Sermon for Tomorrow

I'm done a little early with my sermon draft today because it is closing night for Aida. So I have to get ready and go soon and won't be home until late. I'm also hoping to take a picture of my in my costume tonight to post on the blog. And I know I have been lax in posting lately, but don't give up on me, I'm sure I still have a lot to say, i'm just going through a bit of a dry spell and a particularly busy time. I know you don't believe me on the busy part but it is true. Anyway here is the draft of tomorrow's sermon. I gave it a title with I don't normally do. It is called Chotchkes or Cairns. Enjoy.

Think for a moment about the vacations you have taken in your life, the places you have gone. Places you have visited with family, friends, or even just by yourself. The locations might be far off and exotic or close and familiar. You may have traveled to another state to spend time with relatives or you may have traveled to another country to experience something beautiful or historic. As you think about these trips think about a souvenir that you bought or picked up while you were traveling. You may have paid a lot for it or you may have gotten it for free. It may be a piece of furniture or a postcard, an item of clothing or a collectable, a book or a baseball. (Moment to think.) Now I’d invite anyone to share what that souvenir is.
We bring back souvenirs to remember our travels, to remember these special vacations. They serve as reminders of these moments in our lives. I love being a tourist. I love to travel. I haven’t done nearly enough of it, but I love visiting new places. Trying new things. And I want to see it all. I remember a Designing Women episode where Julia and Suzanne were going to Japan because Suzanne was going to buy a car. And on the airplane Julia remarked that she wanted to see the real Japan. To which Suzanne responded, “As for seeing the “Real Japan”, I’ve noticed that whenever people start talking about seeing the “real” anything, what they’re talking about basically, is hanging around with poor people. Now I say, I don’t hang around with poor people at home, why should I do it on vacation?” I am with Julia essentially, that I want to experience the “real” wherever I am going. I don’t need to take a bus tour or walk up to the top of the statue of liberty. But I do want to have a pint in a British pub or eat a slice in a pizza parlor that only the locals know about. I also want to somewhat blend in. That mean’s no fanny packs or I “heart” new york t-shirts, no garish American university sweatshirts in the middle of Paris, and no loud boisterous talking. I essentially want to be a tourist without looking like a tourist.
And one of the things I really love doing is visiting old churches, cathedrals and the like. Drop me in the middle of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral and I will be happy as a clam. Diana Butler Bass, the author of Christianity for the Rest of Us, the book that you all read during my Sabbatical, writes this in one of her early books, From Nomads to Pilgrims, “Not long ago, I was at Trinity Church, Wall Street, one of the oldest churches in the United States, and the church that sits right on the edge of the site of the World Trade Center. Since 2001 the congregation has seen more than two million visitors a year pass through its historic doors. The clergy and I were talking about the spiritual tourists… “I’ve got tourists galore,” sighed the Reverend Dr. Jim Cooper, Trinity’s senior clergyperson. “They come in droves. But I don’t want them to leave as tourists. I want them to become pilgrims. I want them to connect, to know that there is something more.”
I’ve been thinking about this idea of pilgrims and more specifically pilgrimage a lot lately. Specifically since I returned from my Sabbatical and my trip to Iona. I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head. The past three weeks I’ve been preaching on the ideas that you all had for names for our congregation. Today I want to add another phrase to our ideas—not because we need yet another name to decide between, but instead because I think it adds to what I believe is as the very heart of our purpose as a congregation. This idea of pilgrims and pilgrimage.
It is very easy to come to church and to worship as tourists. I’d say this is the way most people show up every day. The idea is that I’ll step out of my routine and see something different. I may take pictures. I may engage in some of the activities of the locals. I may eat some of the local cuisine, eat their bread and drink their wine. But I won’t engage fully. And my intention is to leave much the same as I began. Yes I’d like to hear good music and nice words, but I don’t want to be changed in any way.
But pilgrimage is something different. The intention of the pilgrimage is to be changed. To leave different than you came. And pilgrims connect. Tourists don’t connect with fellow tourists. Often, like me, tourists don’t even want to see other tourists. My friend Tracy who lived in England for a year tells a story about being homesick and getting excited when she would meet a fellow resident of the United States. But the feeling was not always mutual. Usually the person who she met was a little disappointed and put out—they did not fly all the way across the ocean to meet someone from New Jersey. But pilgrims connect with the other pilgrims. Pilgrimage is by its very nature connectional, and not just connecting with the pilgrims that are on the present journey with you, but all the pilgrims who have traveled that way before. Millions of people have made the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and will continue to make the haj. Thousands upon thousands have made the Iona pilgrimage that I made. Millions of people over the centuries have traveled to Iona on pilgrimage. They have come “seeking healing, inspiration, and new beginnings (Iona Abbey Worship Book, 2001).” Iona has long been considered a thin place where little separates the sacred from the earthly. And for many years every Tuesday pilgrims have met to journey across the Island of Iona, seeking to connect and to be changed. And as I traveled along the 7 miles around the Island there was a sense that this way had been traveled before. One just has to take a few steps to realize that the path has been worn by many pilgrims. A friend talks about walking the labyrinth at Chartre Cathedral, another famous place of pilgrimage, in France and so many people have walked the labyrinth that there are grooves in the stone floor of the cathedral. Then at one point the Iona pilgrimage brought us to Columba’s bay. Columba was the person who is believed to have first set up a monastery on Iona. He traveled from Ireland in a small leather boat, and supposedly landed at this particular bay. It was beautiful. A large grassy area that ends on a beach of stones. Supposedly Columba and the monks who came with him to Iona climbed up a hill in order to confirm that they could no longer see Ireland from Iona and when it was confirmed it also clearly marked their leaving behind of Ireland and embarking on a new beginning. We were invited to pick up two rocks one that we would leave behind symbolizing something that we wanted to leave behind and one that we would take with us symbolizing a new beginning. Many chose to toss their rock in the ocean and many chose to leave it in one of many piles or cairns that had been established already on the beach. Cairns are just that piles of rocks. But they are more than that. Cairns may have originated as burial mounds marking the end of a life. But they have also been used as path markers pointing other travelers on their way. And they reflect a long line of pilgrims as more and more pilgrims add stones to them. Pilgrimage is not about taking away a souvenir, it is about leaving something behind and embarking on a new beginning or continuing on a chosen path. It is about marking a path for future pilgrims, guiding them on their way.
The Bible is full of people on pilgrimage. The greatest story of pilgrimage we heard a part of today. The Isrealites were leaving behind the oppression of Egypt in search of a new beginning, a promised land. And in this section of the story we read today we see that they are traveling on a path that has been traveled before as well. God says to Moses to go ahead of the people with some of the other elders and that God would be waiting there for them. God was saying lead the way for the pilgrims that will come behind you. And out in front of them waiting on them was God. Through all the trials of their pilgrimage, God would be there waiting. Their pilgrimage was not easy and it lasted longer than they expected and it certainly wasn’t what they expected—but throughout it all God was there waiting.
Pilgrims go seeking to have an experience with the divine. They go seeking God. And by God’s grace they return changed. They return as new people—seeking to live life differently. My pilgrimage to Iona left me with a desire to live life differently. I felt a connection to the earth and creation like I have never felt before. We took a day trip to an Island where we were able to see puffins—puffins up very close as close to or closer than I am to all of you. And what we learned was that we were their protectors. Most often they stay in the water to protect themselves from their natural enemy, the seagull. But when humans are on the Island they are able to come up on land because we are there to keep the seagulls away. Most of the time I see humans as destroyers of creation instead of protectors but in this instance I saw how we fit into the web of creation. And that gave me the ability to see a trip to the beach in a different way. I decided on our last day on Iona that I wanted to go swimming—many others in our group had already been in but I hadn’t—so I took a hike out to what I had heard was a beautiful place to swim. I hiked out over the vast patch of grass passed cows and into this rock passage down to the beach. As I was walking through the passage I noticed a baby lamb had died. It didn’t look like it had been attacked but instead had just gone to die. When I got to the beach I was laying on my towel and a mother sheep and her lamb came up and were on the beach with me. And I wondered were they like me. Were they mourning the loss of the lamb I had passed, a son and a brother? Were we both experiencing a similar loss? Were they grieving the loss of a brother like I was grieving the loss of mine? Were they feeling as lost and unmoored as I was? In that moment we were all connected. We were no longer nomads but pilgrims. And I have come away with a desire to care even more for the world in which we live. To be more of its protector.
Pilgrimage calls us to live life differently. We don’t come back with souvenirs. If anything we leave something there. This is the purpose of church, of worship. At our best we invite people to come in, put down their cameras, learn the language, engage in our rituals, to leave behind that which is holding them down, that which causes them pain and suffering, that which causes them grief. We invite people to travel a path that has been traveled for thousands of years before and will be traveled with all hope for thousands of years to come. We invite people to connect with their fellow pilgrims. And to know that whatever occurs on our pilgrimage, whatever hurdle we face, God will be there going before us, traveling with us, and waiting on us. Let us invite people to not be tourists but pilgrims. Let us all leave here changed. Amen.