Walking the Race – Jeremy Bergen – Aug. 19/07

I didn’t want this sermon to in any way to be about “what I did on my summer holidays.”  I really didn’t.  After all, it has sometimes felt like Rebecca and I have been talking quite frequently about our trip to Spain in June.  But, as I reflected on our texts for the week, and our summer theme of “at the crossroads, following God from grace to grace,” I just couldn’t get away from the conviction that the Camino de Santiago might be a good place to ground some reflections this morning.

Of course, we very much enjoyed our time in Spain—whether you call it a pilgrimage, a hike, or a vacation.  We spent 30 days walking from the French Pyrenees across the north of Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostella.  The journey is called the “Camino”—which is Spanish for “the Way.” Everyday we walked for about 25 kms, and stayed in hostels with the hundreds of other pilgrims making the same journey.  We passed through forests, vineyards, wheat fields, mountains and valleys, small rural towns, large modern cities, impressive cathedrals, roadside shrines to Mary.  We largely followed the path that pilgrims have been walking for over a 1000 years, to the city of Santiago where the bones of the Apostle James are believed to rest.  How did we know where to go?  As we walked, we encountered yellow arrows, like this one here, painted on buildings, rocks, fences, or signs.  These directed us down the true path.  We didn’t get lost.  The motives of ancient pilgrims were many.  Some went to Santiago in order to do penance for a serious crime; others, to have their sins forgiven.  Some went to pray for healing, or to fulfill a vow.  Certainly, others may have wanted get away from their families, have an adventure, see the sites in a faraway land.  Just as the motives for modern pilgrims are many.  I’ll come back to that again.

Our text from Hebrews is a slice from one of the most read passages of that book.  Beginning in chapter 11, the author reflects on faith as the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  And he then proceeds to review the history of Israel through the lens of those models of faith through which God has led and inspired his people.  These are the “great cloud of witnesses” that go before all of us in faith.  They are examples, models, guides.  In the text that precedes the passage read today, we are reminded of the faith of Abel who offered an acceptable sacrifice to God, we are reminded of the faith of Noah, who built an ark to save his household from the rains that were not yet seen, and we are reminded of the faith of Abraham, who left his homeland for a land he hadn’t seen, and Sarah, who gave birth in her barren old age.  And then, Moses, the judges, King David, all of these are held up as models of faith.  What all of them could not see, and thus had to trust in faith, was how they fit in with the grand story of God, the great history of God calling a people for the sake of all nations.  We see it, we see the past.  But we cannot see the precise shape of the future.  Certainly, we know of God’s ultimate victory, but we don’t know the trials that we will go through as individuals, or as communities of faith.

Our text from Hebrews ends with the well-known comparison of the Christian life to a race: “let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”  As much as this passage is about faith, it concludes with an exhortation to perseverance and endurance.  This link between faith and perseverance is an intriguing one.

How is one to persevere?  Walking the Camino is all about laying aside burdens, both literal and spiritual.  One of the reasons that it felt like it took a long time for us to prepare for the trip was that we could only take so little with us.  If you carry everything on your back, all day for 30 days, you want to make sure it’s light, and contains only what you need.  So, we made many trips to MEC to weigh carefully what to include and what not to include.  But, on another level, being a pilgrim demands that you strip life down to the bare minimum: two changes of clothes, drinking water, soap, a sleeping bag, a pair of shoes.  Each day, the task set before you was really quite simple: walk to your destination, find a place to sleep and something to eat.  The Camino is also about laying aside the spiritual burdens that hold you back.  About 7 days before you reach the city of Santiago, you must cross a final range of mountains. At the highest point, you encounter a huge mound of stones, in the middle of which is planted a 30 foot pole, with an iron cross on it.  For centuries, this has been the place to lay down your burdens quite literally.  Many people carried a stone from home to symbolize some sin or some burden that they would leave on that mountain.  So perhaps for weeks, they bore the extra weight on their pack as they carried this stone, feeling very concretely how sin weighed them down and then rejoiced as they prayerfully left it at the foot of the Iron Cross.  We hadn’t been aware of this tradition, and so didn’t carry a stone from home. But I did spend the days prior to the Iron Cross reflecting on my own sins, and what it would mean to leave them behind, at the foot of the cross

Walking the Camino is about perseverance.   We met several individuals who begin their walk in Paris or even Geneva.  For the man who began in Geneva, it would take 3 ½ months to reach Santiago.  Of course, the medieval pilgrim had no choice but to begin walking from where they lived, and sometimes this meant a journey that could take several seasons.  And of course, once in Santiago, the pilgrim of old had a second destination to reach.  The walk back home would be just as difficult.  Unlike the modern pilgrim, who takes the train or the plane to get home.  As I walked, I often wondered what would compel a merchant in 16^th century France, for example, to set out on such a treacherous journey: without communications, medical care, high tech packs or footwear.  What kind of faith could make such a journey seem worth it?

For some time, we walked with a Dutch
man named Willem.  He was in his early 50s, with a wife and two kids back at home.  As is common on the Camino, initial conversation is always about the Camino.  Where to stay, where to eat, what one can expect the next day, how to treat your blisters, or whatever other ailment you suffered from.  Willem was nursing an inflamed knee, and had advice for me on how to treat my own inflamed ankle.  Willem’s Camino wisdom was this: “You must go at your own pace.”  Though there might be pressure to go a certain distance, or to keep up with friends, this will often result in injury.  So, it seemed like good advice.  Now, on the Camino, one learns the names of fellow travelers, and something about their lives back home, only after you have traveled together for a while.  Willem, we eventually learned, spent the last 25 years as an investment banker.  He worked very long hours, but in return got very significant financial rewards.  But after 25 years, Willem decided he had had enough of that life.  He quit his job.  And so, he was walking the Camino in part to decide what he would do next.  And so when Willem would repeatedly encourage us that “each has to go at his own pace,” I think he may not have meant this only literally.  He may also have been letting this wisdom re-orient his view of his own life.  And he needed to make a change—to go the right pace—in order to persevere for the long haul.

Pause for a minute on the word “race,”: life as a race, as the Hebrews text suggests—“to run with perseverance the race that is set before us.”  It feels a bit odd, this word race.  Is it about winning?  About getting there first, about doing better than others?  The Greek word that is translated “race” refers to a contest.  It cannot, for example, simply be translated as “journey.”  Now, race might refer to competing against other runners, but it may also be simply that one expects to encounter significant obstacles on the way.  A race is an internal struggle as much as it is a contest with others.  This is the sense that I think is important here.  Furthermore, a race has a goal, an endpoint.  It is not simply, as we sometimes hear “that it’s all about the journey.”  For the author of the book of Hebrews, the end is Jesus.  But Jesus is also a helper on the way.  On the Camino I was struck by the many ways in which the Apostle James was understood to be not only the goal, but also a guide, helper and fellow traveler.  He is portrayed as a fellow pilgrim who understands the journey, as a helper who points the way to a spring of water in a dry dessert.

Now, I often reflected on the literal goal of our “race” or pilgrimage: the cathedral in the city of Santiago.  Like many aspects of the trip, I had some ambivalence about our destination.  It’s doubtful that the actual bones of the Apostle James are buried there, and in any case, I don’t believe that being in their presence would bring me closer to God.  I don’t believe that I need to be any place in particular for God to hear my prayers.  And yet, in spite of these doubts, I was also willing to put some faith in that which I did not see, or did not understand.   I was open to being carried along by the great cloud of other pilgrims in the past for whom going to Santiago was so important that they would risk everything in order to get there.  So I was forced to ask myself:  Would I walk 30 days just to pray somewhere?  If indeed I believed that I had one special chance, to pray a special prayer, what would I say?  And so, as we got closer to Santiago, I did a lot of thinking about just what I would pray about when I got there.  This focused my experience of prayer in a way that I had not experienced before.  Though I know that pilgrimage is not a traditional part of Mennonite faith, I found the great cloud of witnesses encouraging and enabling me to do that very profound thing common among all Christians: pray to God our saviour.

There are, of course, individuals of great faith and compassion who are commemorated along the Camino.  San Juan, for example, was a practical monk who devoted himself to caring for sick pilgrims back in the 12^th century.  Juan built hospitals, bridges, footpaths, and persuaded local officials to arrest the thieves who preyed on hapless travelers.  Juan is a witness who has been officially remembered by the church.

But, as I spent time praying in the church of the small village of Hontanas, my thoughts turned to the anonymous witnesses to the faith that guide and encourage us in perseverance.  Hontanas is a village in a valley of the meseta.  The meseta is a high flat plateau that you walk on for days.  It is windy and sunny, with few towns.  For pilgrims on foot, every town is an oasis.  But Hontanas would not be on any tourist itineraries.  In contrast to the grand churches of Burgos or Leon, the small village church of Hontanas has no famous art, or architecture.  At first glance, the pictures on the wall reminded me of the Sunday School illustrations of the life of Jesus from 20 years ago.  Many curious pilgrims poked their heads in, and then left.  Some stayed to pray, thankful to find a church that, for once, was open, and not crowded with tourists.  There was an older woman sitting at the back of the church.  She was evidently a member, and she came there, perhaps everyday, to open up the church and then to sit there so that pilgrims could visit a place that is not famous but where in all likelihood she was baptized, married, and attended mass every day.  She welcomed each as we entered, and thanked each person who made a contribution to the church’s offering.  Of course, I do not know her story.  But, as I sat in that very ordinary church, I had the sense that she was an anonymous saint, not famous at all, not even by association with a famous place.  Rather, she was one of millions of steadfast Christians who have persevered in the very particular places that God has called them do.  This has made me wonder: where are the anonymous saints in my own community?  How am I encouraged by the cloud of witnesses not only of those whose deeds are noted and celebrated, but who faithfully persevere?

I must admit, I am uncomfortable with some in the cloud of witnesses.  On the Camino, there are many signs of the wealth and power of the Christian church throughout the ages.  Glorious statues of kings, warriors and wealthy patrons in churches.  The Templar Knights, a somewhat mysterious order of monks who were also soldiers, feature prominently in the history of the Camino.  They protected pilgrims, with the sword, and were also key figures in the crusades.  James the Apostle is represented sometimes not only as a simple fellow pilgrim, but
as a glorious soldier on a horse, fighting against the Muslim Moors.  And for all my appreciation of other Christian traditions, I am uncomfortable by the intense devotion in Spanish Catholicism to the Virgin Mary which at times seems to be greater than devotion to Jesus.  Yet, it may also be the case that I simply do not understand it. 

Earlier, I drew attention to the question of how faith and perseverance as linked, as they clearly our in our text from Hebrews.  My ambivalence towards some of the cloud of witnesses on the Camino compels me to return to the witnesses named in Hebrews.  And I find ambivalence there as well. Jephthah killed his own daughter to satisfy a vow that he foolishly made to God.  He is listed as a hero of faith.  So is Gideon, even though he tested God, and then led the Israelites in battle.  Samson is commended for faith, though his character seems impulsive, lustful and violent.  Abraham, who followed God’s call, is a more obvious example of faith, but he also had his very human flaws.

I read the Hebrews text as a warning to me to not dismiss the witness of those Christians who I don’t understand, or even those that I’m pretty sure I disagree with.  Perhaps for many of us, some of the perseverance required to run the race will be to live with ambiguity, with things we don’t understand, or don’t agree with.  There is not a single template of faith.  No simple formula to follow, though there are many diverse models of faith.  Faith is ultimately not our action, nor something within our grasp and control.  It is God’s gift.  The cloud of witnesses—God’s cloud of witnesses—beckons us forward, to step out in faith because they have gone before us.  Amen.