"No Place Like Home"
Home is where God is
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Text: Isaiah 60:1-10
It was August 30 I was glued to my television set because many of our Olympic athletes were returning home from Athens. As many of you will remember, they came home to a less than great reception, particularly from the media, for it was felt that Canada hadn't quite lived up to expectations. Some of them arrived wondering how they would be received.
One young athlete came home to a rapturous welcome. She hadn't done particularly well, she hadn't even surpassed her personal best, but waiting for her in the airport was her grandfather. He was incapacitated, in a wheelchair, and it was very difficult for him to make the trip, but no matter what, he was going to be there to welcome his granddaughter home. When she came down to the arrival lounge the first person she went to, after passing all the other members of her family, the media, the cameras and the microphones, was her grandfather. She embraced him and he cried. During an interview afterwards she was asked, “What did it feel like to be disappointed at the Olympics?”
She turned to the reporter and said, “You know, it really doesn't matter what happens anywhere else in the world, or what anybody else thinks. What matters is what your home thinks.”
This young woman had put everything into perspective. What matters is that no matter what the world might think, no matter what the critics might say, her grandfather received her home proudly and made the effort to welcome her home.
My friends, this is also, I believe, a powerful biblical image. It runs all the way through the Bible. This sense that not only is home a human place, but a spiritual place. It is a place where God resides. In our text from the Book of Isaiah we see this message of the homecoming of the world to God. We read that the people of Israel are going to experience a great light that is going to shine. They are going to return to their country with glory and it will be a special moment. But not only that, we realize that these people are living in exile, in a dispersion, in many different countries throughout the world. Because they are living in different places, they are amongst foreigners, they are living amongst Gentiles.
Now, many of them are there because they were defeated in battle, but it is now the second and third generation of exiles, and they are there voluntarily. They are there because there is good work available. They can even get a job in the government. Some of them are there because the fields are more fertile than the dry, arid lands of their home in Israel. Some of them are there because they actually enjoy being free from the legal constraints of the law and the religion that they saw as oppressive at home.
In other words, they're sitting back, living in a foreign land and making it a home. But even so, deep in their hearts there is a love for the motherland. This is evidenced by the fact that most of them would send half a shekel a year home to Israel in order that the temple could be preserved and that Jerusalem would be a mighty city. Despite the fact that they were living in foreign lands, scattered and dispersed, their hearts were still at home.
They have another vision. Second Isaiah sees these people living in their foreign lands and scattered throughout the different nations as having a role to play. They are to be beams of light. They are to be amongst the Gentiles in order that all the Gentiles might someday come to God, that they might return home to their Creator. They are not just living in dispersion in a exiled world, they are living there for a purpose: to bear witness to God that all the world might come home.
St. Augustine put this so beautifully: “Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” In other words, human beings are called home. They are to return home. And, in the most glorious passage of all, from the Book of Isaiah, there are these words: “Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests?” Isaiah sees all the people of the Gentile world, all the different countries that are part of the dispersion, like doves finally coming home to rest in the place where they ultimately belong.
It's a powerful image, that natural gravitation to come home no matter where you are. I've been reading a lot this summer about the Olympics and one of the things I find fascinating is that when the Romans participated in the original Olympics they used to send doves from Greece back to Rome with the message of how their athletes were performing.
In 12th century Baghdad (a very developed city, particularly in that era), they would actually use doves to send messages to Syria and to other countries to let them know what they were doing and what their vision was. One of the nicest examples that I read of this kind of communicating was in the 19th century, where the London Stock Exchange used to get a head start on all the other exchanges in Europe because, from places like Boulonge they would get doves to report back to London about what was taking place on the farms in France and other towns in Europe. The doves were faster than the mail. (Maybe the TSX should start doing that as opposed to using Canada Post!)
In other words, the homing instinct of the birds is a powerful way of communicating a message. This is what Isaiah is saying when he says, “Who are these that fly along like clouds, like doves to their nests?” The Gentiles. And the people who are living amongst the Gentiles are to bear witness that the whole world should come home to God.
Now I appreciate that home is not always a lovely place for people. They're not always peaceful, they're not always places where you are greeted by a hug and acceptance. I know that. But, the home of God is such a place. One of the great joys is that you can come home to God and if you do you will be accepted, you will be received. But sometimes the roadblock to coming home, the actual arrival home lies with us. We're the problem. Just as the Gentiles had to believe what the Israelites who lived in exile believed in order that they, too, might come home, so, too, we need those roadblocks removed: the sin, the doubts, the fears that often stand in our way of coming home. It's not that God does not want us home, it's that we in our sinfulness often aren't willing to come home. But the beautiful message of the Scripture is that it is God who initiates that way home. Sometimes there is a block, sometimes the trip home isn't easy, but the Maker tries to bring us home nevertheless.
I read a true story not long ago about the early development of the automobile. One day a man was driving along in his car in the middle of nowhere when it broke down. He didn't know what to do so he did what everyone does - opened the hood. (Now, I don't know about you, but I open the hood and have no idea what to do then.) After opening the hood, he got out his wrench and screwdriver and stood there with no idea what to do. All of a sudden a big Lincoln drove up, the driver saw the man stranded on the side of the road and graciously pulled over to provide assistance. A nicely dressed man got out of his car and said to the other man, “Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. I have no idea how to fix these Ford cars. No idea at all.”
“Give me a screwdriver, a hammer and a wrench and I'll see what I can do.” He looked under the hood, banged, clashed, crashed and put the hood down. Then the car started up and purred like a kitten.
“That's amazing! You did that so quickly,” said the first man. “You knew exactly what was wrong right from the beginning. How is it that you should know that?”
“Well, my name is Henry Ford,” said the second man. “I built these, I should know how to fix them.”
My friends, God looks at the world in all its brokenness, in all its unwillingness and inability to come home and says, “I have made you. I can fix it. I can bring you home. I'm the One who will do this.” Indeed, the whole message of the New Testament is the message of God in Christ bringing the world home, fulfilling the vision of Isaiah. It's as if the nations are floating around like doves and Jesus says, “Here is home, if you will just come. I have prepared the way home.”
Surely, the message of the prodigal son is a message to the world: “Come on home, I'm ready to receive you.”
This summer I saw a number of movies and one of them was the type of movie that you would be ashamed to watch in a theatre. It's the sort of movie that you'd want to wear a bag over your head to, in the hope that nobody would see you, but I did so, I suppose, primarily because my wife Marial thought we should see it. Rather than going to the theatre, I rented it so we could watch it anonymously in our own home with, of course, the curtains drawn in the basement.
Now, you're all wondering what kind of a movie are the Stirlings watching. Well, it was Good Boy and it's about a dog that comes from a dog planet to earth to send a message to all the dogs on earth that they have to start controlling their masters and mistresses. If they don't, there will be a complete doggie recall and all dogs on earth will be recalled to their home planet. (Now, do you see why I'd want to wear a paper bag?)
But there is a powerful message in this movie and it's not as strange as it may seem, because this dog comes here and falls in love with its owners and realizes that all the other dogs actually love their masters and mistresses. Until one day, the Great Dane in the Sky arrives to place a mandate before all of them to explain why they are not prepared to come home. In a very touching moment one of the dogs actually says, “We're not going home because we are loved here and this is our home.”
The message of Jesus Christ to the world is, “God has made His home here with us.” God has taken the initiative to make His home here and with that home has actually removed all the barriers that exist between ourselves and God's home. But a price has been paid for this. You don't just go home to God, God has to pay a price to bring you home.
Reading of those who have been kidnapped over the years, I was thinking of the great ransoms that people are willing to pay to bring their children home. I read again of the Lindberg story, where they paid $50,000 to bring their kidnapped son home, only to find he was dead. Nevertheless, the Lindbergs wanted their son home. The Wayerhausers', the great magnates of the paper industry, paid $200,000 ransom to bring a child home, because they knew that home was worth anything in terms of their money. Frank Sinatra paid $250,000 ransom to bring his son home.
I sympathize with Mehar Arar's family who wanted to bring him home. It's a powerful pull to come home, but sometimes the price has to be paid to bring the person home. God has paid it on our behalf. These doves that fly are brought home, but the cost of their return has been paid by God.
Home is finally a place that has an open door. It seems at times when the people of Israel were in exile God could have just thrown up His hands and said, “Stay where you are,” but God wanted to bring them home as we learnt last week from Cyrus the Persian. God could have said to the Gentile world, “If you want to go off and worship your pagan gods, go ahead and do it, but I want the nations to come home because I have made them.”
During the American Civil War there was a battle on the Potomac River between the North and the South. As was the custom at that time, each of them had their own bands playing. They would try to inspire the troops by playing songs of home. The southerners would play their music to remind their people of Dixie and the Yankees would play theirs to remind them of home. The battles would be fought with the sound of the competing tunes playing in the background.
One Sunday, one of the bands just happened to play, “Home Sweet Home.” The fighting suddenly ceased. The other band, hearing this music that meant so much to them as well, joined in. The soldiers from both sides sang, “There is no place like home.” For a moment there was peace as they remembered home. Home is a powerful place. It is the place of peace. It is the place of justice. It is the place of righteousness. It is where God is.
Many of you may have watched as I did, Perdita Felicien, the Canadian hurdler, as she knocked over the first hurdle and fell in disgrace onto the ground. I think all Canadians hearts fell as we saw her stumble to the asphalt. The CBC had a camera fixed onto her family. Do you remember them gathered in a living room around a TV set? They were all sobbing. When Perdita was interviewed she apologized for letting her country down, for letting her family down, for letting everybody down. She seemed defeated and depressed, but when they interviewed the family they were not crying because they themselves were embarrassed or full of shame, they were crying for her, for her disappointment, for her sorrow.
That's what God is like. God is like that when He looks at the brokenness and sinfulness of the world in all its wretchedness. He cries for us and says, “Come home. To all the nations that fly like a dove, come home.”
This last week on television I was watching as yet another US soldier came home in a coffin draped with a flag. I thought of the great sadness of all of this, but the one thing that I do admire is that Americans always believe that no matter where their comrades have fallen, in any part of the world, they have to bring them home. Dead or alive, they have to come home.
My friends, home is a powerful place, a place that receives you, a place where you are acknowledged, a place where you're finally at peace. God says, “Who are these who fly like doves, that they might come home?” If there is no other reason this day to worship God, it is to say, “There is no place like home.” Home is where God is. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.