Psalm 67 May God bless us.
Acts 16:9-15 She opened her heart.
John 14:23-29 …We will come to them and make our home with them.
I.
Presbyterian pastor and writer, Frederick Buechner got it right when he said, that in every human being, there exists a certain longing for home. Buechner took an entire book to ponder this idea, ending where he began- with a vaguely defined idea of home, more a feeling based on faith and experience than place, though place plays a part.
Who of us has not at some time or another gone back to that location of our childhood that we most associate with home? We drive past the old house searching for memories- Does the back screen door still slam like it did (‘Remember how Mom used to yell, ‘Stop that banging. ‘Shut it gently, please!?); Is the park down the street still there? Gee , the high swings don’t look so high after all! The huge sledding hill really is just a mound.
Sometimes, the old place is an apartment block, like where I started out…a huge brick hulk of a structure punctuated with courtyards and back porches. On Halloween, our kid-feet used to make a thunderous racket running up and down on the stairs of those porches ringing countless back door bells while yelling at the top of our voices, trick or treat! Behind the building was a gravel playground and the Leander Stone Public School. ‘Never did learn who Leander Stone was. Probably a beloved Chicago school teacher, or politician. The building had an angled stone edging encircling it about two feet above the gravel. We played a game with tennis balls, throwing the balls hard at the edge of the angle, to see who could pop a first base or second base hit. My team usually won because we learned to pop balls the farthest.
Sometimes there is no longer a there there! My father-in-law’s grand childhood house was demolished to make way for a large apartment building. ‘Kind of an empty feeling I would imagine, going home to what isn’t there. But Wendell Berry agrees with Buechner that home does not always have to be a house or even a place. In the fictional life story of Jayber Crow, Berry shows how home can sometimes be a person.
At the close of his life, Jayber, a life-long bachelor barber, visits a dear friend who is near death, a woman for whom he has held an unexpressed love. As he stands by her hospital bed, tubes connecting her to machinery, he silently wonders if she has felt the same about him all those years in which they shared the same small town. He looks as they talk quietly. Her speech is slow and labored. Then, there is silence. Jayber’s voice (p.363):
Then, in the loss of all the world, when I might have said the words I had so
long wanted to say, I could not say them. I saw that I was not going to be able to talk
without crying, and so I cried. I said, “But what about this other thing?”
She looked at me then. “Yes,” she said. She held out her hand to me.
She gave me the smile that I had never seen and will not see again in this world,
and it covered me all over with light.
In our longing for home, we may find that home is a subconscious yearning for childhood security, affirmation, nurturing; a psychological return to the corner in which our mother or father lovingly pulled-up our blanket and carefully tucked us in with a gentle, I love you kiss. In our United Church of Christ Service of Marriage, there is a beautiful prayer of thanksgiving that contains this phrase-
Merciful God, we thank you for your love that lives within us and calls us from
loneliness to companionship. We thank you for all who have gone before us:
for Adam and Eve, for Sarah and Abraham, for Joseph and Mary, and for
countless parents whose names we do not know.
We thank you for our own parents, and for all, whether married or single, who
are mother or father to us, as we grow to the fullness of the stature of Christ…
Being parents, being a mother or father, providing the essentials of a loving home is to do holy work, the most holy work there is. For those who grow up without such a home often emerge crippled, without conscience and often incapable of remorse. They wander, emotionally homeless.
Everyone longs for home- that physical, emotional or spiritual soul place in which we feel unconditionally loved, secure and needed. Providing such a place is the highest calling any of us can ever have.
II.
Jesus felt this responsibility toward his disciples. He had chosen them, taught them, traveled with them, prayed, played and eaten with them. Now, as John 14 reveals, Jesus is worried about their emotional and spiritual welfare after his bodily departure. With the Crucifixion looming, he attempts to comfort and guide these closest friends. He wants to give them a that spiritual soul place, that home that will shield them from the horrors that are are ahead, that they will be survive and be prepared to share his message of God’s saving love for humankind. So, Jesus says, vss. 18-19
I will not leave you orphaned, I am coming to you. In a little while, the world will
no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
Then, his remarkable elaboration, vs. 23,
Those who love me will keep my word (commandments and other teachings), and my Father will love them, and we (the Father and I) will come to them and make our home with them.
The world that the disciples knew was about to fall apart. Jesus was to be executed after a mock trial. Rome might soon come down on the nation itself. Jerusalem was in danger of ruin, indeed later was sacked completely in 70 c.e. All that might have seemed secure, including their relationship with their leader, seemed about to be wiped out. And here is Jesus, calmly assuring them of his continued presence, making home with them no matter what was to happen- chaos be damned!
The theme continues soon after Crucifixion and Resurrection, and perhaps the sack of Rome, as Paul and his party set foot for the first time on European soil at Philippi. West of Istanbul on a windswept hilltop, today’s ruins give the imagination great fun. Standing there, it is not difficult to imagine a thriving city of culture high above the northern shore of the azure Agean Sea. There, as Paul encounters Lydia, from the province by the same name, he recognizes a woman of substance. She is a leader from a special region that dies purple cloth, a mistress in charge of others. When she accepts baptism, she becomes the first European Christian convert. Many others soon follow her example. Her offer of hospitality, come and stay at my home, echoes down through the generations as a profound making of sacred space- a home- in which the Presence of the Holy may dwell, a blessing available to everyone; a sign of her understanding of the high, sacred calling of making home in this world that others might also find life.
III.
The vocation of homemaking falls to each of us who follow Christ’s path. On Mother’s Day, we rightfully pay our deep respects to all the mothers and grandmothers among us. Making a secure, loving physical home for families, day by day is not only the most sacred of vocations, but also the most demanding. Mothers, fathers, parents all regardless of the particular family configuration have amazingly complex work to do if they are to raise emotionally secure, healthy children. And our church is committed to doing all that it can to be of assistance.
It also is true that some adults have horrible memories of abusive childhoods, dysfunctional families and mothers or fathers who were incapable of healthy parenting. In her insightful book, Drama of the Exceptional Child, therapist Alice Miller speaks of adult children of such childhoods as exceptional because they learned coping skills to survive and thrive in spite of their home backgrounds. If you are from such a background, today may be difficult. I understand. But perhaps it also can be a day of forgiveness. Anne Lamott is a delightfully irreverent writer from the progressive Christian perspective who is among those who finds Mother’s Day hard. Her own mother was not mentally well. In her book, Further Thoughts on Faith, she continues her struggle on learning to forgive her mother for her inept parenting, and about she speaks about how important the task of forgiveness is, though it takes a long time. She says, (NY Times Book Review, May 1, 2005, Lauren F. Winner)
I kept praying for my heart to soften…The problem with God-or at any rate,
one of the top five most annoying things about God- is that he or she rarely
answers right away.
But, in a broader sense, this day is a good day to recall that everyone of us has a charge to make home for another, whether that home is physical hospitiality, security, or emotional space, daily presence for really listening to another or for praying with another. Strangers and newcomers to our lives provide wonderful and sacred chances to offer hints of sacred home, glimpses of the holy.
Congregations too have such an opportunity every time a visitor arrives at the door, or a new pastor arrives in their midst, or a membership class is received. As many here know from personal experience, I write on every membership certificate the words, Welcome Home! I also say these words during the hand of fellowship greeting in the membership ritual. These words hold special meaning for me from personal experience.
When I was first received into membership in a congregation of the United Church of Christ, I also was becoming its new pastor. In a somewhat unusual move, I was leaving my childhood tradition, the United Methodist Church and being ordained in the UCC. And here I was, the new, 27 year-old pastor of the First Church of Christ, Congregational, United Church of Christ of Bethany, Connecticut, standing with Anne Wildman, in front of the congregation, being received into membership by the Senior Deacon, Thomaston Gould.
The setting seemed strange. The old colonial sanctuary, constructed in 1812, had clear glass windows when I was used to ornate stained glass, the center pulpit and simple cross with the choir in the balcony, the small tracker organ when my childhood church had German woodcarvings and a large choir in a divided, ornate chancel. And here we were, in the New England hills when I was used to Midwestern flatlands and urban centers with grid patterns. There were several moments there in front of those folks when I seriously wondered whether I had made a mistake. It all felt so strange. Was this really God’s leading?
Then, Tom’s hand extended to mine, and he said, Welcome Home! Soon a Bible with the names of the search committee inscribed inside was given to me, with words inside indicating their joy at having searched for and found…me! Suddenly I didn’t feel so young anymore…so out of place…so strange… Was it a clear breath of air I felt…a rush of the Spirit? Whatever…
It felt for the first time…like home!
May we all give that gift of the Spirit with our lives to all those entrusted to us…each day, every day of all of our days.
Welcome home! Amen.