Sermon for 6th Sunday of Easter, 10 May 2015
Sermon for the 6th Sunday
of Easter
10 May 2015
The Rev. Carrie Smith
Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
 |
| Where I lived last...our home in Crystal Lake, Illinois Photo by Carrie Smith |
This is the
question Bishop Cindy, my supervisor from the Chicago church offices (and our
guest preacher last Sunday) asked me the other day. It probably wasn’t meant to
be a deep, probing question, but as many of us in this room know, the answer
can be complicated. Is “home” where you were born, or where your parents live,
where you lived last, where your children were born, or where you own a house?
Is home where the heart is, or where your roots are, or where you happen to
live right now?
Where is
home? If you are a missionary, foreign aid worker, volunteer, or student, you’ve
had to answer this question more times than you can count. Your answer may even
change over time! It took me a long time (and a helpful seminary classroom
exercise) to stop trying to define home as one of the many cities where I spent
a few a years as a kid. After relating my history of frequent family moves the
seminary chaplain said “Aha! You’re a nomad.” Finally, this made sense! I
realized “nomad” felt more honest than choosing an identity as a Nebraskan, an
Oklahoman, a Texan, an Iowan, a Minnesotan, a Missourian (is that even how you
would say it?) or a Chicagoan. I feel most at home somewhere between here and
there – wherever “there” is.
 |
| Where I live now...Jerusalem Photo by Carrie Smith |
The question
of where “home” is becomes more complicated in this context, where our friends
and coworkers have very different experiences of belonging. Home, for many of
our neighbors, has been taken away. Home is where other people live right now.
My address may be a refugee camp, but “home” is the village I’ve never seen (but
which lives on in the hearts of my parents and grandparents.) For many
Palestinians, “home” is where the settlers are.
On the other
hand, for some in this context, having a secure “home” which honors my culture, my religion, and my ethnicity
(after centuries of persecution and wandering) is the reason for building
walls, carrying guns, and protecting perceived
land rights and privilege. For many Israelis, “home” is a right earned through
suffering.
Indeed, the
concept of “home” in this particular land and this particular city is more
intense than perhaps anywhere else in the world. Two peoples, three religions,
and countless colonial presences have wanted to call this “Jerusalem, my happy
home.”
Where is
home?
Though
difficult to define on the best of days, most would agree “home” actually has
nothing to do with an address – it’s a sense of belonging. “Where do you
belong?” is really what people want to know.
In today’s
Gospel reading, we heard how on the night in which he was betrayed, just before
his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus described for his disciples where they would belong from now on. For
the disciples, who had walked away from jobs and families to follow Jesus,
“home” was no longer the boat or the fishing village they left behind. “Home” had become the houses of those who
showed them hospitality and the road they walked with their teacher. Having
given up everything for the sake of his message of love, “home” was wherever
Jesus was.
But things
were about to change. He had tried to tell them. He said as plainly as he could
that he would soon be leaving, but their love for him kept them from hearing
it.
So at the table that night, Jesus said,
“As the
Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's
commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my
joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
“Abide in my
love.”
“Abide” is
one of those words we only seem to use in church, isn’t it? How often do we ask
“Where do you abide?” We would never say, “I abide in my abode.” Although, if
you happen to live in Arizona, I suppose you could say, “I abide in my adobe
abode.”
A more
relatable English version of John 15 might be this translation from “The
Message”, which puts it this way, “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved
me. Make yourselves at home in my love.”
Make
yourselves at home in my love. You belong with me.
Jesus’
message to his disciples is whether you’ve lived your entire life within one
square mile (as my grandmother did) or if you’ve lost track of how many
addresses you’ve had; whether you own the whole building or can barely pay the
rent, your forever home is in the love of God we have seen in Christ Jesus. In
Jesus’ love we find rest. In the cross of Jesus we find security. In the empty
tomb we find joy. We abide in his
abode.
We belong to
God! Amen!
Of course, this
heavenly home doesn’t negate our need for an earthly abode. Belonging to Jesus
doesn’t take away the need for refugees, orphans, and the homeless to have
justice and a place to call home in the here-and-now. However, knowing that
Jesus has made a home for us in his love does invite us to consider all the
other structures and institutions which we have built up in the search for
security, love, and identity.
We’ve felt
certain of the foundations of class, culture, and education we have beneath our
feet. We’ve built up walls of power and privilege. We’ve reinforced glass (and
stained glass) ceilings. Occasionally, we redecorate things a bit in response
to the changing times, but rarely do we question the stability of these
structures themselves.
We often see
survivors standing outside the ruins of their fire-ravaged house or the bare foundations
left behind after a tornado and saying to the camera, “Yes, the house is gone,
but the most important thing is we have each other.” Deep down, we also know
this to be true. We know that “home” is more than the address on our driver’s
license or the roof over our heads, but it sometimes takes a big change for us
to stand back and consider where and to whom we belong.
For the
people of my home country, the United States, that big change has been happening
since August, as structures of racism and institutional violence have been
exposed repeatedly, and people are faced with questions of who exactly is at
“home” in the “land of the free”.
For the
students and teachers at my seminary in Chicago, that big change took place this
week, at the refectory bulletin board.
This week,
the community message board in my seminary’s cafeteria carried messages like
“Thursday the 23rd Internship Assignment Party” and “Celebrate that you
are awesome and worthy of God’s love” and, since it’s still the Easter season, even
a joyful “Alleluia!”
And there,
in the center, someone had written the words, “Black power!”
 |
| Community message board at Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago Photo by Kwame Pitts |
Except that
someone else had crossed out “black” and had written “white” above it.
So now, the
community message board says “Alleluia! White Power.”
You can
imagine the storm that erupted when students saw this message in their
lunchroom. Social media has made it possible to watch the ensuing drama unfold
from afar, which I have been doing, with both shock and sadness. Some want to
find out who wrote the word “White” and to deal with that person alone. Some
want an investigation into who wrote “black power” in the first place, and why.
Some are dismissing the whole thing as nonsense. Some are so hurt and angry
that they see this as the start of a movement within the walls of the seminary—a
movement which already goes by hashtag #EracismSeminary.
What I see
(granted, from afar) is a community – my
community—which thought it was standing on a firm foundation, but has just
experienced an earthquake. I see future pastors questioning the stability of
classroom walls and church steeples—places where they had found safety,
security, and identity. I see faithful Christians, white and black, taking a
step back to consider their address: Is this
my home? Is this the community of love Jesus was talking about? Do I belong
here?
It was at
the cross that the disciples experienced that same feeling of being homeless,
orphaned, and not belonging. Jesus knew it was coming. He knew they would be
lost. He knew they would be looking for shelter, looking for comfort, looking
for belonging. So at the table that night, just before his arrest, he gave them
a new address and a new zip code. He gave them a place to belong, saying:
“Make yourselves at home in my love. This is
my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to
love. Put your life on the line for your friends.”
With those
few words, Jesus gave us, his disciples, a place to belong, and that place is the
community of love where the commandment of love is lived out.
Sometimes we
call that home the church. And much of the time, the witness of the church is
just that—in a world where violence and exclusion and power-over-others seem to
rule the day, the church provides a powerful alternative witness. We bear
witness to the self-emptying love of Jesus, who laid down his life for his
friends. Much of the time, this is exactly the kind of home the church provides
for the lost, for the oppressed, for the voiceless, for the hurting and grieving,
for you and for me.
But sometimes,
even the church needs to change its address. If our church address includes
racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind,
then not only are we disregarding the Father’s commandments, we are not bearing
fruit. We are not loving as we have been loved, and our joy is not complete. If
the house of God is not a house for all, then it is a home for no one.
Sisters and brothers, hear again the Good News: We belong to Christ! Our home is in his love for us, and therefore our commandment—and our joy—is to love as we have been loved. For “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.” In the church, in our homes, in this land and in your homeland, Jesus sends us now to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. Confident that we have a forever home in his love for us, we are free to lay down our lives for our friends—until all have found their home in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment