Resurrection: The Gift of Home
It was a Wednesday evening parish supper, and short people were present, some up in arms, others toddling or darting about. Many of the tall people addressed them by name. The short people clearly felt at home in the parish hall: it was just a normal part of their lives, an ordinary thing. This church space was theirs as much as anyone else’s.
As I write this, an old childhood memory emerges: potluck suppers at church. My brother and I got to eat whatever we wanted. We had to exhibit reasonable behavior, but we were also free to go around and sit where we wanted and also to walk into other rooms. The church was ours; we knew it; we were at home.
I’ve seen this in several churches lately, the reappearance of short people. I call them “short people” to make a point: children are not “the future”; they are, just like everyone else, part of the church of the present. Once upon a time, my church had a children’s sermon after the Gospel. We called it “the sermon for short people.”
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The sense of being at home in a church is a gift that keeps on giving. As life gets complicated, as difficulties increase, it is good to have two homes. It is good to have a family where one is “at home.” It helps to have also a church home, a place where you are known by name, where you know the rooms, where you learn how to be a friend with your other friends. I have long thought that it is a shame that the Society of Friends is a particular church. Every church should know that it is a society of friends, a home base in a complicated world.
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As we all know sorrowfully, the complications of the world do not stay “out there”: they enter families and churches as well, not to mention our own hearts. No family is perfect, every church falls short, and every heart is pierced by sin. The resurrection of Jesus is the way God chose to give the created world back to us. The resurrection remakes the world into what God always intended it to be. Thus, God’s resurrection gifts include families and churches and hearts of flesh. Resurrection is God bringing us to home.
How precious is the knowledge that it’s there for us: not just on Sunday, but every day; not just on this Sunday, but every Sunday of the year.
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The Center of the Universe. I was rescheduling something with a friend in a different time zone, which was complicated by my just assuming that of course he would know that by 3 p.m. I meant 3 p.m. Central! After it was sorted out, he noted how we naturally put ourselves at our center. An Uber driver had once told him about a question his young daughter asked: “Daddy, why do you put on the turn signal? You know which way you're going!”
Dear reader, now you know why Dallas drivers never use turn signals. Being the center of all things, they know where they’re going.
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Out & About, Web-wise. I worked through some thoughts about the resurrection body and “defects” in a recent piece, “Resurrection Scars,” for the website of the Human Life Review: https://humanlifereview.com/ resurrection-scars/