Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Pilgrimage Road is a Two-Way Street

St. Paul’s Church in Bergen, Jersey City NJ
January 18, 2015

Year B: The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Samuel 3:1-20
Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

The Pilgrimage Road is a Two-Way Street
            Have you ever gone on a pilgrimage?
            People have been going on pilgrimages probably forever, journeying sometimes great distances alone or with others to visit places where the boundary between the human and the divine seems to be especially thin.
            In school, some of you probably read The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer’s late 14th Century account of pilgrims making their way through England to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the site where Thomas Becket was martyred.
            Today, Christian pilgrims still trek to Lourdes in France and Fatima in Portugal where the Virgin Mary was reported to have appeared in modern times.
            Each year lots of Christians go to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago, an arduous journey to the grave of St. James the Apostle.
            It’s not just Christians who make pilgrimages.
            Maybe the most famous pilgrimage is the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is expected to make at least once in his or her life. Nowadays about two million people make the trip each year.
            And then there are non-religious pilgrimages to places like Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley.
            I’ve gone on a couple of pilgrimages myself, including a couple of trips with some of the youth from my previous parish, Grace Madison.
            One year we drove to Canada where we visited churches in Montreal and Quebec City. We took a ride north-east from Quebec to a famous pilgrimage site, St. Anne de Beaupre, a shrine where crutches and wheelchairs hang on the walls, left behind by pilgrims who were apparently cured of their ailments at the sacred site.
            And then another pilgrimage was my favorite: we flew to San Francisco and then drove down the Pacific coast visiting mission churches founded by the Spanish in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
            I remember sitting in one of those mission churches with our Grace Church kids, typical American suburban teenagers who were taking in the history and the beauty or, more likely, texting each other or their friends back home when we heard a shuffling noise coming from behind us.
            We all looked and saw a very old woman making her way up the center aisle on her knees, clutching her rosary, making her own slow, prayerful pilgrimage to the altar.
            It was a powerful and moving moment.
            It seems that pilgrimages today are more popular than ever.
            A couple of months ago there was an article in The New York Times about the booming popularity of pilgrimages. About one-third of all tourists are pilgrims!
            Obviously this pilgrimage boom can be partly explained by the fact that today it’s easier and cheaper than ever to travel great distances.
            But the author of the article offered some deeper, less obvious reasons, too.
            We all know that people’s religious identity isn’t as fixed as it used to be. Lots of people switch their faiths – about half of all Americans do - or decide that they’re “spiritual but not religious.”
            As the author notes, “Everyone is on a journey.”
            The author interviewed Brian Kwan, a young photographer from Colorado Springs, who hiked the challenging 40-mile long Jesus trail from Nazareth to the Sea of Galilee.
            Reflecting on his pilgrimage experience, Kwan said, “The moment you stop questioning is the moment you stop growing. You’re either walking in the direction of God or you’re walking away.”
            I really like that image of life as a pilgrimage towards God.
            “You’re either walking in the direction of God or you’re walking away.”
            However…
            We’re not the only ones on a journey.
            The pilgrimage road is a two-way street.
            In a real way God is on a pilgrimage, too.
            God is on a pilgrimage to us.
            In the words of today’s psalm, God is searching us - calling out to us, inviting us to be disciples, challenging us to be part of the great work of building the kingdom of God right here and now.
            The pilgrimage road is a two-way street.
            God is on a pilgrimage to us.
            In today’s Old Testament lesson we heard the story of God literally calling out to the boy Samuel, “Samuel! Samuel!” calling him to begin his work as a great prophet of Israel.
            God is on a pilgrimage to us.
            In today’s gospel lesson we hear Jesus on a kind of pilgrimage when he decides to go to Galilee and begins calling his disciples.
            Notice that Philip is not on a pilgrimage. He’s not seeking. Actually, we’re not told what he’s doing – probably just minding his own business.
            We’re told that Jesus “found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’”
            And just like the fishing brothers Simon and Andrew and James and John, when he hears the call, Philip seems to immediately drop what he’s doing to follow Jesus.
            But, first Philip goes to tell Nathanael who is skeptical but does journey toward Jesus – makes a little pilgrimage to Jesus - and also becomes a disciple.
            We are on a pilgrimage to God.
            And God is on a pilgrimage to us.
            This weekend we are remembering and honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
            By now, King has become an almost legendary figure so it’s easy to forget his beginnings in the civil rights movement.
            In 1955 when Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a bus, in Montgomery, Alabama, King was 26 years old. He had previously planned to be an academic somewhere in the North where he and his young family would have had greater freedom. Instead he chose to take a Southern pulpit. When the bus boycott began, King had been pastor of the Dextor Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery for only one year.
            The young, brainy pastor was an unlikely choice to lead this dangerous boycott.
            But, God was on a pilgrimage to Martin King, meeting him while he was minding his own business in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, calling Martin to be an even greater, bolder, radically faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.
            You know the rest of the story.
            It’s beautiful to think of our lives as a pilgrimage to God.
            Fortunately, going on a pilgrimage doesn’t require traveling vast distances.
            In a way, just like that old woman I saw in California, we make a little pilgrimage to God each time we come here, each time we make our way up the aisle to find Jesus in the bread and the wine.
            However…we’re not the only ones on a journey.
            The pilgrimage road is a two-way street.
            God is on a pilgrimage to us.
            God is searching us - calling out to us, inviting us to be disciples, challenging us – just like God called, invited and challenged Samuel, Philip, Nathanael, and Martin Luther King - to be part of the great work of building the kingdom of God right here and now.
            The pilgrimage road is a two-way street.
            We’re on a pilgrimage to God.
            And, God is on a pilgrimage to us.
            Amen.