Pilgrimage

‘Pilgrimage’
a sermon by Kenneth Padley

Readings: Genesis 15.1-12,17-18; Luke 13.31-35

Peregrine Falcons are back in Salisbury, preparing for another season of nesting at the base of our spire. It would be interesting to know where they go during the autumn and winter – but this uncertainty is just the point. Peregrines are etymological ‘pilgrims’, those who travel to and sojourn in foreign lands.

Pilgrimage has had a colourful and sometimes controversial history in the Christian tradition. During the High Middle Ages, shrines such as that of Osmund here in the Cathedral drew thousands of visitors each year. Pilgrims’ motivations were various: some spiritual, others more secular. Many travelled to pray for causes that were associated with the saint whose relics they had come to venerate.

Sometimes these journeys were made over considerable distances, and pilgrimage sites came to be ranked according to the ardour and outlay that was needed to reach them. A pilgrimage to Rome for example was worth two thirds of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Yet a pilgrimage to Rome was only considered twice as valuable as a pilgrimage to the tiny city of St David’s in Pembrokeshire – a fact which I suspect says less about the sanctity of David than about the state of transport links in West Wales.

All this gallivanting to sites of pilgrimage came to a crashing end with the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. The reformers argued that prayers should be directed to God alone and that intermediary intercession by the saints was both unnecessary and implausible: how are saints in heaven meant to hear us if they are caught up in the beatific vision of God almighty? The medieval pilgrimage industry became a collateral victim of this thinking. To the Reformation mindset, the notion of visiting a site associated with a holy hero or heroine was decried as pointless at best and – at worst – as spiritually distracting and socially subversive.

The religious battlelines drawn up in the sixteenth century would last for decades, in some cases down to our own age. And yet… pilgrimage was one of those controverted concepts which witnessed a rapid if partial thawing of hostilities. This happened as early as the seventeenth century. The stand-out example here is John Bunyan, a firebrand puritan who nonetheless embraced the concept of pilgrimage. His spiritual classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, first published in 1678, is an allegory of the struggles of the Christian’s quest for God, from the worldly City of Destruction to the celestial City of Heaven.

Through Bunyan we discover two distinct ways in which we can think about pilgrimage. Firstly, there is that outward journey of the body, a choice to walk, cycle, otherwise visit a place of personal or corporate significance. And then there is an inner peregrination of the soul. This is the journey of a lifetime, the path of holiness which all Christians are called to follow, whatever our aptitude for travel.

Bunyan of course was only interested in the second of these journeys, the voyage of the heart. He would have retained a distinct antipathy for trips to special places associated with dead people. Nonetheless, there has been a growing appreciation in recent decades across the Christian traditions of the value of pilgrimage as movement of the body which can bring additional benefits of inner spiritual refreshment. You may have seen the film starring Martin Sheen called The Way or the BBC series The Pilgrimage, both about the popularity of the Camino to Santiago in northern Spain. Walking routes have also sprung up or been revived in this country. There is St Cuthbert’s Way between Melrose and Lindisfarne. There are ancient trails in North Wales to the holy island of Bardsey. And in this area, pilgrims can trace the last journey of Anglo-Saxon saint Aldhelm from his death in Doulting to his burial at Malmesbury.

Our first reading today finds Abraham on a journey from Ur of the Chaldees in modern Iraq to the land which we know as Israel-Palestine. For Abraham and his wife Sarah this was a promised place and a physical destination. Yet behind the vast trek of these senior citizens was a spiritual encounter about identity and relationship. This took form in a covenant, an agreement of promises. God had enlisted Sarah and Abraham in his quest for a people who might know him as their personal Lord. For their part, Abraham and Sarah responded with longing trust. God showed Abraham the stars and said ‘“so shall your descendants be.” And Abraham believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.’

As Christians, we also trace the wanderings of Jesus. Last week he was in the wilderness being tempted by Satan. This week our gospel jumps to the far end of his public ministry and his final, fateful trip to Jerusalem, to the cross and beyond. These pilgrimages of Jesus were journeys with a deeper purpose. In the wilderness he gave up outward stuff in order to fall back on inner resources, deepening his appreciation of what truly matters, his reliance on our heavenly Father. And then, on that trip to Jerusalem, Jesus steeled himself for a final cataclysmic battle between good and evil.

The pilgrimages of Jesus into the wilderness and towards the cross, are the twin tracks which we follow during Lent. We don’t give up chocolate or fags or booze to improve our waistlines, lungs and livers, but for the bigger picture:

• Lent is about resisting sin, breaking the shackles of greed, lust, consumerism, social expectations and debt which threaten to imprison us;
• Lent is about forgiveness because, as we struggle with self-discipline, we encounter afresh the forgiveness of God, the one whose arms of welcome are always open when we reorient our lives and turn back to him;
• Lent is about solidarity with the poor as we become more thankful for our resources and more willing to share with others;
• So, finally, Lent is also about improved relationships, with God and people, society and the environment.

That thaw of which I spoke in the Protestant attitude towards pilgrimage is visible among English writers by the 1630s. Here is one of them, George Herbert, in his poem about ‘Lent’.

Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.

This is the goal of a holy Lent: whether or not you embrace an outward journey to advance the inward quest. Ours is a pilgrimage of sanctification, that lifelong inner calling to become more like Jesus, manifested in an outward turn from selfishness and towards the needs of others:

Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev’ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.