"HOMECOMING"

Christmas is the happiest of times -- the lights, the bustle, everyone seems friendlier, gift-giving, homecoming, worshipping together.

Christmas is the saddest of times -- the days are short and the nights are long, the crowds, everybody seems short-tempered, the hassle of sending cards to people we've forgotten or despise, and buying gifts for family members who won't buy anything nice for us, and finding out we can't go home this year, and the Christmas story is so meaningless in the modern age.

There are always two points of view to everything, aren't there? For some people this season is wonderful, but for others it's depressing. The suicide rate always goes up in December.

These two points of view even show up in today's reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. There are voices crying, "Comfort," "Glory," "God is coming," "Herald the good tidings!" And there is a voice replying, "What's the use. All flesh is like grass, here today, gone tomorrow. You can't depend on anyone!"

The exiles in Babylon have been told that (with the change in the government) they might get to go home. Some are rejoicing and praising God. Some are suspicious and cynical and depressed.

In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, the citizens of a Jewish village end their Passover dinner with promises to each other: "Next year in Jerusalem!" And some believe the promise. And some know better. Maybe they can never go home to Jerusalem.

It's homecoming season right now. Our favorite school ball teams have played their home-coming games. Those of us who didn't go home for Thanksgiving probably will for Christmas.

"There's no place like home for the holidays," says one song. "I'll be home for Christmas," promises another, then ends with the admission, "if only in my dreams." "Home sweet home!" How wonderful it is to go home. Or, if you're already there, how wonderful to have all the family come back. And how sad we feel when anyone must leave.

But what about the people who can't go home? The man serving the twenty-year sentence, for whom every year makes the memories of home a little dimmer? The soldier stationed overseas, the college girl stranded at the airport? The family who decides, "this year we just haven't the money?"

What about the people for whom the word "home" has lost its meaning -- through death or divorce or the selling of the old place? It just doesn't seem the same to sing, "Over the river and through the woods to grandfather's condo " And Christmas won't be the same without Emily, without Ralph.

What about the ways, the inevitable ways, that home has changed, or your family has changed, or you have changed, or your memories have played you false? What about the shrew your brother married, and the fat slob your sister married, and all the screaming, squabbling grandchildren that fill up a too-small house, and the fact that Mom has slowed down and gotten deaf, and Dad has gotten grumpy, and homecoming never works out the way we imagine it will.

What about the people who have never known what home is? Orphans and refugee children, and (perhaps) all of us: "Lord, we do not know where you are going," says Thomas in John 14. "How can we know the way?" Maybe we've never truly been home. Maybe we don't know home from experience, but from longing. Maybe home is a place we've never seen, yet we know we'd recognize it if we could ever get there.

Truly, as another old song has it: "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passin' through." We were all made for some other home, a home we've never seen, and we don't know how to go home.

Maybe home, our true home, is like the land of Oz, breath-takingly beautiful, yet surrounded by the Deadly Desert, and the only way to get there is by accident, like a cyclone or a drifting balloon. Or between us and home is the Badlands: high mountains and deep canyons and uncrossable rivers. It would be so wonderful to go home, but we can't. We don't know how to go home.

But what if

What if home could come to us? What if home were more like a, like a motor home, with a powerful V-8 engine that could flatten out those mountains, and swoop out of those valleys, with springs and shocks that could make all the rough places smooth, and speed to cross even the Deadly Desert in an hour?

Or what if it were more like Daddy Warbucks' limousine, sent out to find us and pick us up and carry us home in the lap of luxury, feeding the flock like a shepherd, gathering up the lambs, and gently leading the mother sheep?

We wouldn't have to worry about getting home if home could come to us. And the story of Advent is that home did come to us, and home does come to us. The story of Advent is based on the realization that humanity could never find the way to God, and so God had to find the way to us.

I think that one of the amazing characteristics of Jesus is that people feel "at home" with him. There seems to be something about his presence, about fellowship or conversation or companionship with him, that makes people feel good. Apparently even prostitutes and tax collectors felt comfortable around him. Somehow he reminds people of their real home, the home they are made for but have never seen. In Jesus home comes to us. And no one ever needs to be homeless again.

The earliest church felt that hospitality was one of the greatest virtues. They told each other stories about how people met Jesus as a stranger on the road, or recognized him when they invited a stranger to a meal. They eagerly sought out strangers and travelers, assuming that they might be entertaining angels unawares. The center of Christianity is a shared meal, and the essence of Christianity is to feed the hungry and share a cup of water with the thirsty, to offer shelter to the homeless.

It's something we could be doing today. Homelessness is a plague, a physical plague and a spiritual plague. Many people literally have no place to lay their heads at night. Many others are psychologically unable to feel at home anywhere. We could be doing something about that. We should be doing something about that. Maybe through our help Habitat for Humanity and Operation Nightwatch, which are already doing great things, could be doing even more. Making the rough places smooth

Someone once pointed out that in the Christmas story Herod is the only one at home. The Magi are from far away. The shepherds are out on the hills. Mary and Joseph are miles from home, with no motel and no emergency room. This prompted G. K. Chesterton to write the "House of Christmas":

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam,
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden,
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

O Zion, herald of good tidings, Go tell it on the mountain.
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift up your voice with strength.
Say to the cities of the world, "Here is your God!"
The mountains are being leveled out. The valleys are being filled in.
The rough places are becoming smooth. Maybe we can get home on time.
We will be home for Christmas; for Christmas has come to us! Home comes to us!






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