Ephrata Community Church, Ephrata, Washington

This early edition of the E-pistle gives me time to get to Kansas and join the journey to the Pacific Northwest.  Thursday morning Becky and I will offer some extra hands for the steering wheels and some extra voices of encouragement, entertainment, and maybe a little discipline as our son and his wife and their four kids and two cars travel from Kansas to Washington state where Christopher will begin his duties as Pastor for Family Life at Ephrata Community Church (EPC), just over the mountains from Seattle. We’re more than happy to tag along.

All this has got me to thinking about life in ministry and about wandering.

Moses told the people of Israel that when they were settled in the land flowing with milk and honey they were to make an offering of some of the first of all of the fruits of the land.  The priest would take the baskets full of harvest, and as he did, the people were to respond, “A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous…”

The reference is to Jacob, Israel, Abraham’s grandson and the father of the twelve tribes.  The story the worshiper tells is the story of the sojourn into Egypt and then the Exodus.  It is a story of God’s mighty deeds.

The image of the sojourn, of God’s people as wanderers is a common way of describing the life of faith. God’s people in the Old Testament journey through the Exodus and from the Exile. Jesus tells the story of a son who wandered long in the far country before he returned home.  John Bunyan likens the Christian life to a pilgrim’s progress.

Christopher and Katie come by their wandering ways honestly. Certainly Christopher’s father and mother have been wandering sorts, from West to East to Midwest and back East again.  Such geographic wanderings are not unusual in vocational ministry.  The Apostle Paul did not remain in any city longer than three years.

But even if Christopher ends up investing his entire pastoral ministry in Ephrata, he will always be a wandering Aramean and the son of a wandering Aramean.  Wandering is a part of the Christian life, for those whose vocation is ministry and all others, as well, for those who journey to the ends of the earth and those who never leave Jerusalem.

We wander through the seasons of life and life’s events, from high mountaintops to deep valleys.  But unlike some wanderings, ours are never aimless.  As Paul the wandering apostle wrote, ”One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

I’m looking forward to our Washington wander, what wonders we might see. For Christopher and Katie, even after all the boxes are unpacked, the wandering will continue.

I won’t see you Sunday. We’ll be a-wandering.