An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt..."
Matthew 2:13
Something strange happened to me when I was pregnant with each of my three boys. I got this instinct to nest. I wanted their nursery set up just right. Two weeks before my first boy was born, I got kind of rabid and rearranged all the cans in my pantry. Now, if you know me, rearranging cans is not normally on the top of my priority list. But some part of me wanted to make the home perfect and ready for the baby.
Every parent wants their child born into a peaceful, idyllic life. I think that is why we work so hard getting ready, with baby showers, books, the latest gear. Because we want to do our very best, to make the child have the perfect childhood. Stability, love, a good home- Dr. Spock, the baby guru, says that all of these things are essential to a happy childhood.
But within the first week of a baby’s life, something happens. Maybe you burst into tears, or you leave them in a dirty diaper too long. Maybe they get sick or you get sick or your mother-in-law drives you nuts. Whatever it is, the world does not present itself as perfectly as you’d hoped. And the child’s peaceful, stable life is disrupted. And things only get crazier in the toddler years.
We try to create Eden for our kids and when things break or we disappoint ourselves, we feel as if we hurt or ruined the child. Adults will spend valuable time in therapy discovering how the broken world of their families shaped them and gave them sometimes bad habits or feelings. But there is a myth behind therapy and that is the myth of perfection. The Myth of the perfect home. It simply does not exist. No home, no family is perfect. Not here, at least, not on planet earth.
Look at Jesus. He is born to the most incredible parents. There were both good and faithful people. But Jesus had no stability at all as a child. He was born without a home at all. Presumably, Mary and Joseph settled in Bethlehem. Scholars now believe that the Wise Men did not arrive until somewhere in Jesus’ toddler years. But then, in today’s gospel, Joseph has a dream and God urges him to move. So Mary and Jesus had to walk to Egypt with a toddler.
We like to picture Mary on a donkey, holding a baby. But donkeys were for those who had money, and there is little indication that Joseph had much. And even if they had a donkey, can you imagine walking from Israel to Egypt with a toddler? I can hardly drive in a car with a toddler, and that is with videos, music and snacks. The journey to Egypt was at least 300 miles. No hotels, no rest stops, no McDonalds or playscapes. Just dust and dirt and the stars.
This was not the stable life that Dr. Spock talks about. This was not peaceful, this was not home. There were bands of robbers, people who told stories around fires at night. Camels and slave traders. This was no play date, folks. Jesus definitely did not have a set nap time. Jesus was raised on foot.
I used to sit and pray in the chapel of the Holy Innocents at St. James Church in Kansas. I would look up at the great stained glass window above the altar and think about all those little boys who were killed by Herod because of his paranoia. All those children, dead. It is unfathomable to me, that a ruler could order the killing of babies and children and still worse that anyone would carry it out.
It seems that Jesus was fleeing violence for a good portion of his life. He was hunted as a child, forced to move about to stay alive. And later, he would be hunted and killed as an adult. There was no home for Jesus here on earth. He did not model stability for us. So phrases like a Christian home, what do they mean? Jesus never had one.
Most of us spend our lives searching for the perfect home or trying to keep one. We hold this illusion in our minds of the perfect family in a beautiful house with lots of love and harmony. We long for this. And yet, a home is a building which needs to be cleaned and repaired, which changes over time. Even the best homes do not last long enough.
I spent this past week packing my mother-in-laws belongings. She will be moving to Jacksonville to be closer to us. We will have to sell her five bedroom house in Memphis, Tennessee. She will most likely move to a two bedroom apartment. We spent five days saying goodbye to things and having to make decisions about what to keep and what to sell. Every little trinket had a memory. It was hard work, and not just on the body. It was grieving work, having to say goodbye to so much.
But God does this to all of us when we grow old. We too are forced to move, like Jesus, like Moses, like Abraham. For there is no true home for those who love God here on earth and in the end, we all will be forced to shed all of our things. There is nothing that we can bring with us when we go to meet God. Not even a suitcase.
When we say home, we are really referring to something else. We are referring to a hunger that we have for deep and abiding peace and comfort. We are not referring to a bit of furniture or a house full of relatives. We are referring to something deep inside of ourselves, some longing that we have for stability. We are really longing for God.
The Psalmist writes, “How dear to me is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!”
Grace Church in Orange Park has a wonderful sign outside of their front door. It is very simple. It says Welcome Home.
When we long for the beautiful nursery or the perfectly stacked pantry, what we are really looking for can be found here. Here is the home that you have always longed for, with a meal that will truly feed you. This place is not perfect, but it can be a place where you can rest, here in the service on Sundays, you can truly rest.
There is a reason why every Sunday we do the Holy Eucharist. We know that you need that comfort, that stability. Sure things change a bit with the seasons, but basically, we do the same thing over and over and over again. And God would have us do it this way for two thousand years because God knows that we need a place where we can rest. And that the children of God need some predictability.
Because out there, everything is changing. You will be moving, like it or not, you will have to say goodbye to your things. Your bodies will change, your minds will change. Your friends and relatives, even your pets will change. But here, on Sundays, we will tell the story over and over again. The sacred words will run over you like water running over a rock, shaping your life forever.
Don’t look for stability out there. Don’t look for comfort. Look to serve. Seek out ways that you can serve God. Try to follow God’s will, for you will be moving, but the question is where…
Come here for comfort, here to God’s house, to the place where the Eucharist is offered. Come Home.
