On September 5, 1983 I said goodbye to my parents and climbed into my 1974 orange Volkswagen Bug and started the five hour drive to Cheney, Washington for my freshman year at Eastern Washington University. I had never been away from home for more than 3 weeks ever and here I was heading to university and the beginning of adulthood. Some of us have experienced this same scene in one way or another, but we have all experienced that moment when we became homesick. We longed to be home but knew that we had to continue on the path we were on.
The Bible is full of similar stories of people far from home and could not go back. Those enslaved in Egypt, those in exile in Babylon, David chased by Saul, even the Apostle Paul shares his longing for home. Some of our hymns share in the language of longing for home borrowing from these stories. "Jerusalem, Jerusalem My Happy Home" (ELW 628) jumps to mind.
During these unusual times that finds our friends and neighbors sick with a deathly virus (some have died) we have been unable to gather together in our worship home. Your sibling in faith, Lloyd Condra, wrote to me "The building is not the church. The church is the people, and our faith, and our hopes, and our work." We long to be back in our worshipping space. We long to sing together. We long to have our faith bolstered by leaning on those who are strong when we are weak.
I find my self at times feeling asea, floating without any direction. Longing for home, if you will. The third stanza of "What God Ordains Is Good Indeed" (ELW 331) expresses my feelings well:
I taste the bitter cup and plead,
"Lord, quench my fear, confusion."
God ends the night, restores delight;
by faith I face tomorrow
and yield to God all sorrow.
I wish I had some magic words for us in this time. I long for home. I long to be with you in 3D. I long for our voices joined together singing the great hymns of faith. In this between time, it is good to be reminded that God is with us. Amen.
