The True Way of Life

Each one of you are on a journey, and that journey has led you to this sanctuary of St. Paul’s today.

Some of you walked from your hotel, some of you drove one of the ancient roads that all lead to this eternal capital, some of you took a metro or a bus.

Some of you are logging on to YouTube from far away.

The details of your travel are yours alone—and perhaps your journey to arrive to this moment has been hard and heavy.

But regardless of the specifics of your route, you are here now—gathered together as part of the mystical body of Christ—individual members of the One who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Jesus’ self-identification as the Way in John’s Gospel has too often been used by later generations of Christians as a weapon to exclude others and an excuse to justify violence against fellow Christians and adherents of other religions.

Besides the regrettable damage this has done to others and to the larger Body of Christ, such a focus on exclusivity misses the more important calling that Jesus is offering to his followers.

“And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

Like Thomas, none of us knows what lies on the other side of the veil between life and death.

But we do know the one who rose from the dead and we do know the nature of the journey to which he calls us.

The way that leads to life, the way that Jesus revealed to his disciples and to all who had ears to hear and a will to incorporate it into their daily lives, is the way of love that is characterized by service, common humanity, and spiritual fortitude.

We see the contours of this way when Jesus eats with sinners and tax collectors, when he feeds multitudes, casts out demons, and heals the sick, and when he washes feet and turns the idea of Lordship upside down before passing through the rigors of his cross and Passion.

The true way of life that Jesus is, that Jesus shows, and that Jesus calls us into is a commitment to a kind of behavior that leads to where he is.

None of us took the exact same road to get here today, and yet, both the way that led us here and our final destination is one and the same.

The God for which our hearts long has been made known in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and the mode of living that reconnects us to the source of all creation and our neighbors from whom we have been disconnected has been modeled for us by Jesus.

The question that each of us has to answer is whether we will make Jesus’ way of living our own.

Will we allow the shape of his life to mold our own, so that the glorious diversity of our personal roads and the universality of the way of life may become one?

If we want to journey with Christ, toward Christ, and into the eternal heart of God while we are graced with days on this fragile earth, our island home, then we should seek to pattern our common life along his.

Instead of defending the borders of our faith in order to compete for finite human and financial resources, we would do better to follow Jesus’ lead in recognizing that Syro-Phoenician Gentile women are children of the promise too.

Instead of opting for the superficial salve of understanding our fellow pilgrims as only those who use the term Christian to describe themselves, we would do better to remember Jesus words that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these.”

Instead of worrying about what sort of afterlife awaits us, and spending our time installing ourselves as judges who decide who is in and who is out, we would do better to devote our time and energy to helping the contours of eternity transform this current world in which we all live.

Breaking down the divide between earth and heaven, letting actions carry more weight than mere words, and reaching out beyond the comfort zone that the world demarcates as normal but our God exposes as sinful—these are the paths that lead to true and lasting life.

When we devote our lives to travelling this journey of faith and sharing the pilgrim’s way together then Christ is both among us as guide and fellow pilgrim, and the end destination of our entire sojourn.

What, if anything, is hindering you from giving yourself over to that journey today?

Are you beset by uncertainty like our brother Thomas, or untrusting of what you’ve already seen like our brother Philip?

Do you worry about your resolve to see the journey through, or fear that your fragilities in body, mind, or spirit might prevent you from moving forward with integrity?

Bring such concerns and questions to Christ, the True Way of Life, in prayer, and allow his grace to receive, bless, and overshadow them.

Then, as forgiven and renewed pilgrims, arise and seek out your siblings in Christ—both those who are called Christians and those who live the way in other traditions—and search out more opportunities to support one another while traveling together upon the true way of service and love that leads to life.