Charlotte
Collins Reed
Christ
Church Episcopal
July 22,
2018
11 Proper B
When I was growing up, my grandmother
lived in the same house she lived in when my mother was born in 1932. My grandfather died when I was just two years
old, so I never really knew him, other than through photographs and
stories. My sister and I loved going to
the house where Mom grew up, looking through her old high school photo albums,
and playing with the children of Mom’s childhood friends. Mom grew up in the small town of Headland,
Alabama where everyone knows everyone else and their business. When we would go to visit in the summer,
everyone from the tellers at the bank to the cashiers at the grocery store knew
who we were. We were Ann Slocomb’s
children and Mildred Slocomb’s grandchildren.
Even though we did not live in Headland, the small community felt like
home. We felt connected there and loved
by people we did not even know, simply because we were Ann’s daughters and
Mildred’s granddaughters. Between
staying with our grandmother in the house where Mom was raised, to being known everywhere
we went by people we did not know, the notion of “home” became much more than simply
a dwelling place. “Home” became an
experience of belonging and of identity.
We felt at home in Headland, Alabama.
This morning, we find David settled in
at home, enjoying his house and taking a rest from all his enemies around
him. Sitting in his lovely house of
cedar, David realizes that while he has a lovely home, God is living in a
tent. David should not have a nicer
dwelling place than God has. So, David
decides to build God a house. That is
the way Scripture tells the story. But
personally, I think David is tired from all his work defeating his enemies and
working to create a united Kingdom.
David remembers well all the times that God has moved among the people,
led them in battle, and taken them to new places. David is worn out, and figures that if he
builds God a house to live in, God will have to stay put for a while, and David
can take a break! But that is just my
version of the story.
Whatever David's motives, God is not flattered by
David's generous offer. God reminds
David that God is a God on the go.
Rather than David building a house for God, God will build a house for
David, on whose throne God will establish a kingdom forever. This house will not be a made of cedar, but
of the offspring of David.
David's offspring do rule Jerusalem for about 400
years. But even before that kingship ends with the Babylonian exile in 586
B.C., prophets believed that God's promise to David would be fulfilled through
the gift of a Messiah. As Christians, we
believe that the promise made to David this morning is fulfilled in the person
of Jesus.
When we catch up with Jesus today, we find him out
among the people. The Messiah, the
anointed one of God, is not found in a house, but out in the villages, cities
and farms, teaching and healing all those who came to him. This is the same Messiah who, in Matthew and
Luke's gospels, says "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of
Man has no place to lay his head."
And in the same gospels, when told that his mother and brothers have
arrived to see him, Jesus says "My mother and brother are those who hear
the word of God and do it."
Whatever Jesus' idea of home might be, it does not seem to involve his
family or a house. As the one we believe
to be the promised house of David, built by God, Jesus does not stay put any more
than God does. Jesus is clearly the Son
of the God who is on the move!
So what might "home" mean for us as
Christians? The writer of Ephesians says
"So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens
with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief
cornerstone. In him the whole structure
is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also
are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God."
Much in the same way that gospel logic proclaims that
the last are first and the first are last, the rich are poor and the poor are
rich, and the insiders are outsiders and the outsiders are insiders, I wonder
if gospel logic tells us that for followers of Jesus, home is not about where
we live, but where God lives. As
Christians, we believe that Jesus is Emmanuel-God with us. Christians are no longer aliens or strangers,
or in other words we are no longer not-at-home, because together we are a
dwelling place for God. What makes home is God dwelling in us-God with us. We come to this place, this wonderful,
beautiful building, to be fed and nurtured, but not to live. The number one vote getting hymn at Christ
Church is “Lift High the Cross,” which I understand was the theme and the theme
hymn of the campaign to build the beautiful church/this lovely space some 25 or
so years ago. We come to Christ Church,
our spiritual home, to be fed and sent out into the villages, cities, and
farms, or their equivalent in our own lives.
In September, we will have a unique opportunity to be sent out and experience
God’s home in the world. On September 9,
we are invited to participate in First Serve with First Congregational Church
as well as people of other denominations and faiths, along with the residents
of two economically challenged neighborhoods in Akron, to help repair homes and
revitalize neighborhoods. We will not be
outsiders coming in to fix something for someone else, but we will be fellow
travelers coming in to connect with people we have not met yet, our brothers
and sisters as God’s children, and to help.
My experience is that as we help people with their homes and
neighborhoods, we will experience a sense of home and neighborhood with
them. Our home is where God is, and
Scripture tells us that God is out among the people. Home happens for us where ever we are because
we are all members of the household of God and members of Jesus family. Home happens when we hear the word of God and do it. Home happens when we go where God goes,
and God is on the move.
Amen.
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