Coming Home

When we let Spirit
Lead us
It is impossible
To know
Where
We are being led.
And we know
All we can believe
All we can hope
Is that
We are going
Home
That wherever
Spirit
Takes us
Is where
We
Live.

-Alice Walker, "When We Let Spirit Lead Us"

We long to be at home, to find a home in the universe. Could this be such a place? We long to be at home, to be with others "who love us and are glad to see our faces" [Garrison Keillor]. Could it be that we have already arrived?

Today is a homecoming of sorts, as we regather our worshipping community after the long summer hiatus. We have gone our separate ways over the last couple of months, both far and near; some of us have traveled widely, while others have stayed close by. Some of us have traveled only within, but, we are reminded, such journeys often take us deep, deeper than the longest outward journey. Some of us have explored in foreign lands, and some of us have explored inner territory.

Now we have regathered, and I wonder, where will the journey take us in the days and months to come? For we are reminded that life itself is a journey, a magnificent pilgrimage. Will it, as Alice Walker hopes, take us to that place called Home?

After a summer of disasters both natural and human-made, of hurricanes and bombs and floods and preventable failures, it is good to know that we do not have to face the uncertainties of life alone. It is good to stand together with others and to feel their presence, to join our voices in song and spoken word, to be in the company of those who care. It is good to be together!

And it is good to count our blessings. If this summer has taught us anything, it is that we can be certain of nothing. We must take each day as it comes, take each day as a gift that is given to us, be grateful for the moments and the hours and not get too far ahead of ourselves, not get too far out front, not take anything for granted.

It is good to be together! It is good to look into each others’ eyes and to hear each others’ voices and to feel each others’ touch. We are still here! We have survived,--which may sound overly dramatic, but is really a miracle when you come to think of it. There are no guarantees in this life. That much this summer has reminded us. We ought to be grateful for what we are and for what we have, not that our lives are perfect or will ever be perfect, because they will not, but because things could be a whole lot worse than they are. "These are the days that have been given to us: let us rejoice and be grateful in them."

We must stand in solidarity with one another. We need one another. We cannot allow any to fall beyond the embrace of our care and concern. We cannot go it alone. That much we have learned. And so we have gathered here this morning, gathered in this place made sacred by all those who have come here before us, by all those who have stood together in the place where we now stand. Imagine all that this place has seen of triumph and tragedy, and know that you stand on holy ground.

Thomas Wolfe, the great American novelist, famously said that "you can’t go home again." What he meant, I think, is that we can’t go home to the same place, for it, and we, have changed. This church is not the same as it was last year, or the year before. Some faces are missing from this company of saints and sinners. And among the old familiar faces there are new faces--who are these strangers in our midst? How shall we welcome them? None of us knows what this new church year will bring. We only know that it will never be the same as it was before.

But that doesn’t mean that it won’t be good. Old friends may be gone, but we can make new ones. Maybe we can’t go home again: maybe we can’t relive the past or can’t bring back the glory of former days, but we have all those days still to come, and we can make a new home for ourselves in them. No it won’t be the same, but it can be just as good, and maybe it can be even better.

In these days when so many people have lost their homes, when we are witnessing displacement on an almost inconceivable scale, we are reminded that home is more than a place: it is also a state of being. Perhaps more than anything, home is a sense of belonging. At its best it is a feeling of "at homeness" in the universe, so that, wherever we are and whomever we are with, we are home. As Alice Walker hopes, "wherever spirit leads us is where we live."

Robert Frost wrote in a poem that "home is the place where, when you have to go there,/ They have to take you in." Our church is kind of like that: a place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. We try not to turn anyone away, at least not intentionally. We strive to be a beloved community. But is it only out of obligation that we do this?

Do you remember the next line of the poem? "I should have called it/ Something you somehow haven’t to deserve." Home is something you haven’t to deserve. No one should have to "deserve" to be at home. We all deserve it, or none of us deserves it. How can we allow anyone to be excluded from the circle of respect and human decency that we all deserve?

It’s pretty easy these days to feel guilty about our good fortune, to feel guilty if we have a place to call home, to feel guilty even if we feel at home. But guilt isn’t a very constructive emotion. Much better to express our gratitude in large and small acts of kindness and generosity. Much better to put our anger to constructive use. Much better to give of ourselves: of our time, talent, and treasure. The world needs you, not to be guilty, but to be grateful, to be angry when necessary, and to give something back. The world has always needed that, and perhaps today it needs it more than ever.

It is tempting in these days to succumb to despair, to succumb to our sense of doom and gloom and hopelessness. It is tempting just to be mad and check out. It is tempting to believe in vast conspiracy theories.

But I do not believe that that is where Spirit is leading us. I do not believe that Spirit will let us down. I still believe that good will ultimately triumph over evil, life over death, and that tragedy will be overcome. I believe that we can face our individual and collective failures and move beyond them. I still believe in the possibility of living in a beloved community. I believe that most people are good.

"When we let Spirit lead us," wrote Alice Walker, "it is impossible to know where we are being led." It is not given us to know, and, truth to tell, would we really want to? Perhaps it is the universe’s way of reminding us to live in the moment. But we can believe and we can hope that we are going home.

On this day of new beginnings, there is work for our hearts and hands and minds to do. There is mortality to be faced. It is around us and within us and it should remind us of our common humanity every moment of our lives. Where is Spirit leading us? Let us pray that it is leading us where we live, that it is leading us to new life and abundance and gratitude for all that is ours on this once only day of our lives. Let us pray that it is leading us from death to life.

It is a beautiful and a tragic world we live in. But we are not alone. There are others waiting to gladden our hearts and to travel the sometimes dark journey with us. "O, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!" May you be blessed by the sense of coming home, in this place, or wherever, on this day, and in the days still to come. Amen.

The Rev. Harold E. Babcock