You’re running late. Your friend texts you, “Where are you?” You answer, “On the way.” Your niece sends you a picture of herself with a baby bump. Underneath is written: guess who’s on the way? You are talking with a recent college graduate. “Make your first million yet,” you ask. On the way, is the response. The idea of being “on the way” is one we understand. Saint James, long associated with pilgrimage, is the patron of those who are on the way. It might be helpful, therefore, to unpack exactly what we are saying when we claim to be “on the way.” The first, obvious, thing to note is that if you are on the way you’re not there yet. You still have some ground to cover, some time to elapse, some accomplishment to achieve. In that sense being on the way is uncomfortable, you feel incomplete. On the other hand, being on the way means that you’re moving, you’re doing something. Those who are sitting on their couches watching Judge Judy are not on the way. They’re just there. So being on the way is a good thing in and of itself despite the unease it produces. That certainly applies to the spiritual life. None of us are there yet. We are all on the way. As today’s gospel illustrates even the great heroes of the faith, people like St. James, were still on the way even when following Jesus. In the gospel St. James showed himself to be a momma’s boy, ambitious, boastful, envious. Jesus called him a Son of Thunder because he was hot-headed. When Jesus was arrested, he bolted, deserted the one he called Lord. In other words, St. James was a mess, just like us. But the epistle says that despite being an earthen vessel, being fragile and prone to failure, God’s power worked in James and works in us. Being on the way, being a mess, did not prevent St. James from becoming an apostle who brought the message of Jesus into the world. We too might be a mess, on the way, but we can bring the love of Jesus into our homes, our neighborhood, our city.
That reminds us of the second characteristic of being on the way. When you’re on the way you have a goal, a destination you are heading toward. People on the way aren’t just wandering around, lollygagging, going hither and thither with no end in view. We like to have a direction, an address so GPS can tell us “you have arrived” at the end of our journey. Church, we are on the way toward God, our goal is grace and glory. The problem with having God as our goal is that we can never quite reach it. There is always more to God than what we can grasp. We are on the way to God but the address is beyond us, et cum spiri220. God is always just out of our reach. Having God as our goal is like walking toward the horizon. No matter how far we go, the horizon is still in front of us. That should not discourage us because the point of being on the way is exactly that, to be on the way. There is never a moment when we can sit down and “whew, made it.” The horizon is still there. There is always a “more” when it comes to God. Even though we never quite reach our goal we stay on the way because even the merest glimpses we get of God are so attractive, so compelling, so appealing that even the little sight, the little taste, the little touch we get of God makes it all worthwhile. There’s a story of a little girl who was coloring a picture with intense concentration. Her mother asked, What picture are you drawing, honey. She answered, I’m drawing a picture of God, she said. Her mother answered, but no one knows what God looks like. To which the girl answered, They will when I am done. Maybe. But surely we will only know what God looks like at the end of the journey.
Finally, when we are on the way we need a mode of transportation. We could travel by airplane, by train, by bus, by boat, by dirigible, by rocket ship, by trolley, by car, by limousine, by motor coach, by motorcycle, by bicycle, by unicycle or even by our good old two feet. Whatever it is, being on the way requires something to provide the motion forward. For those on the way in the spiritual life, Jesus tells us our motive power comes from loving service. The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve. Only by serving others will we reach our goal. While there are some who serve in foreign lands or in exotic locations, the service that is most often demanded of us is found in the providence of our everyday life. We serve our families by being patient, kind, forgiving, loving one another just as we are. We serve our neighbors by being generous, compassionate, considerate and accepting as we address the needs that are all around us. We serve our Church by being faithful, open, transparent, devoted to a way of life that will help others to see the love which God has planted deep within us. We serve our world, God’s world, by being courageous, persistent, determined, dedicated to making our common home a place where everyone has a place in which to live freely as a beloved child of God. Service is the juice that powers us on our way because it plugs us right into the grace-filled life of Jesus. Loving service is like a magic penny: the more love you give away the more love you have. On the way? Have a great trip, or as they say on pilgrimage to St. James, Buen Camino.
