Step 3: Exile

“A true exile, despite his possession of knowledge, sits like someone of foreign speech among men of other tongues”

--St. John Climacus

“Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul.  Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that if they speak of you as evildoers, they may observe your good works and glorify God on the day of visitation.”

--1 Peter 2:11-12

Have you ever experienced what it’s like not to fit in?  Most of us probably have at some point been the new kid on the block or the new person on the job.  Often the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land wears off after awhile.  We become acclimated to a new environment.  We learn the lay of the land.  We learn the rules, written and unwritten.  We learn who to trust and who to watch out for.

One of the challenging things about growing in the Christian life is, the deeper we grow in Christ, the less at home we feel with the world as it is.  When Christ Jesus comes to us, bringing the kingdom of God with him, he invites us into a different way of being.  It’s not a new way.  In fact, it’s the oldest way, the first way, the way of communion with God and with our fellow creatures, the way of Eden.  Humankind abandoned this way and the result has been the breaking of communion.  We have only the faintest idea, the dimmest memory, of what that way of being was like.

Christ has come to remind us and to bring us home.  But we have become so used to living in a broken world that the ways of our true home have become strange to us.  As we relearn those ways, the ways of love, justice, peace, and holiness, we ourselves become strangers to the world we once called home.  We live in two worlds.

Those of us who have had the experience of being immigrants may have a deeper understanding of how this feels.  As Christians we are all immigrants.  And we are all struggling to find our place. We need the strength of the Spirit to stand for the truth of God in a world that sometimes resists it.  We need the gentleness of the Spirit to speak the truth in love.  We need the patience and perseverance of the Spirit to remain faithfully in the world, but not of it.

Prayer:

O God, you invite us to a new and beautiful home where we will all be one in you.  We are not there yet, but we are on the way.  Help us as we live in a world that is not yet our home to remain faithful as we journey toward your kingdom, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

St. John Climacus, pray for us.