An
important part of the Baptismal Covenant is moving beyond our comfort zone to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor
as yourself.” As I noted at the beginning of this series, community is how we live into all the parts of our baptismal
vows. Sometimes on our journey of faith it is harder to love our selves than to
love our neighbor. We know the faults that we try to keep hidden from the rest
of the world and that can make us think that we are unlovable.
Not true! God loves us just the way
we are. Look at the characters in the Bible-and some of them were really wild
characters. God loved each of them and used them to move the Kingdom forward.
When we read the Bible stories, we notice, as this blog
says, [that] “our ancestors in faith were so unafraid of their beautiful
mess. What a witness that the full spectrum of human emotion is woven tightly
in their relationship with God. What a witness that the people who eventually
wrote down the sacred account of humanity and God felt no apparent need to
conceal the bruises and wounds to pretty up humans and, for that matter, God. God,
it seems, cares little for our perfection, which doesn't exist, except as a
false idol. God's love for the whole of who we are and God's work with the
whole of who we are is uncomfortable for many of us.” The women and men in the Bible are part of the community in which we live our Baptismal vows.
Last weekend, I attended a retreat, which is a great way to interact in a community that is made up of new and old friends.
One thing we did to build community was to choose prayer partners and also to hang prayers on a tree in the garden of St. Francis on the Hill. We then each took a prayer or 2 off the tree when we left. The keynote speaker was Bishop Vono of the Diocese of the Rio Grande. He talked to us about the Road to Jerusalem and the Road to Emmaus noting that the Road to Jerusalem is life. While it isn’t easy, life is a journey that we participate in as pilgrims not tourists. Pilgrims look for LIFE and discover our personal story in the scriptural record. As pilgrims we are on a journey to being awake (although that won’t completely happen until we die and wake up to the fullness of life).
At the beginning of the retreat we participated in a Renewal of our Baptismal Covenant because Baptism is the start to the
pilgrimage to our life. Through it we enter the community, the Family, of God.
The Road to Jerusalem may have times when we experience
“outrageous suffering” on the journey. The good news is that we aren't journeying alone. Teresa of Avila said, "The feeling remains that God is on the journey too." After we go through
the dark Jerusalem, we find ourselves on the Road to Emmaus where we meet Jesus and find
that our minds are opened to the scriptures and to salvation and to each other.
What does this have to do with
‘loving our neighbor and ourselves’? On our journey, we come to terms with our
own “beautiful mess” and then we can live lives that reflect the story of
scripture so that others are drawn to the Truth and the Mystery. We begin to be
awake and to live Holy Mystery in our lives and interactions so that the Gospel
becomes person-centered and actively life-centered. Our stories, individually and corporately, become part of the sacred strand that runs through history and life.
Next time, we’ll look at the line in
the Baptismal Covenant about striving for justice… What does that mean to you
in your journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus?
