Sermon: Welcome Home

Congregational Church of Brookfield
Rev. Jennifer Whipple
Genesis 18:1-8
Hebrews 13:1-2

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts gathered here this day be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer.

I have spent the past few days thinking about what “home” means.  There are loads of clichés and quotes about home.  “Home is where you hang your hat.  Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.  Home is where the heart is.”  There are different ways to think about home too.  Perhaps for some, home is merely a shelter.  For others it is comfort.  For others still it is the place where you are known either the best or where people expect things of you.  And home can be a memory of a time rather than a place.  My Aunt Linda who my grandmother and I just went to visit in Oklahoma made many comments about the fact that she is going to get home one of these days soon, and my Aunt Linda has lived in Oklahoma over 30 years.  But for her she remembers a time when her family finally settled here in CT, after having traveled in the Army with my grandfather, a time when they were all home together. 

There are certainly many ways to think about home.  And now that we are heading into the holiday season there will be countless commercials on TV about making sure the home fires are burning or the right kind of coffee is in the cabinet for family members who are heading home for the holidays.  There is a sense that home should mean hospitality and love.  A place where you can be yourself and be accepted.  A place, where, as one person was quoted, “…you can scratch where it itches.”

I remember coming home from living in the Dominican Republic in the middle of the airport workers’ strike the Christmas of 2004, and instead of it taking me the usual 4 ½ hours or so it usually took to get home from the DR, it took me 34 hours to make it to my parents’ house.  And I remember thinking that my parents’ small beige cape in Naugatuck , my home, was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.  It was the place where I could speak my native language, where I could find the comfort of my own bed, where there were people who had watched me grow and knew my whole life…not just my life in the context of someone working for a medical mission. 

Yes, the idea of home does bring with it many thoughts, many emotions, and many memories.  For some, these are wonderful thoughts of holiday dinners gathered around tables.  For others there are memories of family game nights or family tiffs.  For still others unfortunately, the place they call home has been shattered by violence either within their family or within their surroundings.  It is for people with all of these thoughts and all of these different kinds of memories about home that God calls us to be a community of welcome and hospitality.  It is for each and every one of us and for all of the people who may happen to walk through these doors that God calls us to make this place a spiritual home, a community in which people can find comfort, respect, acceptance, and even a warm meal every now and then.

We hear this call in countless stories and words of advice and direction in the Bible itself.  In our scripture reading from Genesis today we hear about Abraham waking up from the sleepy state of his afternoon siesta to find three strangers before him.  And instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, or perhaps thinking that he is dreaming the sojourners before him, Abraham springs into action.  He explains to those who have arrived that he is going to prepare for them a place to rest, water to quench their thirst and wash their feet of their travels, and bread to address their hunger.  However, Abraham goes far beyond that in his hospitality, calling on Sarah and all of their servants to prepare a fine feast for the strangers who have arrived.  Strangers whom he and Sarah later come to find are messengers from God come to share with them the promise of a child and the fulfillment of the prophecy that they would be the parents of the great nation of Israel .  It is stories like this that led to the directive we find in the scripture passage from the letter to the Hebrews, “Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”

In my reading this week I came across a brochure published by our brothers and sisters in the Disciples of Christ denomination called, “What Does the Bible Say About Refugees and Immigrants?”  Both of these are certainly hot topics in our world today as our country struggles with the issue of immigration and as we realize the wars and violence around the world are turning countless families into refugees—15 million people throughout our world to be exact.  This pamphlet says the following about the biblical history of hospitality towards others.  

The Bible is the story of God’s intimate involvement with people as they live out their history.  It is a story of movement and change as people and nations grow, mix, and take on various characteristics.  It is a story of constantly renewed hopes for a better future... [And] the story of the people of Israel is a story of wanderings and sojourns in many places… [Throughout Israel’s history] as the structures of society were put in place, or as prophets spoke about God’s will for society, a recurrent theme was concern for the welfare of three groups unable to be self-sufficient: the sojourners (foreigners), the widows, and the orphans.  Over and over, Israel was told to remember the sojourners and treat them with justice and compassion, remembering their own ancestors had been in the same situation...  Jesus, the incarnate God, became a refugee while still an infant, fleeing with his parents to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath…The culture and history of the people of the Bible led to the presence of a stranger being seen as an opportunity.   Over and over, we find stories of visitors being welcomed.  Hospitality involved the offering of food, drink, and shelter to the stranger in need, but it was much more than that. Hospitality was an attitude of the heart, out of which such generous actions naturally flowed…  The disciples and followers of Jesus were especially taught the depths of the meaning of love for God and, intertwining with it, love for all people…[how to be recipients of] God’s love and be mediators of God’s love for others.

This week we have the opportunity to show our hospitality and offer an extravagant welcome here at CCB.  We will have an opportunity to put the love we have been shown by God into action in offering a homecoming, as we will be greeting our new refugee family, coming to us from Iraq .  Their thoughts of the home they have known are ones of war and persecution.  The hope is that the cottage and this community can help them identify a new home…a place where they are cared for and learned from.  A place where they are no longer refugees or strangers but rather a family, father – mother- and two year old son, that joins our families in community.  We will have a lot to learn from them, as they bring with them their culture, customs, and the tenets of their faith. 

            As the Refugee Resettlement Committee learned of this family only six days ago, we found ourselves called to invite them to become members of the Brookfield community.  We found ourselves called to offer the hospitality that we have been taught about in the Bible…perhaps even to entertain some angels in the days and months ahead.  As we gathered for that meeting we watched a brief video about Refugee Resettlement Ministry shown to us by Chris George, who is the Executive Director of the Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services.  And as we watched this video there was a quote that stood out to me from a woman who was a member of a church who had helped to resettle a family from Africa, much like this community did in resettling Annie & Lloyd four years ago.  She said, “When you see someone who has lost everything – someone who is marked for death and then with grace and courage they start their lives over – it’s like witnessing the resurrection all over again.”

            We are a resurrection people in the United Church of Christ.  Each Sunday we gather to worship and celebrate the amazing gift we have been given through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We celebrate the fact that, through God’s love and the miracles that we have heard about and perhaps even witnessed ourselves, God has shown us and taught us countless lessons about who we are to be in this world, how we are to serve one another and others outside the walls of this community.  Each Sunday we gather together to celebrate the blessing it is that we can call this place our home and our family in faith. 

The UCC slogan says, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey you are welcome here.”  We invite you and each person who walks through these doors to find this place to be a place of welcome, a place to call home.   For it can be a home for you, for those you love, for our new family.  Through an outpouring of hospitality and friendship we will hopefully be able to provide that place for our adults, youth, and children alike, for those who have been here for years and for those who will be arriving in just a few days.  We have realized in this past week that we don’t need to spend years in preparation.  We just need to be willing to extend a hand to a person we have not met before.  We just need to be willing to open our eyes and see the similarities we can find with each person here today.  We just need to open our hearts to feel the love that God shares with us and to share it with each person we encounter.  We just need to open our ears and to hear God saying, “Welcome Home!”  Amen.