Hear the words of Peace Pilgrim—a woman who walked across the country for 28 years after vowing to “remain a wanderer until [hu]mankind has learned the way of peace.”
“I have walked 25,000 miles as a penniless pilgrim. I own only what I wear and what I carry in my small pockets. I belong to no organization. I have said that I will walk until given shelter and fast until given food, remaining a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace. And I can truthfully tell you that without ever asking for anything, I have been supplied with everything needed for my journey, which shows you how good people really are….This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love. There is nothing new about this message, except the practice of it.”
I was reminded of her pilgrimage as I read the words of today’s Gospel. The disciples are instructed to take nothing but a walking stick and sandals for their feet. All they will need are those basic items that will allow them to continue walking over rough terrain. They are to carry no food, no money, no bag and no extra clothing. Instead, they are to rely on God alone as they bring God’s love and healing touch to everyone they meet. In offering to others all they’ve been given, they will receive all that they need.
Some decisions we make in life are just so clear! We know they are right for us even when they take us outside the everyday pattern of our own lives. Sometimes the promptings of Spirit lead us on a trail that has very little, if any, real definition, as we see in the life of Peace Pilgrim. In those moments when the only thing we know is that we are doing what we MUST do, and going where we MUST go—it is God in the depths of our being who is leading the way.
This is also the situation Amos finds himself in as he stands before Amaziah, the priest of the sanctuary at Bethel in Israel. God has sent Amos to confront the Israelites, including the king, with their glaring injustices against the poor and the weak among them. It is a time of relative prosperity in Israel, a time of self-satisfaction and religious arrogance among those reaping the benefits of the nation’s success. In the glow of that success they had lost track of their responsibilities to one another, and to their covenant as a people.
In chapter 3 Amos reminded them where they came from saying: “Hear this word, O Israel, that the Lord pronounces over you, over the whole family that I brought up from the land of Egypt…” It is to this FAMILY—a family that is not acting like a family, a family that is ignoring, even oppressing, its weakest members—that God sends Amos.
Every prophet in the Jewish Scriptures is sent on the same mission—to call the family of God back together. The people continually need reminders that they are ONE people in a sacred relational covenant with the one and only God. Like us, they forget who they are and what they’re here for. They forget they are a family. At best they resist taking care of the poor and the weak; at worst they exploit the vulnerable for their own economic or political gain. ‘But you are a family,’ Amos tries to tell them—tries to tell the king and the priests as well as the comfortable and the strong. “All of us, including those you are mistreating, are God’s chosen people, God’s family.” Amaziah refuses to hear what Amos is saying and tells him to get out.
“We were chosen to be holy and blameless and full of love,” the author of Ephesians tells us, both as individuals and as God’s people. That’s who and what we are at our core, at the very center of our being—where God resides in each of us and all of us together. When Jesus sends the disciples off in pairs to preach repentance and to anoint the sick with oil and heal them, he is sending them to restore the torn and broken fragments of the family. It was the same work God had sent Amos to do.
To do this work the disciples needed to simply GO—unencumbered by things, by money, by any concern that they would or would not be welcomed. They were to touch the sick and vulnerable, offering oil to heal and strengthen. They were to help the fearful and proud let go of acquiring and clinging so they could see and embrace their sisters and brothers. That’s what repentance means, and it is a crucial part of mending the hoop of God’s family. In order to preach it, they first needed to relinquish everything except the bare essentials—their sandals, the clothes on their back and a walking stick. For food and shelter they were to rely on God’s love generously present and active in the people they met along the way.
Peace Pilgrim lived this invitation from 1953 until her death in 1981. Having first developed inner peace, she became a prophet of peace and lived her belief in non-violence the rest of her life. Many considered her a saint and a mystic. Though affiliated with no religion, her life portrayed the teachings of Jesus as she relinquished all material goods, placed her trust exclusively in God, and connected with the goodness in everyone she met, even one who did her physical harm.
Walk among the members of my family, says God. Find me there. Force nothing. My love is all around you—in the people, in the grasses and the trees, in the food you are given and the drink you are offered, in the hearts that receive you and the hearts that turn you away. Heal the sick and cast out the demons of fear and corruption by your example, bringing mercy and compassion to all you encounter. Mend the hoop of my people. Through simplicity find peace within yourself, and help my family be whole.
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