“I want Jesus to walk with me. I want Jesus to walk with me. All along my pilgrim journey, Lord, I want Jesus to walk with me.”
–African American Spiritual
I like to walk. Most mornings, as my schedule allows, I try to walk at least two miles. I don’t always get to go walking and I miss when I don’t. My day seems somehow incomplete without some time dedicated to walking. There’s something spiritual and deeply biblical about walking.
There are a few regulars along my walking routes. The early risers out cheerfully walking their dogs, taking a morning stroll, walking the trash cans to the curb. There is a beautiful etiquette to walking. Walking forces the walker focus on the road just ahead, and more importantly it offers an opportunity, if you are open to noticing the small, unseen and often overlooked things. Some of the constants along my regular walking routes have been the randomly lost personal items. I have lovingly come to call them the echoes. The echoes are the leavings of those who have walked before; a lost water bottle, a forgotten sweater, an abandoned shoe. Each lost item is a story.
I often find myself inventing stories when I come across a new echo on my path. The sweater that was a Christmas gift from grandma inadvertently left at the park. The water bottle, a memento of presenting for the first time at a conference. The running shoes that were worn while jogging with a special someone who has passed on resting by a tree. Each lost item conjuring up countless stories.
We all leave echoes here on earth. Each echo precious in their own way, connecting us to the present and pointing us toward the future. Each echo retelling the tale of life and love. Walking often makes me think, what echoes do we leave in our world? Where are we shaping a new story for those who will come after us?
Jesus and his earthly ministry left nothing material behind, no monuments, no house to visit, no artifacts to touch, and no composed work to be played. Jesus left just a story. Jesus rightly said “the Son of man has no place to lay his head,” and yet the story of God’s transformational love that was manifested and made real in Jesus echoes across the world. The story of an itinerant rabbinical preacher from Nazareth continues to shape and transform our world in countless ways.
It is no wonder that Jesus spent most of his ministry walking. The unrecorded and often overlooked action in the Gospel is Jesus’ pilgrimage walk. Jesus is always walking somewhere or telling stories of others going on a journey. Perhaps that is the lesson for us in the church today. We need to start walking.
To walk this earth is an act of faith. To notice the unseen, the lost, the forgotten is an act of hope. To see past what has been and long for what could be as a radical act of defiance. In this season in the life of the church and in the life of faith, where we are worried about attendance, finances, and the future, perhaps the most radical thing we could do is walk. We are called to find our story, to listen to the echoes of those who have gone before, to collect, savor, and share the stories of those who otherwise would be ignored, neglected, and discarded like so many empty water bottles along the way.
There was wisdom in Jesus' walking all over the holy land. It meant that he was not confined or contained but set free to step into the lives of those who had been rejected and dejected. I cannot imagine a higher calling for us as people of faith than to do the same. Perhaps this time in which we live calls for a church that walks.