Coming Home
1 Peter 2:1-10
February 1, 1998
Some years ago, I heard of a priest who, after several years in a congregation, was overwhelmed one Sunday morning by the strangeness of this thing called worship. Instead of beginning to say after the opening hymn, “Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” he looked out at the congregation and said, “Who are you? You people who gather here? Why have you come to this place? What needs, what hopes have you brought here? Tell me who you are, and why have you come?”
Those aren’t bad questions to ask ourselves now and then. Especially when we come to welcome some people into our fellowship.
Apparently, after that rather odd moment – at the beginning of the service – the priest managed to get a grip upon himself, and continued in the usual way. At the end of the service, strangely, no one even mentioned its peculiar beginning.
The next week, though, he received in the mail a handwritten letter with no signature. It was an answer to his question. It went like this. “We are a bunch of people, far from home, who have come to hear the story, break the bread, share the wine. We do these strange things to remind us of what it means to come home.”
That seems to me to be a fairly good description of what lies behind our coming together on Sunday. All of us have our reasons, our hopes, our expectations, and our needs. But beneath these reasons lies the deeper cry. We’re a long way from home. We’re on a journey. And when we hear the story, break the bread, share the wine, we are reminded of coming home.
Look closely at what the letter was saying – it started off by stating that we are a bunch of people. St. Peter, in his Epistle, says that once we were no-people. The Hebrew and the Greek make that a hyphenated phrase. You were No-people and now you are God’s people. We are reminded time and time again, when we gather here, that we are now a community, a bunch, who are God’s people.
In this tradition of ours, this means that we as a bunch are more open, more inclusive, than any community we can imagine. We welcome the stranger. We welcome freedom of thought. We welcome all sorts and conditions. Yes, we are a community, but Episcopalians have trouble making clear boundaries. We’re not always sure who is in and who is out. And it’s that kind of openness that drives some people crazy. They feel that to be God’s people, we ought to have strict membership standards, more rules, and more common beliefs. But instead, we’re a bunch of people who feel that openness, forgiveness, hospitality, and a sense of inclusiveness are more important than anything else for our life together as God’s people.
Thinking about the note again. You might recall, it said, “We’re far from home.” But what kind of a home are we talking about? I think Robert Frost gave one of the best descriptions of his home in his poem, “The Death of a Hired Man.” Frost tells of a farm couple faced with an unexpected problem. An old hired man, whom the husband has discharged, returns in physical and mental distress. He has become “homeless.” Pleading his cause, the wife says, “Warren has come home to die.” The husband says somewhat sarcastically, “You mean, home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in?” The wife goes even further and says, “I should have called it something you somehow haven’t deserved.” That simple, forgiving statement sums up for me the meaning of Home. Our Heavenly home is the place, which is not a reward, not a prize for being good. It is simply there, out of the prodigal nature of God. “Once you have not received mercy,” Peter says, “Now you are God’s people, and home is where you receive mercy.” Where you are made welcome.
We share the story, break the bread, and drink the want to remind us of home. And home is that place where our savior takes us and is preparing a place for us. That’s the story we share the story that says no matter where you are or what you’ve done God will bring you home. There’s a story from the Jewish tradition, that says it better than I could ever imagine. It’s a story of a young man who belongs to a very strict sect of Jews the hasidim he married outside his sect. In fact he married a Bureau who belongs to those Jews who had made a compromises with the culture. After he began to feel remorseful at betraying his tradition so remarkable that he began to drink and became an alcoholic. He abandoned his wife and let his children starve. The father-in-law, with deep anger, had the man thrown into prison period after he got out the rabbi consulted the law. The rabbi said that the law insisted that he who had abandoned his wife and children should be cast from the community. So the young man was cast out and shunned. In the end he died in the gutter
the scene now shifts to the last judgment with the young man lying before the Messiah on the throne. In front of the Messiah stands the father-in-law and the rabbi, holding the book of law. The question is what is to happen to this young man? The rabbi says he’s an outcast according to the law. The Messiah gets up from his throne gathers the young man in his arms and says the father-in-law is right the rabbi is right the law is right. But I have come for those who are not right and he took the man into paradise
who are you why are you here?
We are God’s people far from home we have come to hear the story of God’s mercy, break the bread, share the wine period to remind us of our homecoming
Amen