Chalice Lighting by Kerry Pettis
I found this story in a book called “Spiritual Literacy” by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat.
There is a wonderful Chasidic story about the child of a rabbi who used to wander in the woods. At first his father let him wander, but over time he became concerned. The woods were dangerous. The father did not know what lurked there.
He decided to discuss the matter with his child. One day he took him aside and said, “You know, I have noticed that each day you walk into the woods. I wonder why do you go there?”
The boy said to his father, “I go there to find God.”
“That is a very good thing,” the father replied gently. “I am glad you are searching for God. But, my child, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?”
“Yes,” the boy answered, “but I’m not.”
In researching this topic, I found several definitions of “pilgrimage”. The simplest was “ a journey taken for a specific purpose”, but the one that resonated for me was “life viewed as a journey.”
I can’t say that I have ever taken a trip with a pilgrimage such as soul searching or spiritual growth in mind. Several times I have encountered a spiritual feeling at a specific destination—Machu Picchu in particular was that kind of experience for me. I also had such a feeling at a Dolman, a sacred rock, in Ireland. But both those experiences came after arriving at the sacred place; they were not the express purpose of the trip.
The second definition: “Life viewed as a journey” is a better description of my personal pilgrimage. I am a word person, a reader, a being powered by thoughts and ideas. I live in my head. And that is where my pilgrimage has taken place. I have always searched for meaning, whether in written passages, in quiet meditation, or in personal musings. This “inner pilgrimage” is what brought me to Unitarian Universalism after many years of attending other churches.
This is a church where ones spiritual quest can be focused, where ones religious questions can be explored-- not answered, but explored—where one can end a pilgrimage or continue a pilgrimage into future growth and knowledge.
I light the chalice this morning in gratitude for Jefferson Unitarian Church, where one can experience the sacred and be supported on ones personal pilgrimage.
Reading
Mi Tribu (My Tribe) by Alberto BlancoEnglish translation
Earth is the same
sky another.
Sky is the same
earth another.
From lake to lake, forest to forest:
which tribe is mine?
—I ask myself—
where's my place?
Perhaps I belong to the tribe
of those who have none;
or to the black sheep tribe;
or to a tribe whose ancestors come from the future:
a tribe on the horizon.
But if I have to belong to some tribe
—I tell myself—
make it a large tribe,
make it a strong tribe,
one in which nobody is left out,
in which everybody,
for once and for all
has a God-given place.
I'm not talking about a human tribe.
I'm not talking about a planetary tribe.
I'm not even talking about a universal one.
I'm talking about a tribe you can't talk about.
A tribe that's always been
but whose existence must yet be proven.
A tribe that's never been
but whose existence
we can prove right now.
Spanish original:
La tierra es la misma
el cielo es otro.
El cielo es el mismo
la tierra es otra.
De lago en lago, de bosque en bosque:
¿cual es mi tribu?
—me pregunto—
¿cual es mi lugar?
Tal vez pertenezco a la tribu
de los que no tienen tribu;
o a la tribu de las ovejas negras;
o a una tribu cuyos ancestros vienen del futuro:
una tribu que está por llegar.
Pero si he de pertenecer a alguna tribu
—me digo—
que sea a una tribu grande,
que sea una tribu fuerte,
una tribu donde nadie
quede fuera de la tribu,
donde todos,
todo y siempre
tengan su santo lugar.
No hablo de una tribu humana.
No hablo de una tribu planetaria.
No hablo siquiera de una tribu universal.
Hablo de una tribu de la que no se puede hablar.
Una tribu que ha existido siempre
pero cuya existencia está todavía por ser comprobada.
Una tribu que no ha existido nunca
pero cuya existencia
podemos ahora mismo comprobar.
Sermon
As we drove across northern Spain last month, the bright blue signs with a yellow symbol starting popping up everywhere. As we drove along the north coast, we kept crossing the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. Or, more accurately, we kept crossing one of the pilgrimage routes. The main route, known as the French route, was the more popular way during the middle ages. It roughly parallels the coastal route, but is inland and on the south side of the Pyrenees and Cantabrian mountain ranges.
I had heard that Santiago de Compostela had been a pilgrimage route, but I had no idea how important it was. At its peak, between half a million and two million pilgrims a year walked from France, across Spain, and to Santiago in the far northwest corner of the Iberian peninsula. That is an astonishing number. The entire population of Europe is estimated to have been 40 million. That means that in a typical year between one and two percent of the population of Europe were making their way across the French Pyrenees and all the way across Spain. Then they turned around and headed home.
Why in the world were they going to Santiago? Well, legend had it that St. James the Greater (there were two apostles named James) had gone to spread the gospel in Spain. It is only legend. There is nothing in scripture and no evidence that it ever happened. The legend goes on that James returned to the Holy Land, where he was martyred. James was beheaded by Herod Agrippa. Now the story starts to get really strange. The legend also had it that James’s bones were miraculously returned to Spain and buried there. Then, 800 years later, some peasants found some bones and convinced themselves, and eventually all of Europe, that these bones (found at an old Roman burial site) were the remains of Saint James himself. (Stay with me, now.)
What started as a local shrine grew in reputation. Pilgrims came from around the area, then from afar. This is also the time in Spanish history where almost the entire peninsula had been conquered by Moors. Indeed, Santiago itself was overrun by Moors at one point. Christianity maintained only a tenuous foothold in the remote and inaccessible parts of northern Spain. Saint James, or San Diego, or Santiago, came to play a critical role in the Christian mind. In a battle against the Moors that was going badly, a man on a white horse is supposed to have appeared miraculously and to have slaughtered Moors with his mighty sword, turning the tide of battle. This was Santiago himself, who became known as Santiago Matamoros—literally Saint James the slayer of Moors. Santiago became the patron saint of Spain.
In the middle ages a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela was supposed to cut a Christian’s time in purgatory in half. For those of you who are not familiar with ancient Catholic doctrine, purgatory is a kind holding area after death where one spends time before entering heaven. Never mind that all of this was nuts. Even if one believes in heaven and hell and purgatory, this is a legend that strains all credulity. Not even Catholic scholars believe the story. There is zero, zero, evidence that Saint James ever made it to Iberia, much less to the far northwest corner. There is no reason to believe that the bones found by peasants at Santiago in the 800’s were anybody special. Yet the legend spurred millions upon millions of pilgrims—pilgrims who believed with all their hearts that their journey to Santiago would somehow save them from punishment after death. This is truly amazing stuff. Even today nearly 100,000 people walk at least part of the Camino de Santiago every year (though many of them are not particularly religious).
I find it fascinating that the notion of making a pilgrimage is so deep and pervasive among human beings. Consider the world’s great religious traditions. Think of the millions upon millions of Christian pilgrims who have gone to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and to Rome. The millions who went to Santiago pale in comparison.
Think of the millions of Muslims who make the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. For Muslims, this is a central part of their faith. Then think of the millions of Hindus who go to the Ganges River. Buddhists make a pilgrimage to holy sites where the Buddha was born, where he achieved enlightenment, where he began giving his first sermons, and where he died.
Jews, of course, make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Native Americans, like indigenous peoples all over the world, consider certain sites sacred.
Of course, this urge to make pilgrimages extends far beyond religion. I read that thousands of people are making a pilgrimage to Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion as I speak this morning. There are golfers who save up for years to go to Scotland and play the world’s oldest courses. Astronomers make pilgrimages to telescopes where important discoveries have been made. Italian opera fans go to La Scala.
Now, I did not go to Santiago as a pilgrim. I went as a tourist, pure and simple. Yet we made a little mini pilgrimage of our own. On the last day of our trip, as we sped across Aragon on the freeway, we took a detour and headed off into the countryside. We headed for the little village of Villanueva, birthplace of Michael Servetus (or Miguel Servet). We Unitarian Universalists consider Servetus to be one of our saints and a martyr. Servetus was burned at the stake by John Calvin in Geneva for heresy in 1553. His heresy was to have challenged the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Servetus is seen as one of the founders of free religion. His death proved to be a turning point, as many were horrified by the idea of burning a man for what he thought. His death had the effect of furthering the idea of religious tolerance and freedom of thought.
In the last few years, with funding from the government, his birthplace has been turned into a small museum and research library. What a contrast with Santiago. Santiago is a city teeming with tourists. It has a magnificent cathedral and historic city center. After driving around Villanueva for about 15 minutes and failing to find the Servetus home, we saw a handful of people waiting for an intercity bus. We asked directions, and one kind man walked with us the short distance. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. As we feared, the museum was closed. The man, undaunted, asked us to walk down the block to his house. From there he called the curator (everyone knows everyone in Villanueva), who agreed to come down and give us a tour.
As we toured the home, I found it hard to imagine the boy Miguel Servet growing up in this tiny backwater of Aragon to become infamous for coming to the conclusion that he found no biblical basis for the doctrine of the trinity. Now he is the town’s very small claim to fame. During the school year children come on field trips. With an irony that boggles my little brain, the small Catholic church has a statue of Servetus near its entrance. Servetus was condemned as a heretic and hunted by the Inquisition. The Catholic Church would have executed Servetus if John Calvin had not done it first. He had been burned in effigy at the site of that little church.
Now, if there is a hell, my little afternoon pilgrimage to the home of a great heretic is sure to be taken as one more piece of evidence that I deserve eternal torture (not that more evidence is needed). Yet, here I am, a modern skeptic, attracted by the allure of making a pilgrimage.
What is it, I wonder, that continues to draw millions of people from all over the earth to set off on pilgrimages every year? Something very powerful is going on, something that touches an enduring part of the human spirit.
If any of you in here truly believes that if you make the trek to Santiago your time in purgatory will be cut in half, I suggest you might be in the wrong church this morning. And while I am glad I made my little journey to the birthplace of Servetus, I don’t for a moment believe that my detour got me any closer to salvation.
What can pilgrimage mean for you and me? Deep down, you and I are no different than the hundreds of millions of human beings who have felt this profound longing to set out on a religious journey. We share their desire for an experience that will transform our lives. Like them, we have a need to connect to something holy, something that that gives meaning to our lives. I will never share the beliefs of a twelfth century French peasant. Yet I can completely sympathize with the desire to head off on a grand adventure, a journey that challenges me and that opens me to new experience. How enticing it must have been to leave the numbing, back breaking routine of toiling on a plot of land and to join with thousands of other believers on the road to Santiago!
Of course, what has made pilgrimages so fundamental to religious experience is their emotional and spiritual power. The outward journey is ultimately unimportant. What matters to the pilgrim is the personal transformation that takes place on the journey.
Surely there is great value in connecting to a source. This is what pilgrims find at Mecca, at Jerusalem, in Rome. In that journey they become part of something that transcends them, something at the core of their identity.
There is, alas, a dark side to the practice of pilgrimages. Pilgrimages to ancient sites can reinforce our human differences. A muslim who goes to on the Haj to Mecca has his or her identity as a Muslim powerfully reinforced. The devout medieval Christian who went to Santiago had his Christian identity reinforced, but part of that identity was a determination to be part of the Christian Reconquista, or reconquest. He was to follow the example of Santiago Matamoros and win back the land by killing Moors. I suspect that Jews who have been to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem are less inclined to make peace with Palestinians.
The pilgrimage that I long to make, and the pilgrimage that I believe is worthy of our deepest religious commitment, is not a pilgrimage to an ancient holy site. I want to make a pilgrimage that helps to unite humans, not divide us. We have more than enough division. Division is why there is so much religious killing.
When we look back, we see all the things that divide us. We see all the ancient animosities, all the old injuries. I have seen this happen again and again in well meaning efforts to deal with racism and oppression. When people focus on the past all the old oppressions faced by African Americans, by Latinos, by Native Americans, by gays and lesbians, by women, come to the fore. At its worst, there is a kind of competition among historically oppressed groups to see who has suffered most and a distasteful groveling among white liberals to see who is the most sorry. It produces catharsis, but no progress.
However, when we look ahead, when we look at what kind of future we want to create together, we find common ground. The past has a way of dividing us. The future we shall share and our children and grandchildren will share, on the other hand, unites us. When we look ahead, we see that we are all in this together.
We need what Alberto Blanco talks about in his poem that was this morning’s reading: we need ancestors that come from the future. We need to be part of a tribe on the horizon. This is the pilgrimage for us: a pilgrimage into a future that we can create together.
I want to go on a pilgrimage with you. I want us to go together into a future that is just over the horizon. That future is too far away to be able to make out all the details. But we can see the outline. We can agree on the direction in which we want to go. And we can, if we come together in good faith, openly, and humbly, agree on the next steps we must take.
We want a future where there is a place for everyone. We want a future that preserves sustainable life for generations centuries in the future. We want a future that is compassionate and just. We want a future where children are taught, preferably by our example, about empathy, gentleness, compassion and commitment. We want a future where elders are honored and cared for. We want a future where there is joy and celebration.
We do not need to walk hundreds of miles to Santiago. We don’t need to journey to the birthplace of the Buddha or bathe in the Ganges.
No, we need to take one more step together toward the future we long to see. We need to take one more step toward becoming the change we wish to see in the world. Like all pilgrims, we begin with where we are today. We begin by treating each other with love and respect. We work in our community. We work for justice.
And we stick with it. Like ancient pilgrims to Santiago, we commit ourselves to a long journey. We are committed, determined, and stubborn. We find strength in each other and draw strength from all that we hold sacred in life. We give each other a hand along the way.
We are pilgrims, you and I. We are pilgrims to a future we are creating every step on our way. No shrine from past will save us. Together, however, we can save the future. May ours be a blessed and joyous pilgrimage. Amen.
Amen.