There's Always Room for One More

What do you imagine when you think of home?  Do you picture your house-- a physical place where you live, eat meals with family and friends, and take shelter from the cold?  Do you think of your family? Is home the place where you spend time with your spouse, your children, or other loved ones; is it the place where you gather with family and friends for holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas? When you conjure images of home of in your mind, do you think of the past-- the house and town you grew up in, with all its nostalgic sights, sounds, and smells?  Or do you think of the present-- the place where you live now, even if you haven’t lived in that particular place very long?

            What do you imagine when you think of home?

Preacher Barbara Brown Taylor writes that ‘home’ can be an elusive concept. It’s something all of us yearn for, hunger for, and spend our lives looking for.  And yet for some of us, it can seem like a hard thing to find, and even harder to hold on to once we’ve found it. Especially when you start to think of home as more than just a physical place, and rather, a place where you truly belong.  A place where you are known, loved, and accepted for who you are and all of who you are—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  A safe place in which you can take refuge from the storms of the world. This kind of home is harder to find.

And to make matters more complicated, our society is becoming more transient, with more and more people who have moved multiple times in their adult life. More and more children now grow up, not just in more than one house, but also in more than one town. People tend to switch jobs more frequently than they used to, and it seems like the days are gone when people would hold down one job for 30 years or more. All of this contributes to a sense that many people have these days-- that of being a kind of professional nomad-- moving from place to place, never quite putting down roots. Given all of this, how do we go about finding our true home? How do we find that place where we are fully known, fully loved, and fully accepted?

Henri Nouwen is a well known and beloved writer on spirituality and prayer, and he has written that for him, the place where we find true home-- no matter what the changing circumstances of our lives might be-- is the place where we can find rest for our spirits in God’s presence. He writes, “home is the center of my being-- a place where I can hear the voice that says: you are my beloved, on you my favor rests… home is the never interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love whenever (and wherever) it is heard.” For Nouwen, home is the place where we are connected at the deepest level to our Creator and source of life.  That is the place where we can be most fully known and most fully loved, no matter where we are in the course of our lives.

In reflecting on this idea of home as we celebrate homecoming Sunday here at Park Church, it occurred to me that Nouwen’s definition of home— that of a place where all can find rest their spirit in God’s love-- that is church at its best.  The church has been its best throughout the ages when it has said to every single person who walks through the door—“no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, no matter your past, no matter your present, you have a home here, and we welcome you as a beloved child of God. No exceptions.” That is the church at its best.

It also occurred to me, however, that perhaps one of the greatest shortcomings of the church throughout the ages is that we often haven’t been that kind of home for people. And while many churches— including ours— have tried very hard in recent years to overcome that deficiency, the truth is, the church has had a history over the last couple thousand years of finding ways to exclude certain kinds of people.  To pass judgment on people who are different and to keep certain people out. For many people, that history is what prevents them from seeing the church as a place to call home. There have been all sorts of surveys done in recent years about the reasons why people don’t go to church anymore. And while there are many reasons given— from everything from the rise of postmodernism to soccer games on Sunday-- an overwhelming majority of people reply that the reason they don’t go to church is because they believe that churches are filled with judgment and hypocrisy. They don’t want to go to church because they are afraid they will be judged rather than welcomed. And given much of church history, I think most of us can recognize that this is not an entirely irrational fear. Maybe even some of you have experienced this at a church at some point in your lives.

There are, however, many of us who are working to change that perception.  There was a video that surfaced about a year ago and went viral on the internet (it’s actually up on our church facebook page right now).  It’s a video in which people name some of the reasons why they don’t go to church. And when someone says, “well, the church is just full of hypocrites,” a man responds, “yes, but there’s always room for one more!” There’s always room for one more. For those of us who have experienced home at a church, for those of us who have experienced the kind of healing that comes with being accepted somewhere for who you are— no matter how many imperfections and quirks you may have— the power of this statement rings true. It’s a statement that is at the heart of what it means for a church to be home. There’s always room for one more. One more sinner. One more hypocrite. One more person who is divorced, remarried, young, old, gay, straight, poor, unemployed, over-employed, under-employed, homeless, filthy rich, flawed and imperfect. There’s always room for one more. I truly believe that this is the kind of spiritual home the church is called to be. That we are called to be the kind of church where all can find a place to belong and all can find a place to be fully known. A place where there is always room for one more.

I know many of you share this vision for the church. And I believe in many ways we are already living that out. We embrace the radical welcome that Jesus himself exemplified, and we deeply desire for others to discover that welcome here in this place. But here’s the thing: finding our home with God isn’t just about how we welcome others. It’s also about how we embrace God’s welcome for ourselves. That’s where it all starts. Because if we do not experience God’s radical welcome ourselves, how can we possibly even begin to offer it to others? And in many ways, this can be a lot harder. It can be a lot harder for us to accept the kind of welcome for ourselves that we desire to give to others, because it’s not just the judgment of others that keeps us from finding our home with God. Most of the time, I suspect, it’s the judgment that we place on ourselves that’s even harder to let go of. It’s the imperfections and faults we see in ourselves that make us feel less than worthy to be called beloved children of God. It’s the inner critic that sometimes shouts so loudly about all the things we don’t do well and all the things we haven’t done right (or haven’t done at all) that we don’t hear God’s still small voice shepherding us and calling us home. We don’t hear that voice that Nouwen was talking about, the voice that speaks to us in the deepest places of our hearts, telling us we are beloved.

And so what it all boils down to is this: do we really believe what we say we believe?  That each one of us is so important to God that we are like the lost coin or the lost sheep whose homecoming gives God more joy than the 99 others who are already there? Do we really believe what we tell others about God’s radical welcome and grace-- that all of us have a home here? That there really is room for one more, and that one more is US? Do we believe it for ourselves as much as we might proclaim it to others?

I’m sure that most of you probably noticed when you walked in this morning, that there is a new addition to our sanctuary. It’s going to be with us for a little while as we work to repair the beam in that corner of the church. And I have to confess something to all of you this morning-- that when the engineers told us that we would have to put up this temporary support beam right before Homecoming Sunday, the Sunday when we are all so excited about moving back into our beautiful and historic sanctuary, my heart sank. “Our beautiful sanctuary!” I thought, “It’s not going to look perfect!”

But then as I was reflecting on the theme of this morning’s service, I realized what a perfect illustration this could be for us. Our sanctuary is not perfect this morning, and in fact there is a rather glaring imperfection. But that doesn’t make God any less present, that doesn’t make this any less our home, and it doesn’t make our worship any less meaningful. Just as our own imperfections— whether they are barely perceptible or whether they are glaring, to ourselves or to others, do not prevent God from being present with us and calling us home as beloved children.

So this morning we are going to do a little experiment.  I told you earlier to hold on to those colored pieces of paper because you would be needing them-- well now I want you to pull those out.  If you have a pen or pencil, I want you to pull those out as well-- there are pencils in the pew pockets in front of you and there are also pens scattered around at the end of many of the pews. If you don’t have something to write with, see if you can borrow something from a neighbor. What I’m going to ask all of you to do in just a moment, is to think about whatever the thing might be that keeps you from being fully at home with God. What are the self-judgments and imperfections that you see in yourself that keep you from recognizing yourself as God’s beloved child? What are the things you need to let go of, in order to find full rest for your spirit in God? Think about these questions, and in a moment, I want you to write your answer down on that card. You’ll notice that there are colored strips of fabric hanging from the beam, and there tables on either side of the beam with bowls of mini-clothes pins. What I want you to do, once you’ve written something on your card, is to stand, and go over to that beam, and pin those imperfections and self-judgments to one of the strips of fabric. And then-- and this is the most important part-- leave it there. Let it go. Leave it there for God, and know that God loves you and welcomes you in this place— that this is your home-- No matter what it is you’ve written on that card.

Let us reflect and pray…

This sermon ended with a congregational action designed to help people begin to let go of the things that get between them and God's radical welcome and grace.  Join the conversation here!  What are the things that get in your way of feeling at home with God?  Can you let them go?

 

Dirty Hands, Clean Hearts: A reflection on Mark 7:1-23

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This morning’s lectionary readings put forth one of the most central questions that has been asked by people of all faiths over many centuries of religious history: what does it look like to live a life that is pleasing to God? 

In our reading from James, we read that a life of faithful obedience to God means that we not only hear the word and believe, but also that we act— that we are doers of the word as well as hearers of the word.  We also read that religion for the sake of religion, or piety for the sake of piety, means nothing if we do not also live out our faith through acts of caring for others. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God,” writes the author of James, “is to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” In other words, it’s not just about what you say you believe, but also how you live out that faith.

Similar themes are found in this morning’s gospel reading from Mark, in what is admittedly—by our modern standards-- a rather peculiar story.  It is a story in which the Pharisees chastise Jesus and his disciples for eating a meal without having first washed their hands in order to be ritually clean.  Jesus, in turn, responds rather harshly, calling the Pharisees a bunch of hypocrites who do nothing but pay lip service to God with all their rules and regulations and religious rituals.  To be quite honest, the whole affair can seem a bit like much ado about nothing. After all, this wasn’t a fight about the appropriate use of sacrifice— a hot topic in that day and age. It wasn’t an argument about how to best care for the poor or widowed among them, the correct use of tithes and offerings, or even proper interpretation of scripture. It was a fight about the importance (or lack of thereof) of washing one’s hands before a meal. It almost seems a little silly, and maybe even trivial.

But maybe it’s not. Maybe this is actually a pretty good illustration of what it looks like— really looks like— when a community of imperfect people are trying their best to figure out the answer to our question of the day: what does it look like to live a life that is pleasing to God? When it comes to religious life— and our common life together in a community of faith-- what are the things that are most important to God?

The Pharisees, in regards to this question, often come across to us as looking rather silly in the gospels, with all their rules and regulations, and their stubborn adherence to tradition. We often think we are so different than them.  We think if it had been us, of course we would have aligned ourselves with Jesus and the disciples, not those stuffy old fashioned Pharisees! But maybe we are too hard on the Pharisees sometimes. After all, how many times do we, even being the modern, enlightened Christians that we are, find ourselves fighting about the little things more often than we engage in discussion and debate about the big stuff? 

The truth is, it’s very easy for us to be just like the Pharisees—to get caught up in the minutia of every day religious life and whatever our modern day equivalent of ritual hand washing might be—and forget about our larger purpose as the Body of Christ.   We are creatures of habit, and thus as human beings we prefer order over chaos, rules over anarchy (most of us anyway).  And when it comes to religion, this is even more the case.  Jesus saw this tendency in the rituals of the Pharisees, and he saw that adherence to tradition was holding them back.  This is why he challenges them, and continues to challenge us today, with the question: what does it look like to live a life that is pleasing to God?

Obviously there are many ways to approach the answer to this question. There is not just one path or one single formula for faithful living. But our Gospel story this morning does offer us one particular way of looking at the matter, which is to say: it doesn’t matter if your hands are clean, if your heart is not.  And, sometimes it’s okay, and maybe even necessary to let our hands get a little dirty if we want to keep our hearts clean before God.

Jesus and his disciples, for example, got their hands plenty dirty, and not just because they didn’t wash them before they ate. When they went from town to town, laying hands on those who were considered “unclean”-- the sick, the lame, the sinners, and perhaps worst of all, the lepers— they got their hands dirty. Back then, to touch someone who was considered unclean meant that you yourself became unclean as well. And those who were ill or unclean for any reason were not allowed in the temple because it was thought they would contaminate the house of God. Such ostracism of those most in need meant that the religious leaders certainly kept their hands clean, but their hearts were hardened.

Jesus and his disciples, on the other hand, in treating others with compassion and care, broke the rules and got their hands dirty. But they kept their hearts clean before God.

I almost wonder if this story about ritual hand washing isn’t really about ritual hand washing at all.  That perhaps it’s something of a metaphor for the larger conflict Jesus had with religious leaders when it came to who was considered unclean, and why. Jesus and his disciples disregarded the rules when it came to who was supposed to be untouchable. They laid their hands on those considered to be unclean as if to say, “we do not see you as unclean, and neither does God.”

These same principles hold true for us as modern day disciples of Christ.  Sometimes we have to get our hands a little dirty if we want to keep our hearts clean before God.

I bet anyone who has ever served a meal at a soup kitchen can relate to this.  When you’re in the kitchen preparing a meal for 80 or 100 people, when you are running from the kitchen to the dining room with heaping bowls of chili or paper plates filled to the brim with baked beans and macaroni salad-- you get your hands dirty.

Or what about those of you who have ever cared for an ailing parent or aging loved one?  I imagine you might be able to relate to this as well. When you care for someone who can no dress or even feed themselves, God knows, you tend to get your hands dirty.

Or consider any situation in which you have aligned yourself with someone who may be considered “untouchable” by some standard of society.  While we may not longer use the language of “clean” and “unclean” in this day and age, we do still have our untouchables.  Are we willing to lay our hands on them—the homeless, the poor, the sick and the aging, the addict, and the outcast—and say to them, “we do not see you as unclean, and neither does God.”  If so, perhaps we are moving a little closer towards the answer to our question—what does it look like to live a life that is pleasing to God?  I say a little closer because at the end of the day, we must recognize that it’s not just about our actions— admirable and worthy as they may be. Our readings this morning make it abundantly clear that ultimately, in striving to live a life that is pleasing to God, it’s not just the work of our hands that matters, but also the state of our hearts.  As honorable as it may be to feed the hungry and care for the sick, if we do these things out of a sense of obligation or even— God-forbid— with resentment, that’s not going to cut it either.  Ultimately, it’s the intent behind the actions that God really cares about. Which brings us back full circle to our Gospel story this morning.

Jesus wasn’t picking a fight with the Pharisees because he thought the tradition of washing one’s hands before a meal was a bad thing. He wasn’t throwing out tradition because he was lazy or disrespectful. He was simply trying to point out that the Pharisees had let adherence to tradition overshadow their commitment to God. There’s nothing wrong with keeping tradition and holding fast to the things our elders held dear, so long as we are willing to sometimes let them go, if at anytime they get in the way of caring for others— particularly for the least of these.  So long as we do not put opinions above people, tradition above the gospel, or ritual above compassion and authentic community.  Every time we gather together in Bible Study, or committee meetings, or even social gatherings as a church, and we enter into conversation about the tasks set before us, and even as we argue— as people naturally do— about the best way to accomplish those tasks, we must never lost sight of who we are and why we are here.  We must always be intentional about keeping our hearts clean before God, so that we are ready at a moment’s notice to roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty, to do the work we are called to do as disciples of Christ, and to strive at all times to live a life worthy of that calling.

 Amen, and let it be so.