And I'm confident I won't be stealing the thunder from the York High School production, but you also know the Sondheim lyrics...
There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere.
There's a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time spare,
Time to learn, time to care,
Some day!
Somewhere.
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere . . .
There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're halfway there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow,
Some day,
Somewhere! (West Side Story)
These words from the Gospel of John suggest that God knows we need a home. So on this occasion that is filled with emotion, when the disciples are gathered around the table with Jesus and he is leaving them. And as he does he is trying to give them an important message that looks forward with some hope. He says, "...I go to prepare a place for you."
We need a place. Everyone needs a place. And it's more than just George Carlin's place to keep your "stuff." It is a home, a sanctuary, a place of safety, security, the harbor where you recuperate and replenish. It is the place where you can be genuinely yourself.
And these words would have resonated loudly in the spirits of the disciples since so much of Hebrew faith is concerned about place...the Land, the promise, the hope of a home for a wandering people. It is perhaps the oldest confession in the Bible. The Hebrew people are to tell their story beginning with, "A wandering Aramean was my Father..." So begins the tale of Abraham who became the Father of a nation and the land. This promise would have rung all kinds of bells with the disciples as they thought about exile and displacement in their history around the Passover table. It's not far off from a Cockney flower girl imagining a room somewhere...
Home. It's powerful stuff.
And I knew that we would be considering what "home" meant during the course of this week as we worked on people's houses. You'll get a full and complete report one of these Sundays. For our group it was the home of a single mother and her two daughters - 5th grade and 7th grade, who came home from school every day about 3:30 on the bus....two lovely girls who were a bit bashful and shy but happy to share a candy bar, and to pitch in with the work a bit too. It was their home. And then we paid a visit to the sites where we worked last year, to say "hello" and check in. And these homes, too, were powerful reminders that simple, old shelters in Kentucky hills or Barrington mansions, both can mean "home." But in a deeper sense, it's not the roof over the head that is the "home" - it's the connections and roots and sense of belonging to the place that makes it home.
Of course homes don't always provide that. Sometimes houses are not homes but instead are themselves places of disruption and unrest and abuse. In fact, one teacher I knew claimed that as an image and metaphor it was inappropriate to think of the church as a family. (From United Seminary, name lost) He claimed families were too broken and the church needs its own image to truly inspire. And he's right, of course about the brokenness. Many bear deep wounds from the experiences of home that were never a home, where they really weren't nurtured and supported. And what a struggle that is to come to trust a sense of home without the genuine experience of it in your heart. How much healing that takes, and patience.
And then, in the middle of our trip we went to the local Church of God on Wednesday night. And the theology was clear. It was a lot about fences and boundaries and who is in and who is out and not lacking for judgment of those on the outside. Sometimes people think you build up a home by securing its borders and making sure everyone inside thinks exactly alike. I think we do much better when we concentrate on the center and let the borders be, but that was not the message. But then, right in the middle of it, there was this twangy, country but beautiful song, and I tried to find it since I've been back, but I haven't been able to. The chorus kept repeating, "Welcome home...welcome home."
Frederick Buechner writes about a surprising reaction to a typical tourist stop. He and his wife and daughter went to Sea World near Orlando. Amid crowds and loud music and Mickey Mouse T-shirts they went to sit around the huge tank of crystal clear water. He says, "...At a given signal they released into the tank five or six killer whales, as we call them (it would be interesting to know what they call us), and no creature under heaven could have looked less killerlike as they went racing around and around in circles. What with the dazzle of the sky and the sun...it was as if the whole creation - men and women and beasts and sun and water and earth and sky and, for all I know, God himself - was caught up in one great, jubilant dance of unimaginable beauty. And...I was astonished to find that my eyes were filled with tears."
He continues, "...I believe there is no mystery about why we shed tears. We shed tears because we had caught a glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom, and it had almost broken our hearts..." (The Longing for Home, p. 126-70)
There is something beautiful about belonging...belonging to each other, maybe even more, belonging to God, being at peace with ourselves...that we belong. Jesus promises a place, that there is a place for us.
But perhaps the greatest challenge and the greatest fulfillment of this promise is being at home with ourselves...to carry that deep sense of peace within us so that we have a sense of home wherever we are. That it wholeness, that is true peace, that is our spiritual calling. And I believe that was real promise of Jesus to the disciples and to us...
John 14:1-4
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going."