Strangers and pilgrims
The Pilgrims cross the ocean
A small congregation of English Separatists had already done the hard thing once: they had broken from the national church to worship as they believed they must. It was not enough. To keep that worship they found they had to break from England itself, and then from their refuge in Holland, until the only ground left was an ocean and a wilderness on its far side. So in 1620 they crowded onto the Mayflower and pointed it west, toward a coast not one of them had seen. Picture what that crossing asked. They left language, kin, the graves of their dead, every familiar thing a person leans on, for a country that so far existed only as a hope. They were not adventurers chasing fortune. They were people who had decided that the freedom to worship as conscience demanded was worth becoming homeless for. The letter to the Hebrews had named them centuries before they sailed: those who confess that they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth, aliens in a land of promise, dwelling in tents, having seen from far off a homeland they do not yet hold. The break that crosses an ocean leaves a whole world behind for the sake of obedience.
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and embraced them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
— The letter to the Hebrews — Hebrews 11:13 (WEB)
“By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents.”
Disconnect, at its most uprooting. The phase here asks whether you will leave not only what is wrong but what is dear and familiar, the whole comfortable world, for the sake of an obedience that makes you a stranger. It asks you to hold the homelessness honestly and to keep walking toward a homeland you have only seen from far off.
Some breaks ask you to give up a little. Others ask you to pull up every root you have, leaving a place, a people, a whole settled life, and to do it not because anywhere better is waiting but because staying would mean betraying what God has asked of you. That is the pilgrim's break, and it is one of the hardest in this phase, because it strips away the very belonging that makes a person feel safe. If your obedience has made you a stranger somewhere, if following God has cost you the comfort of being at home, do not read that as a sign you took a wrong turn. It may be the surest sign you are walking in the oldest company of faith.
The pilgrim accepts not belonging here, not because he loves exile, but because the homeland he is seeking lies elsewhere, and he has seen it from far enough off to leave everything else behind. You are not lost. You are on the road that all of them walked, looking for a country of your own.
The Church is at its truest a pilgrim people, never fully at home in any land or age, ready to cross an ocean rather than betray conscience. The English Separatists had already broken from the national church once; to keep that worship they found they had to break from England itself, and then from their refuge in Holland, until the only ground left was an ocean and a wilderness beyond it, and in 1620 they pointed the Mayflower west toward a coast none of them had seen. The letter to the Hebrews had named the whole Body centuries before they sailed, those who confess they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. When the Church grows too comfortably native to its culture, it has forgotten its own confession, that it is still seeking a country of its own.
What cannot be shaken is the homeland itself. Lands and houses and the belonging they offer can all be left behind, and one day removed entirely. But the country the pilgrim seeks is the one that remains when everything shakable is gone, and the God who promised it does not move.
- What roots is God asking me to pull up, and am I treating the cost as a wrong turn or as obedience?
- Where have I grown so at home in my surroundings that I have forgotten I am a stranger on the earth?
- What homeland am I actually living toward, and have I seen it clearly enough to leave lesser things behind?
Lord, You have made me a stranger here, and some days the homelessness is heavy. Give me the pilgrim's heart that can let go of what is dear for the sake of obeying You. Keep my eyes on the homeland I have seen from far off, the country that cannot be shaken. Amen.