"Home" a sermon

Home

"Open House Sunday"

Rev. Alison Longstaff, May 4, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Isaiah 33:20-22; Rev 21:1-4; Heavenly Secrets 7560

I was in one of my coffee groups not too long ago, and as is our custom, we were taking turns sharing what was on our hearts.  For some of us there, this group is one of the only safe places where we can be completely honest and be completely ourselves.  We have a group agreement that no one will judge, nor interrupt, nor give advice.  Each member is loved and accepted unconditionally.

That morning a wise and kind older woman, let’s call her “Anya” was describing her day. She and her husband have an adult child with a mildly diminished mental capacity who lives with them.  This adult child has a child who also lives with them.  The adult child has trouble holding onto jobs and trouble managing her behaviorally challenged son.  At an age when many of their peers are enjoying retirement, “Anya” and her husband are still parenting this young mother and now also needing to be the parents of her demanding little boy.  “Anya” was so weary and discouraged, and my heart ached for her.  It struck me that her home—the place where we are supposed to be able to go to rest and be safe—was regularly a place of chaos and disruption and drama.  Do to no fault of her own, nor even her daughter’s, “Anya’s”  home was not a safe haven for her.  It was not a place where she could rest.  It was full of chaos, and she saw no way to change that.

Home.  What does that word evoke in your mind?  For me it brings to mind “The Walton’s”, or that famous image of a Thanksgiving meal by Norman Rockwell.  Home should mean family, and family should mean safety and unconditional love, but all too often these things do not go together.  Too many people feel neither truly safe not truly loved.  Too many have to make a home away from their family, if they wish to feel safe.  If both your home and your family are safe and loving, consider yourself very lucky!

A church is a home too.  It is a spiritual home, and when a church runs well, it is definitely a place of unconditional love, acceptance, and spiritual and emotional safety.  That is what church should be, and that is what we should expect.  Unfortunately, all too often church is only some of these, or none of these things.  And when our church family hurts or betrays us, the wound cuts very deep.  Perhaps, while we expect our family to be crazy sometimes, we expect our church to be better, more perfect, to reflect God’s love all the time.

 

When our church gets mired in conflict, or personalities clash and start recruiting members to take sides, or when our church changes from a pastor we love to a pastor we can’t stand seem to feel good about, we can feel profoundly disillusioned, even abandoned or betrayed.  Losses such as these surrounding our church home are real and painful and occur all too often in our society.  Yet they also remain unnoticed and unacknowledged.  We understand the aching losses when someone says, “my dog just died,” or “my baby went away to college,” or “we had to sell our house,” or “he had a stroke and can no longer drive.”  But how comfortable are we in saying, or hearing with quiet sympathy, “we got a new pastor that I just can’t warm up to,” or “I can’t believe the behavior of the people at my church; it makes me feel ashamed,” or “I understand the value of the new style of worship, but I miss the old rituals so very much sometimes!”  We are more likely to placate or advise, which is never as helpful as simply listening to the pain.

Our spiritual attachments and what we find spiritually meaningful is deeply personal, yet as a culture we have a long way to go in respecting each other’s spiritual territory.  We all could afford to undergo “spiritual sensitivity training.”  Perhaps this is due to the longstanding Christian culture of dutifully attempting to invalidate and replace every spirituality the missionaries encountered.  From a pastoral and psychological perspective, that is spiritual violation.  It is profoundly disrespectful, and it is small wonder that such Christian colonization has left a trail of cultural genocide and abuse in its wake.  yes, Christianity has done a lot of good.  But I cannot gloss over the harm and abuse that is also a real part of the legacy.

 

Some visitors here today are spiritual nomads, forever wandering from group to group, taking what you like and leaving the rest, self-sufficient in your own spirituality, (which can be quite healthy).  Welcome.  May you find rest in your soul.  I certainly understand why so many choose not to trust or belong again in any church home, because of bad experiences with poorly behaved or poorly managed congregations.

Others here today were born and raised in this very church home, and can only imagine what it is like to have been deeply hurt by and lose their church home, or even what it is like to have to search and search for a spiritual home before finding one.

There are probably as many spiritual stories as there are people in this room.  What is your story?

In our scripture readings today, we heard Jerusalem called “a quiet home.” In fact the promise is that the New Jerusalem will be a place where “God will dwell with us, and wipe every tear from our eyes.”  Doesn’t that describe the spiritual home of which we all dream? That is what every church and spiritual organization should be, though many (all?) are not.

 

Emanuel Swedenborg—from whom this denomination gets its name, (rather the way Lutherans are named from Martin Luther)—prophesied that this “New Jerusalem” found in the Book of Revelation, represents a new, inclusive spirituality that will grow among all humankind.  This “New Jerusalem” will be new precisely because it will not be exclusive.  It will honor and respect the goodness and truth in all people and all religions.

Swedenborg says that we are all called to do our inner work—to undertake the metaphoric “hero’s journey,” if you will—where each one works continuously to grow in insight and compassion.  The idea is that if and when the human race can grow into such a collectively compassionate, enlightened, and responsible overall state, heaven on earth will indeed draw much closer.  What is promised in Revelation and named “The New Jerusalem” is the hope of such a universal human compassion and wisdom—a world full of millions of little Dalai lamas, if you will—only from many different spiritual origins and flavors. 

Yes, this funky little historic church is named “The Church of the New Jerusalem,” after that vision, not in any illusion that we are the embodiment of that long-awaited world state, but with the intention that we will strive towards it, day by day, step by step.  Are we a perfect spiritual home?  Not on your life, though we wish we were.  Have people been hurt here?  Yes indeed.  All we can do is express our remorse and do our best to make amends and to see that such mistakes don’t happen again.  We try to see this home like spiritual family—we love each other anyway, even if we have crazy moments and sometimes we drive each other a little nuts.  That’s what love is and that’s what family does.

Home.  What does the word mean to you? 

Does the word tug at your heart the way it tugs at mine? 

What does the ideal mean to you, and how does it compare to what you come home to every day?  No doubt everyone in this room knows at least one person whose foundation is a troubled and chaotic home, like that of “Anya” described at the opening of this sermon.  If you are so lucky as to have a home that is safe and restful, take this moment to breathe a prayer of gratitude.  And let’s all of us, stop right now for a moment to hold in our hearts and prayers all the souls who must survive somehow, day by day, in homes that are not perhaps emotionally or psychologically or physically safe.

For some of us, this church group is perhaps one of the only safe spaces where we can come and begin to be completely ourselves and be completely heard.  This congregation has a group agreement that we will not judge, nor interrupt, nor give advice (though each of us sometimes forgets).  May it ever be a place where each comer is loved and accepted unconditionally.

I have come a long way from my home in Canada to make a new home here.  I have fallen in love with this great town, and especially with this tiny, magical congregation.  Those who have lived in Maine a long time love to share the state they love with visitors, hoping they will love it too, and hoping they will fall so in love that they will stay. That’s a lot like how we feel about this little church.  We love it when others come to visit.  And we really love it when somebody decides to stay. But whether you just visit sometimes, or you move in and join us, you are welcome here, any time!  Your presence is a blessing no matter what.

Amen

Readings:

Isaiah 33: 20-22

20 Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feasts;
Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a quiet home,
A tabernacle that will not be taken down;
Not one of its stakes will ever be removed,
Nor will any of its cords be broken.
²¹ But there the majestic Lord will be for us
A place of broad rivers and streams,
In which no galley with oars will sail,
Nor majestic ships pass by
²² For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us

Revelation 21: 1-4 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. ² Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Heavenly Secrets 7560. My paraphrase of the Latin To ‘be gathered home' means to be placed in safe keeping. Spiritually a 'home' or a 'house' refers to the inner part of a person’s mind where compassion and right-thinking reside. It is the capacities for compassion and right-thinking that make someone truly human, and that essentially is the real person.   Because this inner mind is the seat of goodness and truth with a person, and the capacities of compassion and right-thinking dwell there, the Lord keeps this region utterly safe and protected deep inside each person.

By Emanuel Swedenborg