PJ’s Page
There is an old hymn whose refrain goes like this:
Come home, come home
All who are weary come home
Home. What images come to mind when you read or hear this word? Do you think of your childhood home? Do you reflect upon your home now? Because of my father’s career, my family moved frequently when I was growing up. Between my birth and my graduation from high school I lived in ten homes. As an adult, this pattern has continued. Since I graduated from college I’ve placed my welcome mat outside of sixteen doorsteps. Sixteen.
So for me, home takes on a different meaning. It’s where my loved ones are. As a structure, it is where I begin and end each day…where we gather at the table….where I can welcome friends and family.
Home has been on my mind of late as I’ve been hearing the stories of families struggling to find affordable housing. And these aren’t only the families who live in shelters or in their cars or who stay with their own friends and families. These are folks who are our neighbors, here in the Broadview community. These are our friends and classmates and perhaps even our own family members.
One family comes to Luther Memorial for sack lunches every day. I always wonder, if we weren’t here to feed them, what would happen then? One family persistently looks for a way to move from their car into something with walls and a floor. But their children go to school with ours and do their homework and wish for a bedroom of their own, or even a bed.
In addition to hearing these stories and knowing these dear people, Home has been on my mind as I remember thinking that coming to Luther Memorial as your pastor felt very much like coming home. April 1st marks five years since we began this journey together. We’ve seen many changes. People have come and gone from this community of faith. Sisters and brothers we have loved have left this life for the next. New babies have been born. New friends have joined us. From Sunday to Sunday I look around and marvel at the changes. Wasn’t Kelsey S. just the age that Payton J. is now? How can Ryan and Audrey be about to graduate? And doesn’t it seem that Marge was always here with her quick wit and her ready smile? And looking out into the pews, I still see the spaces where those saints used to sit. Henry, Eunice, Mel and Anne, Paul, and so many others. Life in community is always changing. But the great gift of life in a community of faith is that Jesus Christ does not change. Jesus, Scripture says, is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
And what that news offers us is the freedom to act as God’s agents of change in the world….to find ways, large and small, that we can reach out to support others. To welcome new friends and love old ones, all at the same time. To reach out into the world with the wide love of Christ.
This month we will walk with Jesus along a Holy Week journey – from the jubilation of Palm Sunday to the shadow of the cross, the changes will seem quick and hard. But on Easter we will come Home, to the One who loved us enough to die for us.
Walking with you,
PJ+