AS PILGRIM PEOPLE
PALM SUNDAY
Scriptures: Psalm 119:41-56
I Peter 1:10-15; 2:9-10
We’ve talked a lot over the past year and three months about the nature of Christian community. I was wondering as I watched the children process down the aisle and then looked out at those of you who have been members of this church for many years: what would be an image that could be used both for those new in the faith and for those who have been life-long adherents – an image that conveys the meaning of belonging to a Christian community? We are a people – God’s own people – and we testify to this fact whenever we join in the sacrament of Holy Communion together. But what kind of people? What image unites those who have yet to receive their first communion and those who may be receiving their 1001st? What do we have in common?
Oh, I’m quite sure there are many images that could be used, but the one I would like to offer as being particularly appropriate for this Palm Sunday is that of being a pilgrim people. Even as Jesus climaxed his pilgrimage from the hills of Galilee into the city of Jerusalem on this day and then began another pilgrimage into the hearts and lives of humans everywhere, so, too, you who are young in the faith and you who have been around for awhile take part in a pilgrimage that is symbolized by this procession that we joined in together this morning – a never-ending pilgrimage to be Christ’s witnesses as he continues to strive to fill the hearts and lives of all people with love.
Now, the word “pilgrim” may call up different concepts in our minds. If we think back to the pilgrims of 1607 in Plymouth and 1620 in Jamestown, it would probably be hard to identify with them, for we are not fleeing from religious persecution or living in very difficult conditions. Or, if we think of a Christian pilgrim in the same sense as John Bunyan uses the term in his book Pilgrim’s Progress, this isn’t a very helpful image, since this is a highly stylized way of looking at Christians on their way to a heavenly home with no concern about this life except to endure its sufferings and just pass through it as through a “vale of tears”.
But if these two images of a Christian as a pilgrim are not helpful for Christians today, why then identify ourselves as a pilgrim people? Because the church needs to become a pilgrim church for our time, and you young people who marched up that aisle are being invited each Sunday to join the rest of us in participating in this exciting adventure. Robert McAfee Brown, one of my favorite professors at Union Theological Seminary, puts it this way, “The Church, then, is the people of God on the march, on pilgrimage, unwilling to dig its foundations too deep in any one place, willing to go wherever there is need or God calls to it…..” Dr. Brown also quotes John Mackay, who 60 years ago said, ”The whole church must brace itself to face the frontier. That is to say, it must become a mobile missionary force, ready for a wilderness life. It must be ready to march towards the place where the real issues are and where the most crucial decisions must be made. It is a time for us all to be thinking of campaign tents rather than of cathedrals.”
Not much has changed for the church since those statements were made. If anything, the place of the church as part of the establishment in today’s society has grown even weaker. Yet, what Dr. Brown and Dr. Mackay are offering is not a very accurate description of the church as it exists today. Part of the purpose, then, in becoming connected to this community of believers is to point to ways the church can become a pilgrim people – a church which sees itself as a whole people, not just the clergy or a selected group – a church which sees itself as being “on mission” to the cares and concerns of the world, being, in Dr. Brown’s phrase, “on the march…to go wherever there is need or God calls to it…..”
As pilgrim people in this sense of the word we would be fulfilling the image of the church which the author of I Peter gives us: “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people…” – chosen not for privilege but for responsibility, royal not through inheritance but because of having consciously chosen God’s kingdom, holy not because of our own righteousness but because we are willing to be “on the march”, God’s own people not because we have chosen God but because God through God’s grace has chosen us. This is the kind of image that the world so desperately needs from the church today – an image of service rather than self-serving status, an image of being on mission rather than of being tied to one spot or one church building, an image of pilgrimage toward a better life for all through justice and love rather than being content just to maintain the status quo.
What kinds of help will we have along our pilgrimage? First and foremost, of course, is the Bible, and especially that collection of poetry and prayers and pleas known as the Psalms. In the passage Ray read from the 119th Psalm, there’s that hesed – that “steadfast love” -- once again in the first line. We start out by knowing that God will never stop loving us no matter what. Later on, the Psalmist refers to “Your statutes” which “have been my songs wherever I make my home.” “Wherever I make my home…..” Sounds a lot like people who are on a journey. In fact, in the Revised Standard Version translation the connection with our theme is made even more explicit: “Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.” We are reminded here of that lovely story of Ruth, the Moabite, who, rather than stay in her own country, says to her mother-in-law Naomi, “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”
The Psalmist is saying here that God’s statutes – God’s commandments – are our rallying points when we are on mission in the world. They do not hinder or impede us but rather give us the momentum that we need to be God’s pilgrim people. As Frank Ballard has said in reference to this verse, “the burdens of life become blessings, the demand becomes a pleasure, the obligation becomes a privilege.”
In the New Testament the idea of pilgrimage is closely linked to the qualities of courage and hope, especially in the letter of I Peter. Archibald Hunter has noted that one idea haunts this letter – that of life as a pilgrimage – but this idea is found within the larger theme of a hope that rests not on humanity but on God. In order to fulfill this hope through pilgrimage the readers of this letter are told to “prepare your minds for action…set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed…..” “…do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead…be holy yourselves in all your conduct…..”
I know that this is somewhat daunting language – who among us would dare to call ourselves “holy” in all our conduct. But “holy” here is meant not in a sentimental, pious way; rather, we are called on to be holy by serving others. In other words, to be “holy” is just another way of saying that we are on mission as a pilgrim people. People like Lura and Jason who went through confirmation class not quite a year ago are new in the learning process of what it means to be a part of that pilgrim people. But, in truth, all of us all the time are learning what it means to be a Christian, for this, too, is part of our pilgrimage. That’s why I’m so grateful to the Board of Christian Education for the adult study classes that it has begun. And I know that there are others of you, like the couple I talked with at the end of the service last week, who have attended many Bible studies and relished what they have learned there. It is being involved together on this pilgrimage that makes us God’s people – no matter differences in age or level of learning. For each of us it is so, as Peter says, that “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” We have received mercy because we are a pilgrim people seeking to be involved in the life of the world for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Back in the day (this was a hold-over from the Congregational part of our heritage) youth groups used to be called Pilgrim Fellowships, or “PF” for short. One of my early jobs in ministry was to shepherd a Pilgrim Fellowship for four years. I think partly because of the name those young people “got it” when it came to understanding that they were being called through all of our activities to be on mission – to take the message of Christ into the world, which we did largely through drama and dance and song.
This past week I performed a wedding ceremony for two people from California, both in their 60’s with grown children, and through that ceremony I was reminded again of how the wedding ring is used as a symbol of two people coming together – sometimes when you think that all chance for love is lost. Our two symbols for coming together as a pilgrim people are the procession that starts out our Palm Sunday service and now this communion service which ends it. As we receive communion today may we be challenged to be together truly as God’s people on pilgrimage into the world, so that we, too, may enter Jerusalem beside the Christ – hearing the hosannas, but also ready to become pilgrims even unto the cross.
Amen.
Dave Pomeroy
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
Las Vegas, NV
April 1, 2007