If you travel to Montoursville, Pennsylvania, chances are you will drive on US 220. For me, this was the way “home.” Travelling east on Interstate 80 from western Pennsylvania, take the exit near Mackeyville, and pass by Mill Hall, Lock Haven, Avis, Jersey Shore, Linden, Duboistown, and Williamsport, then arrive in Montoursville, the town I called home for many years. My mom referred to our house on Mulberry Street as, “up home,” whenever she was someplace else. She even requested a burial plot overlooking her home.
“Home is where the heart is,” the saying goes. Sometimes when we travel, we get “homesick,” and long to return to our “home place” or “hometown.” Understandable. Around the world there are millions of people who don’t have a home to return to and are doing their best to make a home for themselves in a strange place. It would be a better world if everyone had a home and a good way to get there. US 220 has changed over the years, but for me it was the way home. I’m grateful for that.
It strikes me that “home” doesn’t just happen. You might “make a house into a home,” but first you need to have a house. And property rights for the house. And roads to get to the house. And electricity, water, sewer, and so on. It also takes a social contract – for mutual protection and aid, for schools, police and fire departments, courts, and commerce – because a community is more than buildings and roads. Most of us take these things for granted. As a child, I took “home” for granted. My parents took care of the bills and all the other things necessary to have a home. Only as an adult was I able to appreciate what went into being able to call our house on Mulberry Street “home.”
We gathered there, slept there, ate there, did chores there, laughed and cried there, in short, we lived there. Again, it seems to me if every child had what we had, with all its friction and flaws, we might have a pretty good world. Yet, relationships and homes are routinely strained and broken. Not every child has as much to be thankful for as I do.
It’s been over 50 years since Pennsylvania was my home. Indiana has held that distinction for almost 46 years. A friend once told me, “we need to learn to grow where we’re planted.” We must make a place our home. Long ago people said, “all roads lead to Rome.” But if you are lucky enough to have one, all roads lead to home. We just need to know the way.
It also occurs to me that home isn’t just a house or a place on a map. It is living with people we care about. Family. Old friends and new. People who welcome us and make us feel “at home.” This morning our pastor shared the thought that our calling is to “widen the circle,” to include more people in this thing we call “church.” Too often we expect people to come to us on our terms rather than find ways to accept and encourage people no matter where they come from.
In a faculty meeting several years ago, I suggested that the university take a hard look at our printed and on-line materials to see if some of what we were saying could be interpreted as keeping people away. Were we implicitly welcoming or rejecting prospective parents or students? Sometimes what we intend and what our words “sound like” are two different things. I was surprised that most of my colleagues seemed to believe there was nothing unwelcoming in our marketing materials. I still think we can subliminally shrink the size of our circle.
Here’s an example. A church composed of mostly “white collar” families could be intimidating to “blue collar” families. Not intentionally, but because life experiences are different, and society tends to teach us that one is “better” than the other. So, we must be intentional about being welcoming.
Here’s another example. A friend of mine, a jazz musician, who was absent from church for decades, finally decided to go back. On that morning, the pastor spoke about how jazz musicians, among other groups, were going to Hell. It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that he decided not to return. How could this church be his home when the pastor was openly antagonistic to him and others?
One of my concerns is that many people seem to want their circle to be smaller, not larger. When we’re actively concerned about who to keep out – wrong beliefs, wrong background, wrong party, wrong “orientation,” wrong class, etc. – what does this say about us as human beings?
Christians have no excuse. The Bible is full of references to widening the circle: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” [Romans 3:23] “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” [John 1:12] “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.” “Sir,” the servant said, “what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.” Then the master told his servant, “Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.” [Luke 15:21-23]
We need to realize that we are the only “home” some people ever get. Jesus is called “the way” but we are roads and bridges on the way. Like US 220, we can help people find the way home.
MurrayWorks 