A Place to Call Home - December 7
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 25; PM Psalm 9, 15; Isa. 5:8-12,18-23; 1 Thess. 5:1-11; Luke 21:20-28
About five years ago, I would spend about an hour or so on Monday mornings helping with an English class at the Refugee Empowerment Program, a nonprofit in Memphis that wasn’t far from where I lived. The refugees in the program had been resettled in Memphis as part of a government program and the nonprofit helped these men and women learn enough English to be able to make an appointment at a doctor’s office, figure out food at the grocery store, and begin to learn the basics of navigating this complex world we live in.
One of the young men that I worked with had no concept of a written language. I would have him trace different letters over and over and I can remember that sense of joy after a few weeks when it began to feel like we were making progress. As mind blowing as it was to try to comprehend not understanding a written language, I struggled more to make sense of this man not having a home. Until ending up in the United States, his entire life had taken place in a refugee camp. He had no country of origin. Everyone else in the Monday English class was from ‘somewhere,’ but my friend had no place that he called home, or at least, not that we could figure out.
I thought of this young man when I read today’s passage from Isaiah. While these words are nearly 3000 years old, Isaiah could be writing about today. Listen to Isaiah, “Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!” The editor of the New Revised Standard Version (translation of the Bible) puts an exclamation point on the end of the sentence. Saint Stephen’s is in a very neighborhood where houses are torn down to build bigger houses that take up even more land like this battle to build the biggest house and swallow up everyone else. Growing up, I thought this was the goal of life, to keep getting larger houses to put all of our things in, but Isaiah reminds us that a selfish vision leads us to ultimately be alone.
The young refuge that I had worked with had no place to call home. And I wasn’t there to learn his story or he to learn mine, but he still has me wondering all these years later, just what led to him not having a home. How could he have come from a place where there was no room for him to exist? Who did exist in that place before and what caused his family to have to flee? Were the other houses just too big?
As the prophet Isaiah writes, I wonder if the person Isaiah is critical of felt successful in their life. Certainly, the person was prosperous with the acquisition of homes and land. Isaiah’s cautionary warning suggests that how the person embodied success also led to their isolation and demise. The critique stems from there being no room for anyone but ourselves in our lives. The parallel to Christmas is stunning. There was no room for Mary and Joseph and their newborn child in the Inn.
If the season of Advent is about preparing to welcome the gift of God Incarnate into our lives, then we have to make sure we have room. It could be as simple as turning away from our self-interest and learning to make sure that we have space in our lives for others. From the stranger to the friend in need, from the refugee to the estranged relative, no person should be without a place to call home.
John+
Questions for Self-Reflection: When have you found it challenging to help friends or strangers in need? When have you found it easy?
Daily Challenge: Try to complete one task that would then allow you to be more emotionally available to help the next person or friend whose path you cross that is some kind of need.