Persistently, Steadily Walking the Way

Last Wednesday, as I walked the half mile between St. John’s Church and our partner school Belcher Elementary School, I remembered that it was just three years ago this week that Peg and I joined other Episcopalians from around the country on a Pilgrimage sponsored by the United Thank Offering. The pilgrimage took us across northwest Spain following El Camino de Santiago.

On the short walk to and from Belcher, I engaged in conversation with students, parents, teachers, firefighters from the Largo Fire Department, and Mrs. Dawn Lewis, the new principal at Belcher Elementary.  And it occurred to me again, just as it did three years ago, that Jesus must have done most of his teaching while walking across Palestine, Galilee, and other parts of the Holy Land.

Sure, in his day walking was how one got around; but Jesus was also on a pilgrimage, a journey. He was heading toward the cross… where he would fully and finally confront evil, human sin, and our separation from God at its source.

But imagine that! Listening to Jesus not in a pew or a classroom but while walking with him on The Way! His words unfolding with every step, approaching the next hill, the next curve in the trail, or the next village.

And Jesus covers a lot of ground, doesn’t he? Today Jesus talks – as always – about justice while at the same time, he talks about prayer and also about faith. Jesus connects what we often separate: faith, prayer, and justice.

Because faith is not just about ideas… and it is not about keeping our heads in the clouds… the life of faith is a life on continual re- orientation towards God.

That makes prayer more than just a spiritual shopping list… prayer is an expression of relationship, and an openness to hearing.

And, in that light, justice is the practical expression of the ethical and moral content of our faith and prayer.

To be honest, for a big chunk of my life I thought that faith was only about believing the right things about God in the right way. Keeping the faith was something we did by guarding a treasure of beliefs and handing them down, intact and unchanged, in a kind of lockbox. The problem with that kind of faith is that it ends up being something that you have in your head. Worse, that kind of faith can tempt us to want to protect it against the world, when God means our faith to equip and strengthen to go into the world!

Throughout my journey of faith, I’ve discovered that getting the content right is important but will only get you so far because at the heart of faith is a relationship with God, a relationship that changes us, transforms us and grounds us.

Luke introduces today’s Gospel story as being about the need – our need – to “pray always and not to lose heart.”

When Peg and I walked The Way of St. James from Sanmartin to Santiago in Galicia, in northwest Spain, we found ourselves walking on paving stones made smooth by the feed of uncounted pilgrims from all over the world who for hundreds of years made this journey of prayer, contemplation, and renewal. And all along the way we discovered many little shrines and other places to pray. Once, we came across a little one room chapel which was tended to by a blind solitary monk. He was there every day to pray for every pilgrim who walked past. Every pilgrim!

I stopped in and he prayed for me. On a whim, I told him in my (very) imperfect Spanish that I was a priest and asked if I could give him a blessing. In response, he put his hands together in the manner of a prayer. What a gift he offered to me and all those other pilgrims!

There were times when I felt that maybe I had bitten off more than I could chew. Even on the last day when the goal was in sight! I had walked about 85 or so kilometers and only had 15 to go to reach the center square in Santiago… only seven Camino markers!.... but they were going to be up one very long hill and down another even longer hill. I learned early that in many ways going down a steep hill paved with stones was more difficult than going up. I was not sure if I could do it.

Now, all through the walk, there was this purple bus the UTO had chartered, and it would meet us at pre-arranged points. It was there, frankly, to offer respite in case the blisters or joints or muscles got the better of one. For some of us, this was a necessary precaution.

So, there I was. Feeling tired and achy, and even though (as I said) the end was in sight, I have to say that that big purple bus looked mighty good! I stopped, leaning on my walking poles staring at it, trying to decide. When another walker came and stood beside me and joined me in my silent rumination. And then she said, “Let’s go! If we don’t finish this piece, we’ll always wonder.” With that word of encouragement, we both turned away from the bus and set off on that last bit of trail.

The lesson in faith for me was to have the trust to take the next step. To persist in that faith, and to wrestle with the resistance that is part and parcel of the journey.

The widow in today’s Gospel is one of my favorite biblical characters. She is a boxer in the tough ring of life, and she was not at all afraid of the judge in Jesus’ story. She didn’t care about his reputation. She was perfectly willing to go round after round with him if that’s what it took for her to get a measure of justice. She reminds me of a wonderful medieval image of The Blessed Virgin giving the devil a punch in the nose. She also reminds me of Mary Magdalene, the woman who was the first to meet and encounter the Risen Jesus and the one who brought the Good News to those incredulous Apostles.

Do you wrestle with God? Jesus encourages us to have a relationship with God that is like this woman with the judge. We are invited to wrestle with God like Jacob in the desert. The wrestling is a profound act of faith.

Do you sometimes feel tired and spiritually achy, unsure of whether we can go that next mile. The woman in Jesus’ parable encourages us to make that next step, to continue on The Way.

Because God never gives up on us! But the question remains, are we willing to go all the rounds with God? Are we willing to walk the whole way? Jesus is teaching about faith and prayer and not losing heart… while he is on the way to Jerusalem…on the way to the cross…and while we know now that resurrection is on the other side of that, we also know from personal experience that the resurrections God gives are not always apparent while we are busy living life.

“Prayer is not an optional exercise in piety.” We Episcopalians understand that prayer is the bedrock of effective action. Our liturgy is itself a form of prayer engaged with Jesus Christ that moves from living word, to table fellowship, to action in the world. Our pattern of daily morning, evening, mid-day and night prayer, our worship as a community, our engagement with God in music, art, and our senses, and our regular Eucharist are like those little shrines that we encountered on our pilgrimage. They refresh us, encourage us, and remind us why are on this pilgrimage.

One of the earliest names given to the first members of the Jesus Movement was “The People of The Way.” We are People of The Way, especially each time we decide to stay on the path, to continue the pilgrimage even when we feel worn to a nubbin. Because making that next step is the way that we open our hearts to the strength and power of God.

Be persistent in your prayer, Jesus says in today’s Gospel!  Go every round with God. Beat a path to God’s door.  As the late preacher and writer Frederick Buechner said years ago, persistence is key, "not because you have to beat a path to God's door before [God will] open it, but because until you beat the path, maybe there's no way of getting to your door."

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Here is a link to the bulletin for the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost  at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.