Welcome Home
An interactive sermon preached with the people of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland, California. on the occasion of an intergenerational Homecoming Sunday Service. Video is available on YouTube.
Welcome to St. John’s and welcome to “Homecoming Sunday.”
This is a day to celebrate St. John’s; this community, and all we do together. As we return from summer (even though it still feels like summer to me!), and return to old and new fall routines. After church, everyone will have the opportunity to learn more about what we do and all the ways anyone can get involved here.
But right now, I would like to say – whether you are visiting for the first time, or the fiftieth year — welcome home.
Now, our assigned Gospel reading this morning is maybe not the first one you would think of on a cheery, intergenerational, celebration Sunday like this. We’ve got Jesus insulting a woman who asks him for help, and a healing involving … spit. But actually, that first story is pretty helpful in thinking about what we mean when we talk about church as “home.”
This morning Jesus has traveled far from where he lives to a place where people do things differently from what he’s used to. Their customs and traditions aren’t familiar to him. And a local women – known as the Syrophoenician woman -- comes to Jesus and asks him to heal her daughter.
And Jesus says no. His home is back in Galilee, and hers is here in Tyre. He is a Jew and she is a gentile. The suggestion here is that maybe she should seek help from her people, in her home, and that Jesus will take care of his people in his home.
But this woman reminds Jesus (who, remember, was just as human as he was divine) that when it comes to God, what makes someplace home isn’t about geography; isn’t about particular customs or backgrounds or traditions or boundaries. It isn’t even about buildings and structures.
Home, in God’s eyes, is about people in the presence of God. So that woman, from so far away from where Jesus was born was home, because she was with him. And Jesus was home with her.
And thus reminded, Jesus goes with her, and her daughter is healed. What makes this place (St. John’s or any church) home, is the people – each and every one of you. And the care – the love of God -- we show for one another and the world around us.
As members of this community, we may need to remind ourselves or one another that St. John’s is home to the person who just arrived as much as it is to the person who can’t remember a time before she knew this place.
So, I have an illustration, but I ran out of time to put it together and I need help. I could use maybe two grownups, and as many young people as can help.
Okay, what I want to do, is make a big sign with St. John’s name on it, so we can have it outside for picture. And I have all these pieces, and this board. It’s possible there are some hints in the numbers on the back of those pieces and the board.
[the group successfully put the puzzle together, but a piece is missing]
Oh no! Is it missing a piece? Hmmmmm. Darn it. Well, maybe that’s okay? I wonder what that missing piece could represent?
[members of the congregation share their thoughts]
Yeah, all the people we haven’t met yet is one way to think about that missing piece. Like the Syrophenecian woman in the Gospel story today.
Ohhhh, but I did just remember where I put that piece. Could you check under my seat? [piece is found]
I can look out and see some pieces – some people – who have come home to St. John’s for the very first time in the months since I started here who I can’t imagine this place being without. They have changed me, and this place. For the better. We would be incomplete without them.
What do you think a new friend would like to do here at St. John’s that you like to do? What would you invite them to do.
[members of the conregation share answers]
So let’s keep the puzzle the way it is, but maybe we’ll add this to remember that we are always incomplete, waiting to welcome people we haven’t even met yet home.
Welcome home everyone.