Going Home

Mark 6:1-5

 

Thomas Wolfe, author of Look Homeward Angel, not to be confused with Tom Wolfe, who wrote the The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Right Stuff, was engaged in a remorseful conversation with fellow writer Ella Winter concerning how the folks in Asheville North Carolina seemed to have taken his masterpiece a bit too personal.

Wolfe remarked, “They seem to believe I exposed all their inner most secrets.”

Winter replied, “Thomas, haven’t you learned; you can never go home.”

Four years ago I traveled back to Hampton Virginia to perform Deb’s mother’s funeral. Deb and I grew up in Hampton and attended the same church. Now I was returning, 60 years old, a grandfather, with over 30 years experience in the church. When the service was over folks I hardly recognized came up and said, “Andy, it was so strange seeing you in the pulpit. It seemed just yesterday you and John Reed were into some kind of mischief.” Going home is not always as easy as it might appear.

In our text this morning Jesus goes home. All throughout Judah, Jesus was known as a teacher, preacher and miracle worker. But in his hometown he was still the son of the old carpenter. Jesus stood up in the synagogue to teach and the folks could only visualize a little boy handing his dad a piece of wood. One of them even asked, “When did he get to be so smart? Is this some kind of trick? I remember your daddy. I am not so sure Joseph would be comfortable with the things you are preaching.”

It’s hard to go home, particularly if you are not the person folks think you are suppose to be. It was particularly hard on Jesus. He wanted to make his mother proud. Instead, Jesus was so disappointed by his neighbor’s unbelief he told the disciples it was time to move on. Nothing good was about to happen in Nazareth.

This is a difficult passage. Jesus grieves that the faithlessness of his neighbors was keeping them from witnessing the power of God. Is God limited by our unbelief? That is an excellent question for which I have no good answer. My heart says nothing can limit God, while my head leaves the question open for further debate. But today I am more interested in how Jesus responded to this difficult and disappointing return home.

In the days that followed, Jesus sent the disciples out two by two to begin to talk about God. He ordered them to take nothing with them except the gospel of God’s grace.

I am fascinated by this. How can one venture into the world without a story? Doesn’t our past both define who we are and who we are capable of becoming? Jesus sends them out practically empty handed. Think of the risk? Where was their résumé? What kind of credentials did they offer? They could not even hand out business cards? They had nothing and yet they had everything.

Most of us were not born in Nelson County. There are a few exceptions but most of us grew up someplace else, have family someplace else, went to school someplace else, and worked someplace else. I remember when the Search Committee and I began our conversations. I had a great résumé filled with three graduate degrees, plenty of experience at a variety of churches, wonderful references and even an ace up my sleeve……Mary Jane Winters and I were friends. But the committee was not interested in any of that. They didn’t want to know where I had been, they only wanted to know where I was going.

When I began to question committee members about their history, I discovered an interesting fact. While the committee was very comfortable with each other, they knew very little about the past roads each had traveled to arrive in Nellysford. The committee had folks from all over the United States. They were educators, social workers, chemists, and doctors. Combined, they had more advanced degrees than James Brown had hit records. But they only knew each other as members of this church. They had all come from someplace they once called home but now their new home was this community of faith. Their main selling point was inviting me to join them in this piece of heaven known as Rockfish Presbyterian.

Jesus did what most of you have done. He walked away from his past and into God’s future. My whole life I have heard folks talking about the good old days. Amazingly, I hear very little of that kind of talk around here. People don’t care where you have been. They want to know where you are going. Jesus said to the disciples, “Don’t forget your past, but realize you have grown beyond it. When you go into the neighboring villages, don’t talk about who you were, talk about who you are becoming. Then invite them to join you in the journey.” That is evangelism in its purest sense.

The evangelistic formula used by Jesus is the same formula your search committee used on me. People aren’t all that interested in where you have been; they want to know where you are going. Once you get someone’s attention, they want to know if they can tag along. It is quite simple. Evangelism is more about coming home than going home.

What attracted you to this church? Was it the brilliant sermons? Was it the extraordinary music? Was it the friendliness? Was it our vast opportunities for ministry? Was it our openness to new ideas while holding on to that which has always been sacred? I am sure each of those played some small part in your being here. But I bet there is a bigger reason you came and stayed.

Somewhere along the way someone, a minister, a session, a congregation or a combination of all three woke up and came to the brilliant conclusion you can build a building, you can occupy a building, you can do programming in a building, you can even call that building home, but you can’t call it a church until you do two things:

Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.       (stop)

Jesus went home, excited to share the Word of the Lord with his old friends and neighbors. He said to them, “Friends, hear the good news. Repent and celebrate who you can become through the grace of God.”

They looked cross-eyed at him and said, “Son, we are pretty much happy with the way we are. You need to remember where you came from and get with the program.”

Jesus gathered the disciples around him and said, “My Father has always been about the business of doing a new thing. We can no longer be satisfied with who we are, we must celebrate what God would have us become. You go out into the villages and embrace everyone with the love of God. Then step back and be amazed by what happens.”

For centuries churches have tinkered with how to worship, when to worship, and what to worship. For decades churches have discussed formulas for growth, evangelism, mission and ministry. For years churches have bickered over traditions, theology, and biblical interpretation. Too frequently every discussion emerges from a desperate need to protect a time honored investment that traditionally does things the way they have always been done. The results are predictable. Our churches are dying. Don’t get me wrong, God is alive and well. But churches would rather “go home” to the safety of what they have always been, then “come home” to the excitement and dangers of loving God and God’s children without restrictions, without reservations, and without fear of experiencing something new.

Jesus is always daring us to look beyond our history and our comfort zones. Jesus is always reminding us there are a lot of folks just outside our doors who would welcome an invitation to participate in a journey where the only strategy is loving God and loving all of God’s children.

 Do you want to “go home” or “come home”?  That is the question Jesus is asking. Aren’t they the same thing? Not to the One who proclaims, “Come unto me, ALL who are weary, or confused or lost or alone. I will give you rest.”      Amen.