MUMC Sermon-03/12/2006

The Reverend Javier A. Viera

A few weeks ago, sitting on a rocking chair in an open-air room in Nicaragua, I was gathered with thirty or so people. We were attempting to learn something new about each other, and to that end we all answered one question: If you were to write an autobiography of your life thus far what would its title be?

I suggested the question, and after I asked it I realized I didn’t have an answer of my own. As I listened to the answers of others, my turn was quickly approaching and I still did not have an answer. My turn finally arrived and I simply blurted out an answer: “The title of my autobiography would be, ‘Searching for Home.’”

I’m not sure my answer made much of an impression; it certainly wasn’t intended to. But it made an impression on me. I went to bed that night wondering about the spontaneity of my answer, and the truth that it revealed. And, obviously, that moment is still with me today.

I long ago gave up believing that “home” was a singular place. Having moved from Puerto Rico at the age of five, it’s hard to argue persuasively that that gem of an island is home (although in a very real way it is). My family moved to Florida where I lived for the next twelve years. Yet, it was never home. As a matter of fact, one of my earliest memories of Florida was the day I saw the house my father had chosen for us. I remember vividly thinking to myself, “This will never be home.” And it never was.

One of the most perplexing questions I’m often asked is, “Where are you from?” I never know how to answer it. What does it mean, really? Am I being asked where I was born? Am I being asked where I spent the greater part of my life? Or am I being asked where I currently reside? It’s not an easy question for me to answer.

Most of us associate ‘home’ with a tangible place. Langdon Gilkey has said of human nature, “Somehow each person needs a ‘place’ in order to be a self, in order to feel on a deep level that it really exists. We are, apparently, rooted beings at bottom. Unless we can establish roots somewhere in a place where we are at home, we feel that we float, that we are barely there at all.”[1] Or perhaps Virginia Wolfe states it more directly, “the main thing a woman needs to be herself is a room of her own.”[2]

But the truth is that we each have many homes. While we tend to consider the physical structure where we sleep, eat, and dwell home, it is actually only one of our homes. I consider the love of my wife and children another home. That home transcends physical location. And there are other hugely significant people in my life with whom I share a relationship, and those relationships are another version of home. In them I feel more complete, at peace, at rest, at home.

And so, Home is also an intangible reality, or realities, that we know, sense, and recognize instinctively. It is that place, internal or external, where we are most complete, most whole, most alive, most connected to a reality beyond ourselves. As you’ve often heard me quote, St. Augustine said in his Confessions, “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”

Where is your home? I know where many of you live, but that’s not what I’m asking. I’m really interested in where you feel most complete, most whole, most alive, most connected to a reality beyond ourselves. When are you most filled with hope? When are you most daring and least afraid? When and/or where does your restless heart find rest?

It’s worth thinking about, and I realize that in asking it now I may lose many of you as listeners because your thoughts will wander in search of an answer, and that’s okay. As a matter of fact I hope you find sometime today to sit with those questions. I believe that those questions, consciously or unconsciously, might have played a motivating role in the stories we read today from sacred scripture. Don’t you think that Abram and Sarai, and the disciples, were somehow moved to follow the urgings of God in part because in so doing their restless hearts found rest? They may not have even known their hearts were restless, but once in the presence of God something awoke in them; they longed to be a part of something else, something different, something new.

When listening to whatever awakened in them, they were willing to be bolder than they normally were. Abram and Sarai were so bold that they left their homeland in search of the new place to which God was leading them. The disciples were so bold that they were willing to venture beyond the small confines of their lives in order to be a part of a marginal movement that would literally change the course of human history. They didn’t know what they were doing, and they certainly weren’t intending to be a part of something that audacious and bold, but in listening carefully to what was stirring within them they became part of something larger than themselves.

Abram and Sarai literally had to believe the unbelievable. They ventured out in trust in search of home, and in the searching God honored them. “I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.”

They couldn’t have imagined that searching for home would lead to this. But what Abram and Sarai show us is that the spiritually adventurous, those who are willing to stay open, to search, to listen to the stirrings of God deep within, are the ones who will behold the grandeur of God’s promises.

The disciples were similarly inclined and adventurous. Jesus told them something counterintuitive and absolutely unbelievable. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

I’m sure they struggled to understand it and believe it. Yet, we know that they were willing to test the verity of Jesus’ words. Each of them set out with him, and later on their own, to lose their lives for the sake of Jesus’ mission. It was in the service of that mission, in the service of Jesus’ summary commandment to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself,” that made them feel most alive, most whole, most connected to something beyond themselves. Because that was the case they were willing to believe the unbelievable and pursue a spiritual adventure that would literally require their very lives. It was that mission, that passion that was home for these adventurous souls.

Some of you here today have decided that this is where you want to live your spiritual adventure. A few of you have been testing the waters for some time, while others of you have come more recently. But what you share in common is this moment. And I pray that we are ready for you, because I believe that you are adventurous souls. I like to think the rest of us are too, and your joining us will remind us that our true home is the same mission as the disciples: the love of God and neighbor.

If this day is to mean anything to you who join this day, and to those of us who have been around for a while; if this day is to be more than a welcoming ritual it must involve a spirit of adventure and willingness to believe the unbelievable, like Abraham and Sarah. It requires a willingness to believe, like the disciples, that through us and our shared efforts God will make this world a more loving, more just, more holy place.

Actually, I believe that those who are choosing to join us today do so because it is part of a continued search for home. You come to us today, thankfully, because the work to which we have been called makes you feel more whole, more alive, more connected to a reality beyond yourself. And the truth is that’s why each of us came here too, and it’s why we keep coming back.

Friends, we are spiritual adventurers. Our spiritual home and life’s journey is the passionate love of God and neighbor. In a moment we’ll renew our intention to continue that journey, and we’ll welcome new friends and pilgrims. To everyone one of us I say, “Welcome Home.”

[1] As quoted in “Homecoming” A sermon preached at Duke University Chapel by William H. Willimon, 26 July 1999.

[2] Ibid.