The Heart of a Pilgrim Rev. Bruce Taylor November 25, 2012

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1 Page 1 of 6 The Heart of a Pilgrim Rev. Bruce Taylor November 25, 2012 This time of year we remember the Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. These Pilgrims were a group of religious dissenters who decided they had to separate themselves from the Church of England. At first they fled to Holland, a country that practiced religious tolerance, its people having suffered religious persecution under the rule of Spain. The Pilgrims lived in Holland, in the city of Leyden, for more than a decade. But although they survived, they were not getting any closer to the life they envisioned. Little by little they were being assimilated into the local culture, losing their religious identity, losing some of their young people. And so they sought out an opportunity to start again: to live out their destiny in a far away country, a country strange to them. As you may know, the journey to America was risky and it was hard. Many of the Pilgrims died in the year after they arrived, before they could finally establish themselves in the land we now call home. In those days they did not call themselves the Pilgrims. That name was applied to them years later. In his history of the Plymouth Plantation, Governor William Bradford had this to say about his people: They left that good and pleasant city, which had been their resting place near 12 years. But they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on these things, but lifted their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. [Of Plimouth Plantation ( ), p. 72] This passage echoes the words we read today in Paul s letter to the Hebrews: They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth seeking a homeland (Hebrews 11:13 14).

2 Page 2 of 6 The original meaning of the word pilgrim or peregrine connotes a stranger from another country. In an act of faith, the pilgrim sets out for a distant land, not holding on to life as it once was, but moving ahead towards the vision of a better world. Today I d like to reflect with you on what it is to be a pilgrim in this larger sense, what it takes to go the distance, and what it means for us to do this together. We can see the pattern of pilgrimage as a spiritual practice in most, if not all, of the world s religions. For Islam, the Haj is the great pilgrimage. Every Muslim who is able bodied and can afford it must make the journey to Mecca at least once. Every year, millions of believers converge on Mecca to visit its holy sites and take part in a series of rituals. This practice is more than an act of obedience: it brings sacred history into present reality. It manifests the unity of Muslims from many nations and many cultures, and the oneness of humanity under God. Christian pilgrims go to Jerusalem to visit sites associated with the life of Jesus, and to many other places connected with the lives of the apostles or saints. The pilgrimage is more than the destination; it s about the road, and the experience of travelling that road. One of the more famous routes is the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. It takes the pilgrim over 500 miles through northern Spain before reaching the tomb of St. Iago, Saint James the Apostle. Pilgrims have walked this road for over a thousand years. In the year 2010, more than 272,000 people completed it. Some of them were tourists, or athletes seeking a challenge. Some took taxis or buses and stayed at nice hotels. But many were true pilgrims who walked the whole way, carrying what they needed on their backs. Joyce Rupp, a Catholic nun, was one of these. She walked the road with her longtime friend, Father Tom Pfeiffer. She describes this experience in her book titled Walk

3 Page 3 of 6 in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino. The title of the book refers to the attitude which Rupp and her companion had to develop, in order to complete their physical journey and to live it out as a spiritual journey. The Camino is long and hard. Every day the pilgrim is faced with aches and pains, a tiredness both physical and spiritual, worrying about the time, and whether or not there will be any space to sleep at the next refugio (hostel), and any place to buy food. Sometimes the impulse is to quit, and sometimes to push ahead, ignoring the needs of an aging body, missing out on the beauty of the landscape and the grace of the unexpected. Spiritual growth demands attention to thoughts and feelings which arise in the present, not the past or the future. To grit your teeth and think about tomorrow can be debilitating. When we re tired, frustrated and confused, often what we need is to enter the experience more fully, not get it over with. The Camino directs our attention to the present moment, and as Rupp describes, there really isn t anywhere else to go: All I can do each day is use my energy to walk, find food and housing. There is very little energy left over. It forces me to live now. (80) The pilgrims walk through days of sunshine, and rain for days on end; over paths that are wide and easy, and those that are steep and muddy; through times when they know where they are going, and times when they are lost. They learn to receive all of these as gifts, and to respect adversity as a teacher. In Rupp s words, The saying is that God helps those who help themselves, but it is equally true that God guides us to what we need The grace of the Camino meets us at the place of our most needed growth. Challenges slip under the pilgrims veneer and wear away whatever prevents authenticity. (194, 200) And so the pilgrims gradually set aside their pride and self sufficiency. They relinquish the need to control their circumstances. They accept kindness from strangers.

4 Page 4 of 6 They cultivate an inward quiet where the lessons of the Camino can take hold. They find themselves ever more at home on the road, and in the world. What is the difference between an ordinary journey, and a pilgrimage? One aspect is the level of commitment. A relative of mine named Norm walked the Camino last summer. A man in his sixties, he put his financial and legal affairs in order before he left. He updated his will. As Norm puts it, you have to have some skin in the game. No spiritual journey is without cost, or without risk. Beyond commitment, what distinguishes the pilgrim from the tourist is a willingness to be changed. You cannot know in advance what the change will be. For Joyce Rupp, it came in the confirmation of spiritual truths she had heard about before, and now saw manifested in her own life. She realized that the way she lived was just as important as any of the specific things she accomplished. Having carried her life on her back for so many weeks and so many miles, Rupp learned the importance of traveling lightly not just on the roads of Spain, but on the road through life itself. In our society, many of us have so much stuff beyond what we need to live and be well. We squander much of our time and energy acquiring this stuff, maintaining it, protecting it. And then we carry emotional and spiritual baggage as well old grudges, bad habits, concern for our status, reputation, and being right. Carrying all this stuff can distract us from life as it unfolds in front of our eyes. It can prevent us from walking life s road with a clear mind and an open heart. We are called into this world not only to have, or to do, but to be. We are called to be present to one another and to serve as instruments of grace. For Rupp and her partner, to walk the Camino did not produce immediate, dramatic spiritual change. The changes happened slowly and imperceptibly as the

5 Page 5 of 6 discipline of the road worked itself out in their lives. It was only in retrospect that they saw how far they had come. But for some pilgrims the transformation can be immediate, even astonishing. You may have heard about the experience of Malcolm X, a leader in the Nation of Islam, the black separatist movement, when he made his journey to Mecca. In his own words: There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue eyed blondes to black skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non white You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held. (Letter from Mecca, Malcolm X, April, 1964) No spiritual journey is without risk, or without cost. This one cost Malcolm his life, as he returned home with a new vision, a vision that some of his old followers would not accept. So far, I have spoken of pilgrimage in the traditional sense a journey to holy sites. But the physical journey is not what defines a pilgrimage. It s the process of leaving behind the status quo, moving towards a vision of a better world, open to being changed. This can be an ongoing process if we so choose. In the words of John O Donohue, At its heart, the journey of each life is a pilgrimage through unforeseen sacred places that enlarge and enrich the soul (qtd. in Rupp, 33). Our life as a congregation is a pilgrimage in time. We remember the starting point, over 350 years ago, but none of us can know what the endpoint will be. We walk this road together. That is the meaning of the word covenant, to walk together, based on promises we make to one another. To go the distance requires commitment as Norm puts it, each one of us needs to have some skin in the game. Like the pilgrims on a

6 Page 6 of 6 physical journey, we need to respect one another; to share what we have; to look out for one another so that, God willing, we can all be safe and reach the place we re going. But to be pilgrims in time requires more of us. We are not anonymous travelers. We know each other s names, and strengths, and annoying habits. We come to accept and love one another in spite of our foibles, and because of them. Each one of your faces is like a mirror. I look into it and I see myself, and I see you, and I see God looking back at me. We will not be walking alone. Imagine our path as one where many feet have trod, over the centuries: names familiar to us, such as Sinkford, Schultz, Eliot, Channing, Ballou, Emerson, Fuller, Servetus, Origen, Pelagius, Jesus, and many more unknown to us. Voices demanding that revelation be validated by conscience and experience, and that justice never be separated from love. May we walk with as much heart as they have done. The journey they began is for us to continue. We will not be walking unassisted. Beauty will be our constant companion. Just as the road in northern Spain rises to vistas of farms and mountains and rivers and big skies, so our worship opens onto vistas of poetry and theological and ethical reflection, the wordless prayers in music, the blessing that fills this space each time we come here to be present to one another. The struggle to become who are demands much of us, but it will draw on resources we didn t know we had. And this deep well will be refilled again and again, as we worship together. We will come to know what pilgrims know: that the real journey is in reaching for what is deepest in ourselves; that the destination is not a fixed location, but a direction towards a better world. We can see it now from a great distance. But gradually we are becoming that destination, as we seek to know ourselves in relation to one other, in relation to the world, in relation to God.