God willing, I will be sitting in the stands this summer watching our church
softball team crush (I mean compete against) the other church softball teams in
our area. Of all games of sport, I enjoy watching baseball the most
…mostly because I understand it. I
really like baseball stadiums too … the expanse of green grass …
the sandy blond symmetry of the diamond … the brightly colored fences
embracing the field. I went to Yankee
Stadium once and saw the monument park with the faces of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig,
Mickey Mantle and the like … ghosts haunting the stadium still with
memories … not only of baseball glory but of American eras long past.
In this way, and only in this way, Yankee Stadium is a little like a church to
me. It is a place of great tradition in which something new is always happening
and through which you connect to what has gone before and will come after. If I
allow myself to see sports as a metaphor for life, I find the goal is the same,
what the late Bart Giamatti described as "the
deepest impulse of baseball: to go out and back, to leave and return
home." What we are about in the church is making the journey back home
… back to the God who gave us birth … through the wilderness of our
experience … out to the far country and back, "through many dangers,
toils, and snares," towards the promised land of rest.
Our universal experience is to leave the home of our youth for places unknown,
always searching for home again. The old saw says, "You can never go back
home again," but in many ways we try. People raised in dysfunctional
families spend much of their lives trying to find what they never had or working
out relationships that can never be resolved. Young couples swear they will
never fall into the patterns their parents had, but soon clash because their
spouses don't play by the rules of the household in which they were
raised. When I counsel couples about to
be married I certainly touch upon sex and money, but there is seldom disagreement
there … they are in favor of both.
The great divide seems to inevitably be … when will we open our
Christmas gifts…on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning? Certain rules
are wired deeper than consciousness into their psyche because it's the only way
of homemaking that they have ever known.
Many of you were blessed to be raised in a good home with stable … loving
… encouraging … wonderful … Christian parents. But in its own
peculiar way, a good home just makes it harder
to leave, for the time comes when you must make that journey of becoming and go
out into the world on an adventure to discover who you are. And there are many
rough places along the way that make you look back and long for earlier, more
carefree days of childhood. Of course, the journey begins before you go, and
what psychologists once called adolescent rebellion they now call adolescent
individuation, which actually lasts far beyond adolescence, well into our thirties,
sometimes our forties, sometimes never quite resolved. All of us must discover
the ways in which we are not our parents but our own persons, as well as the
ways in which we will always be our parents no matter how we try.
According to the Bible we are children of God … made in the Divine image
… wired deeper than consciousness into our psyches … passed through
our genes … and no matter how far we wander from God and mar that image
beyond recognition … it is always still at least part of who we are. "Our
hearts are restless," said Augustine, whose journey into rebellion is
legendary, "Our hearts are restless, and they cannot rest until they rest
in Thee." In other words, God is the home for which all of us are
searching in one way or another, although most people don't realize it. The
search for identity is a spiritual journey. The longing for wholeness is a
spiritual journey. The hunger for inner peace is a spiritual journey. The quest
for intimacy is a spiritual journey. The pursuit of meaning is a spiritual
journey. Healthy human development is a spiritual journey. And in all of these
only an abiding connection with God will satisfy the deepest longings of our
being. God has made us for this relationship most of all, so the Creator might
walk with us, every Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden once again.
I am always honored when people invite me to their home. It is an ancient sign
of friendship, hospitality, and trust when people invite you into the place
where they really live, the way Lydia opened her doors to Paul at Philippi, so
that the Philippian church, known through the ages
for its compassion and loving kindness, actually started in her home (Acts
16:15). Perhaps the warmth of her home gave birth to the warmth of that church.
A church should support the healthy home life of its members, but just as often
I think, the home life of its members shapes the character of a church …
its level of intimacy … its appropriate boundaries … its compassion
for the world around it.
Home, of course, is less about place and more about relationship. Home is about
feeling at home in a particular space with particular people. Home is feeling
at home with your family, whether it is your family of origin or your life
partner or a group of people you have adopted as your friends who are
"closer than a brother or sister." Perhaps the most difficult
challenge is to feel at home in your own skin … to be at home with
yourself … for if you don't find that level of inner peace and confidence
… you will never feel at home with anyone else. This, too, is a spiritual
journey, and you cannot make a spiritual journey without traveling with God.
Jesus said, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will
love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them"(John
14:23). Think of that image for a moment. Can you imagine having Christ for a
room mate!? Several years ago I was chatting with a Jewish friend about their
customs. After hearing him speak it
occurred to me that their deepest spiritual rituals occur not at their temples
and synagogues but in the Jewish home: the lighting of the Sabbath candle every
Friday evening; circumcision; keeping kosher; the Passover seder. Being Jewish is a way of keeping house with
God.
Most of our Christian rituals happen here, at the church, which makes it easier
somehow for us to leave God at church and not realize the holiness of our
homes.
In the early days before the church had the funds to build sanctuaries and
cathedrals, churches gathered in homes. This kept churches small, of course,
but more intimate, more deeply committed to one another, more truly a family. I
wouldn't trade our lovely sanctuary and this building is used for so many
ministries worthy of the name of Christ, but perhaps we have lost something in
the shift from spiritual movement to religious institution. Nevertheless, the
image of church as home and family still echoes through our scripture, and the
church continues to be home and family for those who join their lives to it,
especially those who have no other home or family to support them. Frequently
when I ask new members what led them to join Nekoosa UCC, they say, "I
don't know; I just feel at home here."
"And we will come to them and make our home with them." Sounds
rather permanent, doesn't it? It means Christ is not with us here and there
… now and again … but always … to the uttermost end of time.
Christ is not with us only at church … only in worship … only when
we happen to think of him … only when we are praying or doing good. Christ is with us for the whole ride … with all
its ups and downs … "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer;
in sickness and in health; to love and to cherish;" and death will not
part us. In Christ we are at home with God.
As I reminded you two weeks ago, the Bible promises us a place prepared in
God's eternal heaven. The Apocalypse describes the new
Jerusalem as a city without a
The promise of a home in heaven with God is a meaningful hope, but somehow it
is not enough in the meantime, because as you know, the meantime can be pretty
mean. Do any of you remember the song from Godspel
that made fun of this "pie-in-the sky-when you-die" salve in denial
of the harsh realities of the present?
When you feel sad and under a curse,
Your life is bad, your prospects are worse,
Your wife is sighing, crying, and your olive tree is dying,
Cattle are braying, and teeth are decaying, and creditors waiting your
purse?
Your mood and your robe are both a deep blue,
You bet that Job had nothing on you.
Ah, but don't forget that when you get to heaven you'll be blest,
Yes, it's all for the best!
A future hope without present help rings empty indeed. It reminds me of those
people who want to read the Book of Revelation as a prediction so far in the
future from when it was written that it offered comfort to the harshly
persecuted first century Christians by saying, "Don't worry; two thousand
years from now God will intervene to rescue everyone." I'm glad that God
has a place prepared for me at the end of my life. I'm glad that the end of
history is in God's hands. But what about right now?
"And we will come to them and make our home with them." Everybody
needs a home, where he or she can feel safe: safe to grow … free to be
authentic … not to have to pretend … loved for who you are and
forgiven when you aren't your best self. We have such a home in heaven where we
will be with God for eternity; in the meantime, God makes a home with us. And
to the degree that we follow God's word in disciplined spiritual obedience, we
make our homes a place where God can feel at home with us. Thus will we be
prepared to feel at home with God forever.
Therefore, the gospel not just "pie in the sky when you die." It's
about here and now, and the ways we accustom ourselves to the constant company
of God. Only then can we complete the spiritual journey. Only then can we
finally feel at home in our own skins and with one another. "Listen! I am
standing at the door, knocking;" Jesus says. "If
you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you,
and you with me" (Rev. 3:20). So I invite you today, in the name of
Christ, wherever you have wandered, wherever you have roamed, come home to the
God who loves you. Amen. May we pray?
Inviting God, we invite you into our hearts to stay. As we come home to you, we
ask you to make your home in our lives, a habitat fit for your presence, our
bodies a living
Rev. Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa