Oh
there’s no place like home for the holidays,
For no matter how far away you roam,
If you want to be happy in a million ways,
For the holidays, you can’t beat home sweet home.
I
know it isn’t a carol. In fact, it’s not even religious.
But it’s the seasonal refrain that has haunted my thinking
for the past several days.
It
could be a personal thing, given that Kris and I are in a new
home this Christmas. Our own. Our first. Which, after 38 years
in the parsonage system, feels….well, it feels right. Not
that the other felt wrong. But this just feels “right.”
Or
it could be a familial thing, given that our daughter Julie
arrived “home for the holidays” about 2:00 this morning
from San Francisco. And our son-in-law in waiting (Jared) will
arrive on the red eye….also from California….at 6:00 a.m.
on Friday. Just hearing the words roll off my
tongue….“son-in-law”….feels right, feels good, feels
homey.
But
it could also be a neighborhood thing, given that the family
down the street got evicted a few days ago. Didn’t know
them. Never met them. But one morning we drove by and all
their stuff (I mean all their stuff) was in the yard.
Big stuff, like sofas. Garage stuff, like shovels. Personal
stuff, like pictures. Recreational stuff, like bicycles.
Nobody there. No signs of fire. Just stuff. Outside….on the
lawn. Where it sat for three or four days. That is until they
brought the dumpster and threw everything into it. I wasn’t
sad about the sofas going into the dumpster. But the
bicycles….kids would have died for those bicycles.
Now
the pile is gone. The people are gone. Where? Darned if I
know. I’m the new kid on the block. But none of the old kids
on the block seem to know, either. Eviction is the only thing
I can figure. But in Bloomfield Hills? Which explains my
professional satisfaction in seeing to it that a couple of
people’s house payments got paid….last week.…so that
there won’t be a pile in somebody else’s yard next week.
Or
it may be an international thing. Like you, I have been
reading all those stories about our soldiers in Iraq. I wonder
what it’s like for them, finding themselves in greater
danger with the war over than they were when the war was on.
And no Bob Hope to entertain them.
And
speaking of homes, I couldn’t help taking a bemused interest
in Saddam Hussein’s final domicile, even as I quietly
applauded his arrest. The man once had 22 palaces. But when
they found him, they hauled him out of a makeshift bunker,
along with $750,000, a bottle of French cologne, and enough
chemical spray to insure that no rats or mice nibbled on his
toes (or the cheese sandwiches on which he subsisted).
*
* * * *
Jesus,
of course, was born in a shelter. Bethlehem being 70 miles
from Nazareth….about the distance from here to Jackson (or
Lansing, or Adrian). But 70 miles is further on foot than it
is on the freeway. Had there been a freeway. Which there
wasn’t. And shortly after his birth, the wrath of Herod
required a family flight to Egypt. Meaning that for an
appreciable chunk of his childhood, Jesus was a refugee. So
when you consider how he started, it gives new meaning to the
phrase: “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son
of Man has no place to lay his head.”
But
home is not simply a matter of where we hang our hat, so much
as where we hang our heart. I mean, you can have a place to
hang your hat….and you can have no small number of hats to
hang (including top hats)….but home is a matter of who you
hang them with.
And
the beauty of the Christmas story is that God chose to hang
his hat with us. Last Sunday, we talked about the Word
becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Which sounds heady and
academic. But the Greek is far warmer. Try this on for size.
The Word pitched its tent among us. Or better yet: “God set
up camp in the midst of us.”
There’s
a billboard on I-94, halfway between here and Albion, which
carries a one-line message: “Don’t make me come down
there.” And it’s signed, “God.” Which sounds both
ominous and threatening. As I am sure it was meant to. Sort of
like my friend’s father screaming down the basement stairs
at 1:00 in the morning, when us boys were making too much
noise at a birthday party sleepover: “You’ll be sorry if I
have to come down there.”
But
the fact of the matter is, God did come down here. And while I
don’t have the faintest idea how the second coming
will occur….when the second coming will occur….or
even if the second coming will occur….this one thing
I know. That any second coming will be in the nature of the
first coming. Not for purposes of destruction, but
restoration. Not so that God can execute his fierce anger, but
so that God can express his deep love.
In
the child we call Jesus, God came home for the holidays. Not
only taking up residence on our
turf, but taking up residence on our terms. Becoming
human, as it were. Even as we are human.
But
let me pause here to tell you about Rachel. Although I do so
hesitantly, out of fear that my story might embarrass her.
Rachel recently entered a retirement home where others can be
to her the family she never had. After graduation she took a
teaching job in the grade school of a small town, where she
remained for forty years. Before she retired, she had taught
boys and girls….and
their boys and girls….and even their boys and girls. Of
course, she threatened to retire many springs, but threats by
Rachel were very much like little boys’ threats to run away
from home. Summers always recharged her batteries. Summers
were also spent gathering objects to help her teaching. I
wonder how many pumpkins, flags, witches, turkeys, Santa
Clauses and valentines she had stuck on her classroom windows?
No
one could have been more shocked than Rachel when the chairman
of the school board told her she was being given early
retirement. Her response was shock, because it vibrated
against the fact that she had finally achieved the singular
ambition of her life: to become a child. Notice I didn’t say
“childish”…. that sad state of those who try to
negotiate adult life with a child’s behaviors. No, I mean
she became a child, moving totally into the world of children.
Their laughter, fears, games, pains and friendship were hers.
At Halloween….at Christmas….on Valentine’s Day….she
was totally a child. Finally she had done it. No more
generation gap. No more distance in vocabulary and
comprehension. Just full rapport and perfect communication.
“Poor Rachel,” said the adults who, even though they had
once been her pupils, had now distanced themselves completely
from a child’s world. They couldn’t see that after forty
years, for the sake of the children, she had finally become
one of them. The perfect teacher.
“For
the sake of the children, we will have to let her go,” the
school board said. No parents raised an outcry. They accepted
the decision as being painfully right. Only a newcomer dared
ask why. “Because she has become like the children,” he
was told.
Is
the story apocryphal? Of course the story is apocryphal. But
wrap the gospel around it: “And he became, in every way, as
we are.” Of course, we had to get rid of him.
But
not for good. If it’s true that you can’t keep a good man
down, then you can’t keep a good God out, either. God has
this way of haunting history, offering himself time and
again….maybe even on a night like this, in a place like
this.
Oh,
there’s no place like home for the holidays,
For no matter how far away you roam,
If you long for the sunshine of a friendly face,
For the holidays, you can’t beat home sweet home.
Whose
face? The face of Jesus.
*
* * * *
Christmas
Eve 2003….my eleventh in this wonderful sanctuary. In 1993,
I sounded a hopeful note from a cellist in Sarajevo. Tonight,
I look for similar signs from a bunker north of Baghdad.
Collectively, we rejoice that our nation’s economy is in the
recovery room, even as we lament that Michigan’s budget is
still in the operating room.
Closer
to home, we are a church with more members than last
year….more challenges than last year….a whole lot more
square footage than last year….and a reputation on the
street corner that every other congregation in town would die
for.
And
still closer to home….for me, anyway….there is:
a
house that fits,
a job that fits,
a life that fits,
and a faith that fits.
Along
with a family that grew by a couple of new nieces this year
and (God willing, October 9) will grow by a groom next year.
Before
too very long, you’ll be home. And eventually, so will
we….wife, daughter and me (quietly, comfortably and
expectantly). There will be crab cakes from one of the best
chefs in the church and bisque from one of the best chefs in
the city. Just two great women chilling out with the preacher
who doubles as husband and father.
Cherishing
sweet memories of a beloved son who isn’t,
and sweet hopes for a perspective son-in-law who is.
I
am home for the holidays, in more ways than you will ever
know….praying that, if not now, it will someday be the same
for you and yours. Merry Christmas.
Note:
Rachel’s story springs from the creative mind of Fred
Craddock.
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