Come Home Again A Sermon for Homecoming Sunday 2019 (September 8, 2019) First UMC of Olympia Rev. Peter K. Perry

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. ’But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ” (:11–32, NRSV)

Where is home for you? Where do you turn when there’s no place else to go? What do you hold onto during the storms of life? Where is your rock, your anchor, your guiding star? When the flood waters rise, where do you go to keep from drowning?

The world is in crisis. We see China trade wars and Brexit, nuclear proliferation in unstable regimes, refugees fleeing their homes on four different continents, ever-widening inequality in the distribution of wealth and resources, decades long armed conflicts, global climate change.

The nation is in crisis. We see a leader that over half the nation doesn’t trust to ever tell the truth but who is lifted up by his supporters as the antidote to all they fear in a world of rapid social change. We see government at an impasse of division, fueled by forces we don’t fully understand. We have enough money to create the world’s largest military force three times over but not enough to give everyone an education, or health care, or equal opportunities to succeed. We light candles for the victims of senseless mass shootings and we have churches and synagogues offering sanctuary to long-time residents who fear being deported to a country where they have never lived. We see the destruction of nature and the pollution of our water, the short-sighted decisions to make a dollar today even if it means our planet will be unlivable for our great grandchildren.

Our states and cities are in crisis. We see the overcrowding of our roads and the resulting incidents of road rage, we see the building of for-profit prisons, and the rationing of life-sustaining medicines by those who cannot afford the medical care they need. We see the homeless living under our bridges and in clearings in our forests, sleeping in tents on downtown parking lots, on bedrolls in our parks, and in a few tiny houses built by people of faith. We see the impact of opioid addiction and meth addiction and the crime that happens to support these habits.

The church is in crisis. We wonder what it means to be a Christian, we wonder if God is real, we wonder if prayer makes a difference, and if Jesus would be pleased with our culture-bound expressions of devotion and mission. We see an entire generation rejecting the structures of religion that have framed our spirituality for a millennium or longer and lament each time we close another church. Some of us fall asleep at night wondering if there will be such a thing as the United Methodist Church when we wake up in the morning. How can the church survive the changes of culture swirling all around us. Many of us no longer find comfort in the ancient stories of faith and find ourselves struggling to rebuild the very idea of faith.

And for a lot of us, at any given time, our personal lives are in crisis. I know the stories of your lives. It is one of the great privileges of being a pastor, and I know how many of us everyday are doing the best we can to cope. We have fears for our children, and fears for our parents. Dementia, Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, mental health issues, depression, anxiety, loss of abilities related to aging. We cope with addictions, our own and those of our loved ones. We worry about our jobs, being able to pay our bills, how to raise our child in a world of conflicting values. We have marriage issues, family dysfunctions and estrangement, grief issues, demons from our past and fears for our future. And we drown it all in over- consumption and increasing isolation from others.

Let me ask again: Where is home for you? Where do you turn when there’s no place else to go? What do you hold onto during the storms of your life? Where is your rock, your anchor, your guiding star? When the flood waters rise, where do you go to keep from drowning?

Today’s scripture is, I suppose, the quintessential homecoming story. This story of the , the resentful brother, and the loving father is surely one of the most well-known of stories of Jesus. I can picture the disciples, sitting around a small fire in the evening, saying to Jesus, “Hey, Lord, tell us the one about again! That’s a good one, rabbi! We like that story, Jesus.”

We like that story because we all have first-hand experience with the plot. We all know what it feels like to be lost! We all know what it is to be afraid! We all have longing, and we all have regret. We get this story. It is our story.

And at the heart of this story is a loving force that is always present. This force in the story told by Jesus is called the father, and it represents stability, and safety, belonging. It represents relationships and groundedness. It represents home. Of course, the story is an allegory, and as such it is so much more than the timeless story. This force was there at our beginning. This force was there at our wandering. This force is there in our darkness, in our lostness. This force is in our past, present, and future. This force is there for us all, no matter who we are or what have done or not done. This force in the story told by Jesus is called the father, but it is so much more than a character in a parable. The force of love, the force of acceptance, the force of relationship, is a depiction of the way things truly are! Jesus tells this story to remind us that the way things are, always, even in the midst of crisis, includes a possibility of coming home again! He tells the story so that we can look up from our circumstances... from the crises of world, nation, church, community and personal life... we can look up and we can know that there is something more. We can know that there is a home, a place where God is, and we can come home again.

DeRay McKesson is a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. A black man, a gay man, a beloved former teacher, DeRay quit his job in Baltimore and moved to Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after Brown was killed by police there. He moved there to try to make a difference. He became a community organizer and worked to change policies and attitudes, he worked to change the present into a better future. Last year he wrote a book called On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope. I must admit that I haven’t read it, but I heard an interview with him about the book on NPR and this is one of the things he said:

“There's a pessimism that I think has arisen in this moment where people are like, "We're doomed." There's a doomsday sort of scenario, and I get it cause of what's happening in the White House and the other places can lead to that, but when I think about why people are out in the street [marching] and why people are running for office, that is hope work to me... hope is this belief that our tomorrow can be better than our today. When Martin Luther King, Jr. says that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, that's about faith. But when we say the arc bends because people bend it, that's about hope.”

That comment intrigued me. It reminded me that the arc bending is work we share with God. It is a theology of privilege that says God up in heaven bends that arc with supernatural strength and all we have to do is wait until its within reach of our grasp. A theology of privilege looks upon the crises of the world and of our lives, and says “It will be better in heaven.” A theology of privilege accepts things as they are because things aren’t so bad that we are dying.

But people are dying. And a theology of privilege looks the other way.

God never stops loving all of us prodigals. There are voices, like the brother in the story Jesus told that are content to let the prodigal die. But God never stops loving. God never closes the door. God never withholds the welcome. God never stops hoping that the one who is lost will come home again. And if God never stops hoping, then why should we?

We are people of hope. People of hope, recognizing that the world isn’t right, take steps to make it better. They imagine a better day and they work for it. They set their sights on home, and they set out on a journey. Who knows how long it will take? Who knows how far they most go? Who knows what they must leave behind, or who they will walk with along the way? But they have a destination in mind, and they know that they journey toward home.

Home. You are creating home each time you hold the hand of another child of God and share love. You are creating home when you act to alleviate suffering. You are creating home when you speak out against injustice. You are creating home when you teach a child to read, feed your family a good meal, write a letter to the editor or call your congresswoman. Sure church, you are creating home when you build a tiny house, but you are also creating home when walk with someone through suicidal ideation, or listen to friend describe the fear of a spouse diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, or give a ride to church for someone who can’t drive anymore. You are creating home when you encounter and engage people who are different from you. You are creating home when you welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, visit the sick, and set free the imprisoned. You are creating home every time you bend the arc of God’s love so that someone else can reach it. And you should know that others are bending that arc every day so that YOU can reach it.

“...the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.”

And then he came to himself...

He remembered that there is a place called home, filled with a loving presence... and he began his journey home.

Jesus tells us the ending. A loving father welcomes home the prodigal.

There is home for you. There is a home for me. There is a home for us all. Let us journey together, creating home as we go. God hasn’t given up on us yet. Despite the many ways in which we seek to destroy all that is good and beautiful, God has not given up on us and in our hearts and minds we can still imagine a better day and a better way. Never give up hope. Come home again. Amen.