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 Sunday, February 17, 2008 Sermon: "A Religious Pilgrimage from Abraham to SHUMC Scripture: Genesis 1`2: 1-4 Reverend Larry M. Gerber COURT SETS ATHEISTS HOLIDAY In Florida,an atheist became incensed over the preparation of Easter and Passover holidays. He decided to contact his lawyer about the discrimination inflicted on atheists by the constant Celebrations afforded to Christians and Jews with all their holidays while atheists had no holiday to celebrate. The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the long passionate presentation by the lawyer, the Judge banged his gavel and declared, "Case Dismissed!" The lawyer immediately stood and objected to the ruling and said, "Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and many other observances. Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah...yet my client and all other atheists have no such holiday!" The judge leaned forward in his chair and simply said, "Obviously your client is too confused to even know about, much less celebrate his own atheists' holiday!" The lawyer pompously said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any such holiday for atheists; just when might that holiday be, your Honor?" The judge said, "Well it comes every year on exactly the same date---April 1st! Since our calendar sets April 1st as "APRIL FOOL'S D AY", consider that Psalm 14:1 states; "THE FOOL SAYS IN HISS HEART, THERE IS NO GOD." Thus, in my opinion, if your client says there is no God, then by scripture, he is a fool, and April 1st is his holiday! Now, have a good day and get out of my courtroom!!!" Holidays and Holy Days are usually set after a period of years have gone by, based on something, or someone, whom has impacted history. Some of our holidays go way back in history, and are observed around the world, while others are less ancient, and sometimes considered local or state holidays. All of life is a pilgrimage and continues to unfold hour by hour. Some events along this pilgrimage have been marked as holidays while others are Holy Days. God may call us to go on a pilgrimage, but if it's like Abram's, it will be to go outside of our comfort zone. It may or may not make history, but it will make its mark. Worldwide, about how many Christians would you say make a religious pilgrimage each year? Five million, 50 million or 150 million? The answer is 150 million, which is about 7 percent of the world's Christians. If, now that you know the number, your next thought is "Who cares?" then it's probably because you're a Protestant Christian, and in general, Protestant churches have not encouraged the visitation of religious sites as an act of faith quite as much as some other Christian groups have. But that's not to say we don't journey to religiously significant sites; we simply call them "travel opportunities" or "vacations." Usually, Protestants don't head for places like Lourdes in France or Medjugorje, in Bosnia - both sites where the Virgin Mary is said to have made an appearance. Those are destinations popular with Roman Catholics who go seeking healing or spiritual advancement. Still, for Protestants, there are plenty of religiously significant destinations out there, including, of course, the Holy Land. But there are also established tours that visit locations important in the Reformation, that follow the footsteps of the apostle Paul, that take you to the home cities of the seven churches addressed in Revelation, that get you to Oberammergau, Germany, or Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for the Passion Play. Or you can take a denominationally oriented trip. If you're a Methodist, for example, you can trek to the birthplace of John Wesley and the spot where he had his "heart-warming" conversion experience. That 150 million is a lot of people on the move, but actually, it's not the whole story. Those are just the Christians. In 2006, a record six million people visited that important Jewish site, the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem. Some 2.1 million Muslims visited Mecca in December 2006, and an estimated 70 million Hindus went to the Ganges River last January and February for spiritual cleansing. And those numbers are growing. The 2.1 million who went to Mecca in 2006 represent an increase of 300,000 over 2000. Medjugorje now receives 10 times more visitors than it did a decade ago. And most of these people are not tourists in the usual sense; they're pilgrims, people looking to deepen their faith, express their commitment, receive a blessing or vicariously participate in the great events in the history of their religion. 21 parishioners from this church along with three from Willowbrook United Methodist are about to embark on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in just 9 days. Some of the comments, when asked why he/she is going: "Peace, a calmness," "Here I can take my mind off everyday living," "to walk where Jesus walked," "to witness my faith." Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, explains the global surge in spiritual travel by saying that "people are increasingly interested in experiencing their faith through more than just reading or singing." We seldom use the term pilgrimage or journey. We usually use the words "tour" or 'trip," but we do believe in the importance of spiritual journeys. As a way of thinking about that, consider the biblical Abram and his pilgrimage. In Genesis 12, God tells Abram to set out on a trip to visit some spiritually significant sites in Canaan.... Well ... no, that's not what God says. God definitely calls Abram to a journey, but there's no mention of religious tourism at all. Actually the divine instruction that comes to Abram is as much about where he shouldn't remain as it is about where he should travel. "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house," the Lord says to Abram, "to the land that I will show you." What kind of an itinerary is that? "Leave here, leave the security of home and hearth, of family and possession, and don't concern yourself with where you're going. You'll find out in due time." And it's not that the biblical narrator here in Genesis simply left the destination detail out of the story; Abram really wasn't told. The New Testament writer of Hebrews must have noticed that, because, centuries later, when that writer referred back to this story as an example of faith, he said this: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going" (Hebrews 11:8, italics added). The salient point here is that Abram, with no TripTik at all, obeyed God and hit the road. So for Abram, it was about leaving, not going. The trip was also about content, not experience. The narrator does not give us a clue as to what Abram felt or thought about this call from God. You can read the account from Genesis, but you get no sense of Abram's call as an experience, and that's because the narrator was far more focused on the call's content. Who before Abram had ever received promises such as those in verses 2 and 3 - promises of nationhood, reputation, blessing and land? We can speculate, of course, about what might have gone through Abram's mind. Possibly one of Abram's concerns was how God was going to bring a great nation from Abram when Abram hadn't been successful in producing even a single child with his wife Sara, who was now long past the childbearing years anyway. He might have also worried about how he was going to get by hitting the road at his age - he was 75, after all, and many would consider that age well past time to be stepping outside of one's comfort zone. Yes, we can speculate about what Abram may have thought and felt, but the biblical narrator wastes no time doing that. Instead, he moves the story forward with a plain-vanilla statement: "So Abram went ...." Now here's something else: Abram's destination is not sacred; it is Abram who sacramentalizes his destination. The places to which God leads Abram are not spiritually significant sites when Abram gets there. Instead, they become spiritually significant because of what Abram does after his arrival. If we read on in Genesis, we learn where God wanted Abram to go. It was to the land of Canaan, yes, but more specifically, it was to several distinct locations within Canaan. Thus, following God's leading, Abram and his family group worked their way from north to south down the hilly spine of Canaan, sojourning successively in various places. The first was Shechem (Genesis 12:6). There God again spoke to Abram, saying, "To your offspring I will give this land." So Abram responded by building an altar to the Lord. Next, Abram's group moved near Bethel (Genesis 12:8), and there, apparently God did not speak to Abram at first, so Abram built an altar to invoke the name of the Lord. What that means is that operating on the basis of his faith, Abram reached out to God at Bethel even though, at that location, he wasn't particularly conscious of God reaching out to him. Abram initiated the worship of God at that spot. After some other journeying in the region, Abram and his group eventually came back to this location near Bethel. It was there that a dispute arose between Abram's herders and those of his nephew Lot over grazing land and water usage for both men's herds. To resolve the conflict, Abram graciously allowed Lot to choose whatever land he wanted. Lot chose the most fertile land, and Abram accepted the scrub land for himself. Abram then brought his family to Hebron, where again he built an altar to the Lord (Genesis 13:18). Finally, Abram arrived at Beer-sheba, where, after a peaceful resolution of a dispute between Abram and the local ruler over a well Abram had dug, Abram marked the agreement by planting a tree and calling God by a new name. In English it's translated as "the Everlasting God," and this is the first occurrence of that name in the Bible. The point is that Abram's obedience to God's call eventually led him to a greater understanding of God (Genesis 21:33). Today we can arrange a tour of the Holy Lands that would take us to those four locations. Hebron and Beer-sheba are still functioning cities, and so is Bethel, though today it is known as Beitin. Shechem is no more, but we know where its ruins are - in an archeological mound called Tell Balatan - so we can even visit there. And if we did travel to those places, we could pray and read the Scriptures at each one, which would no doubt have some spiritual benefit for us. But if we did that, we'd not be on Abram's kind of pilgrimage. He wasn't traveling simply for spiritual development. His trek was marked by the following features: -First, Abram headed out in response to what he perceived as a call from God. The writer of Hebrews says this was because of Abram's faith, but the Old Testament writer doesn't use that word. He simply points out that Abram "went." He obeyed the call. Obedience is evidence of faith, of course, but it is faith in action. - Second, when Abram arrived at his destination, he listened for what God wanted him to do there. He built the altar at Shechem because he became aware that God was speaking to him. -Third, he "invoked" the name of the Lord. That is, he did what he could to make the place where he was God's place. -Fourth, he worked as a selfless peacemaker. In the conflict with Lot, he put his own desires last. -Fifth, he grew in his own understanding of God because he journeyed where God wanted him to go. Those five criteria - obedience, listening, worshiping, selflessness and remaining open to new understandings of God - can turn all sorts of efforts into Abram-type pilgrimages. That's important because God sometimes calls us, like Abram, to leave our comfort zones and go places where we feel out of our depth, but he calls us to go anyway. Those of us preparing for the Holy Land Pilgrimage are going for just that reason: a deeper understanding of God, leaving the comfort zone of our home and community to travel deep into the roots of our heritage - it is not necessarily a comfort zone we are entering, but it is one of peace of mind and fulfillment of our understanding of God's call to a pilgrimage of our faith. Granted, it is not a call to leave our country never to look back, but it is a call to one leg of our journey - to walk where Jesus walked and feel his presence there. We are on a journey in this church. Our theme for 2008 is on a banner in front of our campus. "The Journey - 2008" "Knowing, Loving, Serving". We are called to follow God's direction as he leads us on our pilgrimage, our journey, our tour, our trip through life. God calls us to journey daily, individually and corporately. God called Abraham to journey to... go from, leave behind... Samuel anointed a shepherd. Jesus chose 12 to pick up their nets and go from...journey toward..follow me....move from your comfort zone - go forth knowing, loving, and serving. Don't think that God isn't calling you to move out of your comfort zone just because you're not some big shot. But whether he does or not, it is good for us to remember that obedience, listening, worshiping, selflessness and remaining open to new understandings of God can make all of our journeys and changes of direction into spiritual pilgrimages. Last December, we as a church, set several goals, measurable objectives, a strategic direction for keeping our church on track for Jesus, our Lord. We are on a journey of uncharted waters. We don't know the future, but we know who holds the future. Let us join the pilgrimage of walking the faith that we proclaim. Together we can...make a difference. Together we will walk the walk. We will go forth in the name of our Lord. We welcome 23 new members today. 23 persons who will, in just a moment, make a commitment to support this church with their presence, their time, their service, and their prayers. Together we will respond with them, reaffirming our vow to renew our vows to do the same. Let us pray... Sources: Jordan, Mary. "Seeking answers with field trips in faith: Bosnian hill is among world's sites drawing ever more pilgrims." The Washington Post, June 25, 2007, A1. |
