Trinity 13 Year A – Pilgrimage talk part 3 – Genesis 12:1-9; Luke 24:13-35
The first time I met Brooke, was in a launderette whilst staying in Puenta La Reina, 4 days into our walk. Having found ourselves, my sister Avril was with me at the time, in a hotel come hostel, with launderette facilities, we decided to try them out. Having waited for some time to get a free machine, as you do, we had just loaded it and pressed start when Brooke rushed in asking if we had seen a sock.
No, we hadn’t and of course a quick search around revealed nothing.
I didn’t think much more about the encounter until I was folding my laundry a short while later, and found an odd sock, one of the Kintoe socks, much desired by walkers … and realised it must have been in with my washing all the time.
The challenge now was to find Brooke. Avril suggested we took the sock to supper with us … that way if we saw the lady from the laundrette (obviously we didn’t know her name at that time) we could pass it to her.
We ate our meal, but we didn’t see her.
Keen to reunite sock with owner, I can’t emphasize enough how important socks are on the Camino … we decided to hand it into reception. Although it was by now a very clean sock, having been washed twice, you would have thought we were passing the receptionist something truly horrific, anyway she took it, rather reluctantly, and we decided to just trust that all would be well.
The next morning, as we ate breakfast, Brooke walked in, Avril recognised her and we went across, and told her that her sock was now at the reception desk, to say that she was thankful would be an understatement.
Over the next few days, we would get to know Brooke, from Australia quite well, often bumping into her in the evenings. She was walking the Camino with a friend, and like me would be joined by her partner from Sarria. Her scheduled walk, had her arriving in Santiago several days ahead of me, and so when a few days after Avril left, Brooke vanished, I wasn’t too surprised, realising that she must have simply got ahead of me.
What did surprise me however, was her turning up again when me and Geraint got to Palais de Rei, with just 3 days of walking left. we walked into a restaurant for an evening meal, and there she was, by now with her two walking companions.
For the next few days are paths crossed, as they do on the Camino, quite regularly.
On the last day, our walk into Santiago, it seemed our paths were constantly crossing, and there was one thing that seemed to be occupying our minds.
From arriving in Galicia, the final region you walk through on the Camino, the marker signs, informed you of distance, not just in KM’s but in Km’s and meters.
All of sudden, from Sarria onwards, particularly on reaching the 100km to go point, those KM’s and Meters seemed to disappear at an astonishing rate.
Our preoccupation was about what next, what do you do when you haven’t got to just get up and walk every day, how to you return well back into your normal everyday life.
As our steps took us ever closer into Santiago, we reflected on how we simply didn’t know how we felt … it was in many ways too overwhelming to put into words, so many emotions, but I think for me, and for Brooke, the biggest one, was that although we had made it, which was an achievement, we didn’t really want it to end.
And so, I wanted the markers to slow down, I wanted time to slow down … I wanted to stay in the moment, to just be there for a little longer.
Over the last few weeks, we have been reflecting on the call of Abram and the disciples on the road to Emmaus.
In our reading from Genesis, there is almost that sense, that from time to time Abram wants things to slow down, is looking to stay in the moment, as he waits for the Lord to show him the place that he will settle.
In Canaan, he builds an altar to the Lord, the Lord having appeared to him and told him ‘To your offspring, I will give this land.’
And then again, he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and built an altar to the Lord, and called on the Lord, before continuing to the Negev.
These were places where Abram had significant spiritual encounters with God, and so he built altars, and I suspect a part of him might just have wanted to linger for just a little while longer, to slow down time, to simply be in the moment.
And of course, we don’t know exactly how long Abram and Sarai might have stayed in these places, but their journey always continued on until they settled in the Land the Lord would show them.
As the disciples reach Emmaus, seeing that the man that had walked beside them, making their hearts burn within them as they talked, looked like he was going to carry on … they urged him strongly ‘Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.’
And so he went in to stay with them.
I can sense the disciples desire to just hold onto this moment for a little longer, to be in the present … to just linger.
And so how excited they must be, seeing this man coming to join them.
But of course, as he breaks bread, and their eyes are opened to realising that they have been walking with the risen Lord all this time, Jesus vanishes from their sight.
And rather than staying in moment, they find themselves jumping up and returning, one can only imagine with great haste, back to Jerusalem, where they are met by the eleven and those assembled with them saying ‘It is true! The Lord has risen and appeared to Simon.’ Before they add their personal testimony, of their encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and how they recognised him in the breaking of the bread.
And so those final steps into Santiago, we walked in with Brooke and her companions.
I tried to savour every moment, to try and process all my emotions, to soak up the atmosphere.
But as that journey finished, I knew that it was only one part of the much bigger journey of faith that we all travel.
And so I came back, and of course, I was very excited to see family once more and to be back in my own bed, to not have the spectre of a different hotel room each night wondering where the light switches if I needed them in the middle of the night.
As I have come back, I have been reminded that with God, nothing is static, everything is always moving and shifting, just as you think you might know where things are going, God, opens our eyes to a new direction and a new way of thinking, and makes our hearts sing afresh.
Some of the changes as I have returned to the parishes have been really painful and unexpected, and the impact I know will be felt for sometime to come, others of course are more joyful, but as in all things God has a plan, and will show us the path that is set before us.
4 days before the Camino ended, we arrived in Portomarin on Pentecost Sunday, and having arrived, I thought I would just double check the service times, normally 8pm, Monday – Saturday the guide book told me, but at 12.30 on a Sunday, but just perhaps, this being Pentecost Sunday, there might be another service.
The guide book, as it turned out, was correct and so at 3pm in the afternoon, we had missed any services, but went to have a look around this lovely church anyway.
A church that literally had been moved brick by brick, from the valley floor in old Portomarin to new Portomarin, when the river was dammed and the reservoir filled, literally a church on the move, the numbers on the bricks still visible, to aid getting it all put back in the right order.
Anyway, we popped into the church, and as I sat there reflecting on the Pentecost story, of the disciples being filled by the Holy Spirit, and leaving the safe surroundings of the upper room, going into the market place, I was struck by the open door of the church.
A door which welcomes us in … yes … but we also have to leave … and go back out into the world, that is where the Holy Spirit is always propelling us, we can never stay exactly where we are … there is always something new around the corner, that of course may cause us to be fearful, but each step of the way the Holy Spirit is there to equip us, Jesus promises to travel alongside us, making our hearts burn within us, and God knows the plans he has for us.
So this week, as you reflect on the final leg of our mini pilgrimage across the parishes, some questions to ponder in your quiet times.
When have you felt the pull to stay, and linger?
What made that moment special?
Where is God leading you today, where do you sense God is leading us a group of churches?
How might we look more like a church on the move?
Let’s pray
Lord of our Journey, we thank you that, as you walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, you walk with us each and every day, opening up your scriptures afresh to us, and inviting us to share in your ministry in the world. May your Holy Spirit fill us afresh today, renew us and excite us for the journey you have set before us, individually and as a group of Churches. In Jesus name we pray.