Mark 7:24-30; James 2:1-4; 8; September 8, 2024; Homecoming Sunday
Like many of you I’m sure, we cut the cord years ago.
We looked at our cable bill and said, “this is ridiculous, we don’t even watch half of these. I mean, Oxygen Network, what even is that?”
So, we moved to streaming only. Though now it seems like we pay nearly as much for all the apps and are forced to watch the Eagles on something called Peacock. Yes, it’s equally ridiculous.
Worse, and I don’t know if this happens to you, but often I find myself just endlessly cycling and scrolling when I’m steaming, going deeper into each database in a desperate but lazy search to find anything new and appealing.
So much so that sometimes I don’t even know where I am anymore. I’m on a page for like foreign language documentaries about politicians I’ve never heard of, or nature shows on the lives of leopards and ants. And I don’t even know how I got there in the first place, or how long I’ve been drifting away, staring and wondering.
Mercifully though there’s always an escape hatch. A button. And oh, it’s my favorite button on the remote.
It’s called the Home Button. Yeah, the one that looks like that cute little house.
And I just press it, and I’m back. Back to the start, where it all seems to make sense again. Where I can see my favorites all lined up and the familiar genres I know and love.
And there, I smile and exhale, and linger…before my search begins again; though this time, a little bit more knowledgeable, because now I know what else is out there.
And I think our physical homes are sort of like that too. A place to come back to after drifting away. Where students can hopefully come back from college and get that homecooked meal again. Where families can hopefully gather around holidays and commiserate and remember. Where spouses can hopefully come in after a long day at work and just relax. Where even 50-year members can hopefully return and say “Amen, I’m still alive, praise be to God!” A sentiment shared by one of our own just yesterday.
Home. It’s a place where we can all hopefully just set down our bags, smile, and exhale. And linger. A place that hopefully still makes sense to us; where we can feel good, and safe, and surrounded by our favorites, even if we always return a little bit older, and maybe wiser, though hopefully somewhat different, because we know what else is out there.
Now, of course, not every return home is the same. Some homes have been broken from the start or begin to break as time and people move on. And some are destroyed to the studs when the people you’ve sent off for school in the morning don’t come back in the evening.
For some then, returning home is neither comforting nor safe, but traumatic and depressing, and therefore not at all something to be looked forward to or celebrated, especially on a Sunday. Sometimes then, some of our homes just need to be sold in order to find a new one, a better one, one with more, or different life.
But that’s the thing about homes by and large. Even though their walls are constructed generally the same, in a different light they can look either downright ugly or refreshingly beautiful.
And that’s not because homes themselves necessarily change (though some do; ours is), but we do. We change. For we always bring into our homes a different version of ourselves that has been touched by the world. By cycling and scrolling through people and experiences. And sometimes they make us more joyful, and sometimes more bitter and angry. But every day we bring those varying emotions and character changes into our homes, whether they are new or old.
And yet, all the same, we each must leave our homes. We each have to cut the cord. We can’t stay at home forever, every day, locked in a room somewhere. No, we all must eventually get out and experience new things, even if it’s just down the hallway of our retirement homes. So that we might see life in a new light, because that’s what leads to new growth; and growth and change are good things indeed, no matter how young we are or how old we become. Or, at least, I should think so.
I mean no one here should want to end up like Uncle Rico from Napolean Dynamite, who is always the same version of his teenage self. That high school quarterback who never took off his pads. You know what I mean?
Just the same then, my friends, God doesn’t want any of us to return to this home unchanged, week after week, summer after summer, bubble-wrapped from bumps and bruises along the way. No, God wants us to get out there, to get our hands dirty, to change, even if it means that we find ourselves in new and strange zip codes surrounded by leopards and ants, and all of that.
Because here’s the good news, my friends… if it ever gets too weird and scary, we can always just press that Home Button and flee back here to safety. To church! To each other. To this home we have in and with God. And isn’t that amazing? And isn’t that wonderful? We thank God for that button.
But, here’s the thing though, we can’t rely on that button all the time. No, we can’t wear it out as a crutch, such that it gets all smudged, to the point we can no longer make out how cute that button originally was. No, for God doesn’t want any of us to wear this out, to make church tired, or less exciting, bringing an old, stale, limp version of faith and worship through those doors that’s never been reimagined or reformed.
No, not at all. For even God’s home, here – elsewhere — everywhere — is in constant want of upgrades and improvements, influenced by people and experiences on the outside, that we can only find after drifting away from center, into the wilderness places where we don’t even know where we are anymore.
I mean, after all, that’s exactly what occurs to Jesus in our text today.
For here, Jesus finds himself in the city of Tyre (a city about 40 miles from his home) and there, drifted way out from center, he is influenced and amazed by an outsider, a woman he never met before, whom his culture was both suspicious of and prejudiced against.
If you recall, in their dialog together, he equates her, unfortunately, to a dog. A derogatory remark, inexplicably uttered by our Lord and Savior. It’s hard to understand.
Some scholars have argued that Jesus said that remark – “it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs (Mark 7:27)” — because his disciples were in ear shot and he wanted to expose before them just how ugly their bias was against her and her kind (the Syrophoenicians).
Others have wondered if maybe the gospel writer simply thought that even Jesus had to learn something new, and through his example before us, so should we.
Such as… that the kingdom of God is even wider than the net Jesus was already casting. And that maybe his father’s house has even more rooms than Jesus previously knew of. And that maybe the Spirit is sending out invitations to women just like this, and outsiders of all kinds, so that everyone might be welcomed and given safe lodging in God’s eternal home.
James, after all, adds this to our texts today: “You do really well if you fulfill the royal law according to scripture – that you shall love your neighbor as yourself (James 2:8).”
You see, my friends, while it’s always been easier to make room in our homes for those who remind us of ourselves, we are taught today that we ought to be renting out our rooms to those who don’t. Who can change us. Influence us. And help us grow in new and inspired ways.
For anyways and always, God plays no favorites, and we are reminded of this in the most amazing of ways, by the most surprising of people.
For when this woman rebukes Jesus and says, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs (Mark 7:28),” Jesus says, at least in Matthew’s version of the story (15:28): “O woman, your faith is great; and it shall be done for you as you desire.”
So indeed, welcome home, my friends. This beautiful, huge, historic home, full of all its wonderful nostalgia and blessed familiarity. Full of 50-year members, and the saints triumphant.
But also, this God-given home that is brimming with new things happening. Where those who were on the outside are now excitedly entering.
Thanks be to God.
Amen!
