Jesus is always on the way. He wanders from place to place. He has nowhere to retreat to: 'The foxes have their holes and the birds their nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head' (Luke 9:58). Luke in particular has described Jesus as the wanderer. He is the divine wanderer who has come down from heaven to wander among us men and women and to remind us of the divine kernel within us. And on the way he keeps dropping in on men and women to eat and drink with them and to celebrate the joy that comes about then people accept one another and know that they are loved by God.
When I look at Jesus as a vagabond I sense his freedom and power that goes out from him. He didn't proclaim an itinerant life as an ascetical ideal or make an ideology of it. He simply wandered through the country, meeting people. He spoke to them. He healed the sick when they came to him or when he recognized their distress. He didn't develop any strategy for his preaching or plan any missionary campaign. He went his way in freedom. He felt compelled to go through the villages saying to people, 'The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel' (Mark 1:15). Jesus didn't plan the structures of the church or a consolidation of the national budget, nor did he outline any political vision. He simply wandered in inner freedom, without care and enjoying life. He always had time for anyone he met. Then this person became the most important concern of all. Jesus abandoned any intention of preaching and devoted himself solely to the individual before him. The specific meeting showed that God was near; in it God became visible. By looking at people in a different way Jesus wanted to open their eyes to the nearness of God. Jesus had a clear view of reality. He marveled at the beauty of nature. He watched the peasants at their work. He saw how things were. And he saw God's activity and God's beauty in everything. He wanted to teach people to see God at work in this way in all things.
No wonder that his family and society had problems with this vagabond. He wasn't bothered about the future. He hadn't married and had a family; he hadn't safeguarded his professional career. He had simply kept wandering. He also proclaimed to others the absence of anxiety expressed in his wandering: 'Do not worry about your life and what you have to eat, and about your body and what you have to wear' (Matthew 6:25). He pointed to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. They have enough to eat and are clothed in even more beauty than Solomon, of whose great splendor peopled used to boast.
When I see this Jesus wandering without a care, it dawns on me who God is. Jesus doesn't even have to speak of God. God already shines out in this inner freedom, in which Jesus leaves the Jewish rabbis and their localized teaching far behind. God is the one who frees us from care. In the history of Christianity numerous monks have imitated Jesus the vagabond. During their lifetimes they wandered and didn't settle anywhere. They wanted to wander 'for Christ's sake,' to share in this freedom from anxiety and his experience of God.
As cellarer of a monastery I have to look after the people whom we employ, and safeguard the future of the monastery. That seems to be the opposite of the freedom from care lived out and proclaimed by the divine wanderer. But at the same time this Jesus has a great attraction for me. When I go walking on holiday I find Jesus' freedom. But even in the midst of my work I sense something of the freedom that emanates from his wandering. I hve no abiding place in this world. All my worries can't prolong my life. I can't gain life, no matter how many precautions I take. Life is to be found somewhere else, in freedom, in an absence of care, in going on. Only those who go on remain alive.
My life is an inward way, a constant wandering. I can't stop and rest. I must wander on. There's an inner necessity, like that felt by Jesus: 'But today and tomorrow and the day after I must go on wandering' (Luke 13:33).
Probably no one in church history imitated Jesus, the carefree wanderer, as radically as Francis of Assisi. He gave away all his possessions. He even took off his clothes in the presence of his own father so that he would wander naked and free through the land. This freedom in wandering brought him an infectious joy. Francis even preached to the birds. In his lack of care he was like the birds of the air who trust God to feed them. Through his life he made Jesus shine out in his own time. People saw in him the face of the free and loving Jesus.
Just try for once to think as you walk around and imagine to yourself that you're wandering free and without a care. You keep going on. You don't stop, but with every step keep wandering. Then you can ask yourself: 'Where do I settle? Where have I found a place? What do I depend on? What robs me of my freedom, inside and outside myself? Am I allowing myself to be ruled by worries or by confidence? What are my basic feelings on my way: fear or trust, worry or assurance, looking after myself or just keeping going?
Enjoy your wandering! Really look at the beauty of nature and see how your heart feels! Perhaps it will swell with joy!
