Fear of Home

 

Service of Worship

Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

December 5, 2021

Second Sunday of Advent

Rev. Natalie Bowerman, Pastor

 

Prelude

Greeting and Announcements

 

Mission Statement: We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

Lighting of the Advent Candle

Words by Derek Weber

 

Reader One: For many of us, the call to head home is one of joy and of hope. We can’t wait to reconnect with family, with history and tradition, with a wonderful time of freedom and loving support. We can’t wait to go home.

Reader Two: There are those who fear going home, however, and there are times when going home brings back memories that are not so good, not so healing. We are reminded of when we didn’t fit in, when we didn’t measure up, when we weren’t loved like we needed to be loved. Home can be a difficult place for some.

Reader One: The prophet Malachi tells us that even when we are in the hottest of fires, there is a presence who can make us better, who can refine and purify. John the Baptist tells us that the road home is always under construction, mountains leveled, and valleys filled in, to make smooth the path that leads us to our true destination, where we can live in peace and unity with all.

Reader Two: We light these candles, the candle of hope and the candle of peace, as a sign of our assurance that though the road is hard, we believe it is worth the journey. It is time to go home.

 

 

Call to Worship

 

Dr. Derek C. Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, Discipleship Ministries of the UMC

 

O come, O come, Immanuel,
And be light for our darkness.
Be comfort in our grief,
Be a friend for our loneliness,
An oasis for our searching.
O come, O come, Immanuel,
Restore our joy, heal our wounds, and bring us peace.

 

Hymn 196: Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

 

Prayer of Confession

 

Lord of Christmas Peace,
we have done wrong.
We have tarnished the gift you gave freely.

We have buried you so deeply in our hearts, the world doesn't see you.
We have not followed Christ,
we have ignored your teachings,
we have lived lives of apathy
against your love,
we have built fences and fortresses to push people away,
and we have silenced the screams of those in need.

Forgive us, we pray.
Free us from our sin,
Free us from our captivity,
Free us to a life lived in Joy
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Written by Nathan Decker

 

Assurance

 

Hear the Good News: Jesus is our Prince of Peace. His yolk is easy, and his burden is light. Today we come to him and find forgiveness and love. Amen.

 

Anthem

 

Luke 3: 1-6

The Proclamation of John the Baptist

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler^[a] of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler^[b] of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler^[c] of Abilene, ² during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. ³ He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, ⁴ as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
    make his paths straight.
⁵ Every valley shall be filled,
    and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
    and the rough ways made smooth;
⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”

 

 

A Message

“Fear of Home”

 

Good morning, everyone. We’re now in the second week of Advent. Today’s lectionary-appointed Gospel passage brings us a familiar character, and a relative of Jesus: John the Baptist. The son of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah, we will hear about John’s conception and birth in detail next Sunday. That will be the story of sweet, baby John the Baptist. This morning we get full grown adult John the Baptist, and one of a few stories for which John is an infamous branch on Jesus’ family tree. Luke prefers to focus first on the historical details, so that we can pinpoint the time and place, and then the words of John’s preaching. Matthew wanted to give us a full picture of who’s delivering the message, so he gives us much more detail about John himself:

 

“John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.”

 

John makes his clothes by shaving camels. When he’s hungry he either knocks down a beehive and takes a big bite out of it, or he grabs a good old handful of locusts. Guys, those are bugs.

 

I have to agree with Matthew on this one, I think it’s worth getting the whole visual, not just the words and historical background. THIS is the guy delivering this morning’s message: this voluntarily homeless dude, who sneaks up on an unsuspecting camel with a razor when he needs a new shirt, and who gets 100% of his diet from bugs. When John the Baptist gets depicted on stage he looks like Tom Hanks after a few years on the island in Castaway, both in appearance and general sanity level. This is totally the guy who would have a relationship with a volley ball. More to the point, this is the kind of guy you’d see looking all ragged on the street. And he’s yelling Isaiah quotes at you and telling you to get ready.

 

I’d love to be all pastoral and open minded and tell you that if I met John today I’d sit right at his dirty feet and hear what he has to say. That sounds like what I would do if I was as Christ-like as I wish I was. But I’m just not there, guys. If I saw this dude munching on bugs and yelling Hebrew Bible verses at me I’d RUN. FAST. And my response would be relatively kind. I expect my neighbors would run home, secure all the locks on their doors, and call the police. And we’d hardly hear a word of his sermon. And the grand irony is that this guy is supposed to get us ready for Jesus.

 

Maybe I’m not as ready as I think I am.

 

Our worship theme going through Epiphany is “home”. Since some of the liturgies I’m using come from a very popular source among Methodists, I know a few colleagues (one right here in the capital area) who are using a similar theme for their Advent services. Some of my colleagues are visually artistic, and have decorated their altar areas for the theme of “home”. I’m not completely sure what I would put up on our altar if I was going to decorate the church for “home”, but for my colleagues the choice was easy: rocking chairs, throw pillows, fluffy throw blankets, and a fireplace. I respect and commend the use of the visual. Someday I hope I’m that kind of pastor, who can put together eye-catching visual displays that strongly aid in your reception of the Good News.

 

But I specifically decided not to attempt anything like that for this particular sermon series. “Home”.

 

We talked about this at length last week, but our mental pictures of “home” are not all the same. I dare say that if you ask every person in this room to draw a picture of “home” you’ll get as many unique visuals as there are people here. And many of those visuals will feel warm, loving, and positive.

 

And then some of us will make something up that looks like the warm picture of home we keep hearing about. And some of us will simply neglect to draw anything. And maybe a few brave souls here would speak from the heart: for some of us, home is awful.

 

Maybe we lived with unhealthy caregivers. Maybe our upbringing was unstable or plagued with violence or substance abuse. Maybe we lived with an abusive partner later on, or lost the security of home after a traumatic move, a natural disaster, or a divorce or death in the family. Maybe we couldn’t afford the place that would feel like “home”. I especially didn’t want to put cushy chairs and a fireplace up behind me because there’s a class distinction implied there. You might not have those kinds of features in a small apartment, or shared housing, or a shelter. The holidays are a season that makes these experiences even harder. While we imagine some of our friends having the best Christmas party ever, surrounded by loving family and friends, in front of a warm fireplace, and next to a tree with lots of presents under it, we may be preparing for a lackluster Christmas of presents that put you in debt, family you’re estranged from, and a tree that looks like the one from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.

 

The theme for this week is the fear of home. And for some of us, home was a place we feared. Maybe it was the place, or the people, or maybe both of those things were perfectly fine but we couldn’t find love and nurturing there.

 

I promise, I didn’t pick this one to be “the depressing sermon”. These are realities of life that we should be able to share with one another. And even if all of your experiences of home have been nothing but loving and joyous, there is still a shared human experience binding us all together here. Because we all need a safe, nurturing home somewhere. We all need love. Humans literally die without love. And even if we never experienced rejection at home, we’ve surely faced it somewhere. We fear rejection. We fear that we will go somewhere and not find friendly faces.

 

The Gospel message that we get as the background for this discussion about the fear of home is this story about scary preacher extraordinaire, John the Baptist. How appropriate, while we grapple with the reality that “home” isn’t always picture-perfect, that we hear the Good News from the person who would have looked least likely to deliver anything we want to hear.

 

And John’s message for us is vital. He doesn’t tell us to just sit back and get comfy because Jesus is coming for a visit. He demands active work. He says none of us are in any shape to receive Jesus, so we better fix that, and fast. If there’s something in your life that blocks out Jesus, get rid of it. If you see a stumbling block to him, move that out of the way.

 

Let’s take this a level deeper: home, like we talked about last week, might be any number of things in this earthly life. You may be privileged to live in a big, warm house full of your favorite people, or you might share a small apartment with the worst roommate ever. But John the Baptist is coming through like a bulldozer this morning and flattening everything. None of those differences are going to matter to Jesus, so we’re all on a level playing field. We all have no home in the Spirit unless we build it, and we have to build it together. The home in which our hearts receive Jesus will be exactly what we make of it.

 

Jesus is our great subverter. When we’re lonely, he gives us companionship. When our pantry in our home is empty, he fills it with a feast for 5,000. But when we have far too much, Jesus tells us to give it all away. When we have the most comfortable home in existence, Jesus makes us the ones who fear what we may lose.

 

The truth is that John comes first to scare the tar out of us so that Jesus is free to set the record straight. Do you feel fear in this holiday season? Do you feel dread and anxiety about the notion of “going home” to Jesus? Good, says Jesus. That’s your strength. You’re going to take Jesus seriously. The home in the arms of Jesus that John commands us to prepare can be a terrifying thing for the same reason that we’d run the other way if we saw John on the street: the Good News is coming in some unlikely packaging.

 

Neither John nor Jesus grew up with picture-perfect homes. They both lived with a strong level of fear. John, based on his lineage as the son of the priest Zechariah, would have been expected to live in a similarly respectable way and become a priest himself. But he rejected that path because he felt called to something else. Take it from an itinerant minister: there is nothing scarier than rejecting the respectable and comfortable because God is telling you to do something else. As a direct consequence of following the Lord, John ultimately gets beheaded by a political rival.

 

Home is an even more fearsome place for Jesus. Mary and Joseph will leave their working-class abode to travel a long journey to Joseph’s ancestral home, by the order of their Emperor. Mary will risk her place in her fiance’s home when she discovers she is suddenly pregnant out of wedlock. She will say yes to God, and risk her life. The Emperor will force her and Joseph to go on a perilous journey when she is way to close to delivery to risk traveling. She will go into labor on the road. She and Joseph will search desperately for any place that will take them in, frantic to find a temporary place to call home if for no other reason than to have a dry floor to give birth on. And every door will close to them. Jesus’ very first home will be a barn that Mary crashed in when she realized she had no other choice. Jesus’ first family would be a bunch of farm animals. It’s a famous, sacred image now, but it’s as far from how Mary imagined her birth as you can get.

 

But the angels will sing in the fields.

 

And ultimately, I think that last point is the goal we should all work toward this holiday season. This Christmas, think bigger than the hearth you may have the privilege of opening gifts in front of. If home isn’t fearsome for you, then forsake your comfort to make a nice Christmas for someone else. It sounds like we still have a few Street Soldiers families in need of adopting. If you have comfort, share it. And if you know fear, and you’re strong enough to, please share it. Because I bet you have a survivor story that will inspire your friends. You have faith and grit we can learn from. We can build the Kingdom together. And our end goal this Christmas won’t be who can post the best pictures on social media, but who can hear the song of the angels in their heart: Glory to God, and on earth, peace.

 

Amen.

 

Hymn 216: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

 

Offering, doxology, and prayer of dedication

 

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

 

Good and gracious God,
we give you thanks for gifts of life,
for gifts of love and joy during this season,
for gifts of comfort when we do not or cannot feel that joy,
for gifts of healing and mercy,
for gifts of patience and serenity,
for gifts of hope as we prepare our hearts for Christmas.

 

Christ’s presence changes our world,
so we pray that he may indeed be born in us once again,
that we may be continually born anew,
that the whole world would be reshaped and reborn
as your kingdom emerges around us and within us.

 

May your Spirit stir within us,
and cause us to long for the day
when earth will in fact be like heaven.

 

It is this radical vision of a new heaven and a new earth
for which we pray,
using the words Jesus taught us.

 

~ written by John W. Vest, and posted on John Vest. http://johnvest.com/

 

 

The Lord’s Supper

A Sung Liturgy for the Season of Advent

To the Tune of “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus”

Incorporating phrases from the original hymn by Charles Wesley

Arr. Beth Quick, 2019

To the table, you’re invited.

Lift your hearts to God and sing.

Praise to God, who has created

All the earth, each living thing.

God, we lift our hearts in wonder

At the love you share with us.

All to you our hearts we surrender,

All to you our lives entrust.

 

Holy, Holy, you are Holy!

Blessed is the One who comes.

All your works are full of glory.

Join in the unending hymn:

Sing Hosanna! Sing Hosanna!

Now your gracious kin-dom bring!

Jesus in us reigns forever.

Let the earth with praises ring!

 

Come, oh long-expected Jesus.

You are born to set us free.

From our fears and sins release us.

With new eyes, you help us see.

You’re our strength and consolation;

Hope of all the earth you are.

Source of goodness, well of compassion;

You’re the joy of every heart.

 

On the night he was arrested,

Jesus shared some bread and wine.

Thanking God, he blessed and gave it:

Grace for all of humankind.

“Bread—this is my body given.

Wine—my life poured out for you.

Eat and remember you are forgiven.

Taste this covenant made new.”

 

Come, O Spirit, we call on you:

Be poured out upon these gifts.

Take these signs and change them into

Body, Spirit, life of Christ.

Send us out to serve your people

Sharing in Christ’s gracious ways.

By your strength we live as disciples,

Prince of Peace, lead us today.

 

Hymn 220: Angels from the Realms of Glory

 

Benediction

Be people of peace.
Let peace live in your heart and share the peace of Christ with all you meet.
Share peace by acting out of compassion and not fear.
Share peace by listening to all sides of the story.
Share peace by praying for our world.
In this Advent season, we need to see, feel, and share peace.
As you go out into the wonder of God’s creations, share peace and hope with those you meet. Amen.

 

Postlude

 

All scripture comes from the New Revised Standard Version