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Psalm 84 1 How dear to me is your dwelling, O Lord of hosts! 2 The sparrow has found her a house and 3 Happy are they who dwell in your house! 4 Happy are the people whose strength is in you! 5 Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs, 6 They will climb from height to height, 7 Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; 8 Behold our defender, O God; 9 For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, 10 For the Lord God is both sun and shield; he will give grace and glory; 11 No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who walk with integrity. 12 O Lord of hosts, happy are they who put their trust in you! This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We’ll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen. |
Calling all pilgrims
I couldn’t find any other place in scripture where the word “pilgrim” appears. It only seems to show up in the psalm printed above, a psalm you might have heard in church yesterday. The term is probably most readily associated in our culture with the first Thanksgiving in New England, which may or may not help us recognize the deep meaning of the word.
As distinct from a tourist, a pilgrim is someone who travels with a distinct purpose. Here’s how one travel site described the difference: Tourists are seeking relaxation, entertainment, and a break from everyday lives. Pilgrims, on the other hand, are seeking a deeper connection with their faith or with the universe. They are often on a quest for self-discovery and personal growth.
In other words, pilgrims are looking for something and they don’t find it by staying put. That restless quest is very much at the heart of our Christian faith. Jesus told the first disciples: Follow me. He set them on a journey. When they asked where they were headed, he simply said: Come and see. First Christians were not called Christians. They were called people of the way. On many days, I wish we’d kept that name. The term Christian suggests arrival, maybe even institution. There’s little of that when we speak of people on the way.
An insight from pastor and smart guy Brian McLaren has guided me in my ministry. He highlighted this question for our churches and denominations: Are we a club for the spiritually elite who pretend to have arrived or a school for disciples who are on the way? Asked another way: are we on a pilgrimage?
I’ve made a few pilgrimages over the course of my life, some international, some not. Friends have made powerful, transformative pilgrimages to the camino in Spain, to holy rivers in India, to sacred sites in Jerusalem, to remote islands like Iona. All thin places where discovery can happen as the distance between heaven and earth diminishes. A.k.a., thin places. Those journeys have resulted in spiritual growth, transformed lives.
But it seems to me that you don’t need to contend with air travel in order to experience this kind of discovery, for which I say, “Thanks be to God.” What seems critical is the pilgrim’s mindset. It is as the psalmist says a matter of having our heart set on the pilgrims’ way. We can do that anywhere.
I’ve discovered in my work with Renewalworks that perhaps a quarter of the congregations I’ve worked with demonstrate a spirit of complacency, a spirit that says, “We’re fine where we are, thank you very much.” There’s little interest in pilgrimage. As I reported this particular profile to one congregation, the pastor called me in response. He thanked me for the insight and tongue-in-cheek said that the church had changed its tagline in response. The new tagline for the church? “We’re spiritually shallow and fine with that.” I doubt that ever appeared on their masthead, but it says something true about our congregations. It may say something true about where each of our hearts are set.
So what would it mean to set our hearts on the pilgrims’ way? It means that there is a place to which we are called that may be different from where we are right now. It means that we are open to God’s gracious and surprising activity in our lives. A best practice principle for congregations is to get people moving, to help them see that there is more, that God has more in store for them. How might you get moving this week, my pilgrim friends?
As you ponder that, a reminder that God is with us in the journey, that the journey is in and of itself a gift, a grace. So I close with wisdom from Anne Lamott: I do not understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.
–Jay Sidebotham
