Intro – (sing) It takes God to build a home, It takes God to build a home, Anyone if they know how can take a set of tools and build them a house, but God has to build their home, God has to build their home. (by Rev. Dan Smith)
The grass is greener over there, Lord! Why can’t we do what that other country is doing? What have you done for us lately?
We Think – we’re better off being like our neighbors?
The Hebrews in 1 Samuel want a king who will give them what they want. They want to choose their king over following God’s governance. So, Samuel lays out the costs of being under human rule. But the people turn on Samuel by saying he’s too “old”. And those are the elders calling him that! They say he is out of touch with the times, outdated, uncool, and no longer trending.
Samuel is counter cultural.
Ex: It’s like a piece of cross-stitched artwork. In our lives – It’s as if it’s the underside of the fabric is the only side we see. It’s messy and doesn’t make sense. However, the topside is what God sees and will eventually reveal to us.
Faith is trusting that God sees what we don’t.
For instance, look at this Crazy Quilt from my ancestors. A Crazy Quilt came from when a group of women would gather and sew pieces of cloth together in some crazy design. As they talked and shared stories they often used cuts of cloth from memorable items such as a baby blanket, a loved one’s old shirt or a favorite dress. My family’s Crazy Quilt was done in 1907 which is cross-stitched
in one of the middle panels. But look at the difference between the top and the underside!
The people in the 1 Samuel passage want a new king, but an earthly king so that they can be like other countries! But God is seeing something else for them. It’s as if God sees the topside and how the designs go together while the people are looking at the underside as the finished product. Perspective, right?
And then the people in the gospel reading for today are resisting change. They want the status quo. But Jesus is challenging the status quo and “the way things have always been done.” He is rocking the boat, and they want him to stop.
It’s interesting that the people in each of these stories don’t know what they want if they can’t see the outcome for themselves.
This is why our Lord taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in…”
God sees what we can’t. We have faith chiefly not in what we can see, but in what God sees and desires to come to fruition.
Jesus tells us that a divided house cannot stand. So, what does he say about being unified? He says that he is the unifier and everyone that follows him will be considered his family. The scripture sounds like he is harshly rejecting his relatives that are on the scene to rescue him. Maybe save him from embarrassing himself. Jesus is going against the grain here and flipping the status quo. But Jesus is not rejecting his biological family as much as he is resisting their pull on him to return to the status quo. His biological family doesn’t see his purpose. His faith family does.
Jesus is the new thing they have been waiting for and praying for for generations. In the face of common culture and status quo God sees the bigger picture. If the house of Israel is to be unified and truly be a light to all nations, including Gentiles of every type, then they need to build that kind of home and family where God dwells with God’s people.
I don’t watch much TV, since I chose to unfriend the cable company a couple of years ago. But if I’m travelling and have a little time to unwind, I’m usually watching the Food Network or HGTV. HGTV is fun because it has so many different takes on what kind of house will make someone happy. There’s My Lottery Dream Home, Love it or List it, Fixer Upper, Flip or Flop, Home Town, Good Bones, Brother vs. Brother, Beachfront Bargains, House Hunters, and House Hunters International to name a few
They all have their spin on what’s going to get someone into the home of their dreams.
(Pause) I wonder if God has a dream home for us? What would that look like for us?
Perhaps it doesn’t matter to God what type of housing we choose as long as there is space in our lives for God to dwell with us. It could be a dorm, or an apartment, or a house.
It reminds me of that old blues-gospel song by The Rev. Dan Smith called It Takes God to Build a Home. You can find it on YouTube and check out the lyrics. The chorus says, “Any man if he knows how can take a set of tools and build him a house. But God has to build his home. God has to build his home.”
So, what it means to be family and to be home has to do with God’s direction and God’s discernment, which might look a little crazy to what’s trending and garnering our attention most days.
Lutheran pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber started an alternative church family in Denver a few years ago. She’s since written several books about reaching the marginalized with good news and she is considered one of the leading contemporary theologians.
When they were first growing as a local church, they had to address being a cool place for people who didn’t look like them who were starting to show up.
So, in a turn of events, the yuppies were starting to come to this cool renegade church of social outcasts who didn’t know what to do with them. The outcast members decided to have a meeting to figure out how to ask these yuppie newcomers to go to church somewhere else. They wanted the suburbanites to leave.
But there was a transgender person in that meeting, who stood up and said that they were ok with these yuppie suburbanites attending because it was people who looked just like them in their family of origin that had rejected them.
God was showing them the power of being inclusive and a family of faith.
Family can look like many different things. The family of Calvary Episcopal Church is like a beautiful quilt. Maybe even a Crazy Quilt! Sown by generations of quilters, each bringing and picking the fabric to be included next.
Ex. General Convention and upcoming vote for the UMC to be in common communion. The family gets larger and larger.
Who is in your faith family? Whoever they are, they are part of the home that God has built and continues to build – with you!
Thanks be to God!
(sing) It takes God to build a home…
Amen.
