大象传媒

Good morning.

One of the great classics of early English literature is the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Some of us can probably still recite chunks of it if we studied it a school. It can be a bit of a bawdy romp.聽 But it didn鈥檛 occur to me until quite recently that Canterbury only really gets a mention in the title.

It鈥檚 as though what鈥檚 more important to pilgrim people is not the destination but the journey. Along the way, people whose lives might never have intersected find themselves sharing stories, friendship and the journey of life.

The longer I am involved with organised religion, the more I feel that it needs to be on the move, not settled.聽 The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said, 鈥渉ere we have no abiding city鈥�, an invitation to embrace the new and go outside the safety of familiar institutions.

A wonderful English bishop told once how the Anglican cathedral in Kolkata looked more like a bank or some Imperial palace than a place of sanctuary and worship. Until the outbreak of the war in Bangladesh, when the place was transformed into a refugee centre. Suddenly it came alive as the congregation responded to need and busied themselves in offering relief and sanctuary.

Home is the journey, and along the way we鈥檒l meet circumstances that challenge our settled thinking 鈥� but that鈥檚 the pilgrimage of faith.

Journeying Christ, you promise to meet us when we go outside the camp, offering kindness, friendship, and being willing to learn from others 鈥� being alongside the 鈥渓east of these鈥�.聽 Give us the courage to make the journey our home 鈥� knowing that we have no abiding city, save the one that our pilgrim journey on this earth prepares us for. Amen.聽