Finding Our Way Home Together -- Mark 6:6-13 (Homecoming Sunday; 17th Sunday After Pentecost)

Jesus gathers us in and sends us out, insisting that we create home for each other along the way. Home is both a place of shelter, steady and sure – and a vital and living place of encounter – moving out into the world – meeting and greeting the world – in ever-expanding circles of hospitality, welcome, and healing.

Transcript

I didn’t grow up in a church that had a Homecoming tradition. So when we first came to church here – way back in 2005 – a church Homecoming celebration was something entirely new to me. The Homecoming traditions I was familiar with... they were from college and law school. You know... it’s the start of a new academic year, and the alumni and alumnae are all invited back to celebrate the school we call home – our alma mater. There’s a parade. Homecoming royalty are elected. In Alabama, there’s always a football game. Always. We feast – usually in the form of tailgating and grilling out. On Homecoming, all those who have gone away and all those who are newly arrived are welcomed home. (I’m particularly mindful of all that as I think of the young folks we’ve just sent off to college – Nate, and John, and Sinae – hoping they are finding a home, and knowing how we’ll welcome them back home in December.)

Now, just because I didn’t grow up in a church with a Homecoming tradition, doesn’t mean it’s not big in the South. It is. Particularly in Baptist churches. 

Think of a small-town church. Those who have grown up there and moved away are welcomed back home. There’s a celebration of the heritage of the church – its ministry in that place over time. A Southern-church homecoming often includes a decoration and sprucing up of gravestones in the local cemetery – sometimes it’s also called Decoration Day. The small-town church remembers and celebrates those who have gone before – kind of like what we do on All Saints Day – and everyone is welcomed home.

I’m told that they worship on that Homecoming Sunday morning. And then there is a feast – usually in the form of a covered-dish lunch. And then – and this is the cool part: They feast, and then about 2pm they go back into the church for a second worship service – and hear a second sermon.

So, I thought today, after we worship, and after we have ice cream, let’s just gather back here and I’ll preach a second sermon. 😊 Just kidding.

As I’ve come to understand the tradition here, at First Pres San Anselmo, Homecoming Sunday is about gathering back together after all the busy-ness and travel and life lived over the summer – and recommitting and looking forward together.There’s been all this coming and going, but now the kids are back in school; and here we are gathered back together again – good cause to celebrate. And we look forward to the new program year – the life we have yet to live.

Now, in some ways we have a bit of Homecoming every Sunday. Every Sunday, We are gathered here – welcomed home – to worship God, and to be refreshed, and challenged, and empowered. And then we are sent into the world to live the life of Christ, and then we gather back here again the next Sunday. Gathered and sent. Gathered and sent.

On Homecoming Sunday, we celebrate that rhythm of life that holds us together in community. We celebrate this gathering together again, and we worship the God who always welcomes us home. And... we look forward together to the coming months, the coming year, with hope for the new life we will experience here.

This morning’s psalm invites us into that Homecoming rhythm of going out and coming home. The Psalmist sings of God’s house. “My soul longs – indeed, it faints for the house of God” – where even the sparrow finds her home, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young.” In a world of chaos and trouble, the people return again and again to the house of God – the place they call home – a steady, sturdy place – a place of protection and shelter. “Blessed are those who live in your house... They go from strength. A day in your house is better than a thousand anywhere else.” It is a homecoming psalm.

But the scripture from Mark... well, it interrupts that reverie.[1] Because you see, right before this morning’s Gospel text, Jesus has just been thrown out of his hometown synagogue. We’re in the Gospel of Mark -- the breathless gospel. Jesus is moving from place to place – teaching and healing and proclaiming the reign of God – the end of the powers that oppress, and the raising up of a new order bursting forth with freedom and life. And Jesus comes to his hometown, and they’ve heard what he’s doing. They’re amazed... so amazed that they can’t believe it’s him – Jesus? –  we watched him grow up – he’s just a carpenter – who does he think he is? His homecoming doesn’t go so well. Jesus remarks, “It must be true what they say, “a prophet is not without honor, except in his own hometown.”

Jesus turns from all that – rejected by his own hometown. And he gathers his disciples in – and sends them out – to spread the word – and to bring healing – and to find home – out there.

Jesus sends them out two by two – in the Greek its duo duo. In those days, it’s treacherous to travel out on the open roads – so they’re not sent out alone. But he tells them to take only what they need – and nothing more. Take your staff; wear your sandals; take one tunic – but not a second. And that’s it. No bread. No bag. No money in your belt. He sends them out “in utter dependency on the hospitality of strangers.”[2] They are to find their home among strangers.[3]

With his hometown behind him – all the old structures of the old order – Jesus sends them to start building this new interconnected community of households and homes – village to village. Go door to door, and find a place to dwell there.

Now, I think when we come to this story we may fixate on the houses that might reject the disciples – “Shake the dust off your feet and move on,” Jesus says. Seems harsh.

But look for a moment at the households that do welcome the disciples in. Jesus says, “When a household welcomes you in, dwell there... make your home there.. dwell there until you leave that place.” I think about what Susan Krehbiel said last week about miraculous encounters. The disciples are just showing up on a doorstep – and some family is welcoming them in. Dwell there together. Open yourselves up to that encounter. Make your home there, together.[4] Proclaim the good news of the reign of God – setting the world right even now. Drive out demons – the powers that keep us bound up. Bring healing. Dwell there.

And then, move on to the next town. And do the same. Go to the next village, and make your home there. Village to village. House to house. What they are doing is creating what one writer has called “a network of safe havens.”[5]

And Jesus gives them authority and power to do all that. His authority. Right at the start. The disciples are to do what Jesus does – with the healing power of Jesus – their bodies, embodied extensions of Jesus’ own work. What’s happening here is Jesus is inviting and authorizing his disciples to collaborate with him in his world-transforming work.[6]Announcing and bringing the reign of God – right here, right now.

In the psalm, home is a place of shelter, steady and sure – God’s house – where even the sparrow and the swallow make their nest.

In this world Jesus and the disciples are creating – household to household – home is not a static place. It is an always-moving-forward. Home is a place of encounter – a place of mutual welcome – a place where we are, at the same time, both host and guest to each other. It is dynamic – a continuing moment of commitment and re-commitment. It is moveable – moving out into the whole world – healing, and feeding, and transforming – embracing and embracing again.

If we hold these Scriptures together, home is both a place of shelter, steady and sure – and a vital and living place of encounter – moving out into the world – meeting and greeting the world – in ever-expanding circles of hospitality, welcome, and healing.

As this Homecoming Sunday has drawn near, I’ve been thinking about home. I’ve been thinking about home and hospitality, and about what it’s like to stand on both sides of that threshold.

I’ve been thinking about our anti-racism work – how, back at the start, we studied so diligently here in this place we call home – a safe place for difficult conversation. We studied the basics to understand better our own bias, the systems that perpetuate racism, and our participation in those systems. We came to realize that if we are really to do the work, we had to seek relationships beyond these walls. I’m thinking of how our neighbors in Marin City have so graciously welcomed us in – even offered to help with our learning – so that we might be actually helpful. I’m thinking of Come to the Table, where the Marin City community, every month, is inviting and gathering the broader Marin County community to share a meal, and to learn together.[7] Last night, Sue, and Barbara, and Peter, and Michelle and I were welcomed in as we learned about what we can do to help with housing justice in Marin City and across Marin County.

I’ve been thinking about home – and thinking of the folks – led by the Marin Organizing Committee – who are even now advocating for the affordable housing initiative on the November ballot – so that everyone can have access to a place they can call home.

I’ve been thinking about home – and the encouragement that Susan, and Omar brought last week – the support that the PCUSA Migrant Accompaniment Ministries provides across the country and around the world – thinking about the renewed energy as we wonder how we might participate in migrant accompaniment in partnership with the Marin Interfaith Council and community.

I’ve been thinking about home – and how we’ve Raised the Roof – thinking of all those who call this place home – this congregation, the Pre-School, the adult day program The Cedars provides, the orchestras and choral groups, the teenage theatrical troupe – and I’ve been wondering who else we might welcome into these spaces.

I’ve been thinking about home – and that Community Fridge –  the gathering in, the sending out. Folks go out and gather food, and bring it to this place. Other folks in need of food come here and get what they need – the gathering in, and the sending out – wondering how that ministry might be just a first glimpse of how this place can become even more of a community center.

As I’ve been thinking about home, I’ve been thinking about the partnerships we continue to make and nurture together. All those groups and people I’ve just named – just think of how many folks we are in relationship with – working together – in all the ways we dwell in this place and make our home he here – as we are gathered and sent

And I’ve been wondering: What next? How will we grow what has already begun? How will we build and embody the ideas and dreams just now coming to life? Who are our next partners, our next friends? Who will we encounter along the way – and how will we make a home together?

Jesus sent his disciples duo duo – together – out from the places they knew best – to encounter those they had yet to meet. He sent them to do the work of Jesus – dismantling a world of oppression and harm – and building together something entirely new –

a home and shelter, steady and sure,

a home built from encounters of mutuality and healing,

a home so broad and expansive that all of us,

whoever we are, wherever we are on a journey,

know that we have a place here.

So let’s go – and get busy together –

         and by the way, Welcome home.

© 2024 Scott Clark

[1] For more on this text and the Gospel of Mark, see Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988, 2008); Pheme Perkins, “The Gospel of Mark,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol.viii(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995); Herman Waetjen, A Reordering of Power(Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1989); Emerson Powery, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-14-2/commentary-on-mark-61-13 ;  Matt Skinner, Commentary on Working Preacher at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-14-2/commentary-on-mark-61-13-6

[2] See Myers, p.213.

[3] Id.

[4] See Waetjen, p. 124, pointing out that Jesus’ strategy invites the disciples to identify more closely with those they are serving, and specifically with the poor – those with whom they are to dwell.

[5] See Myers, p.213.

[6] See Waetjen, p.124.

[7] For more on Come to the Table, and to register to attend an event (or donate), go to https://ctttmarin.org