May is a month of reaching summits of different varieties: the slog through the hike of a wet winter to the high point of nicer weather; the end of a school year; the culmination of a graduation. We celebrate the getting from there to here. But, of course, these celebrations are but momentary – false summits if you will - because we are always climbing. A graduation from high school leads to another climb with further schooling. The end of a busy school year leads to another hike of summer busyness. We are always on the move.
 
The church has a word for people who, in their faith, are on the move: pilgrim.  Being a pilgrim means being a person who spends their life going someplace, going to God. This Sunday in a new series we are calling “Climbing to Higher Ground” we are going to look at Psalm 121. The song, with its well-known line “I will lift my  eyes unto the hills from where will my help come?” was sung by Hebrew pilgrims as they climbed up to Jerusalem to attend one of the three yearly worship festivals. Psalm 121 is one of fifteen songs the pilgrims sang together in what has been referred to as their “dog eared songbook.”  During this series we will focus upon the maturity of the individual modern day pilgrim as we climb upward. But the focus is not only upon the individual (e.g. our priorities, our joy, our service), but the EBPC community as a whole as we are invited to climb to a higher level of ministry and service.  There is a lot we are facing in our lives and in this church and we would do well to sing from this dog eared songbook and to be reminded that God’s “got us” as we go from there to here and yonder.   My sermon title is “Singing With Our Lives from the Dog-Eared Songbook.”  The choir’s anthem is “Taste and See” and Nate has invited a friend to join him to sing Psalm 121 in Hebrew in a composition titled “Shir L’maalot.” Communion will be served. Hope to see you at 10 am.

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