NO PLACE LIKE HOME
May 10, 2009
John 10: 11-18 I John 5: 1-5
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
As you may know, most of the mainline churches have long urged that this day not just focus on mothers, but on issues pertaining to the Christian home and family in general. The Festival of the Christian Home is what Methodists call it. That said, I did read about one interesting custom in Serbia for mothers’ day. There, mothers’ day is celebrated on the second Sunday before Christmas. The custom on mothers’ day in Serbia is for children to sneak into mom’s bedroom early in the morning and gently tie her feet with ribbon or string. Then, to negotiate her release she gives them small gifts. I don’t really think this will catch on here, do you?
The home we are celebrating today may, of course, have two parents or one. May have many children or none. And, as well, home may be defined as any familial relationship even for those who live alone and who have family members elsewhere with whom they are in touch.
What I want to do then on this day of celebration of the Christian Home is to offer a sermon using the four letters of the word, “home” as points for the sermon: H O M E. It is of course quite a subjective sermon. You’re welcome to add to it later, and I’d appreciate knowing what you come up with.
First, H – Humor. Someone has said that a person isn’t poor if he or she can still laugh. Of all the gifts my parents gave to me, I think growing up in a home with plenty of laughter ranks among the best. In fact, my parents were actually funny people; my relatives, every one of them, were funny people. Some a bit strange, but all funny. There were serious times of course, but plenty, plenty of laughter. Somehow I even learned to laugh at myself, which I tell you, has saved me more times than I can count.
Life can get awfully heavy at times. Awfully heavy. Too heavy for human beings to handle without the faith of laughter. For really, that’s what laughter, healthy laughter, is an expression of: a down deep faith in God. A faith that can laugh knows that nothing, not even all the bad stuff that is presently causing problems, can possibly separate us ultimately from the eternal love of God.
For example, I was reading about a married couple who were driving across Missouri when they got into an awful scrap about his leaving dishes in the sink. The wife said it only took a little more effort to rinse them off and stack them in the dishwasher. I mean, this is how fights develop, isn’t it?
For 30 miles they carried on a really heated argument. Then silence. Thick silence. Then the husband noticed two mules standing in a field. Unable to resist, he nodded in the direction of the mules known for their stubbornness, and said, “Relatives of yours?” The wife never even took a breath and replied, “Yep, by marriage.” And they convulsed with laughter.
The gift of humor is precious. Laughter takes the edge off things. It even lowers blood pressure, reduces stress. Plus, it often can help us deal with really touchy things that we have trouble talking about straight on.
So, check things out in your family relationships. If your humor index has been kind of low lately, figure out ways to lighten things up, to laugh together. Go see a funny movie. Or just ask me to tell you more about my relatives. Laughter can make all the difference in the world in a home.
O is for “odd.” Let your home and my home be odd places. As odd means different, unusual, unique. I mean, try to startle the neighbors every now and then. Make them wonder what’s wrong with you. Let them see you chasing each other around the yard. Being proper always do the predictable thing people all the time is killing us.
Bruce Larson tells of a friend who planned in great detail a cross-country summer camping trip in the Rockies for his family. As luck would have it, his boss required him to attend a meeting and thus delay his vacation departure. So he sent his family on without him and said he’d fly and join them later.
And then he had an idea. After his meeting, he arranged a flight to Denver and took a taxi to a place on the Interstate where he knew they would be passing at a certain time. There, he sat on a little hill for several hours waiting for his family. In time, he saw the familiar SUV rumbling toward him in the distance. So, he ran down to the side of the road and put out his thumb.
Can you imagine their reaction? “Hey, there’s someone bumming a ride that looks like Dad. It is Dad!”
Later the man was asked why he went to all that trouble. And he said, “Someday I’m going to be gone, and when that happens I want my kids to say, ‘you know, Dad was lot of fun…he really wanted us to enjoy life.”
Well, why not? Let’s try to make our homes odd places of delight and joy.
M is for MISSION. The first dictionary definition for mission is “a sending or being sent on some special work or service.” We talk about “being in mission” as a church; why shouldn’t we think about “being in mission” as families?
To think this way means to consider one’s family not just as so many individuals, each trying to fulfill their own individual destinies. But as a unit, a team, created by God for God’s good purpose: to love the world. This can be done by husband and wife, with or without children. It can be done by multi-generations living together; or even across the miles in any number of combinations.
However, if you’re blessed still to have children in your life, maybe to have grandchildren or nieces or nephews with whom you have regular contact, then what a blessing it is to have a mission of love and caring that you all share together.
Thank God there are wonderful school projects nowadays or scouting opportunities. A lot of learning to care for others goes on there. But aren’t children even more likely to be impressed with the importance of a lifetime of caring about non-family members, serving others if they witness from early on their parents, their grandparents modeling a missional, helping outlook on life?
What an advantage for life a child has to witness a parent or grandparent who works hard not just for personal pleasure, but for the sake of other people less fortunate. That child from that family is the most privileged child of all!
Lastly, E. E is for effort. What a shock it is to newly married folk that happiness in marriage takes more effort than anything they’ve ever attempted. You can tell them this, but just as many of us were told, you have to experience it for yourself.
Sadly, too easily families settle for just trying to make the best of things and staying out of each others’ way. But family life really ought to be much more than this. Which means making an effort.
Someday maybe it’ll be less a stigma to go for marriage and family counseling than it now is. In fact, when I was doing lots of weddings and a lot of pre-marriage counseling, I urged couples to go for a session or two with a marriage counselor as soon as they got back from their honeymoon. Why? Mainly to take lessons in how to communicate. Studies show that marriages break down not because of sexual problems or in-law problems or money problems so much as because couples can’t talk about these and other problems.
And it’s the same in all kinds of family relationships. It takes effort. Learning to communicate, to speak honestly, to hear, to really hear, to really listen takes an incredible effort.
So, let’s aim high. Aim to count each others’ happiness no less important than our own. And, again, whatever you do, don’t put off getting help until there are so many broken pieces that you can’t find them all. Make the effort; sustain the effort. And Christ will bless you and your home.
I know I offered Mission for the letter M, but permit me a bit of sentimentality and of course great truth by adding another “M”, for mother.
I want to share a famous story written years ago by Erma Bombeck who died several years ago. In her column, Erma was describing the complex task God had in creating mothers.
After all, God had to build a creature who “would run on black coffee and leftovers, have a lap that disappears when she stands up, a kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands. Also three pairs of eyes.”
An angel pleaded with God not to work so hard. “Lord,” said the angel, “come to bed.”
“I can’t,” said God, “I’m so close to creating something so close to myself….”
The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly, “it’s too soft,” she sighed.
“But tough!” said God. “You can’t imagine what this mother can do or endure.”
Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek. “Uh, oh. There’s a leak,” she pronounced. “I told you that you were trying to put too much into this model.”
“It’s not a leak,” said God. “It’s a tear.”
“What’s it for?” asked the angel.
The Lord answered, “It’s for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness and pride.”
“
You’re a genius,” said the angel.
The Lord looked somber, and in a bit of awe, and said, “But I didn’t put it there.”
Thank you, mothers! Thank you for your tears. We give thanks for you and for all who’ve loved us in our homes and especially for those who have gone to be with the Lord.
I leave you with this prayer often found done in needle-point and framed and hung in many homes, specifically in the Midwest and south:
“Oh Thou, who dwellest in so many homes, possess Thyself of this. Bless the life that is sheltered here. Grant that trust and peace and comfort abide within, and that love and life and usefulness may go out from this home forever.”