A Look at Pilgrimage and What is a Pilgrim?

by David Cassidy, Pastor at Christ Community Church

Last week, the likes of Willie Nelson, Weezer, Band of Horses, Steven Tyler, and Sheryl Crow lighted up the various stages at the first Pilgrimage Festival.  It’s no surprise that the first annual Franklin Pilgrimage Festival was a roaring success. Even with the rains, we welcomed to Franklin fellow pilgrims!

The word ‘Pilgrimage’ has been in the news this week way beyond Franklin, Tennessee though. Hundreds of Muslim pilgrims on Haj were trampled in death in a tragic mass stampede; thousands of Roman Catholic pilgrims made their way to see Pope Francis in Washington DC and New York City as he made his first visit to the United States. Obviously the word ‘pilgrimage’ has some strong religious undertones, but manages to embrace events as non-religious as thousands gathering for a music fest. What’s the connection?

The word finds its origins in Middle English, descending from the Latin word ‘peregrine’, meaning someone who was ‘alien’ or ‘foreign’, someone who ‘wandered’, or who had made a journey of great distance and difficulty to arrive at a new home. Migrating falcons were designated as ‘peregrine’; people fleeing from danger to make their home in safety could also rightly be called ‘pilgrims’. We are made more familiar with this use of the term every Thanksgiving when we celebrate ‘Pilgrim’ fathers and mothers who came to this land over dangerous seas on the Mayflower, fleeing violent religious persecution.

And that should make us think deeply about two more news stories this week, stories of pilgrimage, harrowing tales of people who are making long journeys to hoped for safety and liberty and prosperity. Aylan Kurdi is a name you may or may not recognize, but you probably saw his picture. Along with his brother and his mother, Aylan drowned fleeing Syria; a photo of three year old’s lifeless body washed ashore in Turkey demanded the world’s attention, becoming the symbol of the thousands who’ve died so far seeking sanctuary and the plight of the more than 300,000 other ‘pilgrims’ making their painful, dangerous journey to the west.

We call them ‘refugees’.

Then there are the thousands who’ve been the subject of heated debate in the American political scene, people who’ve fled the poverty of their Central American homes in hopes of discovering a new life in the United States. Unwilling or unable to endure the lengthy and costly US immigration process, they come without legal permission and standing. Many die making this journey. Those who do manage a safe arrival will live in the fear of deportation and endure the ire of many who resent their presence.

We call them ‘illegals’.

One can make the case that the word ‘pilgrim’ has a voluntary aspect to it; it seems to imply that those on ‘pilgrimage’ chose their journey freely, that they had ‘options’ and could’ve stayed right where they were very happily. Yet that was not the case for the people who risked all when they boarded the Mayflower on the coast of England so long ago. Like Aylan Kurdi there would be those who drowned, among them the wife of William Bradford, the first Governor of those harried newcomers to the new world.

What if the refugees and the illegals were simply our fellow pilgrims?

Everyone of us are pilgrims after all. “We do not have here a lasting city”, the book of Hebrews reminds us; we are all on a journey home. I believe we should treat our fellow pilgrims with love and grace and the kind of welcome that in the ancient world was simply called ‘hospitality’. I don’t think the words on the base of the Statue of Liberty are less true today than they were when they were first unveiled, and it is inconceivable to me that people who are Americans, and certainly people who are claiming to be Christians, can look at anyone who is a pilgrim and turn away in disdain. We want a ‘secure border’? I understand. And there are those in office who must make how the law is written and then enforced their duty. But there is no place for hatred and anger in our political and public discourse about this matter. We are talking about people who bear God’s image, people who are your fellow pilgrims.

Like the thousands that made the  journey to Franklin last weekend for the Pilgrimage Festival to   celebrate! But let us not forget  that not so very far away other pilgrims also need our attention so they can join the celebration as well.

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