayer mentions boldness?  “And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are BOLD to pray…”

It is a bold prayer.  I remember being taught once how bold it is of us to address God as Father.  Our Father.  But Jesus has promised us that God takes on that roll.  So in boldness born out of confidence in God’s faithfulness, we pray: Our Father.

We boldly pray:  That God’s kingdom will come.  That we will receive the Holy Spirit as promised in Baptism.  That God will fulfill God’s purposes through us. 

The disciples’ prayers in the upper room were the prologue to Pentecost…  the giving of the Holy Spirit and empowering the church for mission.  God knows what our prayers today are prologue to.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter - May 8

Hospitality
Acts 16:16-34

Hospitality seems to be the result of conversion.  Sharing hospitality is an inevitable consequence of becoming a Christian.

At least that is what happens in the stories from Acts which we had as readings last week and this week.

You remember in last week’s reading Paul received a vision to go to Macedonia, to take the Gospel to Philippi.  Picking up the story as it is recounted in Acts:

On the sabbath day we [Paul and his companions] went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home." And she prevailed upon us (Acts 16:13-15).

This week’s reading follows immediately after last week’s.  Still in Philippi, Paul and his companions have been jailed.  That’s an interesting story in and of itself, but not my focus today.  They are praying and singing hymns when an earthquake breaks their bonds and opens the doors of the prison offering them freedom.   Continuing from Acts:

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God (Acts 16:29-34).

It’s too bad he doesn’t have a name, and surprisingly, tradition hasn’t given him one. 

Regardless, the first thing the unnamed jailer and his family do after they are baptized is to offer Paul and his companions hospitality.  And the first thing Lydia and her household do after they are baptized is offer hospitality.

The very first thing they do as Christians is share the Christian life with others.  There is never a moment, as baptized Christians, that they are alone.

The Christian life is shared with others.  Always. 

Offering hospitality is one way to think of that shared life.  But I think maybe that word limits our perspective on what Christian hospitality can be.  For us “hospitality” tends to mean dinner parties or having the in-laws stay for a week.

Hopefully, those are acts of Christian hospitality.  But the hospitality of sharing the Christian life is much broader.

Last Sunday in the adult education class we explored what Spirit-filled hospitality might look like.

It involves offering and inviting.  Offering something of ourselves to others.  And inviting them to share something of themselves with us.

It means noticing other people around us and offering what we have to them and inviting them to share what they have.  Things like:  Stories.  Needs.  Hopes.  Prayers.  Time.

Christian hospitality might sound something like this:  Tell me a story about your mother.  It may be joyous or sad, happy or difficult.  Or:  Can I pray for you?  Let’s get a cup of coffee.  Let’s walk together.  Here, take my coat; Keep it.

Of course, there’s another aspect of hospitality.  It’s not just about the things we initiate, whether that’s offering or inviting.  It’s also about accepting the hospitality of others.  Accepting the offerings and invitations of others.  For some of us, I think that’s often harder.  Yes, let’s walk together.  Thank you for your offering in my time of need.  I am grateful for your prayers.

So think about it as you encounter people as today unfolds.  People you know well, people you know a little, or people you don’t know at all.  Look for opportunities to offer and accept Christian hospitality.

Let us pray that the spirit will inspire us, as it did the Philippian jailer and Lydia, to share our life in Christ with others.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter - May 1

Tourist or Traveler on the Way?
Acts 16:9-15

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Ever since I was in seminary, I’ve subscribed to the Christian Century.  It’s actually published here in Chicago.  It’s a great source for religious news, faithful analysis and thoughtful reflections.  Its subtitle is “Thinking Critically. Living Faithfully.”  I want to share with you a commentary that appeared in the most recent issue.  It is related to today’s readings, especially the reading from Acts.

I found it very thought provoking.  And I hope it will provoke thought for you.  Or provoke conversation.  Or provoke soul searching.  It’s meant to be provocative, I think.  And if you find yourself reacting, maybe that’s a place to look prayerfully at your own life.  It’s by the relatively new publisher, Peter Marty.   He also serves as Senior Pastor of a large Lutheran church in Iowa.

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Tourist and Traveler

Early Christians used the Greek word hodos, or "the way," to describe the literal and figurative paths their lives followed. The wise men returned to their home country "by another road." Jesus' disciples spoke of what happened to them "along the way” to Emmaus.

Hodos could also refer to a way of life. Jesus points to John the Baptist as one who came “in the way (hodos) of righteousness.” By the end of the book of Acts, we find Christians referring to their whole communal life in Christ as “the Way."

According to John's Gospel, Jesus told his followers, "l am the way." This expression contrasts sharply with "I am the answer," something many Christians assume he must have said but didn’t. The difference between the two self-descriptions is huge.  The former invites grand adventure and openness to all of the ambiguities and doubts that go with a journey along uncertain paths. The latter suggests a packaged arrangement-a relationship involving little risk.

In his book Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past, Daniel J. Boorstin explains the historical difference between a traveler and a tourist. In previous centuries, travelers were those interested in unfamiliar settings and wild encounters that enlarged perspective. "The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience," writes Boorstin. In contrast, "The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes sightseeing." Tourism, in this historian's assessment, is a spectator sport full of contrived, prefabricated experiences.

The root words for travel and tourist informed Boorstin's study. Travel comes from the same word as travail, meaning trouble, work, or even torment. A traveler takes risks, plunges into diverse cultures, and seeks to learn local customs.  Unplanned experiences are the traveler's norm, sometimes involving challenging exploits. Travelers eat whatever food is placed before them. They aim to learn as much of the language as possible. Shopping for souvenirs plays no role in their ventures.

A tourist sacrifices less. The word tour from the Latin tornus— tool for making circles—literally means "one who goes in circles." A tourist is a pleasure seeker who passes through different exotic experiences only to return to a comfortable bed at night. Insulated from the noise, the smells, and the local people, a tourist's circle is complete once back home unpacking mementos and sharing photos.

I wonder if congregations are full of travelers and tourists. Travelers would be those who come to immerse their lives and refocus their values. They want to breathe the language of faith and know the way of Christ, even if travail may be part of the bargain. The tourists show up for a more passive experience, happy to drop in when they are in the mood. They spectate and consume, glad that the donuts taste fresh.

I suppose we all have to choose the spiritual road or path that works for us. Will ours be a journey rich in wild mystery, full of unknowables and incomprehensibles? Or will it be a safer path where we pick up a word here and a phrase there, making a few social connections along the way?

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Paul was clearly a traveler.  In today’s passage from Acts he receives a vision calling him to take the Gospel to Macedonia.  So he leaves where he is, gets in a small boat, and sets out across the Aegean for a foreign land.

This reflection really challenges us to ask just one question:  What way, what path is Jesus calling us to follow?  For each of us, as individuals, there is an answer to that question.  What path is each of us to follow as a disciple of Christ?

At first I thought the challenge was just to take the road “less traveled.”  But all we know about that way is that it is unpopular, not necessarily that it is the Christian way.

Or maybe, when we face a decision point, we are to take the more challenging road.  Maybe, maybe not.  Just because it is challenging does not mean Jesus leads us there.

The question is:  Where is Jesus leading you?  What path are you called to take as a follower of Christ?  And, yes, it may be an unpopular or challenging way.  But it will also be full of grace, rich in mystery, abounding in wonder and accompanied by Christ.

So let us pray that, as we follow the way of Christ today, we may be travelers, not tourists.