As the summer fast approaches, people are busy considering vacations and travel plans. There are lots of logistics involved in picking up from one place and visiting another: Who will care for the house when we’re gone? What should be done with the pets? Will I have the right clothing packed? How long should we stay away and what will we see along the way? As my family prepares for our time overseas, these questions are frequent topics of conversation around the dinner table.
The theme of travel is a common one throughout the bible. Abraham and Sarah left their ancient home to follow God’s call into a new land. Joseph and his family moved to Egypt during a long season of drought. Moses and the Hebrew people wandered for forty years in the wilderness before settling into their new tribal homeland. The Israelites were forced into exile in far away Babylon and later were allowed to travel back home. Jesus was an itinerant rabbi, of whom it was said “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Paul’s missionary life was spent spreading the gospel among the cities along the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea.
We may long for lives spent quietly at home, enjoying the routines and comforts of well-worn paths and familiar surroundings. But lives of faith almost always involve movement and travel–for reasons both practical and theological. The practical reason is that we are meant to live out our faith in community. It is through our interactions with others in church, on the street, in the stores, or during times of travel outside our home area that our faith becomes part of our public testimony in a hurting world. Just as Jesus walked the streets, talked to those on the margins of life, and took time to comfort the ailing and bless the children, we are to walk the streets as living ambassadors of Christ’s love.
The theological reason that travel is important relates to our belief that God is present in all the world. Psalm 139: If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me … and hold me fast. By going out into the world, we are moving in places where God is already active. And by looking for God’s “fingerprints” in foreign lands or listening for God’s “voice” as it is spoken through words delivered with a different accent, we live into the fullness and richness of our global faith.
One last point: I recently read a comment from a returning Iraq war veteran, who said this: “I have been welcomed home many times, but I have never come all the way back from the places I have been.” The veteran was speaking how the experience of war never fully leaves those who travel abroad on military or humanitarian missions. Alternately, the impact on our souls from mission trips or visiting foreign places stays with us long after our suitcases are unpacked and stored away. We never come all the way back from those places we visit that are outside our comfort zones or immediate neighborhoods. The good news is that God is with us both here and there, and whatever we bring back from our travels is something that bears the loving “fingerprints” of our global, eternal, wayfaring God.