Dear Saints of St. Paul’s,
In the summer of 2016, I trained hard for a cycling event in Washington, D.C. called the Total 200 – a 200-mile bike endurance ride that required many hours of training and preparation. A couple of days before the ride, just before midnight, all the registered riders received an email informing us that the ride had been cancelled. I was stunned at first, but quickly sent out an email to three of my friends who had been training with me that I planned to ride the event unsupported and hoped they would join me. During my training, I had cycled 120 miles of the 200-mile course, and I didn’t want all the training to go to waste. We all decided to ride and invite anyone who had registered to join us. The ride sponsors got in touch with us and promised to give us some support as well. The day of the ride, 11 of us lined up at 6 a.m. and rolled out as strangers who would become powerful friends.
Nine of us finished, rolling in after dark around 9 p.m. with two of the ride organizers riding in their car behind us to protect us from evening traffic in the capital city. One of us suffered a bike malfunction 70 miles out, and got picked up by the race organizers, and another member of our group opted out at the 100-mile mark, getting a ride back to the city with his family. After the ride, one of the organizers told us that what they feared the most about our unofficial ride was that we would scatter ourselves all over the route, letting the devil take the hindmost. But we rode together, strangers before that day, and companions bonded by our mutual interdependence on this arduous journey. Cyclists ride in a paceline, which dramatically reduces wind resistance for the riders behind the lead rider, trading places at the front like geese in a V-formation, so our dependence on each other was real and powerful.
We who follow Christ are tempted to see faith as an independent, lonely journey. I was taught that I would one day have to stand before Christ alone and could not count on anyone else’s faith. This view of the final judgement bled over into all aspects of my life with Christ – making it a personal, exclusive thing (think of all the hymns that sing about me instead of we). Yet Christ calls us together to be his Body, sharing a mutual interdependence in our joys and sorrows and in our Spiritual gifts with which we build each other up. This Lent, especially, remember that you are not in this race, this journey of faith alone, but together with the other members of the Body of Christ. Christ has given us each other in this journey of faith and life.
