What Happened to Home?

5:40 in the morning here in the office, and I sit. Time almost stands still. Yesterday's newspaper spread out to my left, a dimly lit lamp breaking up the pre-dawn darkness to my right. I sit here alone. At least if you were to look in here, that's the way it would seem, but I am not alone. The presence of the Lord is heavy here is I cry out.

Millions! Millions of people have fled their homes at this time. Some will return home to comfort as normal. Thousands will return to repair extensive damage. Tens of thousands will never return home... or home will not return to them. Rita lurks off the coastal shores of Texas: 175 mph/282 kph sustained winds.

Some of us will go home after work today thankful we have our homes. Others of us will receive evacuees into our homes. But does that make us heroes? Are these people just helpless victims? Do they have nothing to offer us? Maybe their lives are speaking volumes to us. Maybe they will teach us if we will just listen.

Reflection
We live in a transient society. Many children move countless times before they reach maturity. Where is home? Houses are destroyed every year by earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, wars. Where is home? Our neighborhoods change. People different from us move in. We no longer feel the sense of comfort and safety we used to when we approach the driveway after a long day in the world. The tempestuous world seems to be coming to our doorstep. Where is home?

Ever since the very beginning, our ancestors in the faith have been searching for home. "A wandering Aramean was my father..." Every Hebrew identifies with this not-so-fairytale beginning of the Israelite story in Deuteronomy. The Israelites recited this when presenting their tithes before the Lord. They were delivered and given a promised land, but they were to always remember that their destination was not Egypt, Jerusalem, or Babylon, but the Creator God himself! He is our ultimate destination. We will always have a since of longing and homelessness until we are delivered to our final destination.

When the Messiah came, he lived as a wanderer, a pilgrim: "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head" (Luke 9:58). He came from God, and to God he was going. Jesus was not complaining, but stating his reality. He understands our feeling of homelessness. All of our shelters in life or just temporary places to park and rest for a while: our houses, our offices, our beautiful church buildings. But these places do not define us.

"On any given night, however comfortable we may be and however secure our futures may seem, we remain vulnerable to a certain heaviness of heart that can come upon us for no apparent reason at all. It may begin as a flutter in the chest or as a full-blown ache--a sudden hollowness inside, a peculiar melancholy, an inexplicable homesickness. Have you felt it? The sense that there is a place you belong that you have somehow gotten separated from, a place that misses you as much as you miss it and that is calling you to return, only you do not know where, or how to get there. All you know is that you are not there yet, and that your life will not be complete until you are" --B.B. Taylor, The Preaching Life, 158.

A Blessing in Homelessness?
Maybe this feeling is more a blessing than a curse. Maybe it is God's gentle tugging at our heart. God is helping us not to become too settle so that we remember we are not home yet.

For those of us helping the homeless, "We cling to the illusion that some of us are blessed and some of us are not, and that it is our job as those who are blessed to rescue those who are not. We labor under the illusion that our work involves "us" and "them," with us--the caregivers, the helpers, the lucky--on one side of the counter and them--the clients, the supplicants, the unlucky--on the other. We succomb to the illusion that they can all be saved if only we will work enough hours, find enough money, get enough publicity" --Taylor, 160.

Our father Abraham was a wanderer, Jesus had no bed to lay his head, and God reminds us that it is by his grace alone that we live as we make our way home--back to Him. There is no "us" and "them." We "us" are all line up on the same side of God's counter: asking, waiting, longing, groaning. Not home, but headed there.

God, we cry out to you!

Save those who are suffering the storm!
Intervene in your divine mercy!
Walk with us in this devastation!

Remind us that even though we are not home,
You have promised us a home.
Your promise never fails.
Thank you, God.
Thank you for your everlasting promise.