Homecoming 2009

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
October 11, 2009

23 Proper B

When I was a child, my sister and I loved to visit our grandmother in her small town in south Alabama. Our grandfather had died when we were very young, and our grandmother still lived in the house they had bought in the early 1930's. The house had been rearranged and remodeled over the years, but as children we loved the thought of going to visit the house where our mother was raised. Her high school scrapbooks were still in her bedroom closet. Many of her childhood friends still lived in that small town. Our great-aunt lived in the same town in the house that her parents, our great-grandparents, built in 1939. There was a sense of history in that town, one that connected us to the people who came before us, even the ones we never knew, like our grandfather and great-grandparents. Even though we never actually lived in Headland, Alabama, there was a very real sense in which our arrival there seemed like a homecoming.

There was another sense in which returning to Headland, Alabama seemed like a homecoming when we were children. Everyone knew who we were. They might not have known our names, but they knew we were Mildred Slocomb’s grandchildren. If we went in the Piggly Wiggly, a grocery store known primarily in the southeastern United States, every cashier knew who we were. The same was true at the bank or at Mr. Ed’s diner where we went to eat hot dogs. Everyone knew that Mildred Slocomb’s grandchildren had come home to visit and everyone welcomed us, simply because of who we were.

In the gospel lesson this morning, we see a man run up to Jesus and kneel before him. We hear the man say "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" There is a very real way in which the man is saying to Jesus "Good Teacher, what must I do to know that I have an eternal home? What must I do to know that there is a place where I belong and am known forever?" Jesus reminds the man of the commandments, which the man tells Jesus he has kept from his youth. This is a good man, a faithful man. Yet he longs for more. So Jesus says to him "Go, sell what you own, give the money to the poor, then come and follow me." The man leaves shocked and grieving, for he has many possessions.

Several clues tell us that the answer to "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" is not really "Go, sell all you have, give the money to the poor, then come and follow me." First, the man asks what he can do to inherit eternal life. Typically, we do not earn an inheritance. We receive an inheritance because of who we are. We are the son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter, cherished organization or favorite charity of the person who died. Secondly, since we know this is a man with many possessions, and we know that Jesus is setting out on a journey, by the time the man actually finds a buyer for all his possessions, sells them, gives the money to the poor, then catches up with Jesus, Jesus’ journey will have come to its end in Jerusalem. And thirdly, Jesus has raised the stakes impossibly high. So high, in fact, that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for this man to enter the kingdom of God. Is Jesus really setting up this faithful man to fail in his quest to inherit eternal life? I think not. When Jesus raises the stakes impossibly high, typically we are called to look at the question a different way.

The short answer to the question "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" is "nothing." There is absolutely nothing we can do to inherit eternal life. Eternal life is a gift. When the perplexed disciples ask Jesus "Then who can be saved?" Jesus replies "For mortals, it is impossible, for not for God; for God all things are possible." We want to earn eternal life so that we know eternal life is really ours. Whether we are blessed with the riches of wealth, or intellect, or common sense, or patience, or sheer determination, if we use our gifts to earn eternal life, then we know it’s ours. But Jesus tells the man, and Jesus tells us, that this is not the way eternal life works. We have a place where we are eternally known and loved by God, a place where we belong and are known forever, simply because we belong to God. In the passage just before this one, the one we heard last week, Jesus says "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." There is nothing a child can do to enter the kingdom of God except show up with complete trust that she belongs there.

This weekend, we celebrate homecoming at Christ Church as we celebrate the 175^th anniversary of this parish. Some of you have come home from quite a distance this weekend, from Virginia and Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Arkansas, to this place which has held meaning for you over the years. Others of us have not come quite so far. But we have all come home to Christ Church because we belong here, even if we left many years ago. We have come home because in some sense our identity as Christians was formed here. We have come home because we are known here and welcome here. And while we may have worked very hard while we were here, or work very hard now, none of us earned the right to be here this weekend. We have come home to Christ Church as a reminder on this side of eternity that there is a place where we belong and are loved forever simply because we belong to God.

Amen.