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In a time when Catholic piety is often fixed on the Good Friday “stations of the cross,” and evangelical piety is associated with an imaginary “what would Jesus do,” and much of Protestant religion picks and chooses from the full Christology of the Gospels, and contemporary religion often misses a Christ who has “moved into the neighborhood” and fully engaged the world and its peoples, this book chooses 14 episodes from Jesus’ entire life and makes them “way-stations” on a pilgrimage where we gather to meet Jesus in person, share him in community, and follow him to a fully realized discipleship. Such way-stations may recall the medieval imitation of Christ or the notion of a Christian pilgrimage during which we “make the way by walking.” A pious sentiment runs: “I want to be in that number.”
The class sets forth a process of adult Christian education today that is rich with all the dimensions of Jesus’ life, from birth to death and resurrection, with all the happenings in between. And most important, it turns adult Christian education into a compelling Bible study in community, one that attracts participation like walking a labyrinth together. Finally, it follows contemporary Gospel scholarship back to the historical Jesus, imagining visionary Holy Land tours and inviting a modern walking the way-stations that constitute Jesus’ own life and our immersion in it that would constitute true discipleship. Along the way, we tell stories and become the stories we tell.
Way Station 1: Jesus is born into the human world and our world. Do we meet him there as we are born again?
Way Station 2: Jesus is baptized, opens his life to God, and engages temptation and possibility Have we been mostly clueless about our own baptism?
Waystation 3: Jesus inaugurates his prophetic vocation and proclaims the arrival of the kingdom. Will we recognize God’s reign and proclaim a Jubilee?
Way Station 4: Jesus goes everywhere calling disciples How do we answer? Do we consent to be made new?
Way Station 5: Jesus teaches us to pray, with the Lord’s Prayer as our model. Could we learn to pray? Are we paying attention to the world around us when we pray?
Way-Station 6: Jesus eats and drinks with outsiders and the excluded. Could we learn Christian table manners?
Way Station 7: Jesus offers healing amidst human brokenness. Could the Church become a field hospital and we its chaplains?
Way-Station 8: Jesus preaches sermons that reveal good news from God for all peoples. Do we hear the Gospel every Sunday and preach it to a world longing for good news?
Way Station 9: Jesus welcomes women and outsiders. How do women and outsiders fare in our congregations?
Way Station 10: Jesus teaches in parables that open up alternative worlds with space for God. Will we walk into that space and learn to live in it?
Way Station 11: Jesus rides into Jerusalem, challenging religious and political establishments. Do we dare to speak non-conforming words as a community of resistance?
Way station 12: Jesus washes feet, gives a new love commandment, offers his body to the world. Do Christians spend their lives in posture of servanthood and following in Jesus’ train
Way Station 13: Jesus dies the most famous death in history. Do Christians see in it a Messianic enthronement ceremony and their salvation in God
Way Station 14: Jesus rises from the dead, signaling the triumph of God’s love and the reconciliation of the world. Do we live in the power of Jesus’ resurrection?