“Home Away
from Home: The First, the Last, and the Always”
“Come home, come home; you who are weary,
come home; earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling, calling, O sinner, come
home!” Earnest and tender voices attuned to the homeless -- the uprooted,
displaced, and evacuated -- have more calling to do in today’s world than
ever before. Millions already are refugees from war, from famine, from
poverty. Increasing millions are likely to flee “natural disasters” of the
foreseeable future. The experience of longing for home, the hope of
“homecoming,” grow more acutely common to us all. One meaning for calling
us “sinners” is to say there is no escaping the common fate of us all. We
are all in this life, in this work, in this world – together! Faith
communities, congregations, face the promising, perhaps the providing, of
homes less “by and by in the sky when we die,” and more here at hand on the
land where we stand.
This Homecoming Sunday we remember the
tradition of a “promised land.” Calling to Moses from a flaming bush in the
desert our ancient God, in response to the cries and the sufferings of our
ancestors, slaves in Egypt, promises “to bring them up out of that land to a
good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” We faith
communities of this always-DEserted and this often- deSERTed God, this God
of wide-wilderness wandering, find that we are never fully at home wherever
we are. Whatever the time, whomever our companions, we are a people of
promise and providence, yes – but also a people of practice, forever trying
to get life right in this world – a people of process, discovering new ways
of response by a living people of a living scripture/tradition to a living
God.
“Homecoming” welcomes us back to the desert
journey that is both our “home away” and our way home. The journey takes us
from origins in the goodness of our creation as one among many species but
charged with the soft, tender care of this earth – through all biblical
stories, the history of God in our midst as our ancestors knew it – the
prophets and psalmists, the preachers and pastors – the person of Jesus
whose Spirit gave birth to the earliest church – rebels against attempts to
control that Spirit and reformers of institutions diminishing persons and
peoples – the PROtestant, the ProTESTant, Reformation and its echoes in the
street-singing, soul-saving, social-serving, system-softening seeds of
Wesleyan Methodism! – to our own time of a “progressive” Christianity – made
up of promise and providence, yes, but also of practice and process – for
God is not done with any person or people yet! The journey remains our only
home.
We are invited in worship and fellowship
here today to explore and expand all that it means to us for us to find a
“faith base,” a “home church,” even away from home. Many ways the Spirit is
moving the life and the work of this congregation are displayed for us in
the Fellowship Hall after worship. Please stay for refreshment and
conversation. And if you do not find what calls you -- what speaks to your
gifts, your spiritual/missional needs and desires at this point in your life
of faith – please call it to our attention! That is also the hope of the
“house meetings” following from today. With so many changes – the
congregation of all ages, shapes, sizes, and styles we are always yet
becoming -- the community of new spaces for living, for working, for
playing, for just surviving all around us – the earth we believe is created
anew everyday, in the world we believe is redeemed anew everyday, in the
life and the work of the people we believe are being saved and set free,
healed and made whole everyday . . . . We never even “get” all of it, much
less get all of it right! We are forever a work in progress! So help us,
please, to be and do more and better! Sign up, if you please, for
“membership exploration,” Sundays next month.
The scriptures this morning assure us, no
matter how “homeless,” in literal and figurative terms, we may find
ourselves this morning, the one we call “God,” the mysterious majesty of
life and love -- in Jesus, in Holy Spirit, even in the church – is offering
right here and now to be fully and freely “at home” in us! We may be lost
in the wilderness – frightened for how we will find our next food and drink,
much less living safety and lasting security – still the presence and power
of God are there – with us, for us, in us, among us. What are the “Egypts,”
the bondages, the addictions or alienations we long to live out of this
morning! What are the “fleshpots,” the comforts and the complacencies
weighting us down and holding us back as we long to find presence and power
in new ways for new lives this morning? What are our heartfelt questions,
complaints, even outrages? That is what gets God’s attention to captive
Israel in the first place! God is about hearing cries and seeing
sufferings! We do not have to “get right” to come to church! But coming to
church, we might just “get right” – however long it takes. There is such a
difference between being “safe” and being “saved” – trusting and risking
ourselves to and with God’s life and God’s love for us – one day at a time!
We may even be imprisoned like Paul this
morning! One of this congregation’s ministries, literally, is Kairos, the
outreach with faith, hope and love to those in our prisons – another is
Ridge House, supportive and strategic places to live in transition back into
the world. Not to mention what used to be called “Interfaith Hospitality
Network,” now “Family Promise,” a revolving home among congregations for
parents with children getting back on their feet. Paul is one of those
stubborn saints who never feel sorry for themselves, at least not for long –
but who see every adversity as opportunity – to spread the gospel as good
news of God’s love, God’s liberating and uplifting, of every person in every
condition. Paul is already and always at work, among other prisoners, even
prison guards. No one is ever beyond the justice and outreach Paul is
forever about. Of course, Paul gets weary at times, and longs to be fully
and freely “at home” in Christ once and for all. He longs to escape tests
and trials of life and of love as we embody them in this world. Don’t we
all? Don’t we get weary and want to “go home” for good? Yet so long as any
remain in need, so we remain – God, keep us.
Jesus here calls to see the vineyard as
“promised land” for our labors – where each and everyone claims their own
value and own contribution as children and as co-creators with the one who
owns every vineyard in every land. According to Jesus, God as our “owner”
cares for us equally – first, last, and always! The owner of this vineyard
goes out to see who’s standing idle, who’s going without work or a sense of
“home,” of belonging to life and love – not only one time, but five times,
throughout the day! As many times as it takes to see that everyone has the
chance to come in! And the ones who come in the last are just as entitled,
just as cared for in their need, to value themselves and contribute -- to
the good of their families and others – as the ones who come in the first.
Some of us in this congregation, by our own admission, have been here
forever! Can I get a witness? But we know we are not in the sight of God
worth any more than one who has come for the first time today – nor are we
worth any less! We are all in this life, this love, this labor – together!
Jesus here calls us to “full employment” and
“living wages” and to the “affirmative action” it takes to get us there.
Jesus calls us far beyond our preoccupations with “self-interest” and
“property rights” to our vocations of “common good” and “human rights” –
which really are “godly rights” of the one Creator of each life and all.
This owner, for all of his outreach, is not especially generous. But he
refuses to play the game by our rules! This owner respects each day --
daily living, daily loving, daily laboring. Where do “day laborers” gather
in Reno and Sparks? There is plenty of work to be found here, I know – even
at minimum wages, often without benefits or job security. But in most
places many more applicants show up for work than there are jobs available.
That is what sets this owner apart. Life’s “bottom line” is that we all
live day-to-day – however fixed and permanent we’d like to believe we are!
None of us knows what the day brings.
All of us need a place to belong, a place to
call home, a place to be valued and to contribute. All of us need an owner
who knows what we need! Who acts on what we need – even when that takes
breaking every convention and every tradition. The owner is a Jubilee owner
– the promise and the provision of a fresh and fair chance for each person
everywhere – at whatever time of the day! Jesus is forever telling such
“homecoming,” groundbreaking stories as this – gathering in the lost and the
lame, from the highways and byways of life! Leaving the many to look for
the one lost coin or lost sheep! Waiting and watching each day for the
prodigal son to come back home! Stopping to save at whatever expense an
“enemy” person beaten and robbed by the side of the road! Seeing the last
as the first, the weak as the strong, the outsiders as the insiders.
Jesus knows our every last need. Whereas
the world says the owner has no obligation to give a full day’s pay to any
but those whom he contracts at the first, -- and the owner may even make
those who come at the last come back to work a full day before they are paid
– this owner, according to Jesus – the owner of Jesus’ own life and work, of
the Spirit and of the church, if we are to follow Jesus in his life and work
– our owner will do what our owner will do – to meet the needs of each
person, each family, each day! THIS, says Jesus, is how much God loves us –
that each and every last one of us is promised and is provided as God’s free
gift with so much more than we ever could earn or deserve! “Come home, come
home; you who are weary, come home; earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
calling, O sinner, come home!” Amen.
Rev. John J. Auer
