Knowing the Place for the First Time

T.S. Elliot once remarked:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Several years after my family moved to Canada from Jamaica, we finally landed in a family of faith. This congregation’s first face of holiness was in the form of hospitality. Pilgrim Lutheran in Hamilton, Ontario. Many immigrants, global pilgrims, came to Pilgrim Church from around the world: Latvians, Indians, Guyanans, former Yugoslavians, and Chinese. Grounded in the best of the rigorous LCMS tradition of biblical and confessional Lutheranism, this place was dynamic and welcoming, a home of creative fidelity.

On Labor Day weekend I visited there again, and preached, for only the second time in the 28 years since I moved away. My eyes have not improved in the ensuing time, but experience has helped me see better, some things anew, many things I didn’t see while growing up there in the 1970s. For example, the degree to which my appreciation for the wondrous diversity we so highly value at Lutheran World Relief was shaped by that place. Their commitment to evangelical diversity continues. Seeing the newest group of Canadians, these Sudanese pilgrims, being welcomed into this fellowship helped me to know the place where I first came to know and love the Lutheran faith …as if for the first time.