12-01-2024 Walking the Desire Path of Faith

Thomas J Parlette
“Walking the Desire Path of Faith”
1st Thessalonians 3: 9-13
12/1/24, First Advent
          I remember in my college days at Eastern Illinois University, there was some construction going on around the campus. They had just finished a new dorm building on the outskirts of campus the previous year, and that was where I had been assigned to live as a freshman. I remember there was a main walkway leading up to the front doors of the dorm, but there weren’t any other defined sidewalks – just the main walkway. But you could see where the students had started to make little pathways, depending on which building they were going to. They were a bunch a little dirt paths beginning to form that led to the library, or the other dormitory building, Old Main with all the administration offices, the student union or any of the other buildings that housed the business school or the social sciences – where I was usually going. It was kind of any interesting strategy, let the people decide the best route. The students were usually going to pick the most direct route, so let them show you the path and pave it later. And that’s exactly what happened – by the time I graduated, all the dirt paths had become sidewalks.
          I later found out that this process actually has a name – “desire paths.” Turns out architects and urban planners want pedestrians to enjoy their walk, so they used to spend a great deal of time trying to plot, guess and surmise how pedestrians would prefer to go from one corner of a campus or a park to another.
          So based on how the urban planners thought you might want to walk, they created paths and laid down gravel, or asphalt or concrete. On the CAD program it all looked great.
          But months later, if you walked those carefully laid out paths, you would start to notice little dirt paths veering off this way and that way. What the planners started to see was how people really wanted to get from one place to another. Rather than follow the traditional sidewalks, people would deviate on random angles to save a couple of seconds, and over time urban planners gave this process a name – “desire paths.” (1) Save some time and money and let the people show you how they want to go before you pour any concrete. A desire path usually represents the shortest or the most easily navigated route between an origin and a destination.
          The Bible is full of ideas about paths – both the good paths and the bad one. In the Book of Proverbs we read:
         Keep straight the path of your feet, and all your ways will be sure.
-         Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insights. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
-         I make in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice.
-         And of course, the words of John the Baptist, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”
And that’s just a taste. Our scriptures have a lot to say about the importance of choosing – desiring, if you will – the right path. And it’s a good topic as we begin the season of Advent.
In today’s reading from Paul’s first letter to the church in Thessalonica, we get the ancient apostle’s ideas of what makes for good paths. What sort of path should we desire that gives us the best chance to get to the destination we want?
Paul writes, “But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith.” Later in the passage, he adds, “Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.”
What does it mean to walk on the path of faith? It could mean that we’re comfortable when walking by faith and not by sight, trusting in the promises of God even when circumstances seem uncertain and the path ahead appears unclear. The writer of Hebrews put it best with these words – “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” These words are perfectly captured in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when Indy must cross an enormous chasm to get to the Holy Grail. He sees no possible way to get across, and he finally concludes, “It’s a leap of faith,” and he steps out into the void, and an invisible bridge appears only after he takes the plunge. Step by step, he makes it across.
Getting comfortable with that sort of sightless walking takes time. That’s why walking on the path of faith might also mean we must learn perseverance. Faith enables us to keep going in the face of tough times, to find hope in the midst of despair, and to experience joy even in the midst of sorrow. We all get knocked down sometimes – but it’s getting up again that really matters.
Walking in the path of faith is easier when it is done in community. Faith is not meant to be lived in isolation, but in community with other believers. That’s why the Bible places such importance on living together in faith, answering to call to encourage, support and uplift one another, bearing each other’s burdens, and sharing in each other’s joys and sorrows.
The actor Martin Sheen spoke on this topic last year. He was giving an interview about the pandemic and was referencing a movie he made with his son Emilio Estevez. The movie was made in 2011, it was called The Way. Sheen played a bereaved father walking The Camino pilgrimage route in Spain, completing his deceased son’s journey. In the interview he said, “I think that people are looking for something that was sort of heightened during the pandemic, when people began to hear the birds again and smell clean air, despite the horrors of the pandemic and so many deaths, and so they were rejuvenated when the pandemic ended and they were permitted to go outside their homes, and then they wanted to go outside of themselves. They wanted to touch the sacred that exists in all of us. The wanted to find a way, as I often say, to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh, and that what pilgrimage is all about. You know, the flesh is walking, the spirit is listening, and they come together and they form community with all the other pilgrims in front, behind, and right and left of you for the 500 miles from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela. But it’s a journey inside as well as a physical journey outside.” (2)
“To touch the sacred that exists in all of us… find a way to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh.” That’s a pretty good definition of what we try to do in this season of Advent. We search once more for that path that will lead us to God.
We know there are pitfalls, they are dangers.
One of the biggest is that tension that exists between belief and doubt. No one who is walking by faith is going to be immune from doubt or fear. Just imagine that someone stopped by your house, a place you know well, and blindfolded you. And then challenged you to find your way to the kitchen, down to the basement, to the bathroom and finally to your bedroom. How confident would you be? You’ve navigated your house hundreds of times, maybe even in the dark, but you do it blindfolded – or would you have a little doubt, a little fear. Of course you would. It’s only natural. All the great heroes of the faith wrestled with fear and doubt – no one is immune.
Another challenge to walking the desire path is the temptation to prioritize materialistic pursuits and pleasures over what is best for us spiritually. We spend a lot of time in Advent, and then again in Lent, trying to avoid this particular temptation. Walking on the desire path of faith means that we’ll be called upon to make some difficult choices sometimes, we may have to make some sacrifices that run counter to societal norms or maybe even our own personal desires. The path of faith may call for forgiveness, standing up for justice and decency, persevering in the face of persecution, rejection and ridicule, and living a life of simplicity and humility. All of that can be tough at times.
But ultimately walking the desire path is rewarding. It is marked by moments of profound grace, divine intervention and spiritual growth.
In his book, The Sacred Journey, Frederick Buechner wrote: “To journey for the sake of saving our own lives is little by little to cease to live in any sense that really matters, even to ourselves, because it is only by journeying for the world’s sake – even when the world bores and sickens and scares you half to death – that little by little we start to come alive. This was not a conclusion that I came to in time. It was a conclusion from beyond time that came to me. God knows I have never been any good at following the road it pointed me to, but at least, by grace, I glimpsed the road and saw it is the only one worth traveling.” (3)
So, as we begin this season of Advent, we journey on the desire path for ourselves, but also for the sake of the world. That we may catch a glimpse of the only path worth following, that we may touch that sense of sacred that exists in all of us, and find a way to unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh.
Let us gather at the Table and be nourished for the journey.
May God be praised. Amen.