In one of the stories in Acts, Paul baptizes Lydia and her household. And the first thing Lydia does after her baptism is to invite Paul and the others to stay at her home. “And she prevailed upon us.” The act of hospitality. John 14: 23. “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” David often refers to the people in his life who love him: family, friends, mentors, aunts and uncles – the gathering of the beloveds. Home.
Several years ago, in a Sunday morning class, we read “Why Don’t People Come to Church?” The gist was that the people inside the church don’t make people feel welcomed. That the programs and service and hymns won’t make any difference until the people inside the church “live out the things we proclaim on Sundays.” I like to think about “why people do come to church,” and it’s the flip side of that coin. That we make people feel welcomed, and loved. That we want them to sit with us in the pew, just as they are. We all want to be welcomed and loved, just as we are. Home.
When I moved from Aspen, the priest at my little church asked me to give a farewell sermon, which I did. I had been involved with the music, and the choir loft was in the back of the church, like the one here. I said that one day, I was looking down at everyone in the pews, and realized that at one time or another, I had been mad at each of them. That’s when I knew that they were my family. Home.
As a child, I read Cheaper by the Dozen, and I knew then that I wanted to have twelve children, and live just the way they did. I loved reading about all the different personalities of the children, the bombastic father, the patient mother. It was hilarious and raucous and joyous. Over the years, I pared down the number somewhat, but I always knew that I would be the mother of many. It worked out in a very different way. I never gave birth to a child. That lives as a sorrow. But it lives beside the joy of the children that came my way. I have five nieces and a nephew; four god-children; a great niece and three great nephews; two stepdaughters; two grandchildren; two god-children who, as adults, asked Tim and me to be their godparents. Home.
Home is not necessarily the place where we were raised. Our relatives are not confined to the people in our immediate family. We make our home. We create our family. We learn to love because we were loved. We open our hearts so that Jesus can come to us, and make his home with us. “Love one another as I have loved you.” The commandment didn’t say, “love the ones under your roof;” the commandment is to love one another, all the one anothers. To be Lydia, to welcome the person in the pew next to us, to love the children who come to us in ways that we didn’t imagine, to be aunts and uncles and parents to anyone who needs us. To make our church the place where people come. Home.
Susan Garsoe
