I love to travel. At one time I took every opportunity to travel for consulting work. I still love that, but as I get older I have discovered that I also really love to be home.
The familiarity of home is hard to describe. You know what's next. You know when you can sleep late. All the stuff to maintain life at home is always around you, eager to be on your to do list, but also easy to ignore.
And you can always make your favorite cup of tea. In your favorite tea pot.
Welcome Home
In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), the son who returns is accepted with open arms. I often read this as a story of forgiveness, and Psalm 32, also assigned for next Sunday, adds to that idea. But the lectionary skips over finding the lost sheep, and the lost coin, and neither of those stories are about forgiveness. The prodigal story concludes (v. 31) with dad saying what was lost is now found. Even when the prodigal apologizes in verses 18 and 21, dad's message is not about forgiveness but rather "welcome home."
There is much talk about whether people who voted for our present government are having second thoughts. I'm skeptical of putting much hope in this change of heart, but I have no audience in that crowd. So I'm thinking about my people, who are progressive or centrist or mainline Christians, or Unitarians, a few atheists and agnostics (thanks for subscribing!), and generally people who want to work with communities to create the common good. We, the people who are on the "correct side" and the side of justice. Are we willing to welcome others home?
Perhaps, as long as those-other-people fall to their knees, acknowledge that they have sinned, and otherwise show their change of heart, then we have room to welcome them home. Perhaps not. The apology of the prodigal makes us like him better, but it doesn't appear the father has any interest in those words. What he sees, it seems without judgment, is his son.
Of course the prodigal hurt only himself, with the degrading job of feeding, and eating with, pigs. Those who have chosen our present leadership have hurt, are hurting, so many in our community. One facebook meme suggests that we have discovered that our neighbors would turn in Anne Frank. While I believe that many voters had no oppressive intent, they were willing to accept the impact of hurting the very people that our faith calls us to protect: the poor, the stranger, the oppressed. Are these people we can welcome home?
Some, of course, voted in favor of oppression. That was their actual goal, and the chaos and the financial costs are worth it to them as a strategy to maintain white supremacy culture. But I don't think those are the people who are having second thoughts right now. Part of why the side of the status quo lost is because we don't know what this wavering group was thinking--about the economy, about change, about government in general--so its hard to say what comes with shifting viewpoints. But whatever they are thinking the scriptures are talking to us and they say something about making space for people to come home. Jesus invites us all home, can we invite wanderers home?
Can a person who makes a harmful, even deadly, decision, and then regrets it, come home to our church? I follow the hardest part of my faith, to love and pray for my enemies: with the Rabbi in Fiddler on the Roof, I pray that God keep the Tsar ... far away from us. I'm not as open-hearted for someone nearby. Like the prodigal's brother, the whole thing doesn't seem fair. You can't do your damage and then ask to come home.
Except, I think our faith does call for that graciousness. Risk taking. Relationship re-making. Heart repairing. I think we are called to welcome our neighbors and our siblings and our children and our parents home. After they are through the threshold we may want to get to a place of seeking apologies, of searching our hearts for forgiveness, but first we have to get out a fancy dress, throw a party, and celebrate that "you were dead and have come to life, and you were lost and have been found."
Where is home? Have you struggled with welcoming someone back to home?
Still looking for stories of churches helping immigrants. Reply to this email to let me know what's happening.
Kate Campbell is a singer-songwriter whose songs tells stories. Here is a song I love about coming home.
Standing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is having a faith-based online workshop: Faith Rooted Action Workshop for the Pledge to Protect and Resist. Register for that workshop (Wednesday, April 2 at 8 pm Eastern Time) here.
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