Psalm 120
I have a friend who has been battling brain cancer for the past year. He has had two operations to remove cancerous growths and is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. He is surrounded by a wife, children, and friends who love him and he is a witness for Jesus to all who come into contact with him.
I have friends who are semi-retired and have four children and fourteen grandchildren. Their lives are full with visits to and from their grandchildren.
I have a friend who completed his medical studies and is now in the US with his wife and son, studying to take a residency exam to take the next step in his medical career. Because of the conflict in his country, his funding from the government is in jeopardy and he is applying for asylum in the US. This past month his cousin was shot by the rebels and his cousin’s wife lost her arm. Every week he receives very difficult news from his home country.
I have a friend who was deported from Morocco in 2010 and is now studying at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is doing very well, as is his wife, who is studying at Gordon College. They and their two sons are thriving in their new setting.
I have a friend and his wife who are living with her mother who needs someone to take care of her in her older age. In addition, her brother is unable to care for himself and their daughter also needs supervision. Their lives are full with caring for these three people as well as working.
I have a friend who works on Wall Street earning a large salary so he and his wife can give very generously to the work of Jesus in the world. I have a friend who is a single mother and has a daughter who is slightly autistic and needs care and attention. I have a friend who sacrificed his career by staying in the small town where his ex-wife lives so he could be closer to his sons.
What do all these people have in common? Add to these stories your own story and the stories of those you know at RIC. What do you and those you know have in common with these people I mentioned? We are all on a pilgrimage.
Pilgrimages in the early centuries of the church were made to visit sites associated with Jesus and some made pilgrimages from Europe to Jerusalem. But then in the Middle Ages, it became very popular for pilgrims to set out from France and walk the 1600 kilometers (1000 miles) to Santiago de Compostela, located in the northwest of Spain. This pilgrimage took about two and a half months to complete and along the way, pilgrims could visit the cathedrals that contained, what were said to be, relics of Jesus and his disciples. Some then set out on a second pilgrimage, from Santiago de Compostela to Rome and then a third, from Rome to Jerusalem. I read a book about a Baptist couple from the northwest of the US who, in the 1980s, walked from Paris to Santiago de Compostela to Rome to Jerusalem in one year.
Pilgrims are people who are going someplace. Pilgrims leave behind their home and set out toward their destination. Christian pilgrims set out on a journey to God, following the path of Jesus who said, (John 14:6) “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
All those who follow Jesus are pilgrims on a pilgrimage. Our central identity is that we are daughters and sons of God. More than any of the other roles we play, this defines who we are and who we are to be. Before I am a husband, a father, a father-in-law, a grandfather, a friend, a pastor, before any of these, I am a son of God. That is who I am.
Our central identity is that we are daughters and sons of God but our central occupation is that we are on pilgrimage. We are moving from where we are now to where we will live for eternity. This is our chief occupation, more important than any job or any career we have.
Jesus set out on pilgrimage three times a year when he came to Jerusalem for the festivals. Jews from all over the known world gathered, ascending up the hill to Jerusalem. They came in the spring for the Feast of Passover when they remembered how God saved them; in the early summer for the Feast of Pentecost when they renewed their commitment as God’s covenanted people; and in the fall for the Feast of Tabernacles when they gave thanks for his provision.
And when Jesus ascended up the hill to Jerusalem with his family and friends, he sang, along with his family and community, the Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134. These psalms were not written specifically for this pilgrimage but were assembled from psalms that had been written for other occasions. Some were written by David, others are unattributed. Some were written during the reign of Saul, David, and Solomon, others during the exile in Babylon, and others after the return to Jerusalem. They are psalms to guide us in our pilgrimage and for the next three months we will see what they have to say to us as we make our way as pilgrims.
The first of the psalms of ascent, Psalm 120, begins with distress (I call on the Lord in my distress) and ends with war (when I speak, they are for war). This tells us right away that pilgrimage is not going to be a quiet stroll through the countryside. Pilgrimage is not easy and along the way we will face hardships and tragedies, as well as joys and celebrations.
Pilgrimage is not for the fainthearted, but then neither is life. Pilgrimage is not easy and this is the understanding of the psalmist who says that pilgrimage begins with an acknowledgment that the world we live in is not the way it should be.
1 I call on the Lord in my distress,
and he answers me.
2 Save me, O Lord, from lying lips
and from deceitful tongues.
We look around at the mess of the world, the broken relationships, the lies people tell, the selfishness of people who use others to benefit themselves, and when we are honest, we realize that this is the way we are ourselves sometimes.
The psalmist has had enough of this and cries out:
5 Woe to me that I dwell in Meshech,
that I live among the tents of Kedar!
Meshech was a tribe in southern Russia, probably the farthest away of anyone the psalmist could think of. Kedar was a wandering Bedouin tribe with a barbaric reputation that lived along Israel’s borders. The psalmist wants to be with family and friends, with those who also love God and are seeking to be obedient to him. He is tired of living with those who reject God.
As an aside, I need to say that God loves the people of Meshech and the Kedars and he wants us to bring them along with us on pilgrimage, but that is not the focus of this psalm.
We see the lying lips, the deceitful tongues, and the people who have no regard at all for God and in our distress we call on the Lord. We pray: “Save me, O Lord!”
This is where pilgrimage begins. This is where all followers of Jesus start. This past Thursday Elliot spoke to the students at their retreat and he had everyone turn to someone and say, “It is not OK.” It is not OK. This world and my life is not what it should be. God has put eternity in our hearts and we know, deep inside of us, that this is not how we are meant to live.
This is what happened to me when I was in university. All my life I have asked questions. Some people are born with mechanical aptitude and want to understand how mechanisms work. My father was like this. At the age of four he was repairing a hand-propelled cart with gears when a friend moved the wheel and it took off the fingernail on his right forefinger. That was a vivid memory for him. I have a grandson who is like this. If I give him something mechanical, his instinct is to try to figure out how it works.
I am not so fascinated by machines but I am fascinated by the world and want to figure out how the world works. If I could take the world apart to see how it works, I would try. When I was ten years old I considered cutting my wrist so I could know what it was like to be dead. I was not at all depressed, just curious. As I stood in the kitchen with a knife, I realized if I slit my wrists I would learn what it was like to be dead but could not figure out how to come back to the kitchen with that knowledge. So I put the knife back in the drawer and walked away still wondering about life and death. I told my father this once and he just looked at me. He could not understand this at all.
When I was in university I knew my life and the world was not the way it should be and then I met some people who had a perspective of life I did not have and it was attractive to me. I began to meet with different Christian groups, observing them, trying to figure out what was going on. Finally, a woman encouraged me to pray and ask God to reveal himself to me. This is what I began to do and over the course of the next couple months, I became aware of the presence of God and then after a few weeks made the decision to submit to him. I began the long, slow pilgrimage, being changed by God as I continued to move through the years and circumstances of my life.
We each have our own stories but this is how we all begin our pilgrimage. We repent. The Hebrew word for repentance is shuv, meaning turning back. We pray, “Save me, O Lord,” and turn back to our Creator God. We realize that it is not OK. We are not content to sit any longer in the mess of this world and so we set our sights on something better. We turn from our focus on this world and set off in a new direction, heading for a world where there are no lying lips and deceitful tongues.
There are two alternatives to setting out on pilgrimage that are destructive to us. The first is accommodation.
6 Too long have I lived
among those who hate peace.
Pilgrims move forward, they do not settle down. Pilgrims do not settle down and adapt to the culture. Pilgrims move forward and hold on to the values of their destination. Pilgrims are heading toward the Kingdom of God and do their best to live by those values while they are on pilgrimage through this life on earth.
One of the best examples of this in the Bible is Lot, the nephew of Abraham. Abraham was a pilgrim. When God called him, he left his birthplace and traveled to Canaan. As Abraham traveled, he build altars where he worshiped God. When you read through the account of Abraham in Genesis, over and over again, Abraham build altars. In Genesis 12: 7 Abraham built an altar. In Genesis 12:8 he built an altar. In Genesis 13:4 & 18 he built altars. This stands in remarkable contrast to the life of Lot.
When Abraham and Lot became too wealthy and the herdsmen of Lot were fighting with the herdsmen of Abraham, Abraham called Lot to a mountain overlooking the valley of Jordan and asked him to choose what land he would take. Lot chose the lush, fertile land of the valley in which lay the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that were later destroyed because, as it is written in Genesis 13:13:
Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.
In Genesis 13:12, after Lot chose the plains of the Jordan valley, we read that:
Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.
After Lot made his choice, Abraham built an altar and worshiped the Lord but Lot pitched his tents near Sodom.
Later there was a battle and Lot and his possessions were captured. Notice where he is now living. (Genesis 14:12)
They also carried off Abram’s nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom.
Lot pitched his tents near Sodom and when the kings captured him he had moved and was now living in Sodom.
Then when angels arrived to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of the great evil in those cities, where was Lot to be found? (Genesis 19:1)
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city.
Lot pitched his tent near Sodom, then lived in Sodom and finally sat as a city elder in the gates of Sodom. Lot walked by Sodom, then stood in Sodom and finally sat in Sodom.
Lot never set out on pilgrimage. Unlike the writer of Psalm 120, he did not get tired of living among those who hate peace.
Pilgrims do not settle down and accommodate to the culture, they move forward, bringing the values of the Kingdom of God into their world.
Accommodation is one of the unpleasant alternatives to setting out on pilgrimage, a second is animosity, or being strongly hostile.
7 I am a man of peace;
but when I speak, they are for war.
We know that the world is not supposed to be the way it is and one of the possible responses to what we see is to attack those who make the world a mess. This response fills the news reports we read or watch. Injustice angers the victim who then strikes out in retaliation and the victim becomes transformed into the victimizer. The retaliation creates new victims and the cycle goes on and on.
How is this cycle broken? Both victim and victimizer need to repent, to turn from the world and set out on pilgrimage. Paul wrote in Romans 12:14–21:
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Does this sound too idealistic? Can we realistically expect Israel and Palestine to settle down and become peaceful neighbors? Can we expect Shiites and Sunnis to stop fighting in the Middle East? I do not believe there will ever be world peace until Jesus returns. But on a smaller scale, there are victories great and small as pilgrims forgive, love, become more other-centered and less self-centered, show unexpected kindness.
CNN told the story of Anthony Colon whose brother was murdered in 1993 in East Harlem in New York. He began struggling with a rage that lasted for years. The anger wore him down. He hated the three men who had fired 13 bullets into his brother who was unarmed. In the interview Colon said, “Oh, God, it just – it just put so much hate in my life. I hated everybody. I hated everything. It made me to be a person, like a monster.”
But as the years passed the fog of anger began to lift. He married and had two children. He set out on pilgrimage as he became a follower of Jesus and in the transformation of his life he was overwhelmed by a desire to find reconciliation with his brother’s killer.
Then one summer day, a chance encounter while visiting a friend at the Eastern Correctional Facility in Ulster County, New York, changed his life. He looked across the room and saw Michael Rowe, one of the men who had murdered his brother.
Colon walked straight up to him and said: “Brother, I’ve been praying for you. I forgave you. I’ve been praying I would see you again.”
Colon began visiting Rowe regularly and Rowe became a pilgrim himself, deciding to follow Jesus. Colon went to Rowe’s graduation when he received his Masters in Professional Studies and this April, when Rowe was released from prison, Colon continued to meet with him, helping him make his adjustment to the world after having lived in prison for twenty years.
We may not see world peace, but we do see amazing transformations as victims and victimizers are forgiven and set out together on pilgrimage.
Being on pilgrimage makes a difference to this world as we head toward a world where there are no lying lips and no deceitful tongues.
Being on pilgrimage also makes a difference to us. I sat in the back of the room on Thursday as Connie spoke to the students who were gathered here and thought about how they might respond to her message about trusting God who knows what is best for us. I prayed for the students that they would choose to be pilgrims and not accommodate, not settle down with the world. I prayed that they would make good choices because they will be happier if they do.
I prayed this because I know people who have spent their lives scheming to get ahead, cheating and making deals, using and abusing people to get ahead. These people are your friend until they no longer need you. They may be successful and they may be able to medicate their pain with pleasure and possessions, but they are not happy and they are not content.
On the other hand, I have known people who have lived long lives of being faithful to Jesus and while they may not have a lot of the world’s possessions, they are at peace and a blessing to all who know them. They have been faithful pilgrims, moving forward, not settling down.
At every age there are pressures to give in, to conform, to compromise. The pressure to succeed in school can lead to cheating on exams. The pressure to have good friends can lead to doing things you know are wrong so you can be part of the group. When you are in your teens and twenties, it seems that old age is about 35 and the thought of waiting for marriage before engaging in sexual relationships seems an eternity away and when everyone else is sexually active, why wait?
We live in a world where bribes are common and the temptation is to be flexible with our values so that we can make more progress in our careers. We work alongside people who sacrifice everything in order to be successful and we have to decide if success is worth everything.
An awareness that we are pilgrims on a pilgrimage makes a huge difference in how we approach all the stages of life. I did not start my pilgrimage until I was 21 and often wish I could go back in my earlier years and live those years differently. I wish I had been able to be less self-centered and more other-centered. I wish I could have showed more compassion to my family and classmates. But since then I have moved forward.
My pilgrimage has not been a steady ascending line to the Kingdom of God. I have made progress and fallen back. I have meandered, but I have also persevered. Being on pilgrimage has meant that I turned down the opportunity to pay a bribe to get more business. Being on pilgrimage has meant that I resisted pornography. Being on pilgrimage has meant that I forgave people who hurt me. Being on pilgrimage has meant that while I worked hard to be successful, I realized that success in this life is not of ultimate importance.
I have not been a perfect pilgrim, far from it. I have made lots of mistakes since I began my pilgrimage. But being on pilgrimage has continually pulled me back on the path to my eternal home. As imperfect as I am now, I used to be much worse.
A couple weeks ago I talked with my friend who has had two cancerous growths removed from his brain. He is a very intelligent man with a great heart for God and for people. He has excelled in many spheres in his life. He was in the Peace Corps in East Africa where he started a newspaper that is still operational. He worked in a US presidential campaign. He worked in advertising. In the last few years he has been a pastor. I told him the work he is doing now, fighting this cancer, is as important as any work he has ever done. I said this because what we do in life is never as important as how we do it. What matters is not how much money we make or how well known we become, but how God uses us in the lives of others and how God grows our faith.
We are pilgrims and everything around us will pass away, cease to exist. Only the faith God grows in us and the ways God uses us to bring others into his kingdom will last for eternity.
Pilgrims, some of you are in school, others are out in the world working, some are raising a family. We are in many different stages of life but as pilgrims, we are all moving forward. Keep this perspective alive and let it allow you to enjoy this pilgrimage. Let it take the edge off the anxiety that makes this world so difficult. Allow it to help you be other-centered, considering the future of those you come in contact with. Let it give you strength in the difficult times of your life and help you celebrate the good times to come. Your story is being written. May it end happily ever after as you come into the Kingdom of God at the end of your life.
