7-8-12 - Even Home Changes (aka No One Likes You in Your Own Hometown)

7-8-12

Jerusalem

6He left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. ²On the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! ³Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. ⁴Then Jesus said to them, “Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” ⁵And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. ⁶And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Then he went about among the villages teaching. ⁷He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. ⁸He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; ⁹but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. ¹⁰He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. ¹¹If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” ¹²So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. ¹³They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

            Home can seem like the most comfortable place in the world, especially while growing up.  I remember always fantasizing that my parent’s home would always be the place that I would call home.  I figured that if they ever wanted to move, I would buy their house so that it would remain in the family and I would have that comfort for my whole life.  Home was a place that was safe and a place that should always remain the same.  In fact, I would get so angry with my brother when he was at college, because he would call his college “Home” and his fraternity brothers, “brother.”  I would tell him off, saying that he had only one home, Pittsburgh and my parents house, and he had only one brother, me!  And when he moved out and was married, I was given the opportunity to move into his old room, which is bigger and nicer than my room, but I didn’t even take that because that was Brandon’s room and my room was my room.  Everything had to stay the same.  Even when furniture was broken and had to be changed, it was an ordeal, because the status quo was meant to be the definition of home.   

            Yet our lives do change.  I went off to college a few years later, and I started referring to my dorm room as “home” and my fraternity brothers as “brother.”  Then I went to seminary, and that became home, and now I am here in Columbiana, which I am proud to call home as well.  My parents still live in the same split entry house, and the room that used to be mine, which I fought valiantly for and resisted change as much as possible, is now the playroom for the grandchildren.  And you know what, I am ok with that.  I’m ok with the changes in the furniture and the wall colors and everything else, because I’ve come to realize that change is necessary for growth and that sometimes “My Home” becomes just “My Parent’s Home,” which I love to visit and that God calls us to do new things and to go to new places in order to fulfill His plan for us.

            The disciples are given this message in a harsh fashion through Jesus’ experiences in his own hometown.  Here is the hometown hero, coming into town to show them all that he had learned and experienced, to show them God’s majesty.  And instead he is met with unbelief, with people scorning him, since after all he is just the carpenter, the son to one of their friends, who they babysat as a kid and whose brothers and sisters are still around town.  While they might expect great things from him, they are not going to expect him to come and change how things are done.  But that is what knowing God does, and that is what experiencing life and new things does, it changes who we are at our very cores and we then want to help people make those same changes or see things in new ways, so that they may grow as well.  It is a natural extension of our excitement.

            Yet change can be hard, especially when it comes from those that we know.  It is one thing when some outsider comes with new ideas.  After all, they might be some expert, or they come from a far off place, so what they have to say must be important for them to make such a trek.  Or if someone charges for their thoughts and changes, then it becomes more valuable to us, because we have put in our hardearned resources in order to glean from their knowledge.  But when it comes from an ordinary source, from one that we have known for years, especially from a younger generation, we can have a tendency to push that idea to the side.  Perhaps out of jealousy, because we didn’t have an idea first, or perhaps out of a desire for conformity, with a “We’ve never done it that way before, that’s not how WE do things.”  Or it can be that we don’t think they have all the life experience to have worthwhile contributions.  And besides all that, nothing good can come out of the ordinary, can it?  If I’ve known your family for generations and the best think that came out of it was a handyman, why should I listen to what you have to say?  We can create this bias in our own minds without even realizing it, and it damages us and it causes us to miss what God is trying to tell us at times.

            Our Sin is in the refusal to see God in the ordinary, in the day to day, in the people that we know and love.  Perhaps it is because the more we know about someone, the more we know about their mistakes in life, the more real and weak they can appear.  When we want extraordinary results, we want them to come from extraordinary people, not from our friends and our families.  And yet our friends and our families, and our youth and our elders, are all extraordinary, are all people gifted by God with the Spirit, and who all share the Spirit of God and who proclaim the Word of God. 

            We as Lutherans believe in 3 meanings to the phrase “Word of God.”  The first is the Bible, being the Written word.  It is not some infallible gift that was dropped down to heaven to us, but it is something that was written and collected for thousands of years by ordinary human beings, who were guided and filled with the Spirit, just like everyone in this room here today.  We believe in the Living Word of God, which is Jesus Christ Himself, who intercedes for us each and every day.  And we believe in the Spoken word of God, which is too often seen as only when the pastor speaks from the pulpit.  The truth is that each and everyone of us speaks the word of God whenever we say anything that brings the good news of God to people.  Each time that love and compassion is given to others, each time that we aid each other when we mourn, each time that we remind each other of the presence of God, we are working miracles, because we are sharing the word of God to one another.  We are being God’s voice in this world.  In our ordinary lives, we create change all around us in each other’s lives, by being that voice.

            No matter our history, no matter how well we know each other, each of us is filled with the Spirit and each of us, no matter how ordinary, are missionaries for God in this world.  Just as Christ sent his disciples to the neighboring villages, even though they were but fishermen, not scholars or priests, but fishermen, so Christ sends us out to our neighborhoods, and sometimes beyond, to preach his gospel, his good news of love and compassion.  So we should listen to one another, because if we shut one another out, we just might miss out on the wonder of God, just as the people in Jesus’ hometown did. 

            Also, may we support those who leave us to explore this world and to expand their own minds and experiences.  In a few months some of our youth will be leaving us to go off to college, to see what it is like to live on their own, to learn new things, to meet new people and hear new ideas.  May we pray for them as they are called out to these areas, that they may be filled with the Spirit and that when they return to us we might have ears that are open to their words.   May we not be afraid of challenges to our norms and may we be open to hearing from those who are younger, that we may not be blinded from God’s grace and mercy, but instead be inspired by the Light of Christ that is within each and every one of us.  And when our members leave us, whether due to job relocation or vacations or family issues or mission trips or whatever reason, may we pray for their safety and that they may continue to shine in the areas that God takes them to as well, that they may find themselves truly at home.

            Home should be a place where we are free and safe to express ourselves, not a place of rejection.  Home is a place of renewal, a place where we have the freedom to make adjustments, as opposed to when at work or at school where we have to follow the guidelines of bosses and teachers.  And we are at home here, because it is our Father’s house and here we are one large family, unified and empowered by the Spirit.  May we rejoice in the gifts that have been given to our brothers and out sisters, and may we be able to see God in the ordinary, in each other’s faces, and be able to hear God’s word in the voice of our neighbors and friends.  May we not be afraid of changes to our home, nor shun the ordinary, but rather rejoice in God’s presence among us and in the growth that He brings.

           

Amen.