July 27, 2022
There are a lot of songs about home. In the 60s and 70s many songs were written by people touring the world at a young age and missing home. (Trivia: The world renown band Coldplay cut short its first US tour in 2001 because they were homesick.) From James Taylor’s “Isn’t it Nice to be Home Again” to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” songs have identified “home” as a place that is an extension of yourself, and when you are absent from it, you are less than yourself. The song that has always defined home for me, was the Bacharach and David song, “A House is not a Home.” Home is where you find those you love. And when they are not there, a home becomes simply a house. Home is about relationships and identity.
Susan and I have recently both gone ‘home.’ Susan had planned to go home, but went earlier than planned, as her mother had become very ill. Fortunately, ‘Grandma Vi’ responded to treatment and is recovering. As we talked about her time in Rockford, literally staying in her childhood home, Susan spoke of the conversations she had with family and friends as what defined being home. The love that was there when she was younger remains there in those relationships. And though these conversations could have taken place over the phone or video, it wouldn’t be home. Home is a place. Home is in person.
I also went home. I went back to western Pennsylvania where I grew up. But I did not return to my hometown. Instead, I canoed a stretch of the Allegheny River over three days with three friends from my hometown. Only one of us still lives in Pennsylvania, though I am the only one not living in the mid-Atlantic. Our lives have gone in four very different directions, but the pandemic has brought us together, video chatting about once a week while locked down. And those conversations have continued for years now. For three days the four of us were home. A dear friend since I was 5 was on this trip. There is no pretense when you know people so well and for so long. Even in tents, we were home.
Susan and I later converged in New York to visit our daughter. I know Gotham fairly well, Susan not so much. Our daughter we know very well. She has lived in New York for almost a year now, and plans on remaining there for at least two more years. However much New York is her ‘home’ now, it was home to be together. Every time we gathered at a table for a meal, we were home.
Susan and I returned to Seattle on what was supposed to be late Saturday night, but crept into an early Sunday morning. It was good to finally be back in our new, Seattle home.
The reason for this extended reflection on 'home' is not the relief of our early morning homecoming. It is my experience of being back in worship on Sunday morning. As I looked at those of you who had assembled for worship that morning—some in pews, some in the string band, all to worship our God—as well as to celebrate the gift that Nat has been to us; it struck me that I was home. My identity is now found in my relationships with you.
And so it has been for Christians through the centuries. We have a relationship with God in Christ, and relationships with one another through the Spirit. So we celebrate these relationships with songs that speak to the nature of our life as God’s family, we merge our individual hopes and fears for life into common prayers, share stories of our family of faith past and present, and gather around a Table as a symbol of our future hope. All signs that we share life and love with one another. Home is about relationships and identity; and we are invited to find ourselves at home in our church.
Thanks be to God.
Pastor Todd