Homesick & Hopeful (1st Sunday in Advent, Year C)

Luke 21: 25 – 36 & 1 Thessalonians 3: 9 – 13

 

In this season of Advent, we are going to be looking at what it means for God to be with us, and yet for God’s shalom – harmony and wholeness for all of God’s creation – to seem just out of reach. And we are going to use the images of “home” to frame our wonderings and our ponderings and our wanderings through the story found in the gospels.

 

The idea of “home” can be complicated.  This year, I said goodbye to my childhood home at 2424 Hart Street in Dyer, Indiana.  My parents moved in with four children (I wasn’t in the picture yet) on November 22, 1963, a date best known for the assassination of John F. Kennedy…taking possession of the story and a half cape cod on a double lot dotted with pin oaks and lily of the valley in a sleepy Chicago suburb.  

 

On my last visit, I walked through the rooms, which seemed tiny now, and remembered much that had happened there over the years.  

 

The immense joy and the bitter sorrows. 

The disappointments. 

The discoveries.

The hellos and the goodbyes. 

The times I was away and couldn’t wait to be back.

The learning and the growing and the fights and the fury.  

 

I also felt emptiness creeping into the space as, over years, so many people I loved have departed its shelter and life had changed. 

 

In that final walkthrough this year, the house felt like a shell of itself, a shell of what it once had been to me. In many ways, the house that was once home had become a burden, as with each passing day it was harder for my mom to navigate the stairs – something she had to do in order to do laundry, take a shower or use the toilet. Ultimately it was a fall as she retrieved her morning paper that caused her to have to leave the shelter of her long-time home permanently.

If I am honest with myself, for years, anytime I have driven into my “hometown,” I have felt conflicted.  I would wonder, when did I stop belonging here? What am I holding onto here?  When did the traffic get so gross here?  And what is that ever-present smudge of smog on the northern horizon? Is it wrong to feel more at home in Maryland with my husband and my kids? To feel homesick for another place?

 

And yet…

I know that who I am today has been shaped by what happened in that place.  And that I carry that place with me into what I am doing and how I have shaped home for my family.  And my family is now out in the world, shaping their homes, homes that might never be the same address for very long – a far cry from the way my parents understood establishing roots at the same address for 58 years. 

 

And there are days when I long for what once was in that idyllic spot. And there are days I give thanks for all that has happened to carry me to where I am right now.  And there are days I am anxious about what my kids will remember about their childhood homes as they continue to build their own.

 

Ideas of home are complicated.  We will continue to explore that idea throughout the Advent season. 

 

…Because In this season, we anticipate how God has come and is coming to make a home among us. 

 

Elizabeth will welcome a scared young Mary into her home as both women’s bodies are home to children who will bear God very differently to the people. 

 

Mary and Joseph will enter Joseph’s hometown to find no space for them, and they will flee becoming refugees to make their home in a foreign place.  

 

Visitors will travel far from home to see a baby in a humble place, a baby they recognize as a King. 

 

Home will weave in and out of our watching and waiting.  I encourage you to sit with the word and the idea of Home. How might our longing for home be drawing us deeper into this story of God with us? 

 

And with this backdrop, let’s turn to our texts for this day. Let’s launch our journey together.

 

As I sat with today’s gospel text, I thought about the experience of a first-time churchgoer…

I suspect it feels odd to hear the words from late in Luke’s gospel on this particular day.

 

Let’s face it – just days ago, many of us gathered in homes with family or with friends, even if the gathering was smaller than usual. And then we might have watched some football and been inundated by ads on TV reminding us that Black Friday was the next big thing. We might have watched a Christmas special or two or three. Nothing like a little Rudolph to put you in the holiday spirit! And maybe you even spent some time decorating your home, often with memories and hopes, sometimes with grief and loss.

 

If you are like me, the volume of emails from retailers in your inbox make it clear that Christmas is near. Decorations have been creeping into the stores despite supply chain concerns.  There is music in the air, lights and decorations are everywhere we turn.

 

And then, we show up to church on this Sunday after Thanksgiving, ready to light the advent wreath and move toward joy to the world and we hear words found near the end of Luke’s gospel, words about the end of things and fear and foreboding. Of course, these words show up along with a promise of how the Son of Man, one of many titles for Christ, will come on a cloud with power and glory. 

 

But first, foreboding and fear. 

 

If this was the very first thing I heard setting food in a church, especially at this time of year when the world around me seems to be mounting festivity and brightness, I might be confused.

 

Maybe, even if you are a church regular, this first week of Advent, which ALWAYS includes readings about the end times, feels uncomfortable, disjointed, out of place.

 

But really, as we look past the growing holiday cheer in the stores all around us, we can still see a pandemic that has altered our way of life. We see a climate that is changing and becoming more and more fragile each year.  We see world powers fighting for market share while more than 1 billion people (billion – with a B) live on less than $2.50 a day. Guns are carried around for protection. We are divided from one another by so many things including our faith in God and how we practice that faith.

 

It is complicated, isn’t it? I find myself this time of year swinging from joy to anxiety quickly.  How about you?

 

The good news is that Luke’s gospel doesn’t leave us in a place of fear and foreboding. There is Jesus’ reminder that redemption draws near. In ancient times, this idea of redemption would have been about buying one’s freedom from a captor. 

 

I wonder, from what do we need freed in this season? From what do we need to be redeemed?

 

Jesus continues to share a parable about cycles of new life, the fruitfulness of a fig tree as it blooms in spring…an image that would remind listeners of how the plants move through seasons. In spring, the fig will sprout new leaves again… Freed from necessary dying, the fig tree will once again become green and fruitful.

 

And when we see those things happen, when we see signs of new life emerging, this gospel texts says we will know that the kingdom of God is near.

 

That cycle of life - fruitfulness, withering, death and rebirth just keeps showing up, doesn’t it?  

 

It shows up time and again in Jesus’ teaching.

It shows up throughout the scriptures.

But it also shows up time and again in the world around us.

In biology.

In ecology.

In the rhythm of the sun and moon and stars.

In our hearts.

 

“When you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.”

 

Here we are at the beginning of the Advent season.

And whether this is your first time walking this journey or your 50^th time, we begin by acknowledging that there will be distress and confusion. There will be fear and foreboding. There will be heaven and earth passing away. 

And there will be redemption. There will be freedom. There will be new life.

 

We will experience a kind of homesickness for what once was again and again.

 

And hope for what will be again and again.

 

Oh, the patience we need for this waiting and watching, these cycles of life, and the unfolding of our understanding and acceptance over time.

And so we wait.

And we watch for the signs of the Kingdom drawing near.

 

Let us wait together.

Amen.