FROM HOMECOMING TO HOME-BUILDING

There’s an old saying that you may have heard before: “What a difference a day makes!”  As I’m writing this, I can attest that it’s surely true!  One day ago, I was unloading a U-Haul (filled with furniture and other belongings from my parents’ storage unit) that I had driven across the country to take to my mother and brother’s new residence in Alexandria, Virginia — a day surely filled with naproxen, semi-functional dollies, and perhaps a few colorful metaphors.  However, one day later and after a lot of hard work, their new place is starting to look like a home with the familiar touches of yesteryear here and there, all ready for a new chapter ahead.  There was even space on the floor for me to sleep in between boxes and pieces of furniture — huzzah!

Thinking about the return to in-person sanctuary worship on Homecoming Sunday (September 12, 2021), what a difference a year makes — or in our case, two years, as that was the last pre-COVID19 Homecoming we had.  All the way back in 2019 (if you can remember such a time!), we were in the middle of the liturgical season of Creationtide, in the midst of searching for two part-time children’s ministry leaders, and deep into the renovation of the second floor education rooms.  How different things are now compared to then, as we continue to shift into a new normal that includes mask requirements — would that everyone abided by them! — coronavirus testing, vaccinations, renewed limitations on in-person gatherings, and the ever-present Zoom platform in our work, home, and church lives.

What a difference a couple of years makes, and much of it hasn’t been easy.  We’ve all lost persons in the past two years — eight dear friends just from our membership alone.  We’ve lost family members and friends to COVID and other illnesses.  We’ve said goodbye to church members who left for other parts of the country as they moved away for work or family.  We’ve also lost friendships and relationships due to the continued fracturing of American society.  We’ve said goodbye to favorite restaurants as well as places and pastimes of leisure.  We’ve had to let go of our old routines in order to just be safe.  Two years later, things have definitely changed.  And we’ve grieved and adapted — are grieving, are adapting, and are moving forward with the help of God.  These past two years have not been easy, but God has been with us to help us get through it all.

Just as we’ve rediscovered the joy of dining “al fresco”, sharing a pizza in the car, or experiencing the simple goodness of a brown bag lunch in the park, we’ve been rediscovering what it means for us to be “a people of the Table” where we live out the call for radical hospitality, working to prepare the feast of God’s shalom, and celebrating the victories great and small of our Christian vocation amidst a very different landscape of ministry than we knew from years past.  Growing up in Kansas, the state motto Ad Astra Per Aspera (“To the stars, through difficulties”) seems to sum up our two-year experience of honest assessment, experimenting, resilience, patience, and faithfulness as part of Christ’s Church in this 21st century.  It hasn’t been easy — in fact, it’s been quite painful with no amount of naproxen to assuage our experience of it — but in the midst of it all, we would be hard-pressed to deny any presence of God’s loving-care and blessing throughout.

As we prepare for Homecoming Sunday, God is asking us not just to have a sense of coming home to Union Avenue after our summer diaspora (and a long eighteen months of Coronatide) but also and especially to have a sense of home-building after a period of being away.  As much as we might like to go back to how things used to be, God is calling us to build up the life and ministry of Union Avenue for 2021 and for many more years into the future.  And, thankfully, God is with us and will be with us all the way.  More than just coming home to a sanctuary, God wants our help in building up a home for Christ’s loving, transformational enterprise on earth.  “The Church doesn’t need a new mission,” as it’s been said, “rather, God’s mission needs a Church.”

To move forward from homecoming to home-building, there are a few tools we’ll need in our ministry toolbox.  Some of the most necessary ones are actually quite old — tried and true — but either forgotten or abandoned for various reasons.  Over the next two months, we’re going to explore some of the ways God has built up the Church, how Christians have used and misused the tools for such work, and how we can put them to good and proper use in 2021 and beyond in a new sermon series, “From Homecoming to Home-building: tools for renewing the Church”

September 12 (Homecoming Sunday)
“But Let Your Hands Be Strong”
God’s promise and charge to returning exiles

September 19
“To Tell the Old, Old Story”
how Christians form community identity

September 26
“Can I Get a Witness?”
the nature of Christian worship

October 3 (World Communion Sunday)
“Love Beyond Belief”
Christian religion amidst theological pluralism

October 10
hymn-sing Sunday — no sermon 
(Rev. Michael on vacation)

October 17
“Let’s Get This Party Started”
reclaiming the Lord’s Supper as celebration

October 24
“The Clone Wars”
rediscovering the Great Commission and redefining evangelism

October 31 (Reformation Sunday)
“Heaven Is a Place on Earth”
Christian vocation for the life of the world

November 7 (All Saints Sunday)
“The Very Least of the Saints”
Christian humility and service

November 14
“The People of the Book”
bibliophilia v. bibliolatry

As we return to the sanctuary, let us remember that our Christian faith is not just a destination but rather a vocation, not only a place and a people but also and especially a practice and a profession of God’s love to the world.  And when the day comes at last where the world has moved from meeting strangers to loving neighbors to rediscovering one another as fellow family in God, then humanity will indeed have returned to the Garden and we will experience the homecoming God intends for us all, our labors having borne much fruit indeed.  May this Homecoming Sunday be the foretaste we need to remember, rejoice, and respond with our very living and loving in the name of Christ and for the life of the world to come.

— Rev. Michael Riggs