Belonging to the Way

Belonging to the Way--February 5, 2018

"Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." [Acts 9:1-2]

Before there were buildings with steeples, there was "the Way."

Before there were congregational committees, council meetings, or Robert's Rules of order, there was "the Way."

Before there were our kids' soccer games or craft shows at the mall vying for our attention on Sunday mornings, there was "the Way."

And maybe you could simply say, before there was an organized religion called Christianity, there was simply a community of people who identified as "belonging to the Way."

That's what I want to lift up out of these two verses from what we call the Book of Acts; we have spent time before talking about the wider backstory these verses come from--how Saul is about to be called by the living Jesus to become a follower, an in turn, a leader in the movement that would become "the church."  So setting aside that wider context, let's just zoom in on a phrase that Luke the narrator practically rattles off without a second thought.  Luke just assumes everybody knows that followers of Jesus (the Church) went by the descriptor, "those belonging to the Way," back then in those early days.

Think about that for a moment.  The words we use matter, and the pictures that our words paint for us to set ourselves in the world have great power.  And the first Christians--even before we were actually known as "Christians," were known as people "who belonged to the Way."  Luke doesn't think anything of it, because that was the only way people referred to people-who-followed-Jesus at the beginning.  But my goodness, what an important thought is there.  We are people who belong to the Way.

Let's unpack that for just a moment.  The word "way" doesn't suggest a single location or geographic territory.  It doesn't conjure up a particular hierarchy or organizational structure.  It is less a "where" and more a "how"--people living their lives in a certain way, following after a certain Who, namely Jesus.  That can happen anywhere--and, of course, it does.  You can follow after Jesus in Jerusalem, in Damascus, in Rome, or in Pennsylvania, or in Portland, or in Mexico City, or in Beijing.  And because of that, it means others can also "belong to the Way" even if they aren't in my geographic location.  We can all belong to one another and all belong to "the Way" even if we aren't in the same place, because the community of Jesus isn't a historical society, tied to one place, one kind of soil, or one language, but rather a gathering across time and space of everybody learning how to walk the Jesus Way.

It also means that being a follower of Jesus is an ever-moving thing.  Sometimes we treat the Christian faith like is something you can accomplish or master--like you memorize an official faith statement, or walk down a church aisle and pray some sort of prayer to invite Jesus into your heart (as though it were not his to claim already!), or you learn enough Bible verses and then you are an expert in Jesus.  But that's not how the notion of "way" works--the word "Way" suggests an ongoing action--the how of living life.  You don't "accomplish" life, you live it.  Being a follower of Jesus is simply a particular answer to the question, "How do you live your life?"  And followers of Jesus--people who belong to the Way--are people who are daring to take a deep dive into the words and actions of Jesus and his followers to give a shape to their own lives, because they are convinced that Jesus has given us the most compelling way of living our lives.  It is a how, not a where, and maybe even not simply a what in terms of intellectual content to memorize.  It is about how we speak, live, forgive, give, love, strive, sacrifice, risk, suffer, advocate, rejoice, weep, and surrender.  

We have been talking over the last month or so about the Call of Jesus, and we needed to begin there, because that's how it begins for all of us.  Our lives of faith don't simply start with people admiring Jesus' way of life from a distance and saying, "I think I'll try it, too."  It begins with Jesus' call to us, usually while we are looking the other way, and pulling us into relationship even when our hearts are turned away from him.  Jesus doesn't just plop his way of life in our lap and say, "When you can figure it out, I'll call you to follow me, then."  But rather he calls us, even before we are equipped or know what we have gotten ourselves into, and from there he leads us along to follow him... on the way with him.

That's just it: it's not so much that Jesus calls us to a specific geographic location, necessarily, as it is that Jesus calls us to follow him in a certain way of life, one that can happen right where you are now, or a thousand miles away, or on the other side of the ocean.  Any of those might be a part of our life stories--the "Way" is not simply a destination, it is the journey as well.  "All the way to heaven is heaven," said St. Catherine of Siena, "because Jesus said 'I am the Way'."  So the Call of Jesus is inextricably tied up with the Way of Jesus.  He calls us to a particular way of life, and the way of life begins with his call, even before we have gotten the hang of walking in his particular "way."

Hopefully, we have been clear up to this point of our journey that each of us--you, me, people a hundred miles away or a continent away, today or tomorrow or a thousand years past or future--we have been called by Jesus.  But called to what precisely?  To the journey with him.  To go where he goes, to do as he does, to love as he loves, and to let our lives be shaped by his.  Jesus' goal, then, if you can talk about Jesus having "goals," is not to get his "club" into areas of bigger social influence, and not to get his "party" into positions of power at the cost of their integrity.  Jesus' goal is to draw people to let their lives be shaped by his, because Jesus is convinced that is what the purpose of life has been all along--a particular way of life, marked by trust in the Reign of a recklessly generous God, by love even for stinkers, by courage even when we would rather run away, by humility even when we are bent on chasing after so-called "greatness," and by grace from beginning to end.  And that means that every moment, every even split second of lived reality that gives us a taste of that, is what heaven is like, even before we get to any talk of life after death.  All the way to heaven is heaven, because ultimately whatever we think we mean by "heaven" is ultimately about the presence of Jesus, who is also along the way with us now.  Jesus, in a very real sense, is our way.

Maybe then the place for us to carry this into the day now is a single question: the words that come out of my mouth, the attitudes (including the prejudices, the secret and not-so-secret hatreds) I subscribe to, the actions I take, the choices I select, the priorities I give weight to, and the love I do or do not embody--do they, do all of them, "belong to the Way" of Jesus?  And the things within me that do not fit with his reckless love, his radical table fellowship, his courageous truth-telling, and his groundedness in God, will I be willing to leave such things by the roadside, so that I can continue further along on the way... the Way to which I already belong?

Lord Jesus, you have called us, not to a set of facts or single location, but to a way of life--the way that is yours.  Lead us on the way today, the way to which you say we already belong.