“HOMECOMING”
Sunday, August 19,
2007
Dr. Stephen D. Jones,
preaching
Second Baptist
Church, St. Louis
Text: Luke 8:26-39
Home. Where
are you at home? Do you feel at home here? If you are new to this church, as I
am, you likely don’t feel at home in this place. Maybe you’d like to, but that
requires time. Actually, my sense of feeling “at home” among Second Baptist
people began early in my process of getting to know you. And I look forward to
deepening that feeling in the months and years ahead. If you feel at home in
this church, can you remember back to the time when you didn’t? Churches are
typically frightening places for those who feel “out of place.” The act of
hospitality is helping guests feel at home in your place.
The term "house"
is where you live. It might be a single-family house, an apartment, or a condo,
but we’re talking about a structure or brick or wood. The term "home" means so
much more. It speaks to one’s comfort level; one’s feeling of safety and
security. Home is where you feel permission to be yourself and to express
yourself. Can you recall when your “house” became a “home”? Sometimes, we live
in places that never feel like home. Are you at home?
Is St. Louis your
home? What do I mean when I ask that question? Am I asking if you were born
here? Or if you were raised here as a child? Or am I asking if you have lived in
St. Louis so long that it has become your home? Or am I asking that if you had
the opportunity to leave St. Louis, would you take it? If you live one place,
but your heart is elsewhere, that is an awkward feeling.
Thirty-seven years
ago, I was ready to leave my roots, to leave Missouri. I wanted to explore the
wider world. I wanted to experience more of what the world had to offer. As a
twenty-one year old, I felt that Missouri was holding me back. It felt
provincial and I had other places I wanted to go. I think my parents positioned
me to live a wider life. They launched a daughter who spent her life as a
missionary in Africa and a son who has served as a pastor from coast to
coast. We’re nauseatingly religious!
And yet, here I am
preaching a sermon on “homecoming” on our first Sunday after moving back, dare I
say, moving home, to Missouri. There is little doubt, that in our minds, Jan and
I view this season of our lives as a joyous homecoming. Though we have never
lived in or near St. Louis, coming back to Missouri has a sense of being “right”
that is undeniable. I think we both feel “led” back home. This is where we need
to be. It is where we are called to be. Some of this is very understandable. My
mother turns 89 on Tuesday and my father passed away almost two years ago. And I
have felt much too far away from her on the West coast even though she remains
quite independent. And Jan and her sister, having both come through cancer
treatments successfully, have felt the need to be closer together. With
excellent prognoses, I think our two families value life and the preciousness of
the time we have upon this earth with renewed appreciation.
But there is
something spiritual going on with us as well. It isn’t just the practical
matters or the family. It’s something more. It’s definitely something more.
A few years ago, I
read a quote from T.S. Elliot. Have you ever read something that immediately
speaks to your soul? I found myself clinging to these newly discovered words,
long before I recognized a desire to return to my roots.
Here are Elliot’s
words: “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to
know the place for the first time” (Little Gidding, Four Quartets, p. 59). You
don’t have to literally move back to your childhood roots to know the truth of
Elliot’s words. Truth-seeking and meaning-making have a cyclical pattern: we
return to places we have been before with new eyes and in that moment the vast
stretches of our lives fall together into an understandable whole.
The author of
Hebrews speaks of Abraham and Sarah leaving Mesopotamia in search of a homeland,
and how their descendants, the Jews, continued in search of a homeland. Much of
today’s turmoil in the Middle East arises out of a competing hunger for a
homeland. Hebrews states, “If Abraham and Sarah had been thinking of the land
they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return” to
Mesopotamia. "But as it is they seek a homeland of God’s choosing.” (Heb.
11:13f) And this is how I feel: this is the homeland of God’s choosing for me.
Home. Where is
your home? Just down the street? What home are you seeking? Is the home you are
seeking akin to your ancestral home? To your spiritual home? Are you searching
for home or have you already found it? How will you know it when you find it?
What would it take
for you to feel “at home” inside your own skin? To feel “at home” where you are
right now? When we feel depressed, discouraged, or afraid, we’re not at home, we
feel like a foreigner in our own land.
Karen was a young
Catholic woman, and she fell in love with Orville. But this match was
apparently not made in heaven, for, as Karen explained to her mother, “Orville
is a staunch Baptist and he is opposed to the idea of marrying a
Catholic.” Karen began to weep because she cared for Orville very much.
Her mother said,
“Now wait, Karen. Why not try some real salesmanship? Tell Orville how wonderful
our church is. We’re the first Christian church. We’re the holy catholic
church. Tell him of our great creeds, our martyrs, our saints, the two thousand
year history of our church, all the way back to the Apostle Peter. Tell him
about our marvelous cathedrals and the wonderful comfort and inspiration given
by our priests through their words, through confession, and through the Holy
Eucharist. Go out and sell Orville on the Catholic Church!”
Karen dried her
eyes and in an emboldened spirit agreed to try. She had a number of dates with
Orville and romance was in the air whenever the two of them were together.
But one evening,
after a date, her mother heard Karen sobbing again. “What’s the matter
darling? Are you two still fighting about the Baptists and Catholics? Couldn’t
you sell him on the Catholic Church?”
“Oh, no, mother,
that’s not the problem,” Karen sobbed. “I over-sold him. Now, he wants to
become a priest!”
Heaven is often
spoken of as home and death is sometimes referred to as a homecoming. But the
real question is, “where is your heaven on earth?” Where are you seeking? What
are you striving for? Some people seek a financial home, a home of material
success, an earthly mansion. But, even with the impressive mansions that
surround this church, I suspect there is plenty of misery and emptiness. The
more we seek material success, the more we require and the more illusive becomes
the goal. And it rarely if ever delivers fulfillment.
Home is your place
of fulfillment. Home is your place of becoming. Home is the place where you can
take the risks required to live a life of wholeness, completeness, satisfaction.
This story that is
our text today is surely one of Jesus’ most strange interactions.
The moment Jesus
came across the Sea of Galilee to the land of the Gerasenes, he was met by a
homeless man. The man was possessed of demons and “he did not live in a house
but among the tombs.” (Lk 8:27) The man was so violent that the people of
the town had to bind him with chains and shackles so as not to hurt himself or
others. He was apparently “beside himself” when possessed by the demons and
would act crazed and unpredictable. He was not only homeless, but an outcast. He
wore no clothes, but lived naked among the tombs of the dead. He was literally
“out of his mind.” The fact that a herd of swine was feeding nearby suggests
that these people were Gentiles. Jews would have no reason or inclination to
raise pigs (Lev. 11:7; Deut. 14:8). Jesus sent the demons out of the man
and into the swine and the entire herd “rushed down the steep bank into the lake
and was drowned.” (Lk 8:33)
The swine herdsmen
saw what had happened and raced into the city to tell others. And people “in the
city and in the country” came out to the tombs to see what had happened, “and
when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone
sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind… Then all the people
of the surrounding country asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with
great fear.”
Given their
inhospitality, as Jesus prepared to leave, the man who had been possessed
“begged that he might go with Jesus.” But Jesus sent him back saying, “Return to
your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And thus the man, Legion,
who had been possessed of many demons, “went away proclaiming throughout his
city how much Jesus had done for him.” (8:39)
I think I can
realize why the man didn’t want to return to the city of Gerasenes. He had not
been treated hospitably by the people of that city. He had been consigned to
the cemetery, chained and shackled so as not to enter the city. He had been left
among the swine, without clothing. He frightened the people of the city. But
somehow, Legion, possessed of demons, did not frighten the people of the city
nearly as much as Legion, the man healed of the demons, Legion, the man sitting
calmly beside Jesus, clothed and of sound mind. That really frightened
them. They weren’t prepared for him to take his place within their city. And
they sent Jesus away before he did more damage, healing others whom they had
marginalized and “put in their rightful place.”
But Jesus sent
Legion home, to a city that had never accepted him. Return to your home, now of
sound mind, now fully clothed, now freed from your inner demons. And, now with
your own voice tell your neighbors how much God has done for you.
St. Louis is our
home. There are parts of any city that are frightening. There are issues that
cause us to want to give up. There are inhospitable aspects to any city. There
are divisions within any metropolitan area, irreconcilable differences. There
are city and suburban schools that are dysfunctional and not serving our
children. We have jails and prisons that teach criminals to be hardened. There
is corruption and crime and intractable problems. There are people with special
needs like Legion whom our society is utterly failing, who live among “the
swine” barely managing to eat and cloth themselves. There are suicidal people
and old people who have no support. There are people barely surviving and
families coming apart. There are people all around us spiritually vacant, who
have resigned themselves to live along life’s surface, who have no hope. There
are parents and spouses and families who are devastated by the news of the death
of their loved one in Iraq. There are people who feel excluded, marginalized,
and locked out of all that this great city has to offer.
And yet, St. Louis
is our home. And we ourselves might beg Jesus, “Let us go away with you. Let us
go to the other side.” Or, we might beg Jesus, “Let me just stay in my safe and
comfortable corner, out of harm’s way, minding my own business.”
But that is not
Jesus’ way. He sends us back into the city. He sends us back to tell the good
news of all that God has done for us, and, of course, all that God can do for
those who feel lost, neglected, frightened. Jesus sent Legion back among the
frightened, back among the unaccepting, back among those who had never offered
him a home.
Home.
When John and
Sally Peck were first married, they were Congregationalists. As they studied
scripture upon the birth of their first child, they became convinced that
baptism was meant for believers, not infants. And thus, they were baptized in
1811 and John became a Baptist pastor in the Catskill Mountains of New
York. Born and raised a New Englander, once John was baptized, he never again
felt at home there. He wrote in his diary, “A large part of the American
continent…is in darkness. In the United States there is an abundant field for
missionary labor. How I should rejoice if Providence should open a door for my
usefulness and labors in this way.” In May of 1817, John Mason Peck was
appointed a missionary to the Missouri Territory. After being commissioned by
the American Baptists, Sally and John and their three children made the 1,200
mile journey over 129 days in their one-horse wagon for mission work in St.
Louis. At this point, he wrote, “I have now put my hand to the plow. O Lord, may
I never turn back—never regret this step. It is my duty to live, to labor, to
die as a kind of pioneer in advancing the Gospel.” Upon crossing the
Mississippi, Peck was too weak to walk and had to be carried ashore on a
stretcher. They arrived in St. Louis three years before it became a city. St.
Louis was just awakening to the consciousness of its importance as a gateway to
the West.
John Mason Peck
made St. Louis his home in a way perhaps like no other early pioneer. God had
sent him here to share the good news of all that God had done for him. And Peck
founded public schools for pioneer children lacking quality education. Could God
be calling us, in St. Louis, our home, to provide quality public education for
the children of this region? Peck founded churches with a public vision to
improve the quality of life for all the people. Could God be calling us, as
Second Baptist Church, to arise from our inwardness, and with a public vision
improve the lives of those who live at the margins of this great city? Peck
worked tirelessly for justice. he governor of the State of Illinois stated that
were it not for John Mason Peck Illinois would have become a slave state. But
one downstate pastor, living in Rock Springs, built a coalition of church
leaders who would not tolerate enslavement of African Americans. Could we, as
well, make the difference on issues of justice and equality in our day?
This is our
home. For Jan and for me, this is a homecoming. When we crossed the Missouri
state line at Kansas City, the first sign I saw across interstate 70 was
ironically the words, “St. Louis.” And my heart leaped with joy because, for the
first time since 1970 when I ironically drove out of St. Louis on I-70 with our
belongings, we were coming home. It felt like a homecoming. It felt like my life
had come full circle, and I know home now like I had never known it before.
I cannot begin to
tell you what it means, at this point in my life journey, to come home. I don’t
even yet know. I can tell you that it is deeply spiritual, deeply satisfying. I
feel like Legion, not so much homeless before, but finding home like never
before, claiming home like never before. Strangely, feeling at home even before
I really know you. And coming to you with a passion to make you my community of
friends, my co-laborers in telling all of St. Louis the wonderful things God is
doing and will do through us.
Can we back
away? Can we escape the city all around us? Can we avoid its problems, its
fears? No, Jesus says, “Return to your home, return to your city.” Let us like
Legion, like a long-delayed homecoming, arise and reclaim our home and proclaim
throughout the city all that God has done for us. Amen.
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