I preached this sermon on August 15, 2021 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Fort Wayne, IN. The lectionary texts cited are Proverbs 9:1-6 and John 6:51-58.
This past Wednesday the parish gathered outside in the garden (or the garth, as we call it) for a party to celebrate the beginning of a new program year here at Trinity—and, I think, to simply revel in the joy of being together after a very long and challenging year and a half.
I saw and heard so many beautiful things as I wandered around—friends visiting and reconnecting; some of our downtown neighbors who showed up and appreciated the opportunity to receive a hot meal from the food truck; the sound of music and laughter bouncing off of those old stone walls. It felt so good, like the love that we speak of and cultivate here in the nave of the church had spilled out into the streets.
If you were there, I think you have a sense of what I am talking about. And if you couldn’t be there, please know that you were thought of, that you were in a sense still part of things, because no matter the day or the week or the year, this place belongs to all of us who have loved it, to all whose lives have crossed this threshold, to all whose hands have tended to its care, whose feet have trod the well-worn path to the altar rail. And so, as we begin another season of worship, study, and service at Trinity, I say again to you what will always be true, every time you come through these doors, whether for the first time or the last: welcome home.
Now for some, the language of “church home” and a “church family” can come off as overly sentimental or disingenuous, an attempt to gloss over the broken parts of a complex institution, claiming a spirit of welcome and mutuality when what is actually expected is compliance and conformity. I know that many have been harmed in the past by those types of environments, and thus it is so very important here, in this place, that we mean what we say. That we come together in our diversity and difference and live as though there is space enough for everyone at this table, in this house of prayer, because God has told us that, indeed, there is. The door is open to every willing heart.
In today’s reading from Proverbs, the personification of Wisdom calls out to passersby, “you that are simple, turn in here! To those without sense…come eat of my bread.” In other words, no matter how foolish or stupid you are, you are welcome here!
And while I don’t know that that exact wording will show up on any of our parish event invitations, the point is this: we are all, in one way or another, lost, stumbling around, distracted and confused by both the complexity and the banality of our days, and we are all seeking the place that is home. The place where we don’t have to earn our sense of worth. The place where we are loved simply for being there, AND the place where we are invited to lay down our burdens and grow into the fullness of life.
This is that place. This community, this altar, this moment where our life encounters God’s life is that place. Or at least, it can be, if we will let it be. If we will show up and receive what is offered.
“Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you,” Jesus tells us today, and as much as we sometimes like to equivocate and dance around the bold claims of Christian truth, there is, in these words, a stark choice. Take part in the life of Christ, feast at his table, follow where he leads, or do not. But know that if you do not, you may very well spend the rest of your life searching for home in the wrong places.
Because your true home is not the house you live in. Your true home is not your political identity. Your true home is not your nationality. It is not found in the private realm made up of your hobbies and tastes and preferences. It is not even found within your “self” as we tend to use that word, the amalgam of your memories and thoughts and experiences.
All of those things are part of who you are, they all matter, but they are not your home. Your home is here, in the presence of the living, beating heart of God. Your home is beneath the loving, penetrating gaze of Jesus, who knows you better than you will ever know yourself. Your home is here, in the Sacraments and in the service of Christ’s body, the church—in the place where our individual stories are enmeshed with the stories of our forebears, the generations of those who came before us, who sat right where you are sitting, who knelt and stretched out their hands and received the bread on a thousand Sundays, just as you are about to do.
Here, among the great cloud of witnesses, at the Eucharistic center of creation, this is where you truly belong. So yes, you that are simple, turn in here. You that are lost, turn in here. Come home, no matter what you have done, no matter how long it has been. Come home!
And I don’t say all of this merely as a sneaky way to convince you to attend Mass more often or to join in all of our fall programming, though I certainly hope that you will, because I continue to be amazed by the transformation of the heart that I witness among those who engage deeply with prayer and study and fellowship in this place.
I want you to hear and know that this is our true home because we are living through a time when so many people do indeed feel lost—a time when the very idea of home and belonging are unraveling concepts—when it is easy to feel disconnected and divided and estranged from any sense of community, any sense of being a part of something greater than ourselves. People are desperate to find somewhere that feels like home, but they don’t know where it is.
Because maybe at times, you have felt that way, too, wondering: is there a place for me in the world? Does anything I do actually matter? In the face of so much uncertainty and loss and suffering, is there any sense to be made of this life? After all of my wandering, when will I arrive? When will I know that I am truly known?
These are hard questions to answer with mere words. There is no simple phrase or formula that makes everything in this life easy or clear. But there is this place, where we wrestle with the questions and we strive to live into the enfleshed, incarnate answer that we find in Jesus.
Because I guarantee you, if you stood where I stood on Wednesday and watched the little ones laughing and running in circles, like fish swirling through a pond; if you stood there and saw friends and families of every age and circumstance sitting together sharing a meal on the grass; if you sensed the solid and reassuring presence of this church building huddled there in the twilight, inviting you to rest against its warm stones; and if you can perceive the life that radiates outward, every moment of every day from the Body of God resting in this tabernacle, the Body that will soon be placed in your hands…if you have experienced these things, or if you can simply see how important they are, then you have already glimpsed the answer. The answer to everything. It is here. It has always been here, where God offers himself to you freely.
“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed,” says Wisdom.
“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them,” says Jesus.
In other words, God is saying to you: Come, take all I have, take my very life, so that you can truly live.
Come, and eat, and know that you will never be a stranger here. Just come.
Welcome home.
By Another Road 