June 25, 2006: TAKING A TRIP: Where Are We Going?
Exodus 40:34-38, Psalm 137, Psalm 130

Eileen Parfrey - Springwater Presbyterian Church

Reading Psalm: song of exile, longing for home, mourning the enjoyment of their captors

Psalm in a nutshell: "We will not be robbed of our memories, our conviction that place is important, that God's Kingdom intends to be concrete"
Asks for faithful tenacity-maintain our identity, endure, embrace a calling (instead of selling out); knows the cost of beating despair, prepared to pay

Reading Exodus (end of the book!)

Tabernacle = literally "settle down" (irony is that it's portable place to "settle down") Israel has been camped at Sinai for a long time

Had they thought this was "home enough" and wanted to stay?
Construction/consecration of tabernacle is first step in leaving
Descent of Shekinah as guide and validation of the journey (had been present before as they left Egypt, but now has a "place")

Shekinah (feminine) not a word which literally appears in scripture

Jewish interpretive concept (appears in Targums = either God himself or earthly dwelling), sometimes replacing name of God in text; Christ identified with her
Indicates reverent nearness of God to the people

Children's Time: remembering home when we're not there (Lindsey and necklace)

Journey is a near-constant in all of God's creation. And some of the journeys are stupendous-long, hard, and integral to the propagation of the species. Gray whales-10,000 miles up and down the west coast at the speed of a kid on bicycle to eat at one end and have babies at the other. Arctic terns-22,000 miles annually pole to pole. Monarch butterflies-those gorgeous things that can't fly a straight line, who cannot stay on task, whose wings are so fragile that a touch cripples them-monarchs migrate 3,000 miles from the northern US to a secret place in Mexico, and it takes them five generations to make the trip. Why? These animals spend their lives traveling. Journey is the point for them. It's what they do.

It's also what we do. We use Biblish to dignify our journey with the term pilgrimage. Yeah, sometimes the purpose of the journey for us is propagation of the species-think of Paul's missionary trips and Jesus' teaching and healing tours. Sometimes the purpose of the journey is to re-orient us, to get us back to the right path-think of Israel's journey into exile to Babylon. Sometimes the purpose of the journey is to get us to grow up-think of Israel's 40 years in the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt. Ask the parent of any 30-something is "exodus" still occurs, their "child" who still wonders what they'll be if they grow up, or who hasn't found a mate or doesn't appear to think "settling down" includes moving out of the 'rents' place. Sometimes "exodus" isn't exactly voluntary, sometimes exile is. But we appear to have a "not-at-home" gene that requires journey as part of human life. Journey as part of our spiritual quest to be fully human, to live into our baptismal vows to be like Jesus, who was the fullest of humans. That's why we give it such a holy name-pilgrimage.

Yesterday at the Oregon Food Bank (our team won, by the way), several people volunteered to preach for me today. I was leaving early to work on the sermon, and they were trying to be helpful. I think I'll take them up on their offer and enlist their help for today's sermon-along with all of yours. This is actually part of my promise that this summer's sermons would be less Talking Head and more participatory. Today let's develop our understandings about pilgrimage.

What's the difference between "nomad" and "pilgrim"?

Why is this important? (Tolkien: "Not all who wander are lost")
Pilgrims: destination, purpose to wandering
Role of memory is counterintuitive, keeping destination/purpose in mind

Speaking generally, in these examples, which is personal "exile," which "exodus"

Developmentally: childhood, adolescence, courtship/marriage, child-rearing, empty
Psychologically: depression, marital crisis, losing job, grief, moving home, going to college, training for career, retiring

Corporate exodus or exile: exodus examples (change program, visioning, mission study, new building), what pushes us to grow up, how do we recognize destination, know when we've arrived; exile examples (change organizational structure, work for reconciliation, sacrificial peace-making, Aurora and utopias), what takes us away from home, how do we "remember" where we ought to be going?

That experience of Shekinah (presence) has a role in teaching us constancy

Whether our pilgrimage together or separately is exile or exodus, or even itinerant ministry like Jesus and the apostle Paul, we are called to constancy. That means, staying put in our faith, trusting that no matter what, God's presence is enough. Shekinah. Israel experienced Shekinah in exodus as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Israel in exile experienced Shekinah as memory. If I want to get the blues real bad, I go on a memory trip. I can work myself up into a full-fledged waterfront barbeque blues fest, and what good is that? What is healthy nostalgia and what is being stuck in the past? Where is the line between depression and memory that helps you hang onto faith? Frederick Buechner writes a helpful definition of "memory" in his book, Wishful Thinking. He writes

There are two ways of remembering. One way is to make an excursion from the living present back into the dead past. The old sock remembers how things used to be when you and I were young, Maggie. The faraway look in his eyes is partly the beer and partly that he's really far away.

The other way is to summon the dead past back into the living present. The young widow remembers her husband, and he is there beside her.

When Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me" (1 Corinthians 11:24), he was not prescribing a periodic slug of nostalgia.

And that's it for Buechner's definition. As if the movement from dead to living is enough, as if the allusion to Jesus is enough to trigger our memories. Jesus' command to remember takes place as we gather around this table-holy memory. Memory of that intrusive, persistent, redemptive action by God. Memory and gratitude for the holy breaking into the mundane. Shekinah taking away our breath, as bread for the journey. Whether in exodus or exile, memory that gives us the tenacity to remember who we are, whose we are. Memory that reminds us of our calling, convinces us that being a nomad isn't a viable option for faith, not a living option. We don't wander aimlessly. The glory of God goes before us and calls us home-"home" which is identity and calling.