Peregrination

A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on March 15, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV.


During the reign of Alfred the Great, the first true King of England (849-899), three Irishman arrived in Cornwall after having drifted for seven days across the sea from Ireland in a boat made of hides. They had few provisions and they were without oars. They were brought before the king and when asked their motive, they replied, “We stole away because we wanted for the love of God to be on pilgrimage, we cared not where.” (quoted in Every Earthly Blessing, by Esther deWaal, pg. 39).

Today, since we are celebrating a ‘Celtic Eucharist”, I thought it would be well for us to talk about one of the more interesting aspects of Celtic Spirituality: Peregrination, or Holy Wandering, also known as Exile, or Pilgrimage.

Esther de Waal explains that ‘over a period of five hundred years, thousands of Celtic monks set out to wander the face of Europe, leaving homeland and friends, and all of life’s securities in order that they might set out into the unknown and journey for God. They called themselves pilgrims, or peregrinati and they dedicated themselves to go on pilgrimage for Christ’s sake - wherever that might take them. Although most of these monks remain anonymous, a few names stand out:

St. Columba who founded the Iona Community in the sixth century,

St. Columbanus, abbot of Bangor in the sixth century, who set out for France, and then eventually founded the monastery at Bobbio Italy, where St. Francis was one day to spend time.

St. Aidan who went from Iona to Lindisfarne in the seventh century, and whose monks converted Northumbria to Christ

St. Columbanus called Christians ‘guests of the world’ - “hospites mundi”. He spoke of what it means to be a pilgrim, describing it as going into exile, seeking the place of one’s resurrection, the pilgrimage to heaven, the true home. (deWaal pg. 40).

The Celtic pilgrims were like Abraham, who set out from his own country at God’s command. In the book of Hebrews, Chapter 11, we read that “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Speaking of others in the so-called Hall of Faith, we read:

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (ESV)

Spiritual Homelessness vs. Holy Wandering
The other day, I heard someone use the phrase ‘Spiritual Homlessness’ to describe the millions of people today who view themselves as spiritually minded, but yet have no church home, and have no apparent desire for one. Spiritual homelessness is essentially rootlessness being adrift just because you want to take your own way. St. Benedict described monks he called‘Gyrovagues. Listen to his description and see if it doesn’t apply to many people today:

“All their lives they wander in different countries staying in various monasteries [churches, clubs, etc] for three or four days at a time. They are restless, servants to the seduction of their own will and appetites…It is better to be silent as to their wretched life style than to speak…” (RB Ch. 1)

In contrast to this, being a Pilgrim involves an inner stability and can even be an expression of an ascetic discipline.

As Christian pilgrims we know who we are: sinners redeemed by God’s grace We also know our eventual destination: the new heaven and earth, where believers will dwell with God in face to face union – the heavenly country spoken of in Hebrews 11.

We find this country in the Resurrection, which is why the Celts used this phrase, ‘seeking the place of one’s resurrection’. The paradox inherent in this thinking is that while the peregrinati moved out into unknown geography, they were actually seeking a spiritual inheritance – this was really a spiritual quest to find God. Here again, however, the rub is that unless we carry within our hearts the God whom we are seeking, we will not find him. (de Waal, pg42).

To put it another way, the grass really is not greener on the other side – unless perhaps you look directly over the septic system.

Now, lest you think that St. Benedict is entirely opposed to the notion of pilgrimage, listen to the language he uses in the Prologue of his Rule. He exhorts us ‘to rise from sleep,…to open our eyes and to hear with attentive ears, to run while we have the light of life, to tread the path He has cleared for us as we are guided by the Gospel. He admonishes us to ‘encompass ourselves with faith and the practice of good works, to seek peace and pursue it, to keep our tongues from evil and our lips from speaking guile. And, after the Psalmist (34:13-14), he promises us that ‘If you do this, My[God’s] eyes will see you, and my ears will hear your prayers (34:17). With Isaiah, Benedict reminds us that the Lord says, “before you can call out to Me, I will say to you: Behold I am here.”. (Is.58:9).

So, we talk about going on a pilgrimage to seek God. But that God is right here, right now, and he will answer our prayers even before we call on him. Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to ask, “Who is seeking whom?” A famous slogan states, “The Whole Christ is seeking the whole person.” Thus it is that although we are on journey to find Christ, he wants to find us more than we want to be found.

But on with our story about the Celtic Pilgrims.

Three Grades of Pilrimage, or Exile.
The most famous of the peregrinati was St. Brendan, who was born in 489 and died between 570 and 583. He was the abbot of the monastery in Clonfert in East Galway. His story, ‘The Voyage of St. Brendan, is subtitled, “Journey to the Promised Land” because Brendan resolves to seek this Promised Land after listening to a certain Barrind tell of having visited this place himself and encountering an angel, who tells them “…The Lord has revealed to you the Land, which he will give to his saints… an island that ‘has been from the beginning of the world. Where one needs no drink or clothing, where one year seems to pass as a day, where sleep never overtakes you or night envelops you, “For here it is always day, without blinding darkness. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the light of this island.” (VSB, pg. 4, 5). Sure sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?

Brendan and his companions were engaged in the ‘perfect pilgrimage’ – they had left their home body and soul to find the Lord’s country –just as Abraham had. Thus they were exemplars of the highest grade of pilgrim. There were also two other grades of pilgrims:

Grade two pilgrim was someone who was detained in his own country, even though in the zeal of his heart and spirit he had left. The following quote encapsulates the feeling here: “Being under restraint, under authority…[or obligation] leaves a man free only to travel in spirit.

The Grade one pilgrim was one who only traveled in body. Just walking around served no spiritual purpose unless one were to draw near to God and practice virtue and good deeds along the way. The temptation with this is to become a mere Gyrovague.

Pilgrimage and Mission.

The original aim of the peregrini was simply to wander for God. This wandering was not motivated primarily by mission. But in the course of their wandering the Celtic pilgrims became missionaries, preaching the Gospel as they went, and establishing monastic houses along the way. St. Patrick is, of course, the example par excellence of this missionary journeying. He was the first actual cross-cultural missionary in Christian history and the progenitor of a Transformation that lasted many hundreds of years. In his lifetime, virtually the whole of Ireland was Evangelized and the practice of slavery was all-but eliminated.

Because of his example, other Celtic pilgrims successfully planted Christian churches and communities all over Europe, and even today, there remain some 250 places in Europe that bear the name of some Celtic saint.

One of the reasons why Patrick and the other Celtic pilgrims were so successful was because they had completely renounced power and security. They had nothing but God, and because of it they were completely free to go wherever God lead them. You might say that when they got in their boats to go wandering they pushed off the EDGE and entrusted themselves into the care of Almighty God. And because of this radical trust, these saints accomplished marvelous works for the Lord and are remembered in place names and history books today.

Application

So what do we make of all this, and how do we apply it in our lives today?

The first thing to acknowledge is simply that most of us will be type two pilgrims. In other words, we are tied obligated to family and to work, and so most likely will not be pushing off into the Ohio River in a coracle anytime soon. In this sense our lives are going to be much more ‘Benedictine’ – that is committed to a particular place for the rest of our lives.

But having said that we can still practice an internal and spiritual pilgrimage in our lives. We can cast off from the shore of certainty and launch out into the great deep, into the unknown of God’s will and provision for us. We can practice non-control in our lives and welcome the uncertainty of where God will lead us.

Just as Jesus sent out the 70 disciples without money or tunics or GPS systems or hotel reservations, we trust God radically and learn to listen closely to him, confident that we will get it wrong at times, but that our heavenly Father in his infinite mercy will correct us and help us get back on the path.

Then too, we can learn that “I don’t know.” is an acceptable answer to the question, “What then…” God seems to work on a ‘need to know” basis – just like the military. You get your orders for now and you have to wait for the next set of orders up ahead. And just like the military, you best follow the current set of orders right now, because if you don’t there will certainly be consequences. You go with what you know to do and let God be in charge of the next thing. Another slogan for this is “God knows” – as in Your heavenly father knows that you need all these things.” (Mt 6:32).

Yogi Berra once quipped, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it”. That’s funny but not really helpful. If you get stuck on the journey, just stop. Wait, look and listen for the Lord. Don’t go ahead until you here His voice telling you what to do.

If you happen to be traveling on sea, of course, you don’t get the luxury of sitting still and waiting. You might be like the disciples on the sea of Galilee, caught in a huge storm and scared out of your mind. At such a time, it’s really OK to do what they did, which was to cry out to God to help them. Just try not to get too spooked when Jesus comes to you walking on the water.

Don’t wander aimlessly without knowing who you are. Remember that Jesus is the destination and also the Way. He is the Truth and the Life, and all our wandering should lead back to Him. If it doesn’t, we are definitely gong the wrong way.

Finally be a white martyr. Tell others what you have witnessed God do in your life. Don’t be afraid to “tell of all the Lord’s marvelous works”. You are just telling your story. You don’t have to produce any specific result. That’s up to God.

If you carry Jesus in your heart, you will be successful on your journey, for He is much more willing to found than we are to seek Him. May God grant us the grace to be fearless pilgrims, willing exiles and Bold Martyrs for his sake. AMEN.

The Role of Temptation in our Spiritual Lives

A Sermon Delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on March 1, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV

Intro:

How many of you realized that when you made your profession of faith, you were signing up for temptation? How many of you might have changed your mind if you knew that temptation would be part of your Christian life?

Temptation starts the day we sign on to God’s covenant with us. Just like Jesus, the moment we are baptized, we become fair game for the evil one’s temptations. In fact, temptation is allowed by God in order to advance us in the spiritual life, to test our character and to help us know what areas of our life need work.

Temptation is allowed by God to sift us – just like Jesus told Peter, that Satan had asked permission to sift him life wheat. This sifting allows for the purification process and is a normal part of our covenant life with God. Temptation is used by God for the ultimate purpose of winnowing out the imperfections in us that keep us from being unified with God. Without Temptation and the struggle with it, we become like Oscar Wilde, who famously quipped, “I can resist anything but Temptation.” However, those who face temptation well become pure of heart and ultimately enjoy intimate union with God – even before going to be with Him in heaven.
Today, we’re going to look at briefly at the stages of the Spiritual Life and talk about the the unique temptations that come to us especially in the second phase.

Let’s pray. Father we ask that your Holy Spirit would come now to open our hearts and minds to your Word and your Will for us. Help us to understand your purposes in our lives and draw us ever closer to you through your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, AMEN.

Exposition
Today is the first Sunday of Lent. On Wednesday last week, we gathered at Hope House to mark the beginning of this season of prayer and fasting, and to receive the ashes of death, assisting us to know that our time on earth is limited. We are imitating Jesus and his time of forty days in the wilderness. We have forty days of fasting – and six Sundays of feasting in the midst of it, making for the entire period of Lent.

Again, the purpose of Lent is to offer us a time of reflection, self-examination and purification leading up to the celebration of Easter. However, even though we observe the season of Lent, there is a sense in which our entire lives should be, as St. Benedict pointed out, a perpetual observance of Lent, the purpose of which is to help us advance in our spiritual lives.

The Stages of Spiritual Growth
It has been observed by Fr. Benedict Groeschel and many others that write about spiritual growth, the there are three basic stages to our growth:

I. The Purgation
II. The Illuminative Way
III. The Unitive Way

Purgation
Purgation is the first step and happens quickly after our profession of faith. Before I became a Christian I swore like a sailor, was arrogant and self-centered, and used others for my own devices. After God invaded my life, these grosser sins were quickly purged out of me in such a dramatic way that people who knew me recognized that Something had happened to me.
Purgation often gets rid of driven needs. In this stage, we renounce serious sin gladly and put away deliberate sins. Then we begin to become aware of sins of Omission as well as the sins of Commission. The prayer of confession in the Book of Common Prayer addresses this: “We have sinned in thought, word and deed, by things we have done, and by things we have left undone…” The initial purgation stage introduces us to the concept of dying to ourselves, and we learn the joy of doing God’s will, not our own. As we grow in Grace the old defenses fall away and we become more open and vulnerable as people. Ironically, the end of this stage may lead to rejection and persecution by others.

When I became a Christian, my former roommate rejected me with scathing criticism and ridiculed me for being such a ‘weakling’ and hypocrite. When I got baptized, my parents were happy for me. I think they thought that I would finally begin to settle down and live a ‘normal’ life. But as I pressed into following Christ wholeheartedly, they began to worry for me. They expressed doubt about my fanaticism and regarded my newfound joy as another one of my crazy enthusiasms. Needless to say that was very painful. But it was a sign of the fact that I had entered the second phase of spiritual Growth, Illumination.

The Illuminative Way
As we enter the Illuminative Way, we begin to grow into the light of knowing God and the Scriptures and to live a truly Christian lifestyle. Obedience comes easily and we begin to really Trust Christ. Our prayer life begins to flow, we learn to enjoy Silence and listening, and Good Works flow out of our love for God. Yet at the same time, we become aware of finer levels of disobedience, of character flaws and of challenges to follow Christ. The Scriptures exhort us to press on towards the prize and to leave behind the simpler teachings, so each of us must press into this illuminative stage of growth and the challenges that await us there. I think this is the place where we can most relate to
Jesus as he was tempted in the Desert Wilderness.

Two Approaches to the Desert
There are two ways of approaching the Desert experience: Cooperating with it, and resisting it. Jesus of course, was completely obedient to the Father and so cooperated with this important stage of his ministry. The result of his time in the desert was confirmation of his obedience and being launched into his earthly ministry.

The Scriptures however, tell of another cautionary example of people going out into the desert – the Hebrew Children, who left Egypt and were led by God into the desert of Sinai. This example has relevance to us as a church because Rhonda Hughey has pointedly said that the Divine Experiment was a vehicle to get us out of Egypt and into the desert.

The ironic thing about this comment is that the people of Israel, who were delivered from Egypt were given an opportunity to cooperate with what God wanted to do - namely taking them into the Promised Land - and then rejected it! As a result, all of them except two, Joshua and Caleb, died without entering the Canaan. You’ll remember from Psalm 95 this tale of woe:


Harden not your hearts,as your forebears did in the wilderness, at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,when they tempted me.

They put me to the test, though they had seen my works.

Forty years long I detested that generation and said, "This people are wayward in their hearts; they do not know my ways."

So I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter into my rest."


For Forty years they were fed by the very hand of God and they lived with the visible presence of God – the pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night. But it didn’t matter. The people still complained and rebelled. They whined because they missed the meat and vegetables of Egypt and were subsequently punished by receiving meat quails that made them sick They got fiery serpents to rebuke their disobedience. They received the manna and got sick of it. They were given the Law of God by His very finger, and they turned to idolatry after only a few days of being left to their own devices. They tempted God at Meribah, when they complained to Moses about the water. And they failed to enter His rest!

So here’s the caution: When you go out into the desert, it’s possible to live with the manifest presence of God in your backyard and still die in the wilderness!

The Christlike Way into the Desert
In Ps. 95:7, God calls out to us …”Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!”

And in Psalm 32 we read “I will instruct you and teach you, the way you should go, I will give you counsel with my eye upon you.” And we receive the caution, “Be not like horse and mule unintelligent, needing bridle and bit, Else they will not come near you”…Psalm 32:9

In other words, don’t be like the children of Israel, who were unintelligent and willful. Heed the call of God in your life. Be like Christ, who obediently went out into the desert and cooperated with the Holy Spirit as he submitted to Temptation from the Evil One.

St. Anthony
Around the year 285, St. Anthony heard the Gospel message to abandon all, sell everything and follow Christ. He then went out into the desert – of Egypt! He went there to practice his faith – to follow Christ literally and to practice Ascesis – spiritual training and discipline. He went to a place of emptiness to leave behind the world and all its temptations in order to be tempted by his internal and external demons. This is called apostatsis - the ascetic renunciation of the world.

The desert of Anthony’s Egypt was not the same as the desert of Sinai. Anthony’s quest was to find a way to voluntarily do battle with these internal and external demons and thus attain unity with God. The demonic here represents not only all that is hostile to man but also what is anomalous and incomplete in man. Anthony went out into the desert and submitted to Temptation in order to confront these demons in the utter stillness of the desert.

He lived a life that was, as it were, suspended in timelessness. He was also utterly self-sufficient and ‘autarkic’ (self-ruling). He achieved a ‘vertical’ existence with God that most other people only dream about, attaining the highest level of spiritual development in which he actually was able to become ‘All –fire’ as we mentioned several weeks ago.

“Anthony wished to invade and reclaim the devil’s territory in the name of Christ. It was an offensive maneuver on his part in order to transform the desert into a ‘land of devotion and justice’ thus making it into heavenly commonwealth where all the mores of contemporary society might be inverted.” Desert Father, pg. 34. James Cowan

Unlike the Children of Israel who were continuously resisting God, 34 years of ascetic practice turned Anthony into a living image of Christ. This temptation resulted in increased holiness, just like Jesus, who was tempted in the desert. His message was the same as Christ’s: obedience coupled to abstinence leads to holiness.

The means to Holiness
Just like Jesus, Anthony practiced fasting. Isaac of Ninevah, one of the later desert fathers, said, “Fasting is the champion of every virtue…” (Quoted in ‘Desert Father; A journey in the wilderness with St. Anthony’ by James Cowan.)

Cowan points out that “Hunger is the arbiter of the ascetic life.”

So we fast in order to bring our bodies into control and to allow God to highlight areas for purification by means of Temptation.


The Dangers of the Illuminative Stage
So, speaking of areas to highlight, here are some of the peculiar dangers of this second phase of the spiritual life, which virtually all of us find ourselves in:

Benedict Groeschel cautions that, ‘The greatest dangers of the illuminative way are spiritual ‘greed,’ a driven self-righteousness, and a conviction that one has been elected to carry out a special mission. Also problematic are Sensuality and Acedia. Let’s look at each of them in turn:

Spiritual Greed: when we become so intrigued with the spiritual journey that we forget or minimize other responsibilities. As opposed to the experience of many saints who find like Benedict that God is found in the fulfillment of life’s ordinary duties.

Self-Righteousness or Bitter Zeal. St. Benedict made reference to this in his Rule. Bitter zeal can result when others, who do not share our interests are not impressed with our insights or reject us. We can become angry and then bitter zeal is a thinly veiled form of aggression. There is a strong temptation to spiritual pride at this stage of development. It’s tempting to become frustrated with others who take a different approach to the spiritual life, and we may become competitive with others who are skilled spiritual directors.

Pride rears its ugly head when we know that we possess a certain level of ability and confidence in what we know and think we know better than everybody else.

The Dangerous Illusion of a Special Call: Rhonda Hughey warned of this in her remarks at the kick- off of the Divine Experiment. She specifically cautioned us not to anticipate or prophecy things such as: our area would become a Beacon to others, that we would draw others to ourselves and that all manner of grandiose things would come our way. The bare fact is that very few of us will progress beyond the second stage of growth and go on to the highest level of attaining Unity with God.

Sensuality. Yesterday at the pastor’s prayer meeting, there was talk about a man named Todd Bentley, of the Pesecola revival. He was being signally used of God but ended up falling into adultery because he ‘tried to keep ahead” of the Holy Spirit, taking too much on himself and folding under the great pressure of many responsibilities. King David is certainly an example from the Old Testament of someone who succumbed to sensuality in his prime.
Yet another danger at this stage is Acedia, or spiritual sloth, inability to care about anything. Kathleen Norris has written a wonderful book about this called Acedia and Me, a marriage, monks, and a writer’s life…. She calls this the temptation of mid-day. One can become bored when there are no spiritual fireworks. I have seen this personally in working with pastors. One client, a pastor, said that he was so burned out and lackluster that his great ambition in life was to become a greeter at Wal-Mart. This is the danger of not caring anymore, of falling into a funk and giving up in the struggle.

These temptations are all afflictions of the Illuminative phase, when one has moved beyond the elementary things and has progressed quite a ways in the Christian Life. God uses these increasingly finer levels of temptation to purify us and to eventually bring us into Union with Him.

Here is a [random] litany of things we can fall prey to in the Illuminative phase:

The Temptation to weakness,
The Temptation to strength,

The Temptation to control things,
The Temptation to fear lack of control,

The Temptation that Satan puts before us just before something good is about to happen.
The Temptation that Satan attacks us with just after something good has happened.

The Temptation that comes during prayer
The Temptation that comes because of lack of prayer

The Temptation to settle for a lesser good – not the very best

The Temptation to Spiritual Pride and spiritual snobbery,
The Temptation to Sloth and Mediocrity,

Temptation in the morning, temptation in the evening., Temptation when the sun goes down- There are temptations on every side – most of them coming to us in the disguise of something good. But God intends a good result in our lives as a result of Temptation.

The Godly Result of Temptations
John the Baptist exhorted his hearers: “prepare ye the way of the Lord…” Just as Jesus submitted to the time of temptation in order to prepare the way of the Lord and his earthly ministry, so to we can submit to testing in order to purify us for more fruitful ministry and for eventual Union with God. We don’t have time to address this last aspect today, but our eventual destiny is to become like God in every way.

Conclusion:

If, through the training of fasting and prayer, we allow God to confront and refine weakness within we will grow ever more like Christ and become ever more useful to His kingdom. Therefore we use the opportunity of Lent to develop a spiritual plan – giving up things – and also taking on New things as part of our journey. I encourage you all to actually write down your plan.

Certainly that plan will include reading Packer’s book The Thirty Nine Articles. I also urge you to utilize the booklet we have prepared: The Four Practice for Eighth Day Life. If anyone needs an extra copy I have them available. Both Fr. Mark and I are available to hear your confessions and we would very much like to schedule time with all of you individually to discuss your spiritual plans, so that on Easter Sunday we can all stand up and affirm our devotion to God in the Liturgy of Public commitment.

Friends, God is calling us up to Himself. He wants us to be Holy but this Holiness is not a burden – because He wants us to be like Him. Let us pray that God will grant us the grace to participate with his program for us, especially in times of Temptation. AMEN.