Come, Stay at my Home

from my message on 5/12, Mother's Day, Festival of the Christian Home, from Acts 16:9-15

Home...what a powerful word!  Home...so many layers of meaning.  Some of you have lived overseas or traveled extensively.  You get on the plane to head back.  A fellow passenger asks you, "Where are you going?"  You answer, "Home."  I remember coming back to the States after living in Scotland for a school year.  I remember landing in NYC.  The sky seemed bluer.  There was definitely something about coming home.  We sing it in our national anthem, "o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave."  We will tear up at football games when they raise the Stars and Stripes, and we sing our anthem. 

Home...we have a heavenly home.  The 23rd Psalm ends, "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." In the year 2001, on that day we have come to know as 9/11, the former superintendent of schools had died.  He had been superintendent for 25 years before retiring from Gregory-Portland where I was pastor.  That was my day shuttling back and forth between his home and the church, listening to the radio of planes flying into buildings.  Dr. Andrews had talked to me about what he wanted at his funeral.  Please know that this is a healthy conversation to have with your pastor, with your family.  It does not mean you want to die, or that it hastens your death!  In fact, Monday night, we are having a workshop on "Putting your house in order" over in Bldg. M, at 7 p.m., to talk just about this subject.  Anyhow, Dr. Andrews had made a special request of something to do at his funeral.  You need to know that I welcome such requests, and as far as possible try to meet them, in order to bring about healing.  We held the funeral for the former superindent of schools in the high school auditorium.  It was the only place big enough in Portland.  It was the first public gathering after 9/11 for that community.  Dr. Andrews asked if we could sing at his funeral his favorite song, Home on the Range.  Let's sing it now.  What goes through you?  Doesn't it feel good to sing?  We have a heavenly home.  Our black Methodists pastors talk about the funeral as a "home-going."  The apostle Paul talks in one of his letters that "we have a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens."

Home...Lydia had a home.  Do we know a Lydia?  Yes, she is sitting right back there, valued member of this congregation.  The Lydia in Acts was wealthy, prominent.  She was  a dealer in purple cloth.  Who wore purple?  Royalty and the rich.  It was made by crushing us certain sea shells which were used to dye the cloth.  Lydia lived in the region of Macedonia.  Do we know anyone from Macedonia?  Yes, the Petreski family are sitting over here.  It was a region of northern Greece.  Lydia was at Philippi, at the riverside on the sabbath, worshiping God.  We don't know which God, but she responded to Paul's preaching. She and her, get this, household, were baptized.  She was the leader of her house.  Talk about women in ministry!  In fact, Lydia is the first convert to Christianity in Europe.  A church begins to meet in her home.  There were no separate structures for churches.  There were house churches.  The first house church in Europe was at Lydia's home.  Paul would later write in his Letter to the Philippians, to her house church, "You Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone."   They were generous.

I need to do some Greek with you now.  The word for house or home in Greeek is oikos.  We find this word in the eco of economics.  Are we at home with money, possessions, giving, gratitude?  We find eco in ecology.  Are we at home in creation, in Mother Earth?  Do we take care of our home?  Is it messy like our bedroom?  Home is such a powerful word. 

Lydia's home became Paul's base of operation in that region because  Lydia hd said, "Come, stay at my home."

Home...we can have a church home.  Some of you grew up in the church, in the Christian faith.  Some of you here today may have wandered away.  Sometimes it is a stage of development, or a rebellion, or a getting into rationalism, or because some tragedy has happened.  Some of you may be coming back home because you have had a baby, or you are dealing with grief, or someone invited you.  Wherever you are, sing with me, Softly and Tenderly.  Wherever you are, please know that the door is open here, the welcome mat is out.  Come home.

Home....do we treat folks like visitors or guests in our church home?  In my continuing education course the last book we read was Beyond the First Visit by Gary McIntosh.  He advises the church to lose the word visitor and use the word guest.  Get playful with me now.  Visitors show up uninvited.  It is awkward.  We try to put a good face on, "Oh, it's so nice to see you."  What we really are thinking is "What are you doing here?"  We invite people in, maybe serve a snack, talk a bit.  Underneath, we are thinking "When are they going to leave?"  We want to say, "Good food, good talk, good-bye."

Guests are greeted with "I was so looking forward to seeing you.  We have your favorite food prepared.  We have the guest room made up for you to spend the night.  Please come back soon." 

Visitors just show up; guests are expected/invited.  Visitors are expected to leave; guests are expected to stay.  Visitors are to come 1 time; guests are to come again and again.  I know that our registration pads and stick-on name tags both say "Visitor."  I will fix this.  I just finished reading the book!

Home...Sunday night I went to a worship service at First UMC downtown.  It was a service highlighting the Reconciling Ministries Network, the movement within the UMC to be radically welcoming to all persons, especially those of other sexual orientations.  Please know that I am firmly supportive of this movement.  I know some of you are not comfortable with this position, and I still want to be your pastor too.  At this service, we celebrated the sacrament of communion where all were welcomed.  We sang a modern hymn by Marty Haugen, entitled All Are Welcome.  We will sing the chorus and then speak the verse and then sing the chorus again.

All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live,
A place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and vsions, Rock of faith of vault of grace;
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions:

All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.

That's what I want to say today.  All are welcome in this place.  As Lydia said, so I say today, Come, stay at my home.