Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 13:31-35
Second Sunday of Lent: February 28, 2010
“A wandering Aramean was your ancestor.” What an odd thing to remind people of when they are finally coming to be in the promised land. After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the Hebrew people had arrived at the destination, the land flowing with milk and honey. They were about to begin the golden age of their history. They would have land, tend it, eat from it, be owners and rulers and authors of their own destinies for the first time since they were enslaved in Egypt. And Moses tells them the first thing they are to do is to bring an offering to Yahweh and then recite a confession beginning with the words: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” It’s as if to say, “Even thought it seems that this promised land is your destiny, remember that you are always pilgrims – wanderers in strange lands; that is your identity. It is imbedded deep in you even if you live in one place for the rest of your life.”
Journeys are part of the life of faith. There is really no way around this – not if the bible is to be believed at all. This is the second Sunday of Lent. Lent is a season based entirely on a journey. “Today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way,” Jesus says in our passage this morning. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus and his followers go on a long journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. And every year we take that spiritual journey with them.
But faith is not a journey without direction. It is not without meaning and purpose. In fact, listen to what follows the confession that “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor.” It recounts the journey: “We went down into Egypt and lived there as aliens…and then became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us…we cried to Yahweh….who brought us out of Egypt…and then brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” That is a history, but it is also a description of the constant journey of life in God. We are called to move from alienation to reconciliation, from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to Canaan. We’re called from Galilee to Jerusalem, from brokenness to wholeness, from death to resurrection. That is the journey God wants us to embark on in every moment of every day.
But, this is not always an easy journey. Even when we are in Egypt, suffering in some way, yearning to get out, we know that between us and liberation lays the wilderness. The people were freed in the Exodus, freed from Pharaoh. But they soon found out that before they could settle in the promised land, they had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years. That is where they found God, heard God speak and learned what God wanted for them and their lives. Journeys are not without detours, setbacks and adventures. But without the wilderness, there is no promised land. Without Jerusalem and the cross, there is no resurrection. Without the journey, there is no growth – no deepening of faith.
God calls us to the journey; because there is always alienation and slavery, there are always some in Egypt and there is always the possibility of Canaan. This is true for all of us – and for many of us, we find this call difficult and at times have to be dragged kicking and screaming along the journey. We have to force ourselves to stay in the wilderness and not turn around and run back to what we already know, slavery or not. The journey is the task, not the prize. But for others, God does not just call them to the journey, God is revealed on the journey. The journey itself is the joy, the richness and the way to find out who God is and what God wants. These are the pilgrims.
During Lent, we are looking at many different ways we draw close to God. Given our differences in personalities, life experiences and capabilities, it stands to reason that we all do this is different ways. Last week we talked about folks who most readily find God through their head – in study, reflection, scriptures, sermons, etc. This week, we look at people who find God on the journey.
We’ve all heard that life is what happens along the way. Pilgrims know this intuitively. Jesus lived this with his heart and soul. When you look at the gospels, you see that Jesus’ entire ministry happened “along the way.” The flow of the narrative may be from Galilee to Jerusalem, but it’s what happens along the way that makes up the compelling message of Jesus’ life. As he walked, he healed, he loved, he stayed with and ate with people on the margins of life. The journey becomes the context for the true, meaningful ministry.
What God intends is revealed as Jesus passes by people, moves through towns and goes on his way. He needs the destination: Jerusalem. That frames the narrative and gives meaning to the journey. But in the end it’s the journey that speaks to our hearts and imaginations. The journey reveals the story of a compassionate, loving Christ and becomes the story we seek to retell with our lives.
There’s another wonderful example of what it means to be a pilgrim in the novel, “Monkey”. The novel is a fictionalized version of an actual historical pilgrimage made by a Chinese Buddhist monk named Xuanzang in the 6th century AD. The purpose of both the historical and fictional pilgrimage is to get new Buddhist scriptures from India and bring them back to China. The novel gives our pilgrim three disciples – Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy. Each comes with their own faults and foibles, and they help Xuanzang in his quest for these scriptures. Over 2/3 of the novel is spent detailing their journey and all the things that prolong them getting to their final destination. They encounter eighty “problems” along the way that they must help solve before they can get to the scriptures.
After we go with these pilgrims from China to India and spend all the time in each of these problems that we encounter, we are just as anxious as they to get to the final destination – the reward. We wonder why Monkey, who has vast magical powers, can not just lift the four sojourners onto a cloud and take them directly to the mountain where the scriptures are housed. So, when they finally get to the mountain and meet the Buddha and obtain the scriptures, we can’t wait to see how that will affect these four disciples and all of China for that matter.
We expect, partly because it is the expectation set by the author, that these scriptures will allow the four disciples to finally reach Enlightenment. What we find, along with Xuanzang, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy is that when they arrive is that the scriptures are empty. There are no words on the pages they have to take back. You see, it was the journey itself that brought each one to Enlightenment. Each problem helped them grow in their abilities. Each set back actually deepened their faith.
Everything in the end points back to the journey as the real story. This is how it is for the pilgrim types. They are not preparing for an event that happens at a point in time, nor are they motivated solely by a destination. They set out not just for a holy site, but on a holy journey, knowing God will be found along the way. It’s the newness of things, the strangeness, the freshness, the challenges that give them an openness to hear God’s new, fresh word for them and the world.
Pilgrims are identifiable by their openness and searching nature. They are known for tolerance because they find in the differences of others new journeys to take. A 2008 study on the long-term effect of participating in the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, called “the Hajj”, found that Muslim communities become more open after the Hajj experience. Specifically, the report states that the Hajj "increases belief in equality and harmony among ethnic groups and Islamic community and that the pilgrims show increased belief in peace, and in equality and harmony among adherents of different religions." For those who are pilgrim types, the spiritual journey is an opening, expanding experience.
But the journey is not without peril. Interestingly, the Hebrew word translated “wandering” in our passage this morning – as in a wandering Aramean was my ancestor – is the same word used for death. Moses tells the people to not only affirm that they are rooted in a pilgrim story, but that the pilgrimage has brought them to the brink of death and has left them wandering, at times, lost. Pilgrimages are perilous. This is true literally. The same Hajj experience that encourages openness and peace has been the scene of danger and death. There have been many incidents that have led to the loss of many hundreds of lives.
But it’s true metaphorically as well. It is hard to know when we have gone from being on a pilgrimage to wandering lost in the desert moving only toward death. When is what we are doing a sacred journey, and when are we just trampling one another along the way? It’s perilous and risky, but pilgrims know that the risk is part of the richness of the journey and even those times of being lost can be fruitful.
Remember what it is that gives the spiritual journey meaning. It’s not the destination that matters most, it is the movement toward freedom, wholeness and redemption that ensures the journey is not just a wandering on the brink of death. Being lost can be a part of the spiritual journey, but not if we forget that we are ultimately headed for Canaan. The wilderness was hard, but it was also fertile soil for growing in relationship to God. It was where one learned who Yahweh wanted them to be and how Yahweh wanted them to live. Without the wilderness, Canaan would have just been another Egypt.
Given the nature of pilgrims types, the spiritual practices that are most likely to help them draw closer to God or learn more about God and God’s plan for their life, are active practices. An obvious spiritual practice would be to make a pilgrimage – to set out on a journey to a holy site of some kind and then pay attention to what happens along the way. Millions of people make such pilgrimages every year. Some go to the holy land, some to Mecca, some to Buddhist temples in China or Japan.
But, we can’t make such pilgrimages every day. So those who are of this spiritual type have to find other ways to journey in their daily lives. Some people have found incredible meaning in walking a Labyrinth. A labyrinth is a symbolic pilgrimage. It is a ritual path that has you journey to a center point and then out again. It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path. It represents a journey to our own center and back again out into the world. For pilgrims, there is something about moving the body…taking a physical journey. Even just taking a walk becomes a time of meditation that provides something sitting in one place cannot.
Another practice for pilgrims that can be incorporated into daily life is to simply take a new route to familiar places. Ask yourself the question, “How do you encounter God when you are not doing what you have always done?” Finally, pilgrims also learn about the divine by walking in the shoes of others. Many pilgrims find spiritual growth in journeys exploring other faith traditions and talking with people from all walks of life.
If you see yourself in this – if you know that you are a pilgrim, Lent is a great time for journeys. Take as many journeys as you can. Open your eyes, ears and hearts to God along the way. Set out on a sacred path and open yourself to the promise of Canaan, the hope of the resurrection, the joy of being in relationship with a God who wants us to be free.
Jesus is the master pilgrim. When you read the gospels, it seems like he never stops moving – never stops walking. And it is not wander-lust. His ministry happens along the way – from Galilee to Jerusalem. His life embodies the creed of his people: A wandering Aramean was my ancestor. Jesus moves people from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to Canaan, from brokenness to wholeness. His physical journey sets the people he meets on journeys of their own – journeys to God. When he gets to Jerusalem, the cross is kind of like the empty Buddhist scriptures. It’s not what we expect – it even seems disappointing. But it points us both back to the journey, and to the fact that it was through his life, his healings and love, his compassion and justice that resurrection really happened. Even before the empty tomb, resurrection was a reality because of the way Jesus journeyed through life.
For Lent, we all become pilgrims with Jesus and with each other. It’s a chance to learn what some know without being taught: if you dare to take the journey, God will meet you every step of the way. Amen.
