A trinitarian perspective on a pilgrimage of justice and peace.

Robra, Martin

Stirred by the life-giving Spirit, the early Christians spoke of themselves as people on the way. Following Christ, they were moving toward God's reign to come. They remembered Abraham, the wandering Aramean, and his faith in God, the liberation of the people of Israel from slavery and their exodus from Egypt, but also the exile and Roman oppression as changing contexts of the journey of the people of God all through history. Called to go back to Galilee and to the ends of the world, the disciples discovered the presence of God at the margins and beyond the boundaries of ethnic identity, gender, race, and culture that were separating people from each other.

The way to Emmaus was a way to a city whose inhabitants were sold into debt slavery by the Romans. Remembering the way of Christ, breaking the bread and sharing the wine, the disciples encountered in Emmaus Christ himself and the meaning of his death and resurrection as victory over the deadly forces of sin for the victims of injustice and violence and those yearning for justice and peace. What is to come is fulfilled today; it takes shape in a given place and a concrete moment of time. Every day the disciples of Christ were together on a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace in search of God's presence in the world--and so are we today.

From a German Context

I am writing these brief reflections as a male German theologian who was born after World War II and grew up in times of economic growth, increasing consumption, but also the Cold-War superpower confrontation, arms race, and the omnipresent danger of nuclear warfare. I experienced the fall of the Berlin wall and saw the great expectations for a new era of peace and cooperation of many. But we all had to realize very soon that economic globalization would continue to be the dominant and driving force of economic, political, and cultural developments and changes.

Most of my theological teachers were marked by the crime of the Holocaust and the war. They emphasized that we need to work for peace and reconciliation in Christ, even though we could not expect forgiveness for all that was done in the name of the German people. Our hope was to be in Christ, the life of the world, and making all things new. Looking at the course of history, we had to realize that the German churches at large had failed to call for justice and peace in the face of impoverishment and distress during the 19th century industrialization process, that they had ignored colonial oppression and genocide in Namibia, Tanzania, and the Pacific in the early 20th century, that the majority of Christians went happily to war and accepted the racist and violent ideology of Nazism leading to the murder of millions of Jews in the death camps and the millions of dead on the battlefields of World War II. But as the churches had adjusted to racism, militarism, and nationalism in the past, did the churches not continue to adjust themselves uncritically to the prevailing ideologies of the time, now the dogma of economic growth as source of wealth and happiness for all? Listening to the voices of Christians and churches in the ecumenical movement, it was clear that much of today's world was threatened by growing inequality, the destructive consequences for nature and already poor and marginalized communities, and new risky forms of competition between the powers that be.

The ecumenical movement meant a lot to the German churches and people when they were received back into fellowship with the acceptance of the Stuttgart Confession of guilt by an ecumenical delegation in 1945. In the following decades, the ecumenical movement became the context to hear the voices of those struggling for survival and life, a call for radical change and transformation, and a constant source of encouragement to move forward together with many friends and companions, on the way inspired by their reading of the Bible and their theological insights and nurtured by common prayer and worship in places where it really mattered. Based on these experiences, it is possible to say that the ecumenical movement is indeed an ongoing pilgrimage of life, justice, and peace that leads people to places of God's presence and offers opportunities for new inspiring experiences, communication with others, and new relationships.

God's Own Pilgrimage

But the image and practice of the pilgrimage go deeper than that and touch essential dimensions of Christian faith. The pilgrimage is not just about human action in history, but about the mystery of the presence of the triune God in the world and with the church. God's presence and relationship with world and church can be described as divine pilgrimage of love and light through time and space. (1) Creation, redemption, reconciliation, and new creation have their origin in the relationship of perfect love of the Holy Trinity. God's pilgrimage of life and light transforms itself under conditions of sin and brokenness of life into a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace for and with human beings and all creation. Its final destination is God's reign to come, the new heaven and the new earth where God will dwell among God's people, wipe every tear from their eyes, and give water of life to the thirsty (Rev. 21). Its daily destinations are the places of those marginalized and excluded and the suffering creation. It is here where God wants to be found and God's presence is experienced in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This pilgrimage of the triune God is reflected in Christ's own way of incarnation, death and resurrection: Christ "emptied himself ... being born in human likeness ... and became obedient to the point of death--even death on the cross," and "God exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2).

Moving in and around Galilee and finally up to Jerusalem, Christ shows his disciples the direction to follow on their own pilgrimage of life, justice, and peace:

--calling blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and the peacemakers;

--reminding his followers in the parable of the judgement of the nations, "Truly I tell you, just as you did to one of the least of these who are members of family, you did it to me";

--healing the sick and the blind, searching the lost, and crossing the boundaries to those excluded;

--breaking the bread and sharing the wine, his body and blood;

--dying on the cross and fulfilling his way as the one in whom "God was pleased to reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1).

Paul is being transformed by the encounter with the living Christ, turning his life upside down and giving a new direction to his life journey (Acts 8). Created by God and redeemed from the slavery of sin by Christ, those who follow Christ are being guided by the Holy Spirit on their pilgrimage toward fulfillment of their "messianic destiny of becoming the image and the glory of God" (theosis). (2) Led by the liberating and life-giving power of the Spirit towards the fellowship of love among and with the divine persons (koinonia), their pilgrimage has both a mystical and ethical dimension in relationship to the triune God and to the neighbour, that is, the suffering human sisters and brothers from all nations, cultures, and religions, and creation groaning. This way is marked by passion for life and compassion for the other in a transformative spirituality. Seen in this perspective, the church is a community of companionship, fellowship and transforming love, which participates in both the mystical and ethical dimension of the pilgrimage in openness to people of other faiths. Responding to the call to be one in Christ, sharing the good news as common witness, and contributing to transformation through the service of justice and peace, the church is itself a community of people on the way.

German delegates to the Busan assembly, members of MEET (more ecumenical empowerment together--a passionate group of young ecumenists), ecumenical groups that met at the beginning of May 2014 in Mainz for a new ecumenical assembly, specialized ministries, ecumenical officers of EKD member churches, and EKD have all taken up the invitation to join the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace with enthusiasm. They understand that the pilgrimage is not another action-oriented programme of the WCC, but a timely expression of Christian witness and service that has the potential to bring the fellowship of churches together and to deepen it. They are ready to walk with others and to discover where to go with their partners in other parts of the world and through the WCC. The Busan assembly theme, "God of life, lead us to justice and peace," will continue to be the prayer on the way for transformation and clarity concerning the direction to go. At this stage, advocacy for climate justice, economy of life, and concrete action for peacebuilding and accompaniment of churches in conflict situations are the main concerns the German churches and ecumenical groups want to take up on the next steps of the journey, joining God's Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace in faith, love, hope, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

(1) Joy Ann McDougall, Pilgrimage of Love: Moltmann on the Trinity and Christian Life (Oxford University Press, 2005), 137; see also Jurgen Moltmann, Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life{Fortress Press, 1997), and more recently Jurgen Moltmann, Der lebendige Gott und die Fiille des Lebens (Gutersloher Verlagshaus, 2014).

(2) McDougall, Pilgrimage of Love, 122.

Dr Martin Robra is special advisor to the WCC general secretary. From 2007-2013, he served as director of the programme on the Ecumenical Movement in the 21st Century and secretary of the Joint Working Group between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church.

DOI: 10.1111/erev.12093