Reflection - Home

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/100417.cfm
Nehemiah 2:1-8
Luke 9:57-62

There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.

The repetition may have worked for Dorothy, but Nehemiah had no such luck. Maybe he forgot to close his eyes or click his heels as he said the words. In any case, the trifold repetition of the phrase got him nowhere so he had to try a more conventional route. We heard about that this morning. 

Nehemiah was a descendant of the Jews forced into exile at the time of the Babylonian conquest. But things had changed. The Persians were now in power; an earlier Persian King, Cyrus, had already permitted the return of the Jews to Judea; and some of the descendants of those captives, still living in a foreign land, had risen to prominence. Nehemiah was one of them. He was the cupbearer for the Persian King. And even after so many years, with the original exiles long deceased, Nehemiah's heart was bound to the land God had promised; he still ached for home. He was true to the words recorded by the Psalmist.

If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy! (Psalm 137:5-6)

Strong words! "If I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!" In spite of the passing years, the common saying was true for Nehemiah just as it is for us today. Not the "there's no place like home" truism; rather the one that reminds us that: "Home is where the heart is." Nehemiah's heart was still in Jerusalem; and Jerusalem was home.

Nehemiah's story began in the previous chapter wherein was described his encounter with a traveling kinsman. 

Hana'ni, one of my brethren, came with certain men out of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that survived, who had escaped exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, "The survivors there in the province who escaped exile are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire."

It was this report which troubled Nehemiah and prompted him to seek permission from the king to journey to the capitol city of his ancient homeland and to spend some time rebuilding it. It was this report that exposed to the king the ache in Nehemiah's heart.

How could I not look sad
when the city where my ancestors are buried lies in ruins,
and its gates have been eaten out by fire?

But Jerusalem is more than just the City of David, or the capitol of either ancient or modern Israel, or the ancestral home of Nehemiah and so many others. It is a city suffused with symbolism and enshrouded in mystery. The author of Revelation recognized as much and pointed to the New Jerusalem as a symbol for heaven itself — in fact, it may well be more than a symbol, maybe it is the New Heaven.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them."(Revelation 21:1-3)

Whatever the New Jerusalem is or will be — representation or actual fact — the book tells us that it will be the locus of God's dwelling place with men.  

When Jesus says in the Gospel text: "the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head." he is not complaining about not having a roof over his head. Nor is he lamenting his status as an itinerant preacher, always on the move. Rather, he is moved by the same yearning for home as Nehemiah. But unlike Nehemiah, his home is not Jerusalem. His home is with his Father, for that's where his heart is. As God incarnate he emptied himself, says Paul. And in his human condition, not clinging to equality with God, his heart yearned to return home. He was speaking from the same inner awareness that was so memorably stated by St Augustine: "Our hearts will never rest, O Lord, until they rest in thee.

We live here on earth and our existence is transitory. When Dorothy kept asking to go home, she was thinking of a farm on the prairie. When Nehemiah asked the king to allow him to go home, he was thinking of Jerusalem. When Jesus was longing for that place to lay his head, he was desiring his permanent place with the Father. For Dorothy, for Nehemiah, even for Jesus, home is where the heart is.

The question for us is where do we most often look when we talk about home? Where is our heart!