Home-breaking and Home-making
A sermon given by Christine Gowdy-Jaehnig on 5 March 2023
Year A : Lent 2
Genesis 12: 1-4a * Psalm 121 * Romans 4:1-5, 13-17 * John 3: 1-17
The world contains many stories about people in search of a new home and/or homeland. Kate Seredy’s Newbery winning novel The White Stag tells the story of the Magyar people who obeyed their gods and sought a new homeland. For four generations they followed an elusive white stag westward; it lead them to today’s Hungary, where they settled. The Aeneid, an epic poem by Virgil, tells the story of Aeneas who flees from the destruction of Troy. His wife’s ghost tell him to find the mouth of the Tiber River and settle there. After some wandering and many adventures, Aeneas finally arriving at his god-directed destination. His small settlement eventually grew to be the city of Rome.
Our OT reading is about another group of people who journeyed towards a new home. Abram lived in Haran with his wife Sarai. They and nephew Lot had been brought there from Ur by his father Terah. After Terah dies Abram heard a Voice telling him to leave country, kindred and family home, and travel to a new home to which the Divine Speaker would lead him. The Voice made a promise; if Abram trusted and set out in faith, he would be blessed with many descendants (enough to make a great nation), the Speaker would look out for him, and even greater good would come of his trust –for all people of the world would be blessed.
Home is a universal dream and hope. All three of the stories I have spoken of contain a call or directive received from a divine being, a journey undertaken in trust, and a promise fulfilled -a new place to call home and a better future. Abram’s story of a new home is itself inside a larger story of homemaking. We can conceive of our whole sacred story as being about this theme. When God created the universe God engaged in homemaking. The story of Adam and Eve is a story of home wrecking followed by homelessness. Humans, ever since, have been looking for and longing for a home --and continuing our home wrecking tendencies. Our sacred story recounts how God did not give up and abandon us; He continued to work to provide a ‘forever home.’ One of His gifts was the Torah; it contains essential guidelines or “house rules” which help us live together justly.
It is not often that we think deeply about the concept of “home”. There are sayings such as “Home is where, when you show up, they have to take you in,” and “Home is where the heart is.” There a few more things we could say about it.
Home is about belonging and acceptance; there are ways to determine who is in and who is out. There is affection and even love between the inhabitants.
Home is a place were one feels safe; people look out for and care for each other.
Home has rules, for the benefit of everyone. They might be referred to as ‘house rules;’ e.g.: remove your shoes when you enter; no phones at the supper table; when it is your turn to wash the dishes or mow the lawn, do it in a timely manner;
Home is also a place of stories, of vital memories and shared narrative(s).
In summary, home is about shalom, that Hebrew word that means so much: well-being, wholeness, reconciliation, flourishing and peace.
Our epistle reading comes from Paul’s letter to the Christian church in Rome, whose members live and work and worship in the heart of the Roman Empire. Rome is exclusive and very sure of its superiority; only the lucky few can call it home and enjoy its benefits. All are subject to a human ruler who has been declared to be the Son of God and who demands not just fealty but worship. At the root of its narrative is Aeneas, who achieved home through military conquest. In order to build and maintain its power and glory, the Roman Empire became an exceptionally consistent and efficient home-breaker, seizing and controlling land, people and resources. The Emperor Nero wrote to the new governor of a colony: “You know my needs. See to it that no one is left with anything.” When the Empire spread its “gospel” (and that is a word they used), it was an announcement of another military victory.
The church in Rome was made up of gentiles and Jews, between which there were tensions and problems. Many of the Gentiles would have been biased against the Jewish Christians because in Rome the Jews were viewed as a shameful and divisive group of people who had consistently been a threat to the Pax Romana and therefore a threat to the very foundation of a civilized society. When this letter was written an Emperor had already expelled Jews from Rome once, and another would do it again. The Jews were inclined to view all Gentiles with disgust and suspicion, because they were or had been idolaters and ate meat butchered as part of pagan rituals. Those connected with Roman Empire came in for extra contempt. Rome’s Pax Romana came on the point of a spear, with the threat of crucifixion. The Jews had no trouble seeing in Paul’s list of sins in Chapter 1 an account of Roman wickedness starting in the imperial palace. N. T. Wright wrote, “The church was the original multicultural project, with Jesus as the only point of identity. It was known, and for this reason, seen as both attractive and dangerous.”
Paul writes to this community drawn together by the good news of Jesus, yet destabilized by disdain and rejection within and threatened by the pressure of Empire without. Paul had to address this division from the outset. How can he help this mixed community of educated and illiterate, slave and free, men and women, Gentile and Jew, tradespeople and laborers find home together? Jesus himself was a Jew, the Messiah sent by the God who had made a home-making covenant with the Jews for the sake of the world. But this was a Covenant the Jews had never successfully fulfilled for long. Pagan idolatry meets Judean Torah-breaking in Rome. As Paul wrote: “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” None of us is fit to judge anyone else; we are all inveterate home-breakers.
We can not create a home; if we are ever to have one, we can only receive one as a gift. And so Paul goes further back into Jewish history, back before the food laws and Torah and circumcision, to the first call and promise. While Aeneas and the Magyars achieved their new home through persistence and violence, Abraham had nothing to go on except faith –trust in the promise and the Promiser. No piety and military prowess can create the new home God offered. This story and promise were already part of the Jewish Christians’ lineage. But, Paul writes, the children of Abraham are not limited to his bloodline; they are those who claim him as progenitor and have faith like his. Paul counsels others in the diverse community to take Abraham as their father, trust the promises, and share his inheritance. However, since our faith is likely to be weak, we need the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. He is the faithful one who incarnates God’s love and justice, and who died at the hands of the Empire and rose in the homemaking power of God. Jesus is where everything comes together. He fulfills the promise to Abraham and invites us all home. This home is inclusive and abounding in mercy. Jesus Christ is the ruler of this home; he is called the Son of God not because of the death and deification of his father, because he defeated death and rose from the dead.
There is only one house rule for those who want to enter this new home God has created for us: we have to be faithful. Being faithful can be a number of things:
1) trust in God
2) belief about God
3) living the way we are lead into by our trust and belief.
Our readings invite us to focus on #1 –trust in God. We might often doubt that we feel or do all the right things but how God regards us is not up to us. As far as God is concerned, we are in his heart –for keeps. The Psalm tells us what a good “keeper” God is; God watches over us, tends, and holds us. Through Jesus, God has made a new home for his wandering children. Redemption/Salvation is about homecoming. All those who trust in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ are made right at home.