Home
Commentary
Object:
Last year Phil Phillips won the American Idol competition based in part on his powerful rendition of a song called "Home." It marked the journeys we too often take in life, where the end is not clear and we get bogged down along the way. It friended us with the assurance that someone we could trust would bring us home:
Hold on to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home
Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home
Home is the place that beckons us with stability and protection and familiarity and hospitality. It is the place Lydia brought Paul and Silas as they roamed the strange streets of ancient Philippi. It is the mystical world to which Jesus calls us from the ravages of our travels here. And while we linger in this earthly maze, Jesus breathes on us his divine Spirit, providing a foretaste of the hope awaiting all who love him.
Acts 16:9-15
Soon after the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas were eager to visit the Galatian congregations and inform them personally of the good outcomes in this early Christian theological debate that affected them so deeply (Acts 15:36). But tensions soared between the pair of evangelists as they argued whether John Mark should be invited along (Acts 15:37); after all, he had suddenly "deserted" them on their first mission journey. In the end, Barnabas felt a family obligation to give it a try with Mark again, while Paul chose a new partner named Silas to join him in these travels (Acts 15:39-41).
It was probably late in 49 AD when Paul and Silas left Syrian Antioch. They traveled overland to the communities in central Asia Minor where Paul and Barnabas had established Christian congregations about eighteen months earlier. At Lystra they were joined by Timothy (Acts 16:1-2), a promising young man whose mother was Christian but whose father was not. Together, as a growing company of itinerant preachers, they had in mind to go further north in Asia Minor (Acts 16:6-8), to new areas where Jewish settlements in Hellenic cities might give them an open door for talking about Jesus.
While pondering their options at Troas, Paul may have had some medical problems, for the text of Acts 16 shows a shift at that point from third-person references to second-person recollections. Obviously doctor Luke joined them in there. It was also in Troas that a divine directive came to Paul in a vision, and the company headed across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia. At Philippi they found a small group of Jews worshiping at the river's edge on a Sabbath (Acts 16:13), and when Paul spoke about Jesus, a new Christian congregation was formed in the home of Lydia (Acts 16:14-15).
Paul and Silas stayed there for some time, but eventually encountered trouble when a young fortune-teller began to follow them, shouting out to the crowds about them (Acts 16:16-17), perhaps in a mean-spirited or nasty manner. Paul became grieved by her evident demon possession and exorcized her (Acts 16:18). Her masters were very upset, and threw Paul and Silas into prison (Acts 16:19-24). A midnight earthquake rocked the place and led to the jailer's conversion (Acts 16:25-34). In the morning, the Roman citizenship of Paul and Silas was discovered and the magistrates were beside themselves in efforts to undo the unlawful treatment these two had received (Acts 16:35-40).
One can imagine the uncertainty of Paul's life at this time. To travel constantly into new territory, without friends or contacts or even today's system of reliable hotels to shelter them at the end of each day, had to be a bit daunting at best. Philippi proved particularly testy, for it was a fairly new city and there were not even ten Jewish males there (the number requisite to establish a synagogue). The few Jews in the city met on Saturday mornings beside the river, where running water was available for ceremonial cleansing.
While Paul and Silas expected companionship when they went to the makeshift Jewish worship spot, they received much more. Lydia brought them home. She provided the kind of welcome and care that Paul would later write about to the Roman congregation: "Practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13). It is a lesson we all need to learn.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
We often breeze through our days and experiences believing that we can make it on our own, no matter what. At the same time we wrestle with resources and responsibilities, knowing that there are some moral values and cosmic principles that affirm certain directions and activities in life while denying and negating or punishing others. Caught somewhere in between is our mixed hope and dread that a higher power out there will fill in the gaps and accommodate our weaknesses and make things right when we mess up.
From a historian's viewpoint it is obvious that the human race is incurably religious and cannot seem to free itself from god-talk or language of mystery and transcendence. At the same time, no religion has been able to argue clearly from within the system of human experience that a particular deity is inescapably present or any peculiar worldview is undeniably true or coherent or all-encompassing. Thus for several religious systems, divine revelation is a necessary corollary.
But there as well, unanimity is absent. Is revelation a form of clarity and insight that rightly discovers the true nature of things? Or is revelation the accumulating experiences of those who have sought meaning? Or is revelation an injection of supernatural knowledge from outside the system? Or is revelation an intrusion of divine activity into the human arena which must then be interpreted and applied?
The religion of the Bible is predicated on the assumption that all of experiential reality had a beginning and was brought into being by a creator, and that this deity desires an ongoing relationship with the worlds that exist. More particularly, this God nurtures a special longing to engage the human race as the unique and crowning species within the grand complexity of molecules and moons, fish and fowl, galaxies and granite, emotions and electrons.
But in its understanding of this ongoing arm-wrestling of Creator and creature, biblical religion is deeply rooted in human history. This expression of values and ideas is not merely a moral construct that makes life easier. Nor is it a set of centering exercises that will keep the imminent more fully tuned to the transcendent. Instead, the story put forward in biblical literature is that the creatures of earth have lost their ability to apprehend or understand their Creator, and that the deity must necessarily take not only the first, but also many recurring steps in an effort to reconnect with them. So revelation is a concept involving both action and content. The deity must somehow interrupt the normal course of affairs in human existence in a way that will catch our attention. And when we have stopped to notice or ponder or even step back in fright, there must be some information that becomes accessible to us in a way that allows and encourages us to rethink the meaning of all things.
Ian Maclaren gives an analogy of these things as he tells the story of a young woman in his book Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. She's raised in a Christian home but leaves it behind in search of a better life, a freer self. She finds the kind of life she thinks is free, and she gets for herself all that she's ever desired.
But it's never enough, and what she possesses begins to possess her. Finally she doesn't even know what it means to be free.
One day she decides to go home. When she gets near the cottage of her birth, she wants to turn around. Her footsteps falter. She begins to turn her body. But then the dogs in the yard catch scent of her. They haven't forgotten her, even though it's been so long.
Then the light comes on at the door. The door opens. All she can see is her father, bathed in the light. He calls out her name, even though he can't see her face. He calls out her name, even though he doesn't have a reason to expect her. He calls out her name, and suddenly her feet come running to him.
Then he takes her into his arms. He sobs out blessings on her head. Later, when she tells her neighbor of that night, she says, "It's a pity, Margaret, that you don't know Gaelic. That's the best of all languages for loving. There are fifty words for 'darling,' and my father called me every one of them that night I came home."
That's the picture of Revelation, as our Creator makes it possible for us to return home.
John 14:23-29
Homes come in all shapes and sizes. There's the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, that boasts 250 rooms and lays claim to being the largest private home in the world. Or if you live on the 110th story of the Willis Tower in Chicago, you can truly boast about living in the clouds.
Of course, if you are into the weird and wacky, there is the home of Mrs. Winchester in southern California. After her husband and her only child died early last century, Mrs. Winchester believed spirits were telling her that she should buy a particular seventeen-room house then under construction, and that she would continue to live so long as she kept building it. She did manage to survive another 38 years, dwelling in solitude as the construction continued on around her. But even the builders couldn't keep death from going in to visit her one night. Her house is now one of the strangest curiosities in the world.
But perhaps the most unusual story of house-building happened in Detroit. Henry Ford erected a marvelous home called "Fairlane" on the upper slopes of the River Rouge. It's a masterpiece of craftsmanship and artistic design. Ford had learned early in life that he could never really count on anyone else, so he spent an extra $200,000, already back in 1917, to put in his own electric power plant for the whole estate.
In all his years at Fairlane, the power plant served faithfully, lighting and heating his impressive home. Except for one time in early April of 1947, when torrential rains lashed the Detroit area. The River Rouge rose from its banks and on the night of April 7, the floods entered the Fairlane boiler room, smothering the fires and causing the steam pressure to drop. That night the lights went out at Fairlane. And that's the night that Henry Ford died in his bed at the age of 87.
That story is something like a parable. Here was a man who put North America on wheels, who invented one gadget after another to make life less tedious and more enjoyable, and who helped to usher in our modern technological society. Here was a staunchly independent man, one who took care of himself and didn't owe anybody anything. Here was a man who even managed to separate his wiring grid from that of the public utilities, and the very night he dies, forces beyond his control snatch away his source of power!
It reminds us of Jesus' parable about a rich man who built bigger barns. Wealth, said Jesus, was not the issue. Self-sufficiency was. We can each build our own houses, rich or poor, luxurious or humble, extravagant or miserly; but only love can turn a house into a home.
And love is the business of the greatest builder of all time. This is the point of what Jesus tells us about our lives. If we love the one who is love itself, we become the home of eternity. God moves in and we are never alone. We belong. We are loved. We are home.
Application
Robert Wuthnow remembers his first day of teaching at Princeton University. He walked into a seminar room without a class list and passed a sheet of paper around the room, asking students to write their names. When the page was returned Wuthnow found he had received more than he had requested. Next to each person's name was an apostrophe and a two-digit number: John Alexander '76; Frederick Thompson '77; Charles Francis Lovell '76; Philip Norton III '76...
It didn't take Professor Wuthnow long to figure it out: the numbers corresponded with the year that each student expected to graduate from Princeton. "Interesting," he thought. "Once a person enrolls at Princeton he or she gains a new identity. There is a vast network of Princeton people all over the world, and they know each other by their labels -- a name and a date."
For more than two centuries it has been like that: once you are a part of the brotherhood of Princeton, you belong. You have an identity. In fact, at the start of each school year, Princeton people gather from the far reaches of travel for the annual "P-rade." Banners are lifted for each year of the past, the present, and the future, and Princeton people march proudly in their regiments, forming links in a chain forged year by year at this, their alma mater.
The term alma mater originated in the ancient Greek legends of Ceres and Cybele. These women, according to the storytellers, gathered homeless and sick children and mothered them back to life, loved them back to health, and gave them a place in society with a name and an identity. "Alma maters," the Greeks called these two, Ceres and Cybele: "Fostering mothers."
It is with that in mind that Princeton people march each year under the banner of their alma mater. Princeton has mothered them into a common life.
Wuthnow reflected on this fascinating expression of our human need. It reminds us, he said, how important it is for each of us to gain an identity. We need to know whom we are, not just within ourselves, but also in the context of a social system that matters. In fact, when Wuthnow conducted extensive surveys, he found that roughly 90% of all people give their highest priority and most energy in life to the task of "finding themselves" and then projecting a unique personal identity.
Our obsession with personal identity is betrayed by the manner in which we introduce ourselves. We want people to know our names. We tell them what work we do or what successes we have accomplished. We trace our family roots and community backgrounds. All of this becomes a statement of who we are.
Wuthnow also said that, unfortunately, most of us never do become fully aware of who we are. Inside we carry about with us great insecurities. We secretly believe that we project more than we can deliver and that much of our public persona is deceitful.
For that reason we keep searching for alma maters, "fostering mothers" who will take us in, and dress our egos, and give us names of significance. We run, said Wuthnow, from this possession to that career, from this title to that university degree, from this accomplishment to that social club, hoping that somewhere among them we can find the mother who will tell us who we truly are.
Of course, the only true home for those who are made in the image of God is the place where God dwells. Sometimes, like Paul and Silas found in ancient Philippi, it is in the house of a good friend's hospitality. For all of us, at the end of the journey, we trust that it will be the home of the new heaven and re-created earth where God dwells with us. And now, on the road as pilgrim, we turn inward to find God living within. Home.
An Alternative Application
John 14:23-29. Frederick Buechner once dreamed he was staying in a large hotel with many floors and hundreds of rooms. The room he had been given was absolutely wonderful. For some reason it made him feel warm and comfortable and happy. He says he cannot remember what the room looked like, but he still gets a shiver of delight whenever he thinks about being there.
In his dream, after staying in that room for a while, he left the hotel on a variety of journeys and adventures. Later, though, his dream brought him back again to that same hotel. Only this time, when they gave him the key to his room, it was a different room than he'd been in before. He says that he could actually feel the difference as his dream took him into the new room: it felt cold and clammy, cramped and dark. This room made him shudder with fear.
So, in his dream, he went down to the front desk again. He told the clerk about the change in rooms and asked if he could have his old room back again. He said that he didn't know the number of the room, but he described it: bright, cheery, homey.
The desk clerk smiled. He knew exactly which room that was. In fact, he said, Buechner could have that room anytime he wanted. All he had to do is ask for it by name.
"Well, then, what's the name of the room?" Buechner asked.
"Simple!" said the clerk. "The name of the room is Remember." A room called Remember!
Buechner woke up then. But his dream stayed with him: a room called Remember. A room of peace. A room that made him feel loved and accepted. A room that gave him a sense of coming home. Buechner says the room called Remember is that place in our own hearts where we find our truest selves. It's those times in our lives when we connect the "now" of the present with the reality of the past and the promise of the future, and sense again the pervasive loving hold of God on our souls.
This is what Jesus tries to communicate with us in today's gospel lesson. Even as we wander through this world, our hearts can be content because God is with us, and God is within us. God is at home within us, and we are at home in the world.
Charles Dickens once wrote a little story called "The Haunted Man." It is the tale of a chemist who is troubled by his memories. He wants to get rid of them, to be free of them. He wants a fresh start in life without the ghosts of the past whispering in his soul.
Miraculously he discovers the secret to forgetting. He's suddenly able to wipe out the past and to lock the door on the room called Remember.
What does he find? He finds that it is the worst thing that could ever happen to him. To lose your memory, to lock the door on the room called Remember, is to lose the very essence of your own self.
In the very last line of Dickens' story the man cries out: "Lord! Keep my memory green!" That's a prayer we all need to pray more often. Because once we lose our memory, we lose our very selves.
A man's real possession, says Alexander Smith, is his memory.
How rich are you today? Why don't you go back to the room called Remember, there in your heart, and find out? It will be the closest thing you find, this side of eternity.
Hold on to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home
Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm going to make this place your home
Home is the place that beckons us with stability and protection and familiarity and hospitality. It is the place Lydia brought Paul and Silas as they roamed the strange streets of ancient Philippi. It is the mystical world to which Jesus calls us from the ravages of our travels here. And while we linger in this earthly maze, Jesus breathes on us his divine Spirit, providing a foretaste of the hope awaiting all who love him.
Acts 16:9-15
Soon after the Jerusalem council of Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas were eager to visit the Galatian congregations and inform them personally of the good outcomes in this early Christian theological debate that affected them so deeply (Acts 15:36). But tensions soared between the pair of evangelists as they argued whether John Mark should be invited along (Acts 15:37); after all, he had suddenly "deserted" them on their first mission journey. In the end, Barnabas felt a family obligation to give it a try with Mark again, while Paul chose a new partner named Silas to join him in these travels (Acts 15:39-41).
It was probably late in 49 AD when Paul and Silas left Syrian Antioch. They traveled overland to the communities in central Asia Minor where Paul and Barnabas had established Christian congregations about eighteen months earlier. At Lystra they were joined by Timothy (Acts 16:1-2), a promising young man whose mother was Christian but whose father was not. Together, as a growing company of itinerant preachers, they had in mind to go further north in Asia Minor (Acts 16:6-8), to new areas where Jewish settlements in Hellenic cities might give them an open door for talking about Jesus.
While pondering their options at Troas, Paul may have had some medical problems, for the text of Acts 16 shows a shift at that point from third-person references to second-person recollections. Obviously doctor Luke joined them in there. It was also in Troas that a divine directive came to Paul in a vision, and the company headed across the Aegean Sea to Macedonia. At Philippi they found a small group of Jews worshiping at the river's edge on a Sabbath (Acts 16:13), and when Paul spoke about Jesus, a new Christian congregation was formed in the home of Lydia (Acts 16:14-15).
Paul and Silas stayed there for some time, but eventually encountered trouble when a young fortune-teller began to follow them, shouting out to the crowds about them (Acts 16:16-17), perhaps in a mean-spirited or nasty manner. Paul became grieved by her evident demon possession and exorcized her (Acts 16:18). Her masters were very upset, and threw Paul and Silas into prison (Acts 16:19-24). A midnight earthquake rocked the place and led to the jailer's conversion (Acts 16:25-34). In the morning, the Roman citizenship of Paul and Silas was discovered and the magistrates were beside themselves in efforts to undo the unlawful treatment these two had received (Acts 16:35-40).
One can imagine the uncertainty of Paul's life at this time. To travel constantly into new territory, without friends or contacts or even today's system of reliable hotels to shelter them at the end of each day, had to be a bit daunting at best. Philippi proved particularly testy, for it was a fairly new city and there were not even ten Jewish males there (the number requisite to establish a synagogue). The few Jews in the city met on Saturday mornings beside the river, where running water was available for ceremonial cleansing.
While Paul and Silas expected companionship when they went to the makeshift Jewish worship spot, they received much more. Lydia brought them home. She provided the kind of welcome and care that Paul would later write about to the Roman congregation: "Practice hospitality" (Romans 12:13). It is a lesson we all need to learn.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
We often breeze through our days and experiences believing that we can make it on our own, no matter what. At the same time we wrestle with resources and responsibilities, knowing that there are some moral values and cosmic principles that affirm certain directions and activities in life while denying and negating or punishing others. Caught somewhere in between is our mixed hope and dread that a higher power out there will fill in the gaps and accommodate our weaknesses and make things right when we mess up.
From a historian's viewpoint it is obvious that the human race is incurably religious and cannot seem to free itself from god-talk or language of mystery and transcendence. At the same time, no religion has been able to argue clearly from within the system of human experience that a particular deity is inescapably present or any peculiar worldview is undeniably true or coherent or all-encompassing. Thus for several religious systems, divine revelation is a necessary corollary.
But there as well, unanimity is absent. Is revelation a form of clarity and insight that rightly discovers the true nature of things? Or is revelation the accumulating experiences of those who have sought meaning? Or is revelation an injection of supernatural knowledge from outside the system? Or is revelation an intrusion of divine activity into the human arena which must then be interpreted and applied?
The religion of the Bible is predicated on the assumption that all of experiential reality had a beginning and was brought into being by a creator, and that this deity desires an ongoing relationship with the worlds that exist. More particularly, this God nurtures a special longing to engage the human race as the unique and crowning species within the grand complexity of molecules and moons, fish and fowl, galaxies and granite, emotions and electrons.
But in its understanding of this ongoing arm-wrestling of Creator and creature, biblical religion is deeply rooted in human history. This expression of values and ideas is not merely a moral construct that makes life easier. Nor is it a set of centering exercises that will keep the imminent more fully tuned to the transcendent. Instead, the story put forward in biblical literature is that the creatures of earth have lost their ability to apprehend or understand their Creator, and that the deity must necessarily take not only the first, but also many recurring steps in an effort to reconnect with them. So revelation is a concept involving both action and content. The deity must somehow interrupt the normal course of affairs in human existence in a way that will catch our attention. And when we have stopped to notice or ponder or even step back in fright, there must be some information that becomes accessible to us in a way that allows and encourages us to rethink the meaning of all things.
Ian Maclaren gives an analogy of these things as he tells the story of a young woman in his book Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush. She's raised in a Christian home but leaves it behind in search of a better life, a freer self. She finds the kind of life she thinks is free, and she gets for herself all that she's ever desired.
But it's never enough, and what she possesses begins to possess her. Finally she doesn't even know what it means to be free.
One day she decides to go home. When she gets near the cottage of her birth, she wants to turn around. Her footsteps falter. She begins to turn her body. But then the dogs in the yard catch scent of her. They haven't forgotten her, even though it's been so long.
Then the light comes on at the door. The door opens. All she can see is her father, bathed in the light. He calls out her name, even though he can't see her face. He calls out her name, even though he doesn't have a reason to expect her. He calls out her name, and suddenly her feet come running to him.
Then he takes her into his arms. He sobs out blessings on her head. Later, when she tells her neighbor of that night, she says, "It's a pity, Margaret, that you don't know Gaelic. That's the best of all languages for loving. There are fifty words for 'darling,' and my father called me every one of them that night I came home."
That's the picture of Revelation, as our Creator makes it possible for us to return home.
John 14:23-29
Homes come in all shapes and sizes. There's the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, that boasts 250 rooms and lays claim to being the largest private home in the world. Or if you live on the 110th story of the Willis Tower in Chicago, you can truly boast about living in the clouds.
Of course, if you are into the weird and wacky, there is the home of Mrs. Winchester in southern California. After her husband and her only child died early last century, Mrs. Winchester believed spirits were telling her that she should buy a particular seventeen-room house then under construction, and that she would continue to live so long as she kept building it. She did manage to survive another 38 years, dwelling in solitude as the construction continued on around her. But even the builders couldn't keep death from going in to visit her one night. Her house is now one of the strangest curiosities in the world.
But perhaps the most unusual story of house-building happened in Detroit. Henry Ford erected a marvelous home called "Fairlane" on the upper slopes of the River Rouge. It's a masterpiece of craftsmanship and artistic design. Ford had learned early in life that he could never really count on anyone else, so he spent an extra $200,000, already back in 1917, to put in his own electric power plant for the whole estate.
In all his years at Fairlane, the power plant served faithfully, lighting and heating his impressive home. Except for one time in early April of 1947, when torrential rains lashed the Detroit area. The River Rouge rose from its banks and on the night of April 7, the floods entered the Fairlane boiler room, smothering the fires and causing the steam pressure to drop. That night the lights went out at Fairlane. And that's the night that Henry Ford died in his bed at the age of 87.
That story is something like a parable. Here was a man who put North America on wheels, who invented one gadget after another to make life less tedious and more enjoyable, and who helped to usher in our modern technological society. Here was a staunchly independent man, one who took care of himself and didn't owe anybody anything. Here was a man who even managed to separate his wiring grid from that of the public utilities, and the very night he dies, forces beyond his control snatch away his source of power!
It reminds us of Jesus' parable about a rich man who built bigger barns. Wealth, said Jesus, was not the issue. Self-sufficiency was. We can each build our own houses, rich or poor, luxurious or humble, extravagant or miserly; but only love can turn a house into a home.
And love is the business of the greatest builder of all time. This is the point of what Jesus tells us about our lives. If we love the one who is love itself, we become the home of eternity. God moves in and we are never alone. We belong. We are loved. We are home.
Application
Robert Wuthnow remembers his first day of teaching at Princeton University. He walked into a seminar room without a class list and passed a sheet of paper around the room, asking students to write their names. When the page was returned Wuthnow found he had received more than he had requested. Next to each person's name was an apostrophe and a two-digit number: John Alexander '76; Frederick Thompson '77; Charles Francis Lovell '76; Philip Norton III '76...
It didn't take Professor Wuthnow long to figure it out: the numbers corresponded with the year that each student expected to graduate from Princeton. "Interesting," he thought. "Once a person enrolls at Princeton he or she gains a new identity. There is a vast network of Princeton people all over the world, and they know each other by their labels -- a name and a date."
For more than two centuries it has been like that: once you are a part of the brotherhood of Princeton, you belong. You have an identity. In fact, at the start of each school year, Princeton people gather from the far reaches of travel for the annual "P-rade." Banners are lifted for each year of the past, the present, and the future, and Princeton people march proudly in their regiments, forming links in a chain forged year by year at this, their alma mater.
The term alma mater originated in the ancient Greek legends of Ceres and Cybele. These women, according to the storytellers, gathered homeless and sick children and mothered them back to life, loved them back to health, and gave them a place in society with a name and an identity. "Alma maters," the Greeks called these two, Ceres and Cybele: "Fostering mothers."
It is with that in mind that Princeton people march each year under the banner of their alma mater. Princeton has mothered them into a common life.
Wuthnow reflected on this fascinating expression of our human need. It reminds us, he said, how important it is for each of us to gain an identity. We need to know whom we are, not just within ourselves, but also in the context of a social system that matters. In fact, when Wuthnow conducted extensive surveys, he found that roughly 90% of all people give their highest priority and most energy in life to the task of "finding themselves" and then projecting a unique personal identity.
Our obsession with personal identity is betrayed by the manner in which we introduce ourselves. We want people to know our names. We tell them what work we do or what successes we have accomplished. We trace our family roots and community backgrounds. All of this becomes a statement of who we are.
Wuthnow also said that, unfortunately, most of us never do become fully aware of who we are. Inside we carry about with us great insecurities. We secretly believe that we project more than we can deliver and that much of our public persona is deceitful.
For that reason we keep searching for alma maters, "fostering mothers" who will take us in, and dress our egos, and give us names of significance. We run, said Wuthnow, from this possession to that career, from this title to that university degree, from this accomplishment to that social club, hoping that somewhere among them we can find the mother who will tell us who we truly are.
Of course, the only true home for those who are made in the image of God is the place where God dwells. Sometimes, like Paul and Silas found in ancient Philippi, it is in the house of a good friend's hospitality. For all of us, at the end of the journey, we trust that it will be the home of the new heaven and re-created earth where God dwells with us. And now, on the road as pilgrim, we turn inward to find God living within. Home.
An Alternative Application
John 14:23-29. Frederick Buechner once dreamed he was staying in a large hotel with many floors and hundreds of rooms. The room he had been given was absolutely wonderful. For some reason it made him feel warm and comfortable and happy. He says he cannot remember what the room looked like, but he still gets a shiver of delight whenever he thinks about being there.
In his dream, after staying in that room for a while, he left the hotel on a variety of journeys and adventures. Later, though, his dream brought him back again to that same hotel. Only this time, when they gave him the key to his room, it was a different room than he'd been in before. He says that he could actually feel the difference as his dream took him into the new room: it felt cold and clammy, cramped and dark. This room made him shudder with fear.
So, in his dream, he went down to the front desk again. He told the clerk about the change in rooms and asked if he could have his old room back again. He said that he didn't know the number of the room, but he described it: bright, cheery, homey.
The desk clerk smiled. He knew exactly which room that was. In fact, he said, Buechner could have that room anytime he wanted. All he had to do is ask for it by name.
"Well, then, what's the name of the room?" Buechner asked.
"Simple!" said the clerk. "The name of the room is Remember." A room called Remember!
Buechner woke up then. But his dream stayed with him: a room called Remember. A room of peace. A room that made him feel loved and accepted. A room that gave him a sense of coming home. Buechner says the room called Remember is that place in our own hearts where we find our truest selves. It's those times in our lives when we connect the "now" of the present with the reality of the past and the promise of the future, and sense again the pervasive loving hold of God on our souls.
This is what Jesus tries to communicate with us in today's gospel lesson. Even as we wander through this world, our hearts can be content because God is with us, and God is within us. God is at home within us, and we are at home in the world.
Charles Dickens once wrote a little story called "The Haunted Man." It is the tale of a chemist who is troubled by his memories. He wants to get rid of them, to be free of them. He wants a fresh start in life without the ghosts of the past whispering in his soul.
Miraculously he discovers the secret to forgetting. He's suddenly able to wipe out the past and to lock the door on the room called Remember.
What does he find? He finds that it is the worst thing that could ever happen to him. To lose your memory, to lock the door on the room called Remember, is to lose the very essence of your own self.
In the very last line of Dickens' story the man cries out: "Lord! Keep my memory green!" That's a prayer we all need to pray more often. Because once we lose our memory, we lose our very selves.
A man's real possession, says Alexander Smith, is his memory.
How rich are you today? Why don't you go back to the room called Remember, there in your heart, and find out? It will be the closest thing you find, this side of eternity.
