Genesis 12.1-4                                                                                           3 February 2007

“PLACES BEYOND OUR COMFORT ZONE”

You have likely heard the philosophical conundrum: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” In recent years, bumper stickers have updated this ontological puzzler: “if a man speaks and a woman isn’t there to hear him, is he still wrong?” Sorry guys, that’s the score. Today marks the next iteration of this enigmatic phrase: “If a sermon gets preached on the big day of the Patriot’s Super Bowl quest for perfection, will anybody hear it?” 

In other words, amid frenetic dip and chili preparations of the day, thanks for showing up. Our theme today is venturing to places beyond our comfort zone.  And no this isn’t a sermon on Tom Brady’s ankle. Rather it begins with Abraham.

People of faith have ventured beyond their comfort zone ever since 2,120 BC.  That was roughly when Abraham and Sarah heard God’s voice calling them at age 75 from their familiar country, kindred and homestead in Haran. They were led out to make a whole new life in a whole new land based on a whole new pro-mise: becoming the foundation of God’s newly chose people and their name made great. That God would bless them and they’d become a blessing to the whole world.  It is a very simple story, four verses early in Genesis.  But this story is second only to the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt in its importance. 

For the most amazing thing about it is that this unlikely promise came true. And if God’s promises to this childless couple well advanced in years seemed wildly exaggerated, well, as it turned out those promises were way understated.
For me that is the biggest lesson and the sharpest point to come out of this story. That when we listen to God’s still small voice telling us to get beyond the life we are already living and venture outside the comfort zones where we dwell secure, our trusting vulnerability puts God in a position to accomplish incredible miracles. Fantastic feats. Unbelievable transformations.  If we would only step out and trust God to take us to new places where we have never dared to venture in the past.

Like Abraham and Sarah, or like Moses and Aaron, pilgrimage is one way that people of faith have historically ventured to places beyond our comfort zone.    But this is not just long ago. How many Christians would you say made religious pilgrimages in 2007.  Five million?  Fifty million.  Or one hundred fifty million?
The correct answer is 150 million, about seven percent of Christians worldwide.
The day after Easter I will make my first pilgrimage to the sacred lands of Israel. Some say don’t go, it’s dangerous.  I say I’ve waited long enough to walk the holy places where Abraham and Jesus, Peter and Mary walked. I once cruised the waters, tracing the Mediterranean sites of Paul’s missionary journeys. Then there the traditional pilgrimages to places like Lourdes, Santiago, and Oberammergau.

One hundred and fifty million Christians annually.  And this isn’t even to mention the many millions of Muslims visiting Mecca or Hindus bathing in the Ganges or Jews visiting the Wailing Wall.  What is the point? a secular world wonders.  Why bother? ask those dripping with cynicism.  More and more, in this way spiritual peoples today seek to deepen their faith, express their commitment, receive a blessing, find healing, or just experience the timeless greatness of their religion. These numbers are trending up and up. Something is happening in our day.  No longer do we merely want to know about God.  Today more and more we want to experience God. And so even Protestants rediscover ancient spiritual disciplines.

Here’s the thing: when we are willing to be led out of our comfortable security the previously unremarkable places where the Lord takes us become holy places. And here I am opting for a broader sense of pilgrimage that we will usually allow.

Let me explain.  The first time I led a Habitat for Humanity trip to Latin America, it was 1987.  The contra war was still going on in Nicaragua and I led a group there to build homes with the poor.  A few church leaders didn’t get it.  Why does this matter?  How is this ministry?  What does this have to do with the church?  I had to speak in this language of religious pilgrimage. I had to explain that my uncle and aunt were missionaries in Guatemala, Cuba and mostly Mexico for 45 years.

I had to tell my story of going to Argentina after graduating from college, being thrown in a federal penitentiary for no reason, in a wave of terror when tens of thousands perished, but me being spared.  Why I was spared? I asked them.  To return safely home and turn my back on the vulnerability of these people?  No, God spared me to cast my lot with those who don’t have American passports to brandish in the face of prison wardens, as I did, to extricate myself from trouble.  

What I explained was that these people and their cause had become holy to me; that these short-term mission trips were nothing less than holy pilgrimages and spiritual discipline and religious practice to make disciples and to transform faith. Today we commission another delegation from Dennis Union Church and the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ to go to New Orleans. It is the second in two months.  And we pray God will bless them and they will bless the gulf and world.  That miracles of restoration will result from their going. Of course, 12 of us went to Guatemala after Thanksgiving last year.  And if you think it was merely building houses or doing good then we have miserably failed to convey the remarkable spiritual transformation it engendered on both sides.

I like this expanded sense of pilgrimage as a paradigm for understanding what we do and why we do it as followers of Jesus.  Frankly, such thinking is natural in this unusually blessed part of the country we know as our New England home. For it was settled by pilgrims in a way so compelling and formative that we can-not stop thinking of ourselves as pilgrims centuries later. And that is a good thing.

It is not much of a stretch to think of this elaborate, expensive, and lengthy building project as a journey we have undertaken together, is it? And if a journey, then why not a spiritual pilgrimage?  No, we haven’t ventured far geographically, only few dozen yards into the Fellowship Hall side of the church, really.  But we have ventured a long way spiritually. A long, long way.  Think of that winding trail.

Like Abraham and Sarah, trusting that the voice calling us was God’s and not some crackpot message. Sensing promise beyond risk and sacrifice.  Even more than this, reaching out and embracing a sense of destiny calling us forward.  And pulling together, not as exiled people, having vacated our sacred space, but as a pilgrim people, having been led to a new and better place than we were before.

The destination looms larger and larger upon the horizon, and it is a good place. I feel a smile rising up within me, that this faith community was willing to trust, to venture forth, to make the sacrifice, to endure the struggle, to step outside the security of our former comfortable cocoon, and to let God give us a new home. You truly are the people of God and you have proved it with your mettle through these times, covering these distances. As for me, these days I see our vindication shining like a New Jerusalem descending. I know it will be a place where God will occasion growth, blessing, miracles, healing, and commitment that would have been otherwise impossible if we had never embarked together.

The time is right for us to be fed along this pilgrimage. For the journey is not over. Amen.