As a community of movement-minded people, we live in a constant tension between ‘settledness’ and ‘unsettledness.’ How do we prophetically respond to this tension of coming and going, temporary and permanent, ebb and flow as the people of God?
Ruth shared with us at the Unreached Network UK Gathering, July 2024. Listen here.
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A couple of months back I attended a workplace conference where one of the keynote speakers began with thes statement that, ‘Change is inevitable; we need to let go of our idea of status quo.’
In many ways, amongst the gathered business leaders and coaches present, this sentiment resonated and hit home, not least amongst the many Western majority world attendees for whom ‘settled life’ is considered normal. Workplace ‘agility’ is a current buzzword.
But of course, for so many around the world, change management isn’t just a business strategy, it’s a daily life reality. Indeed, the concept of ‘status quo’ is far more extraordinary in many other contexts.
Our perspective on settledness and beliefs about change affect how we approach it, go through it, talk about in with others and experience it. Our culture’s expectations around it will also determine the assumptions we bring to it.
Amongst those looking to walk with the least reached or unreached, this conversation is expecially relevant.
Some of us are welcoming and engaging with those who are coming; we walk with those who are walking through change, sometimes chosen, others times forced.
Others of us are going ourselves; we are looking to intentionally relocate and enter into a new place, new culture and become part of a different community.
Many more of us don’t know if we’re coming or going! Perhaps we are always doing both to some extent?
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Throughout Scripture and history, God’s people have always lived with the permanent and temporary side by side. Comings and goings have been a natural part of the story of God.
The Bible is full of rich images and pictures that capture a sense of this reality. Aliens, exiles, foreigners… citizens of heaven, strangers on earth. One concept that encapsulates so many of these themes is that of ‘pilgrim’:
“Pilgrims are people on a journey with a purpose; they have a place of departure and a place of arrival. (…) We are a people in transition. We have been called out, like Abraham, and are on our way to “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). The image of pilgrimage is particularly apposite for the cross-cultural community, most of whom live with their suitcases mentally packed.” Marion Knell, Burn Up or Splash Down
In fact, the pattern and rhythm of pilgrimage was deeply ingrained into the sacred rituals of God’s people.
There were three major pilgrimage festivals celebrated annually. This meant that three times every year people from all the towns and villages of Israel would pack their bags and travel to gather in Jerusalem to celebrate.
These were the three festivals that they travelled for:
1) The Festival of Unleavened Bread (Passover), which marked the salvation of God’s people from slavery in Egypt through the blood of the lamb. It was celebrated in springtime and also marked the start of the agricultural year.
2) The Festival of Weeks, which celebrated the first fruits of harvest and celebrated this sign of things to come. This festival became known as ‘Pentecost’ because it was celebrated 7 weeks and a day ie. 50 (‘pente’) days after Passover.
3) The Feast of Tabernacles, where people made temporary shelters and lived in them for 8 days to celebrate that the harvest had been gathered in and the agricultural year had come to a fruitful close.
Participating in these celebrations meant getting up and moving: a holy relocation!
This was such a huge part of the cultural norm that many songs and Psalms were written especially for the pilgrims, wending their way to the dwelling place of God. It would have been normal to observe the seasons, fields and changing winds, and to ready themselves accordingly for pilgrimage.
Our Turkish friends, taught us about the idea of ‘cemre’ or 3 fires of warmth from the heavens which fall on the earth to bring life in spring. As the winter passes into spring and summer, the first ‘cemre warmth’ falls on the air, heating up the atmosphere; the second falls on water melting snow and ice and watering the earth; the third cemre then finally comes to the earth itself, when crops and farming begins as the frozen ground softens to receive crops.
I remember being in Southern Türkiye in early spring and being advised we shouldn’t swim in the because the cemre hadn’t yet fallen on the water and it would be ice cold and dangerous. City dwelling friends, far from agricultural ryhthms, would wonder when the cemre would fall and how it might affect the harvest that year. This beautiful and discerning awareness of the seasons, times and response to them is a normal part of the cultural conversation there.
As the people of God, we are discerning of the times, seasons and movement in the spiritual landscape. We live in a physical world but are attentive to the seasons, fields and winds of God that cause us to ready ourselves for movement and action. This is a normal part of our spiritual culture and ancestry.
The regular pilgrimages were a prophetic sign to God’s now settled people that even though their settling down was a seasonal blessing from God for them to enjoy, they were still looking out for the movement of God. Their houses became permanent in the promised land, but prophetically speaking, if God moved on, so would they.
Psalm 84:5–8 is a description of the blessings of pilgrimage. It speaks of those who have “set their hearts on pilgrimage.” To regard ourselves as a transient people is a decision we have to make, whether we go overseas or remain in our passport countries.
– Marion Knell, Burn Up or Splash Down
As someone who finds change and transition a challenge, I like to picture myself as a part of the spiritual line and legacy of God’s faith people who engaged with flexibility as a spiritual practice and weren’t afraid to move on, move away and move around. It’s what our faith family has done for generations and so it’s something we can enter into and embrace as part of our way of life now. Responding to God’s move is part of our spiritual DNA.
Making Huts Holy
We often talk about Passover and Pentecost, but when it comes to developing a pilgrim mindset, and learning about God’s desire for His people in their going out and coming in, the Feast of Tabernacles is also a rich and vibrant prophetic picture.
The Feast of Tabernacles (booths, huts, tents) was a God-instigated camping festival with a spiritual significance. So, let’s take a look at some of the main aspects of the festival and the truth it also speaks to us today.
Pilgrims and Pioneers
Live in temporary shelters for seven days. All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Lev 23: 42-3
First and foremost, the ‘tents’ or tablernacles recalled the Israelites’ desert story. The settled people deliberately unsettled themselves and lived in tents, to stop and look back at where they had come from; they intentionally celebrated the faithfulness of God then, and where He had brought them now. Much of their story had been spent looking forward, but God gave them a ritual for stopping and looking back.
God calls us to be frontfooted pioneers for His kingdom advancement too. Like our faith forefathers we look forward with eyes of faith to what is still to come. But having pilgrim mindset also enables us stop, take stock and look back giving glory to God for just how far we’ve come, with Him. We look at our own lives, but also through previous generations. Pilgrims, like pioneers, lean longingly to what is ahead, but they are able to also look backwards with gratitude and thanksgiving.
We desire that which He will do. We savour that which He has already done.
Resting Posts en Route
…. Celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest.
Lev 23:39b
The Feast of Tabernacles began with a Sabbath day and also ended with one. It was a festival bookended by rest, but also characterised by it throughout. The end of harvest would have been the moment in the year when farmers could take a breather, enjoy a break and delight in the fruits of their labour. Before long the whole cycle would begin again, but for now it was time to stop, pause, eat drink and be merry.
One of the places we used to live and work in the Middle East was situated on part of the old Silk Road trade route. Travelling along the route one emerges at inns and caravan stopping posts where the traders of old would sleep for the night and stable their weary animals before moving on. Like traders, pilgrims understand that their journey will have many ‘legs’. It makes sense to pace yourself and rest when you have chance, readying oneself for what is to come.
These were a busy people, on the move with God, working through the seasons, yet they were not restless.
It’s also amazing that one of the most sacred Feasts of the year would prescribe, indeed command, rest. In the plans of God, Sabbath was part of holiness. God made rest a key part of worship!
We Can ‘Rest Assured’
On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Lev 23:40
The rest wasn’t just about the current year though.
For God’s people the palm tree carried a symbolic meaning pointing to victory and triumph, hence their use at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, when the people believed that He was (right there and then!) about to usher in their deliverance and restoration.
The palm tree is also a picture of a righteous person: flourishing, upright, long-lasting and fruitful (Psalm 92:12-15).
While Jesus’ victory on the cross was different to what the people expected, it nevertheless promises and assures us that He will one day return as the victorious, triumphant king, bringing bring those who love Him to a place where God himself will shelter them with His presence. God will be their arbour of shade from the scorching heat of the day, and lead them to living water to drink (Rev 7:13-17).
Here in the UK we use the phrase, ‘you can rest assured,’ when something has been totally taken care of and we need not worry or concern ourselves about it; the matter has been taken in hand and sorted. ‘It is finished,’ one might say.
The rejoicing at the Tabernacle Feast was prophetic in that it looked forward with a sure and certain hope to the time when God’s people wouldn’t just rest at a staging post, but truly and eternally at home with God, forever. The present moment was significant but it was also important to not lose sight of the bigger purpose and direction.
A pilgrim is a pilgrim because they are journeying to a place where they will meet with God. For us this means that while we are active and involved in God’s kingdom coming here, we do it with an eye on where we are going in the end.
Our Homesickness is Holy
This certainty of destination where we belong to and with God is a key part of the good news.
So many people we love and journey with, ourselves often included, are processing loss and complications of thought and emotion around the ideas of ‘home’ and ‘homeland.’
It’s fair to say that I hadn’t thought much about God’s heavenly dwelling until I’d spent time in the Middle East. But there I witnessed a vivid, beautiful, tangible and gritty prayed-out-theology of being and belonging with God: picturing the wedding supper of Jesus; tears being wiped away; a place to be valued, loved, honoured and significant.
When we’re presently comfortable, the idea of being unsettled isn’t so appealing. When we’ve already been unsettled or displaced the eternal comfort of the dwelling place of God becomes our great reward.
We can rest assured that while earthly inns sometimes struggle for room, even for the very best of guests, our Father’s inn has plenty of room for all. Jesus Himself assures us of this and that He will prepare our place personally (John 14:1-3).
Time to Gather In
The pilgrim festivals were fixed in the life and experience of every family; year by year they worshipfully went and returned.
Of course, as is true with all of the magnificent Old Testament plans and designs of God, this rhythm and ritual told a far bigger story and pointed to a far more groundbreaking fulfillment at work.
God’s purpose was to accomplish and crown the pilgrimage cycle on a macro level.
Jesus came to become our Passover lamb. He died to free us from the captivity of shame, guilt and weakness that had broken our relationship with God. His death restored us to honour, gave a fresh start and emboldened us with equipping to live newly alive with God.
This equipping came fully in power at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit that Jesus has promised came upon the disciples as the first fruits of this Spirit-filled age and a sign of our neverending spiritual life to come.
So what about Tabernacles?
Any family who had grown up in that culture would have known all too well which Festival was coming next.
The Feast of Tabernacles, Booths or Temporary Shelters also had another name, The Feast of Ingathering. This name came from the gathered in crops that would have stood in the storehouses and barns around the land as a marker of a good harvest having been brought in.
The time before Tabernacles was the time to focus on the fields and take care of the ripening crops, being sure to harvest when the crops were mature but before the autumn rains came and damaged thr crop. During harvest time, farmers would apparently be so busy that they would build shelters in their fields so as to protect them but also reap them without wasting time (cf. Robert Alter).
Jesus took all the images of harvest and laid them onto the fields of His Father’s kingdom. The seed became the gospel good news, the crops became the people God loved, and the farm labourers became those sent out to preach and teach and train people to live out the words of Jesus.
Jesus reframed the tangible harvest landscape into unseen spiritual realities, and suggested that the time for reaping the harvest was now! (John 4:34-36) The booths were a sign of rest, but they also represented shelters in the fields of those who were to co-labour with God to bring His harvest home.
In the ebb and flow of settled and unsettled, with all of the experiences and emotions this brings and produces in us, we take time to pause and give heartfelt thanks for what has been. We embrace the worship of rest in daily, weekly, monthly, yearly ways, resting assured that our future rest is also certain and will satisfy us completely. We empathise with those who are homesick and heartheavy for a home they are missing or have lost. And we invite others to join our pilgrim pathway as we gather in God’s fruitful harvest with amazement, love and delight.
What about the pilgrim mindset resonates with you especially?
How might you incorporate a part of this thinking into what you do today?
Photo thanks to Alex Munsell on Unsplash and Canva
Ruth and her husband lived and worked in the Middle East for 11 years as part of a multicultural church planting team. Now back in the UK, Ruth works as a leadership coach specializing in transition and cultural awareness (see here for more). Ruth is based in the Midlands with her husband Mark.
