My Way

Make Way
Originally uploaded by auntjojo

The Old Testament text for this week is Isaiah 43:16-21. It begins with "This is what the Lord says, the Lord how made a path through the sea, a path through the mighty waters..." Verse 19 speaks of a path in the desert and streams in a dry land. God as the way maker, the path layer, the forger, the trailblazer.

It is a beautiful image, the God who makes a way when there is no other way. The God of infinite possibilities. The God who directs and guides. The God who rescues.

Yet, my mind did not go there today. Instead, as I drove down the road, along the path that we have created next to a river winding through Skokie, Illinois, I am reminded of how we have abused this image of God as the way maker. Perhaps I am thinking of Soong Chan Rah's sermon at our church yesterday where he pointed out how American cars all seem to have names tied to action and adventure like the Explorer and the Trailblazer. I am also thinking of my short year as a geotechnical engineer where I would go out into the beautiful rolling hills in Northern California and test the soil so that some developer could flatten it all to make a cookie cutter housing development.

As children of God, created in God's image, we too are to be way makers. We are to make ways of justice, peace, and love in this world. We are to lay the streets and foundations of the kingdom of God. Instead, we have made a way where there was no way... or, more to the point, we have made ways on top of ways that already existed. Instead of following the natural pathways of streams and valleys, we cut through rock and redirect currents believing that we should be able to go straight regardless of what nature is telling us. Instead of recognizing the paths of the people who lived on the soil of the United States before we arrived, we paved over them and laid railroad tracks through them, believing that ours were the only true paths. We have become a nation of competitors who make their own paths walking over others to get to the top, relying on the labor of those we have rendered invisible, denying the pathways of those of a different color, language, or gender.

Forgive the tirade, but those are the thoughts that went through my mind as a sat at the stop light and took this picture. The image of God as the path layer, the way maker, is a beautiful one, but our interpretation of that image has, at times, been anything but beautiful. How can we become way makers who reflect the kingdom?