Homeless God Living in a Tent

One of our passages today is familiar-we all know that the 23rd Psalm talks
about shepherds and God setting a table of grace before us.  The closing
image of the 23rd Psalm sets us dwelling in God's house forever, and the
image of God's home is what we will focus on today.  In our passage from 2nd
Samuel, David gets the big idea to build God a house of cedar, but God has
other ideas about a home.  These two passages talk about home, one of the
deepest yearnings of human beings.  Certainly if we yearn for a home, then
God wants a home too, right?

Will you pray with me?  "God of house and home, be our house and spiritual
home.  Open our hearts to your extravagant hospitality, and then teach us to
offer your radical welcome home to everyone, welcoming others as you have
welcomed us.  Amen."

Let us start today by thinking about our individual images of "home."
Imagine where and what "home" is for you.  [pause]  For many of us, when we
are asked to form images of home, we remember our childhood home.  Others
recall our current home, still others of us remember special places in our
lives where we felt especially warm and comfortable, at peace and "at home."
Our image of home is a very powerful one.  It is one of the primary
identification images of our lives.  We yearn to return home, to regain to
feelings of comfort and quietude that home evokes.  When we think of a
perfect place, often our image of home comes to mind.  But home is not just
a building or place, instead it is a powerful total image of who we are and
what we stand for.  Our image of home defines who we are.

And interestingly, the images of home that we all just stirred up are all
different places and times and spaces for each of us.  We all have diverse
images, but the same concept of home in our hearts.  Home is much more than
place or space; it is foundational belonging.  A place where we are fully
known.

But some people do not have images of home that are comforting and warm.
For some people, the image of home is full of discord or tension or abuse.
Imagine not having a positive image of "home" to ground you and be your
foundation.  Imagine how different life would be without "home."  In some
ways being homeless means not having a permanent place to live.  In other
ways, homelessness sets us profoundly adrift. Home is an emotional,
spiritual and mental space where you are centered and fully known.

Bill and I have moved across this wide country and are attempting to re-find
our "home" here.  If you have ever moved to a new place, you know this can
be exhausting work.  Everything is different when you move and leave home.
Where you shop, what is culturally normal.  What people expect you to do and
say.  During the time that we are resetting our "home," we are filled with
remembrances of how things used to be "back when."  Making a new home means
letting go of old ideas and ways of being, and reforming new ways of being.
It is hard work, because 'home' is so important to us humans.  These times
of resetting home are unsettling, but they also can be freeing.  Bill and I
are finding our new home here in Connecticut, here in Hamden, here at Spring
Glen Church.  And we thank you for opening up your lives and walking with us
as we transition into our new home.  Returning last week from Chautauqua,
Bill and I found ourselves, for the first time, thinking about returning to
Hamden and Spring Glen as 'home.'  It was a wonderful feeling.

In our passage in 2nd Samuel, David has settled into a new home in
Jerusalem, a permanent home of cedar.  A period of war and fighting occurred
after David was anointed king, but things have finally settled down.  The
enemies of Israel are stilled and quiet, and a gracious peace has settled
into Jerusalem.  And the God of Israel, who, up to now, has been housed in a
moveable tent in the Ark of the Covenant, now seems a bit outdated to David.
"If I have a home made of cedar, then God should have a home made of cedar,
too," David tells the prophet Nathan.  But when Nathan tells God about these
plans, God has another idea.  Not yet, God says.  David, not you, but your
son Solomon will build me a permanent home, God says.  God is saying, you,
David the itinerant shepherd, you can settle down into a home, but you will
not see the permanent home of your God.

This is the second time that God has delayed a homecoming for a mighty man
of God.  Do you remember that God promised Moses a land to live in, but
Moses died before he had made a home in the promised land?  Why would God
promise "home" for another day rather than immediately granting the prayers
of these two great spiritual men?  Why was a home so important that it had
to be delayed?  Well maybe, this delay helps us remember that a physical
home can be limiting as well as comforting.  Maybe God is reminding us that
when the home becomes more important than the love within the home, things
will go awry.

To begin to think about this, I would like to imagine the concept of home
from this different direction.  What happens when a physical home becomes
more important than the love within?  Our passage today says God never asked
for a cedar home.  When Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem, it almost
immediately began to cause problems.  During their long history before
David, the Israelite people had wandered in many places traveling the
countryside, and in each spot where they encountered God, they stacked
stones together and made a local altar to God.  These stacked stones were
called tabernacles in the Hebrew, and they were located all over Israel in
the hill country according to the history in the Hebrew Testament.  When the
temple was finally built, the Jews that lived all over Israel, especially
those north of Jerusalem, felt like their local sacred places were just
being ignored, and that their religion had been stolen by the big-wigs in
Jerusalem.  We know that Jews all over Israel continued to worship God
locally at home just as they had done since the land was settled.  However,
the Jewish religious leaders in the temple said the northerners were not
worshipping God properly, that they were worshipping other Gods because the
"real" God only lived in the Temple in Jerusalem.  This eventually led to
north and south Israel warring and splitting into two separate countries,
Israel and Judea.  Those Jews who lived in the north eventually became known
as Samaritans, and they were hated by the Jews who lived in the south and
worshipped at the temple.  But both defended their right to worship their
God at home.  So the temple ended up dividing ancient Israel instead of
uniting it. 

The image of home can become very positive, as our life-long yearning to
return to the image of the home of our childhood, or it can be negative.  If
we imagine home as exclusive and belonging only to us, then home can become
a weapon used to exclude others.  When home excludes others, home becomes
all about power and ownership and territory.  However, if our image of home
is inclusive, open to the other and welcoming of others, then home can
provide a positive image for growth and living together, even living
together in diversity.  In the past 50 years in America, we have seen our
image of "home" shift dramatically.  In the middle of the last century,
America welcomed others into our land and home culture.  As an inclusive
people, we imperfectly included immigrants that provided vibrancy and
diversity for America.  But during the last several decades, America has
turned to exclusivity and deep fear that "others" are taking advantage of
our nation.  Certainly this is because we are no longer a frontier nation
with lots of extra land, but it also exposes a new closed spiritual attitude
toward others who are trying to join us.  Our nation has become fearful and
exclusive of others.  Our national home is becoming exclusive instead of
inclusive.

I feel this tug of the different ways of thinking about home when I try to
process the senseless shooting of people in a movie theater in Aurora,
Colorado last Thursday night.  One of the clergy I spent with the week with
at Chautauqua lives just a mile from that theater.  Her teenage son
fortunately chose another theater to see the Batman movie, but only by
chance.  But the violence so near their home shook their foundations.  They
are in deep grief and mourning.  If someone had an inclusive image of home,
do you think they would be so afraid that they would need to shoot and kill
strangers?  I am at a loss what to think when a killer uses weapons and
assault rifles to kill innocent people.  But I know that this kind of
murderous behavior is driven by fear and a need to exclude others from
"home."

But God's vision of home is so different than this fearful image.  God
invites all of us into God's radically inclusive home forever.  In God's
vision of home, there is no need for blazing fearful guns.  Psalm 23
concludes, " 6Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long."  God
models extravagant hospitality to us as the way of opening our "homes" to
those around us who are different than we are.  And, of course, this is how
Spring Glen Church responded when we decided our house of worship would
become Open and Affirming.  We clearly state that our spiritual home is open
to all who come to our door, echoing the concluding verse of the 23rd Psalm.
And in the process of opening our spiritual home to everyone, we are
reminded that this is not our house here, but God's house.  The rules of
hospitality here are not mandated by human social rules, but by God's
spiritual commandment to unconditionally love one another.  And because this
is God's house, we are God's agents in this world, passing God's extravagant
welcome to all people.  And we especially welcome people who are looking for
a spiritual home, a place to feel loved and welcomed and completely at home.


But does God live in this building?  Is this brick and mortar God's home?
Jesus taught us that with the coming of the Holy Spirit that now God lives
in us, in the tents of our bodies.  God's home is no longer made of a canvas
tent, or of cedar, but God now resides within our hearts and in our very
community together. The living church is God's home into eternity.

Jesus and Moses and the Ark of the Covenant all lived in tents and were
homeless.  Their spiritual vibrancy in spite of their homelessness helps us
understand our spiritual path is not about a final destination, but,
instead, our path is about our spiritual journey homeward with God.  God
lives here in community with us as we journey in the tents of our bodies,
temples of the Holy Spirit.  God is in community within us, journeying with
us as we seek the path of righteousness, mercy, compassion and love.  This
means that we incarnate God into this world, modeling and living God's
extravagant hospitality into our world as we journey toward the Realm of God
in everything that we do and say.  And then, surely goodness and mercy shall
follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall all together live in the
house of the Lord, here, in our hearts, our whole lives long.  Amen.