Home Is a Jumping Off Place

1 Thessalonians 1: 1-10

 

 

          Do you men have favorite clothes? I know I do. Cindy calls these clothes my “work clothes.” That’s a nice way of saying “those nasty pants and that shirt or tee shirt that I can’t get the stains out of.” She’s right in her own way. I have a couple pairs of pants and a couple shirts that are like old friends. I put them on and I just feel good. We’ve known each other a long time. I feel good in those clothes, relaxed and comfortable. If I have to call them work clothes to keep them around, that suits me just fine.

          Home is like those comfortable clothes, isn’t it? I’m not talking about a house. I’m talking about home. It might be the house where you live or grew up. It might be the town or community where you grew up. Whatever it is, it’s home to you. It makes you feel good, comfortable, relaxed. Home is where you can kick off your shoes, put up your feet and stay awhile.

          Home is for some of us the place where we’ve always been. For others, it’s the place to which we will always return. No matter where we live, we talk about going home when we’re not there. Home brings out that special warmth that no other place can do quite as well. Home has its own character, its own smells, its own look. It’s not because it’s necessarily the prettiest or the best. Maybe Dorothy said it right in the Wizard of Oz: “There’s no place like home.”

          But home is something else, isn’t it? Home is our jumping off place. Whether we’re leaving for the first time or the fiftieth time doesn’t matter. Home is where we learned to breathe, learned to get comfortable in our own skins, and home is that talisman we carry in our hearts when we are away. We start out small, maybe spending the night or going to camp. We jump off to something strange and new and a little scary. Later, we leave home to go to school, to work, to activities, to Grandmas. Down the road, we go off to work or military or more school. We jump off more and more into those strange, new places and our world gets bigger and bigger. But no matter how many times we jump off, it’s still home from which we jump, either physically or in our hearts. Home is where we learned to jump.

          In the twilight of his storied career as an evangelist and church planter, the apostle Paul finds himself in a Roman prison. In thirteen years, he has planted fourteen churches. Now imprisoned, he uses his time to re-enforce his teachings by corresponding to his plants. In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul has received a report from Timothy, one of Paul’s partners in mission, who has just returned from Thessalonica. The report is strong and positive and Paul is proud. As he writes, it sounds almost as though he could be writing to one of his children, and indeed, Paul thought of his churches in much that way.

          Scholars differ over how long Paul stayed in Thessalonica. Acts tells us that he preached in the synagogue for three straight weeks and that he angered some Jews there enough to get thrown out of the city. Still, it’s not clear how long he was there. However long he stayed, he had a profound effect. Thessalonica became an important church plant.

          As you might expect, Paul brags about this successful church. It took root in a city that was the seat of Roman government for all of Macedonia. Not only did the church survive; it became an example for all of Macedonia and Achaia. According to Paul, their faith in God went forth everywhere.

          Paul never got back to Thessalonica. We have two letters he wrote to the church, so we know he kept up with them. For Paul, Thessalonica was one of his best successes. Don’t you know he was warmed when he thought of them! Thessalonica was like a second home to this well-traveled man.

          But Thessalonica was like all Paul’s church plants. He was a man on the move. He had a rock for a pillow and the stars for a covering much of his life. And yet, when we read this letter, we can hear the warmth of Paul’s words as though he were there. Paul learned to use these destinations for something more. In order to take his message, he had to imbed himself in the people and their culture. In order to plant a church, he had to become part of that environment. But as a man with a mission from God, he knew every time he entered a city that it too would become a jumping off place the minute he could call it home.

          What made Paul feel so at home with the Thessalonians? His own words tell us. He refers to them as brothers loved by God, imitators of the Lord, an example to all believers. They serve, they wait, they have faith. All the things that mattered to Paul, all the things that represented the best of his teaching—were manifested in this courageous band of Christians. Paul didn’t have to come home to feel at home. Just the thought of how well his children in the faith were doing made him proud and warm and full.

          Today we are here on our church grounds to celebrate Homecoming, an annual event in this church family. We sit here in the shadow of our sanctuary, right now a wounded vessel, but not far down the road, a righted ship to carry God’s mission for years to come. We enjoy a long heritage in this church family, but we need to remember that while this assembly has been meeting for well over a hundred years, it has met in different locations and in different buildings. It has never been the location or the building that held this church together. It has always been the same things that Paul talked about to the Thessalonians: brothers [and sisters] loved by God, imitators of the Lord, an example to all believers, who serve and wait and have faith. This is what has allowed us to survive, a commitment to those things that bring us closer to God and to each other.

          It’s good to be here. It’s good to remember and to dream. It’s even better to dream about what God will do with us than with what he has already accomplished. You see, home is a wonderful place that conjures up all those feelings of comfort and warmth, but home is also the place we come to leave. Home is not just our anchor; it’s our jumping off place.

          When we think of Jesus and his home, we might at first be tempted to think of Nazareth, where he moved as a two year old and spent his youth. We might think of the region of Galilee, where Jesus spent much of his ministry. We might even think of Jerusalem, the city of the Temple, the religious center of his people. All these things are true, but I suspect that Jesus never really thought of them as home. For Jesus, who knew from the beginning who he was and why he came among us, home was with the Father. Home was where he came from and home was where he returned.

          We are invited to come home at the end of our sojourn here. God provides us with an earthly example of that kind of feeling, that warmth and comfort and security. He does that with family, first our family of origin, later of friendships and finally, family born out of our Christian relationships. We call that church. Church has never been about buildings. They are just where the church gathers. When we do that at a certain place for a long time as we have done right here on these grounds, it starts to feel like home.

          That’s only as it should be. Church should feel like home. That’s where we belong. We just need to remember why we gather. We gather to worship. We gather to fellowship with one another. We gather to minister. But there is more. We also gather to disciple and to do mission. Our church home is not just our anchor; it’s our jumping off place. It’s a place to bring those you care about, and a place to bring those God cares about.

          According to Matthew’s report in his gospel, the last thing Jesus did before He went home was to gather his disciples. He gave them the marching orders that are still in effect for the people of God. His instructions were simple. He didn’t talk about staying or even feeling warm and secure. He talked about jumping off into the unknown. Go, teach and baptize were his last words. Find everyone. Tell them the story. Let them hear the words of salvation. He was talking to the Church.

          Welcome home, but don’t get too comfortable. It’s just a jumping off place.