At Home in the Lord

In the Lenten study class this past week, we got to talking about adult children going home again. Home to live with their parents. It’s an event that parents are supposed to dread, and many people would probably consider it a sign of failure on the part of the child. As an adult, she should be independent, self-supporting, forging her own path. Quite a few in our conversation, however, had in fact spent some time living at home as adults and had found it a positive, constructive time. It was good to go home to their parents. Priscilla shared the comments of her niece who said how very hard it was when she came to the point in her life when she realized that her parents’ home was no longer there for her. Whether or not you have lived at home as an adult… or only go "home" to visit… Whether your sense of home has been or will be lost because of a divorce, because of the death of one or both parents, or maybe just because the property, the actual house has been lost or sold… The specifics don’t matter. The sense of loss does matter. And it can be huge. To lose that sense of familiarity, safety, security that comes from knowing that you can always go home to your parents if you really need to. To lose that is to feel very lost indeed.

"Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’" Would you have gone? Would you have freely chosen to walk away, cut yourself off from your parents' home?

Human beings have set out on such journeys of immigration for thousands of years. Many of them have left because their homelands seemed filled only with death and desperate hopelessness. Even a journey into homelessness, a journey often without a clear end or reward, was preferable to staying put. There is no evidence in Scripture that Abram wanted or needed to leave his homeland. He just left.

Others have set out away from home in a spirit of adventure. For such folk opportunity is more appealing than familiarity. Freedom is more valuable to them than connectedness. As a girl I was fascinated by the stories of the "mountain men" of the Rocky Mountains in the early history of the American West. The piece of their story that still grips me is the fact that they chose to have no homes. Most set out to trap beaver, but they set out intentionally with virtually no provisions, no destination, and little shelter. In a way they lived more like animals, sleeping wherever they happened to be, eating whatever they could find. It’s a life that still holds a sort of frightening fascination for me. There is no evidence that Abram was this sort of lone adventurer, eager to be separated from any connections that might bind. After all Genesis tell us he took his wife, his nephew, and their slaves and possessions with him when he left.

But he did leave. Abraham left his country, his kindred and his father’s house. He turned away from his heritage and his home.

Home. Especially a parents’ home. For some, of course, a parents’ home may never have been a positive environment, but in our ideal imagination, what does our parents’ home offer us?

There have been ads again lately on TV for ET. I saw the movie so long ago I remember little of it, but I remember the one place when ET points heavenward and says, "home." Words said with poignancy, but also with conviction. Regardless of anything else, home was where he belonged. Belonging. Being home gives us a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging that comes from knowing that we are among our people. We have a place; we fit in. And home is familiar. Especially the old family home with its familiar furniture, our childhood toys still stuffed in the back of the closet and the same old pictures hanging in the family room. Home is the setting for our memories.

I am also reminded again of that wonderful quote from Robert Frost. "Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to let you in." Security and safety. If absolutely everything else in your life falls apart, home is still a place of security and safety. Shelter and a place to rest. And home--in our ideal imagination--is a place to find love and acceptance. Home is a place where you know you will be loved, where you know you will feel loved, no matter what.

Home. A sense of belonging. The comfort of the familiar. The confidence of security and safety. The promise of love and acceptance. This is what Abram left. Or did he?

Perhaps Abram, as a man of faith, carried his home with him where ever he went, like a turtle carrying its home upon its back. A sense of belonging and identity as a child of God. The comfort of an established relationship with God; familiar stories, familiar worship, rich memories carried in the heart. Confident of being guided and protected, loved and accepted.

It does not diminish the wonderful gift a parents’ home can be to say that our home in the Lord is a much greater gift. A sense of belonging as the people of God. Or for us as Christians, a place where we fit in, are valued, have a role to play, within the Body of Christ. And a home in the Lord can certainly provide the comfort of the familiar…  if we have read and shared the stories of the people of faith, and have come to know them to be our stories… if, when we look at the stories and pictures of our lives we recognize that God is in every snapshot from our past. The presence of God is the setting for all of our memories. And surely God is a source of security, safety, strength, hope, so far beyond any human offering. And ultimately, of course, there is the Christian hope of God’s love and forgiveness and acceptance. Absolutely no matter what.

Nicodemus asks Jesus how it is that a man can be born again after having already been born once from his mother’s womb. So if you have been troubled or confused about how some Christians use that phrase today, you have some ancient and distinguished company. Nicodemus was confused also.  But think of being born again as our opportunity… out opportunity to be born into God's family.  It is our opportunity to adopt ourselves into the household of God. We have the choice to offer ourselves up for adoption to be children of God. To be born again is to choose to make the Lord our home.

God always holds the door open, but if we are to really feel at home in the Lord, we must do our part. To be integrated into the household of God, we must participate as members of God’s family. Lent is a good time to start. To be regular and faithful in worship; to gather here at the family table. To celebrate and share among ourselves the stories of God’s family as they are told to us in Holy Scripture. To spend "quality time" with God and nurture our own relationship with God through prayer. To intentionally reach out to all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, cherishing and strengthening the family ties that bind us.

It is our responsibility, but also our joy, to work to make this house a home, to make the household of God our home. And if we do make our home in the Lord, if we remember always that we are children in God's family, no matter where we are, no matter what may happen, we can always go back to our parent’s home.

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