On The Road Again!

Alan Hirsch reminds us that pilgrimage is an essential part of spiritual formation. (Note in Hirsch's terminology communitas is the deep community that is formed when a group of people face a life-threatening experience together, and is the essential ingredient missing in most churches today)

One of the things that the story of Abraham, the mateship of sports teams, the desperate comradeship of war veterans, the fellowship of the Lord of the Rings, and the mad messianic rabbits of Watership Down, teach us is that the journey itself is important. That maturity and self-actualization require movement and risk, and that adventure is actually very good for the soul. They all teach is that a deep form of togetherness and love is found when we embark on a common mission of discovery, when we encounter danger together and have to find each other in the process in order to survive. We find all these elements in the way Jesus formed his disciples as together they embarked on a journey away that took them from their homes, family, and securities (be they social or religious) and set out on an adventure that involved liminality, risk, action reflection learning, communitas, and spiritual discovery. On the way their fears of inadequacy and lack or provision faded only to be replaced by a courageous faith that went on to change the world forever.

And what makes phenomenal Jesus movements so dynamic is that they actually involve movement, and this is not just describing the organizational structure and system, but the fact that there is real motion. This is not to say that every Christian literally left home and family to follow Jesus, but that the foundational spiritual transaction of laying down all in the name of Jesus lay at the very base of all of their subsequent following. In this way they had made a abiding decision to enter into the liminality of leaving securities and comforts when they first became Christians and so didn’t have to try and factor it in later. This meant that they remained a liquid people, constantly adapting and evolving, depending on context. This was to continue until Constantine gave us buildings and an institution and a bond between church and state that was to put Apostolic Genius to sleep for a long, long, time.

We need to hit the road again. We are the people of the Way and our path lies before us, inviting us into a new future in which we are permitted to shape and participate. In trying to rearticulate the nature of authentic Christian community; that of a communitas formed around a mission and undertaken by a group of uncertain but brave comrades, by evoking mythic imagery from great stories, and calling to mind how Jesus and the early Church went about spreading the message, we evoke that yearning and that willingness to undertake an adventurous journey of rediscovery of that ancient force called Apostolic Genius.

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