The Spirit Moving: Building the Church - Acts 11: 19-30; Philippians 3: 20 - July 3, 2011- Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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            After God created the first man and the first woman, according to the great mythical story in the Bible, He placed them in the Garden of Eden; I believe that was to say that it is God's intent that we not be homeless in this life, that we have a place. We may not always feel that way. We all have times, I suspect, when we feel out of place, or born too early, or born too late, or without a true home in this world. But it's not true; it's God's intent that we have a place in the whole scheme of things - a home. This morning I want to talk about four versions of home that connect with our lives. Three out of the four are very imperfect; in fact, sometimes we have to struggle for them. Always they are hard work. The fourth one is perfection itself - it is where everything is put right. But any of these homes, when it is fulfilling its highest potential, is a beautiful and grace-filled place - a true gift from God.

            The first home I want to talk about is the one that most often means home to us - the family. God doesn't just throw us into the world; we are born into families. The Bible blesses the idea of family in dozens of places, and dozens of ways. In the story of the creation in the Bible, there is the pronouncement that it is not good for the human to be alone. There is the declaration that a man should leave his mother, and a woman leave her home, and they shall become one. There is the beginning of generations, and the blessing of children, on down through the centuries. Then when it was time for God's Son to come into the world, it was significant in God's plan that Jesus come to a human family. Family life is a basic part of what it means to be human.

            But we shouldn't romanticize this too much. If the Bible invented the family, it also invented the dysfunctional family. In fact every family in the Bible - and maybe every family that ever was - was dysfunctional in some way. Adam and Eve pulled each other into sin; Cain killed Abel; Abraham and Sarah had marital problems; Jacob contended with his twin brother-the sordid stories of family faltering pile up one after another. And Jesus didn't help the cause. He said that because of his message, homes would be torn apart; he told his followers not to hang around to bury their fathers; he dissed his own family - pointing to the crowd of his followers and saying they were now his family.

            This is not to say that the Bible doesn't offer great counsel for family life. But the Bible also recognizes that family is a struggle. It is only one of the homes we have in God's plan. And, it is one of the three that is far from perfect. When it is functioning well, it is one of life's great joys. Families come together and help each other, and share time enjoying one another. I heard a story once of someone saying that for Lent their family had given up television, so they would communicate more. In fact, they had taken their TV and moved it into the closet. And one of the kids piped in, 'Yeah, and it gets really crowded in there.' (All kinds of things bring the family together.) Someone said that family is where you are 'accepted, appreciated, and accountable.' Surely we long for a place like that.

            And then one last point before moving on: families come in all shapes and sizes. It used to be 'Ozzie and Harriet.' But now family also takes in 'Two and a Half Men,' 'Will and Grace,' and 'Seinfeld,' where family might not be blood relation or marriage at all, but roommates or circles of friends. The point is, in a perfect world, there is a place where each person finds family - a place to be accepted, appreciated, and accountable. That is home; it takes hard work, but many people are blessed to find it.

            There is a second realm that signifies home for us, and that is our homeland - our country. Again, we are not just thrown into this world - we are born into a people, a culture, a society, a nation. This is the reality we recognize and celebrate this weekend. God bless America. On the one hand, love of homeland is one of the strongest passions in the world. A story came out of one of the European wars of a doctor in a military hospital saying to a young man, 'I'm sorry you lost your arm.' And the young man replied, "didn't lose it. I gave it for France!' That kind of devotion. Senator John McCain, writing about his POW days in Viet Nam, told of a young man who took whatever cloth he could find, made himself a bamboo needle, and sewed together a crude representation of an American flag, to keep inside his shirt. The Vietnamese guards found it eventually, took the flag away, and beat the young man within an inch of his life in front of all the other prisoners. Then McCain writes this:

            'The cell in which we lived had a concrete slab in the middle upon which we slept. Four naked light bulbs hung in each corner of the room. After the excitement had died down, I looked over in the corner of the room, and there sitting beneath that dim light bulb with a piece of red cloth, another shirt and his bamboo needle, was my friend ... He was sitting there with his eyes almost shut from the beating he had received, and he was making another American flag!'

            That's the kind of devotion love of country can mean. We are justly proud of our country, and those who have defended it. But the Bible, using the nation of Israel as its example, warns us that there is a great danger that can come from excessive love of country. It can easily grow into blind patriotism, and a 'My country, right or wrong' attitude that amounts to 'God serves my nation', rather than 'My nation serves God'. In the Bible, that attitude was deadly. Israel was the apple of God's eye - the chosen nation. But that didn't mean Israel could not fall. Israel stood tall only when it was an instrument of peace and justice - only when it took care of the struggling poor within, and was a blessing to the other nations of the world without. When Israel failed to attend to its central purpose, the judgment was bitter and the nation fell. God's love never stopped - but blind patriotism sank the nation.

            It turns out that the deeper patriotism is not one that turns a blind eye to America's faults. That is not patriotism at all. The deepest patriotism is the one that strives to make our nation a true vessel of peace and justice in this world. And the realistic citizen acknowledges that we have a long way to go. This is a beautiful land, and our hearts may swell when we sing 'America the Beautiful' and express our appreciation for the defenders of freedom. But there is much work to be done before our nation is what it was intended to be, and we need citizens who salute the flag with rolled up sleeves and a clear eye toward the principles of peace and justice that God's prophets declared in Israel's toughest times. We sing, 'America! America! God shed His grace on Thee!' But it turns out that is only possible if we also sing the other verse, 'God mend thine every flaw!' and then roll up our sleeves and work for it.

            There is a third earthly home we need to place in the mix with family and country, and that is our church home. In some ways, the church home is more transcendent than family and country. For many people, their earthly family leaves a lot to be desired - but the church fills in that gap, becoming the place where they are accepted, appreciated, and accountable. By the same token, millions, perhaps billions of people live in nations where the government is evil, or neglectful, or non-existent - but the community of faith stands strong. This is the church at its best.

            Our scripture lesson from Acts illustrates this. Last week we read about how the great wall started to come down between the Jews and the Gentiles. Today's scripture reading continues that story. We see how the persecution of the early Christians, instead of shutting them up, just pressed their message outward to a wider and wider circle. Mainly the message was still preached only to Jews at first, but as time went on, the Gentiles were continually included. And connected to that, the action gradually moves out from the Jewish city Jerusalem - in the middle of Judea -to cities along the outer reaches and coastlands. Central among these is Antioch, the third largest city in the Roman Empire. Here, we're told, the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. Here a group of Greeks preached to Gentiles, and, we're told, the church grew by leaps and bounds. Here major apostles like Saul and Barnabas worked, setting deep roots for the church. And here, when there was news of a great famine, the believers took a special offering, and, in an ironic twist, after being shut out for so long, the new Gentile Christians sent financial support back to Judea, to help the Jews who had excluded them.

            All these activities - evangelism, discipleship, study, missions - are marks of a thriving spiritual place. In the series of sermons I'm preaching about the movement of God's Spirit after the first Pentecost, we have seen so far that when the Spirit is moving, there is healing; there is the breaking down of walls; and today, the book of Acts tells us, there is the building up of the church. In our independent, individualist age, where so many people feel they can go it alone on their spiritual journeys, it is worth remembering that there was no Christian movement independent of the church - or, what people sneeringly call 'organized religion.' We can't just surrender that fact, because we believe it was the Holy Spirit who did the organizing. The church was God's idea, and was vital to His plan. Obviously, I'm a big believer in the Body of Christ, the church. I have witnessed so many powerful moments of faith in the church. I have not seen that kind of power in other places. There are some beautiful individuals who live spiritual lives and never connect with the church; I would never deny that. But the deepest manifestations of sustained goodness and grace occur when people of faith come together for mutual encouragement, service, and expression. And I see it every day around here.

            Of course, the church, like family and country, can mis-function badly. And when it does, the results can be pretty ugly. Someone once declared that the church is like Noah's Ark. And some wise guy responded, 'Yeah. If it weren't for the storm on the outside, we would never put up with the stink on the inside.' But be that as it may, when the church humbly strives to be what God envisioned, and functions at its best, it is a wonderful vessel for the love of Christ in this world.

            So we recognize these three homes - family, country, church - all of them with the potential to bring great blessing in this life. But all of them fallible and potentially devastating as well. If you achieve joy in anyone of the three homes, you have a great gift in this life. If you do two or all three, you have been truly blessed. All of them require hard work and a great deal of faith. None of them is ever perfect.

            But there is a perfect home, a place we have never seen, and yet in some mysterious way a place that we know in our hearts. Part of that heart-knowledge has to do with dear loved ones who are no longer with us here on earth, yet whose memory is as strong within us as any earthly presence. Heaven is home to us in part because they are there. Part of it has to do with the image of God in each of us, that longs to be in full communion with our Creator, and trusts that there will be such a time and place, for the psalm promises us that we dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And part of it, perhaps the most of it, has to do with a Savior who said, 'I go to prepare a place for you,' and then died on the cross and rose from the dead to make that promise possible. The apostle Paul wrote that our true citizenship is in heaven. We have these earthly homes where we seek to live out the principles of heaven. We are in families, in nations, and are invited to be in churches. But in our faith our permanent home is intended to be heaven, and we get glimpses of that home the minute we turn to Jesus.

            When all is said and done, God is home. He is the source of our love and our togetherness. And our hearts are restless on this earth until we journey with the One who made us, and find that it is in His love that we are truly accepted, appreciated, and accountable. The next time you feel out of place, or disconnected, misunderstood and orphaned in this world, listen closely for a voice in the wind, or in the laugh of a child, or deep inside your spirit. It is the voice of the Holy Spirit calling you home. There are glimpses of that call here and now - family, country, church. But these are teasers for the perfect home-to-be. God is inviting you into that perfection. The light is on. The table is set. Welcome home.