“Are you in … The Way?”

At church camp one year the teacher asked this question on the first morning of Bible class. He was from my home church, and I could tell by the way he paused before those last two words and gave them extra emphasis that he meant Big-T Big-W "The Way." I knew that this was what the earliest followers of Christ named themselves. And even if I didn't know that, I could have guessed it from a teen-friendly paperback edition of a popular Bible translation.

Yes, I thought confidently, I am in The Way.

Then he started around the circle, asking us each, by name, "Are you in... The Way?"

"I hope not!" "In the way of what?" My classmates’ answers indicated that they hadn't heard the pause and the capital letters in his voice. They took "in the way" to mean being an obstacle of some sort. I was shocked. Hadn't they seen friends toting "The Way" Bibles?

It got around to Gordon, an athletic, handsome, earnest, kind, smart guy who, if camp had a yearbook, would have been voted Most Humble (and would have immediately ceded it to whoever came in Second Most Humble). He’ll understand, I thought. He’ll give the right answer.

His answer was heartfelt and serious. He'd heard or interpreted something the others hadn't. He spoke with obvious anguish, something along these lines: "I never want to be in the way of anyone becoming a Christian. If I'm in the way, that would be terrible. If I couldn't encourage them to become a Christian, I would want to do everything I could to get out of the way and not hinder them."

Gordon was deep. He was without guile. But he didn't get the question either, I thought.

I had a decision to make. When it was my turn, would I say something like, "Yes. I am in ... The Way. I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back”? Was I willing to be the one who answered differently? Would I sound like a know-it-all and make someone feel dumb for misunderstanding the question? Worst of all, would my giving the "right" answer diminish the best answer given so far?

I choked. I had a Peter-in-denial moment. I went with the sheep.

After every single one of us said no, our patient, long-suffering teacher didn’t point out that nobody gave the answer he was hoping for. He took a deep breath, and then started talking about the body of believers who called themselves The Way, who followed the man who was God come to earth, who said he was THE way and THE truth and THE life. I think we had another opportunity, like a make-up exam, to claim that yes, on second thought, we were in The Way.

I used to keep this memory in the file “A Time I Knew the Right Answer and Didn’t Speak Up,” and thought it would have been a better lesson if someone had given the expected answer. But if that’s true, then why is it so crisp 30-some years later?

Maybe it’s taken that long to see that knowing the answer a teacher anticipates is not the same as living the answer, and in this case that is really what he was asking.

“Are you in … The Way?”

Been baptized? Check.

Go to church? Check.

Able to find your way around a Bible? Check.

Make regular contributions? Check. Sometimes cash.

Love your neighbor as yourself? Sometimes …

Ready to give an answer for the hope that is within you? Well, no one has asked yet. Or they did in some other form and I missed recognizing the question. In which case … (open eye, withdraw beam) I was … in the way.

And that’s why Gordon’s answer left the deepest imprint. (And why that memory has been properly refiled in the much thicker folder "A Time I Was Sure I Was Right But Really Was Both Wrong and Clueless," also known as "Remedial Lessons in Humility.") By knowing the point is to share the way, by being so pained at the thought of keeping someone from finding the way, he showed he was, indeed, in The Way. And if The Way were a freeway, I was barely on the access road.

Now the journey, via this Central on-ramp, provides another chance to study what it means to seek the Way and share the Way - and to prune away what gets in the way of the Way, in order to enter it more fully and to welcome others along. Way cool. And possibly the ultimate in striving to be brothers and sisters of the first generation of brothers and sisters in Christ.

- Laura Brown