"Home on Earth" | The Rev. Heidi Thorsen | December 20, 2020

Advent 4b - December 20, 2020

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 | Romans 16:25-27 | Luke 1:26-38 | Canticle 15

Title: Home on Earth

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing to you, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

I think that one of the most beautiful ideas in the world is simply the idea of home. Home - the place you come from. Home - the place you return to at the end of the day. Home - a place of security, and warmth, and shelter. A place where you can be yourself. Home.

I think that all of us have some idea of what home means. If you close your eyes this morning and imagine what home looks like, what would you see? Would you see the very place you are sitting right now, whether you are in a house or an apartment? Or would you close your eyes to see a place you knew long ago: the familiar doorway to the house you grew up in? The color of the walls in a room where you used to lay your head? Perhaps when you think of home you have in mind a particular city. Perhaps you think of a stretch of wilderness where you used to camp in the summer. Perhaps you think of an entire state. For some people listening today, home is not a place but a feeling. A feeling of comfort, of familiarity. Home is the comfort of being around people that you love, who love you in return.

I am fairly confident that every human being has some core idea of what home means to them. And yet it is also a sad truth that we often come to understand home as much through presence, as through absence. Sometimes the only way we understand home is through the experience of missing home - and we even have a word for this: homesickness. I also know that there are many people in the world who do not have homes today. There are many people living without the comfort of shelter; or the comfort of loved ones. And yet we don’t even have to go to that extreme for home to be a complicated thing. Because all of us, in our own way, have complicated experiences of home. Perhaps our ideal of home is mixed with grief, for people we have lost; or anger, because of the ways your home was not a safe or loving place; or confusion, because you have lived many places in your life, or perhaps the place you came from is a part of your life no more.

Home - it is one of the most beautiful ideas in the world that I can think of! And yet beautiful does not necessarily mean happy. Home is a complicated thing. It is an idea that we hold onto, cling to even, nevertheless.

I am thinking of home this week for so many reasons. I am thinking of home because it is where I spend most of my time these days, as I do all the work that a priest can possibly do from my own desk, for the health and safety of the community. I am thinking of home because a part of me will always think that home is California, the state I grew up in. Many of my family are there, but I will not be going there this particular holiday season. And lastly I am thinking of home because of our first lesson today, the reading from the Book of Second Samuel.

If ever you were looking for an example of people who understand home more through its absence than its presence, look no further than the People of Israel. The story of the People of Israel is rooted in a narrative of exile - a narrative of homelessness. Even after wandering in a wilderness for forty years and finally reaching the Promised Land, it took some time for Israel to come together as a people; for the Israelites to truly feel at home. In some ways that narrative of exile still lives on in the legacy of Jewish people today, and yet what I want to focus on, right now, is the particular way that home comes up in the story of the People of Israel, in the Book of Second Samuel. At this point in Israel’s history, the people of Israel are united not only through place, but also through a single system of government - the Davidic monarchy. This stability is still somewhat new, as we can tell from David’s words to his advisor the prophet Nathan.

David says to Nathan: “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” David implies some sort of unfairness; implying, in effect, that perhaps it is time for the People of Israel to build God a physical dwelling place, a house of worship. Nathan sees this as a good idea, and says in response, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.”

And yet God had something else in mind.

Because later that night, the word of God comes to Nathan, to carry the following message to David. “Thus says the LORD: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” In other words, God tells Nathan and David to pause, and consider whether this gift that David is considering, the gift of a House for God, is something that God asks for or needs at this time. We of course know that it was David’s son, Solomon, who went on to build the First Temple in Jerusalem, a kind of spiritual home for God and the People of Israel. But for now, something else is needed. Rather than asking for a home,what God desires in this moment from David and the People of Israel is simply a new kind of awareness.

And so, God continues, saying to the prophet Nathan: “I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth…. Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”

Here ends the incredible lesson we read from the Book of Second Samuel today. King David has a wonderful, even generous idea: let us build God a house! And in response, God says this: not yet. Remember all that I have done for you… and I will build you a house.” God turns the tables on David. God reminds David that God is, first and foremost, the giver of all good things. And beyond that, God broadens the idea of a house, and what a house means. Because the house that God is talking about is not made of bricks or cedar. It is instead a legacy - a kingdom. It is an idea… something that is much more powerful than any human built structure because it can never be destroyed. 

We as Christians believe that the fulfillment of God’s promise to build Israel a house comes in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic monarchy. Jesus rules over a kingdom that is not bound by any of the rules of this world, or bound by any set identity or understanding of peopleness. Jesus calls us to look forward to a different kind of kingdom, a better kingdom - the kingdom of Heaven. I believe that the kingdom of heaven is the house that God sets out to build for God’s people. But the kingdom is more than just a house - it is a home. It is a place of perfect belonging. A place where we can feel perfectly ourselves. A place where we are loved. 

The most wonderful thing about this house that God is building for us is that it isn’t some distant dream, something that we can only get to ages from now, or in our leaving of this world. Rather, Jesus says in the gospel of Luke, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:20-21). The kingdom of God is among you. 

In other words, Jesus came into the world to make this house - this physical world that we live in - into a home. Jesus came to sanctify this world, to make it better. Jesus came to make this world a more hospitable place for our souls, which long for justice and freedom and peace. I acknowledge that our world today doesn’t always feel like the home that God promises. Poverty, grief, sickness, selfishness - these are just some of the things that detract from God’s vision for the house that God is building for us. And yet we have to remember: God is still building, and we are builders too. Jesus came into the world and said - come build with me. Come, be fishers of people. Come and see.

As we approach Christmas, we ready ourselves to celebrate the incredible gift that God gave us in bringing Jesus into the world. In sending Jesus, God made this world God’s home. In sending Jesus, God recognized the holiness of all the homes that we have in our lives - from the very first home we have in our mother’s womb, to the very last place we lay our heads. God made this earth God’s home - and while it is still a work in progress, it is work that took on new meaning with the birth of Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem.

What does home mean to you this Christmas? Is home the place where you are at currently? Is it a place you are missing? Is home still a dream that you are chasing? Whatever home means to you this Christmas, remember this: God chose this earth as God’s home - so that wherever you are this Christmas, God is with you. As we celebrate God’s presence, may we never forget to work towards God’s vision for this world as it could be. Together, we are “working on a building,” in the words of an old African American spiritual. We are working on a “Holy Ghost Building.” And together with God we will build more than a house for all people. We will build a home. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.