When I think about the People of God, I see them as a Horde of Pilgrims. Some of them forge ahead, like scouts, finding new paths towards God, exploring byways and wildernesses. Some report back, some do not. Some lag behind, having found a pleasing place where they feel comfortable.
Some are slow because they are lame or otherwise
handicapped, or because they cannot accept help along the way. Others decide to settle down and make
villages and families. Some race about
trying to convince others that their way forward is the most direct and safest
path. Some set up shop as professional
horde guides and refuse to recognize that the entire group is actually headed
in the same direction.
Some build dwellings and say among themselves how good it is
to dwell here together. Many of that
group practice a hospitality that enables the whole tribe to keep moving
forward. Some particularly fearful ones
try to build walls to prevent others from falling off the edge of the world and being forever lost. Of course they won’t explore the other side
of the wall, so they never realize how much of the tribe has discovered the
wall is permeable and can be simply walked through.
They are infinitely diverse, this horde, and infinitely
beautiful. In a way each of them is
Christ on His journey. It is deeply
transformative, this journey, and can be experienced as an adventure, as a
perilous quest, as a miserable slog, even as a painful torment. Much depends on whether or not the pilgrim is
the center of her own universe, or whether Christ is the center of that
pilgrim’s reality.
As the least and most lame of the pilgrim horde, I am
learning to let them be Christ to me, and to allow the Christ in me be what
they see when they look at me. I have
fallen in love with the whole, crazy, clanging, loud, wild bunch of them. I find them a fascinating, endless, wondrous
creation, which shows forth the Glory of God.
I find us to be a fitting expression of the One Who loves us.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment