Going to camp is when I had my worst cases of homesickness – in my life. Counting down the days, writing and sending letters, I felt the physical illness of missing home a lot. One camping experience in Boy Scouts called the Order of the Arrow, my parents drove my friend and me over an hour to the camp, only for me to return that same car ride because my stomach was so in knots, not wanting to spend one night away from home.
Perhaps you have experienced various levels of homesickness? There is no place like home. Do we not all crave and want the familiarity, the freedom, the support, and the love we feel when we are at home? Sometimes we can not feel at home in our own skin. Or some feel they can no longer feel at home in their church or their country. Others literally can not return home, ill, hospitalized, or forced to be refugees in a new land — fleeing violence, persecution, sometimes for no reason of their own.
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is the repeated phrase of a spiritual that first started to be sung among slaves in the 1870s and became a rallying song in the civil rights movement.
And have you ever been homesick for God? True story: a parent overhears their child talking to a baby sister and saying, “Tell me about God. I’m beginning to forget.”
After their years of following, supporting, listening, and teaching with Jesus, now in the midst of the cross, death, and resurrection, the disciples face separation from Jesus, and their hearts are no doubt troubled.
The disciples must have felt the rug was pulled from them, some level of grief and uncertainty, and a longing for some comfort for their unique homesickness — an ache in the heart at times of separation or transition.
When our hearts are troubled, when we are homesick or heartsick, when things are not quite right in our soul—in our inner home, Jesus speaks of dwelling places prepared for us.
Might we wonder what apartment or house remodel Jesus has in mind? Yet, our lives are a kind of house we build. What kind of home do we find in our relationships, our activities, our being? What is your foundation? And what kind of shelter do you provide?
The church is a home for many of us; the church building is sometimes called the house of God. Christ makes us into a spiritual house and sends us into many dwelling places: diverse rooms filled with people of all races and religions and ways of life. The reading from 1 Peter today states: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” The builders of this spiritual house rejected the one key stone. Yet in God’s spiritual house, that unique stone turned away becomes a key foundation – namely Jesus = rejected by the chief priests and elders. If we are honest, in our spiritual home we might rather not be met with suffering and injustice yet God working is in our lives through death and resurrection.
Grammy-winning contemporary country hip hop artist Jelly Roll, in the album Beautifully Broken, sings about getting “Higher than heaven … when I’m hurtin’ like hell … No lost in my soul / No tears down my face / Yeah, up here alone / It all fades away.” Jelly Rolls talks heavenly promises. “You want someone, but you want to be alone / And when the drugs don’t work no more / Who’s gonna drive you home?” In this same song, someone answers “I will, I will, I will.” Who is this driving home?
Jelly Roll opens up from his own experience of jail, addiction, spiritually and physically: addressing pain, seeking peace, searching for a true home – the solace of abiding with God.
In his Grammy acceptance speech, Jelly Roll held out that the power and possibility of going home was an option for everyone. He said: “Jesus is not owned by one political party. Jesus is not owned by any music label, but Jesus is for everyone.”
What if we allow ourselves to be built into a spiritual house? If we become a loving community in a network of support where hurting bodies and souls find refuge, safety, strength, guidance, and lovingkindness, then we will live into our calling as the body of Christ because sometimes we all need someone to drive us home.
One balm for homesickness is sometimes opening a care package. At camp or when I went off to school, my grandmother would always put a stick of bubble gum in the letter that I could chew to remember home. Maybe you have other care packages or momentos that help remind you of what it might be to be at home: a piece of bread, a taste of the wine, a splash of water, a bit of home.
