Reflection - Home(less)

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102819.cfm
Ephesians 2:19-22
Luke 6:12-16

“Left Behind: America’s Homeless Crisis”

This was the story line for a recent television show. Considering the subject matter, you could easily change the word ‘America’ for any number of specific cities. Who are these people? How did they get to where they are? How many are sick? Displaced? Lazy?Uneducated? Spongers? Unfortunate? Addicts? How many are on the street because they choose to be there?

The answers to these questions are unknown to me. But their circumstances and the title given them — “homeless” — made me wonder what exactly does the word ‘homeless’ mean. I’ve read that certain cities in the Pacific Northwest are paying transportation costs for some to return “home.” I gather there is an assumption that these particular ‘homeless’ are only ‘homeless’ when they are away from some physical place. I’ve also heard that at least one east coast city is paying transportation costs for some ‘homeless’ to be sent to other towns — any other town — and providing them with funds for shelter when they get there. Presumably these particular ‘homeless,’ now that they have some money for shelter, will no longer be among the ‘homeless’ population when they reach their assigned destination. The implication is that you are not homeless if you have a roof over your head.

One of Robert Frost’s poems takes, in part, the form of a conversation between husband and wife. Late in the poem the two are discussing the meaning of ‘home.’ The exchange is as follows with the husband speaking first.

‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
they have to take you in.
(The wife responds). ‘I should have called it
something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’

Now I’m not a student of poetry, so my interpretation of these lines reflect nothing more than my own perception. Nevertheless, the lines take some serious thought. Consider the husband’s observation. This is the one my memory retained most clearly from when I first heard the poem years ago. In the husband’s statement is the presumption that some personal distress has driven a person to return ‘home’ — when you have to go there. Moreover, he identifies a ‘home’ as a place.

You can walk up to a house randomly selected. You knock on the door. Presuming that someone answers, they may question why you’re there and what you want; then, with some greater or lesser degree of politeness, they turn you away. By implication, it is understood: this is not your home. But if, instead, you walk up to a house where you are or have been known and have been part of the community living there, there is a distinct chance that they will take you in. Why? Because, in some way or in some sense, this is your home.

The wife’s comment reflects a different dimension or a different mode of understanding. If I were to simply re-word her statement it might go like this: You are ‘home’ when you need not establish that you’ve earned or merited the right to join with those present.

In the very first statement of this portion of Paul’s letter, he affirms that the Ephesians are now home. “You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are [now] fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God.” By definition the stranger is one who is unknown and the sojourner is one who travels to a place or places but only stays temporarily. Paul is telling them that they are not strangers but are known in the Christ who has gathered them. He is telling them that they are no longer among those who will stay but temporarily, for this is their home. This is where they belong.

The fact that these Ephesians are no longer “strangers and sojourners” is something they “somehow haven’t to deserve.” In fact, any suggestion or implication of being deserving is meaningless, since this ‘home’ and the fact that they are citizens in this ‘home’ is a total and free gift of God. They don’t have to justify their presence. They don’t have to show they’ve paid their dues. They don’t have to demonstrate that, by their character, they have established their worthiness. There is no secret sign, no password, no character card, no ID that confirms them as fellow citizens. Rather, their gift of faith alone is sufficient — why else would they be there.

In a recent editorial on the millennials and religion was the following passage.

Here’s what really worries me: Few of these activities [of the millennials] are as geared toward building deep relationships and communal support as the religious traditions the millennials are leaving behind. Actively participating in a congregation means embedding oneself in a community. This involves you in the lives of others and the other way around — their joys and sadnesses, connections and expectations. By leaving religion, we’re shrugging off the ties that bind, not just loosening them temporarily.

In a roundabout way the author is, in fact, implying that these millennials are homeless. They belong nowhere. Rather, they are sojourners through life and they travel alone. In many ways, they are strangers to one another. The bonds are weak within whatever community they have. Whatever ties that may bind are casual and subject to tomorrow’s interests or necessities.

It’s a mistake to think of home as a place. Home is not a place, even though, because of our physical existence, we necessarily interrelate the two. Home is where we belong — not in the sense of “the place we are supposed to be” but in the sense of “being a part of.” That’s why “when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” That’s why home is “something you somehow haven’t to deserve.” If you once accepted the community as the place where you belonged, you became part of the whole just like any stone in a structure.

The people of the street lack shelter, though ‘tent cities’ are undermining the misnomer which identifies them as ‘homeless.’ The truly homeless are those who don’t belong; and it is clear that those lacking in shelter usually are lacking in belonging as well. But shelter does not equate to belonging. The number of those termed ‘homeless’ number in the thousands. The number of those actually homeless probably number in the millions.

Those, then, who are no longer strangers and sojourners are those who now belong to Christ, for they have found an eternal home. We must read Paul’s letter to the Corinthians hearing his words as spoken to ourselves in the present day: “For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apol'los or Ce'phas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ's; and Christ is God's.” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23) You Belong! With that comes an inherent mandate: “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:7)

It is the warmth and depth in our welcome that will bring others home.