Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

preached by Winton Boyd onEaster Sunday – March 23, 2008
Like many of you, I love to travel. I have had the opportunity to see many different places in this country and abroad. I have taken biking trips, camping trips, backpacking trips, service-learning trips with high school, college students, and families. I have met wonderful people with whom I share a language and superb people with whom I have little in common – be it language, culture, or religion. Certainly some of my most soulful moments have come during traveling and meeting others.

However, one of the more memorable and bizarre places I have visited is the square in front of the Wailing Wall in the Old City section of Jerusalem in Israel. What makes this spot memorable is its exceedingly complex contrasts
• It is adjacent to the most of sacred of sites for Jews (Wailing Wall – last remaining wall of the ancient temple in Jerusalem), Muslims (the Temple Mount mosque – one of the most sacred in Islam, and Christians (the church of the Holy Sepulcher – the spot where Christians believe Jesus was crucified)
• It borders a maze like series of alleys and small outdoor corridors containing shops selling everything from fine art to Muslim food, tacky trinkets and Catholic rosaries.
• On its ancient stones one will find devout pilgrims from many lands praying, Israeli military inductees celebrating, brides and grooms kissing and cameras from around the world clicking.
• It is one of the most unique convergence of nomads, tourists, and pilgrims. For some it is home, for others being there fulfills a lifelong dream, and for others it is simply a stop on a busy sightseeing schedule.

I remember as I stood there in 2005 for the first time, wondering if, or how, I fit in this ancient piece of history.
• Part of me was fascinated by the archeology – human and other wise – that oozed from its very stones.
• Part of me felt like a casual Western tourist barging in on someone else’s holy space.
• Part of me felt like a spiritual pilgrim, trying to connect with this ancient site that birthed so much of the faith that organizes and orients my life.
• I found these contrasts and conflicting feelings both exciting and unsettling.

In her book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, Diana Butler Bass uses the images of tourist and pilgrim to talk about the Christian faith. “Every church, synagogue, mosque and temple in the United States sits among a throng of tourists; (those people ) … on a journey of self discovery and meaning… (Trying) to connect, to know there is something more.

But simply being on a spiritual journey does not necessarily mean that people will find meaning. (We) need … to discover that journeys can become pilgrimages…(214-5)

In defining the spiritual life as a pilgrimage, she writes that “Unlike being a tourist, we embark on a pilgrimage, not to escape life, but to embrace it more deeply, to be transformed wholly as a person with new ways of being in community and new hopes for the world. Being a tourist means experiencing something new; being a pilgrim means becoming someone new. Pilgrimages go somewhere – to a transformed life.”(216)

As we celebrate Easter we celebrate God’s invitation to be pilgrims. The event of Jesus’ rising is filled with many questions, many curiosities as to what actually happened, how we are to understand “resurrection.” Nevertheless, whatever else happened, it is clear to all biblical scholars that the disciples were radically changed. It is clear, in Butler Bass’ language, that the disciples became pilgrims. Whatever else they were – students, onlookers, rabbi wannabes, fearful Jews – their lives became focused not on themselves, but on the larger reality of God in the world.

In some ways, the most important thing about Easter is not just that Jesus rose again; the most important thing is that that rising brought new life, new meaning, and new purpose to the disciples, ensuring that the faith we now inherit would remain alive and vibrant. As powerful as his rising was to his followers, the “rising” or “transformation” that took place in them as a result of it was equally powerful. Their lives were changed, forever altered, and regardless of which biblical scholar you ask – the world would never be the same.

For the women at the grave, Easter was a tipping point, the moment they were convinced that life is greater than death and that their ongoing life with God would be greater than life without God. It moved them from being devoted listeners, dutiful doers, and helpers to becoming powerful pilgrims on a journey with the God who raised Jesus for them.

Easter, this annual celebration of life, this annual recognition that death does not have the last word, this annual sacrament of new hope – is an invitation to all of us to become pilgrims. Easter Sunday, this day of its own contrasts is an invitation to take this Christian faith into our lives more deeply.

This past week, 24 of us from ORUCC and Madison Mennonite Church traveled to the Dominican Republic to work with Habitat for Humanity. For some, it was our second visit to the same small community where we helped build sturdy, cinderblock houses for young Dominican families who otherwise have little hope for a home of their own. They previously had little hope for a home that would withstand the elements of that Caribbean island. The entire group will be leading worship next Sunday, sharing specific thoughts and experiences of God’s presence in our midst.

However, during this holy week when we were literally tourists and guests – we reflected a bit on the difference between being a tourist and a pilgrim. While the “context” was this work trip, it also served as a larger metaphor for our entire lives. As we traveled to and from our work site, in and around the small city of Nagua, reflecting individually and in small and large groups – we reflected on how it is we know ourselves to be pilgrims and how that differs from simply being a tourist or guest. The question was an invitation for the group to let the experiences of this strange and wonderful week speak more loudly to their own lives and their own experiences of formation and shaping. I would like to share a few of the words members of our group wrote.

One spoke of the importance of absorbing the customs of others asking questions as a way of connecting more deeply. “Taking the customs fully in is leaving a part of me behind. In that way we never leave; we have become a pilgrim.” This person’s words are a reminder that when on a pilgrimage, we recognize that we have so much to learn from the authentic lives of others – whether they are from a different culture or living within our own home.

Another spoke of being a pilgrim in one’s own daily life: “It’s not necessary to travel to be a pilgrim. It’s easy to be a tourist every day and be seemingly disconnected with our families, neighbors and surroundings, not recognizing that our every action affects everyone and everything.”

Another spoke of the power of music and children to highlight commonalities – and how one can join another’s pilgrimage through them:  “To be able to spend time with children of the (El Factor) community made me feel very “at home”. To hear the children repeat the song later in the day, I knew we had come together. I knew it for sure when a mother sang the song to her child at the end of the day. We all found music together.”

Another family spoke of their own intentionality to “travel” in a way that builds “connectedness with people of other cultures and countries. “  Because they traveled with an openness, they found themselves delighted and surprised and even a bit overwhelmed by what transpired in them. (This was a trip that allowed each of them to grow ) “individually inward, …together and as a family, and … in our sense of community with others in the world.”

Another spoke of the power of connecting – a clear mark of a pilgrim.  “A tourist is someone who’s a surface level observer…On contrast, the pilgrim’s observations are discerning, as the pilgrim moves through his/her life, s/he uses that information to deepen his/her relationships with others, create new connections and meaning that are not fleeting. One of the most moving times was during the church service when we passed the peace. ..Instead of handshakes many gave me hugs. It felt like a sincere invitations to be with them, an invitation to be a fellow pilgrim with them.”

Another recognized that being a pilgrim means shedding some of our self-consciousness, some of our worries, and some of our barriers to living in the moment and in the spirit with others. He spoke about how his own sense of privilege got in the way of accepting the hospitality, faith, and honor of the other. Do I worry about how much rice is left for her family, or do I enter the moment, accept the gift, and cherish what I am learning about life?

Another spoke of the constant reality that they always have “felt on the outside of everything…I am always there – wherever there is – just always at the edges – not really involved. Yesterday as I sat holding a baby with a woman I ‘met’ last year, having my hair braided by one of the girls – I felt as though I had ‘arrived.’ As powerful as that was, the next day she wrote, ‘today I felt like a tourist again.” Her words are a reminder that the journey of faith, the journey to find meaning and wholeness is always lived at the edges of our known world, always a combination of both loneliness and community.

I share these observations not because I think we all need to travel to foreign places to find our faith. I share them as a reminder that each time we celebrate Easter, each time we share in the communion of saints, the fellowship of community – we too can ask ourselves – how am I doing on this pilgrimage of faith?

Are we slowing down enough in our lives to see the world right in front of us? Are we open to the power of connecting with others? One of the few mishaps in our trip this week was that our 95 Subaru had a flat tire in the wee hours of the morning on the way home from O’Hare. Because we had to use one of the emergency spare tires, we had to drive more slowly. One of my children commented as we pulled into Madison – “dad, this is first time I can remember that we are the ones being passed, not the ones passing others.” As the words were spoken, I was immediately reminded that a life of faith and meaning requires the time to slow down, pay attention, open our eyes, enjoy the moments of our lives and look for the presence of God in our very midst.

Are we seeking practices that feed us? Some of us remain immersed in the traditions and practices of our childhoods because they continue to feed us. Some of us have traveled a long way from those early practices, in search of practices and communities that are more life giving. Some of us collect practices and traditions from various sources throughout our whole lives. Pilgrims are always on the look out for tools, for resources, for spiritual disciples that feed. They understand that the life of faith is guided not just by happenstance, but also by intentionality.

Are we looking to sojourn in community? One morning on our trip, Sally Allen shared a reflection from Parker Palmer’s book, Let Your Life Speak. He writes that spiritual “abundance is a communal act…Community doesn’t just create abundance…community is abundance.” It is true in nature, it was true with the disciples rebounding from the death of their rabbi and leader, and it is true as we seek to find our way as pilgrims in the world. The great temptation for us as Americans is to think the spiritual life is not only personal, but also private. In fact, while it is an intensely inward and personal journey, it is also a journey that only deepens as we engage with others, as we live and breathe in community.

It is tempting to read these stories and attend services and go through the motions of being a Christian tourist or a spiritual nomad. May we hear in the story of Jesus’ rising and invitation to live with this hope, this new light amidst our personal and social darkness. May we grab on to these truths today in a new and more powerful way than ever before. Amen.