A Home for the Lost and Rejected

When Jesus returned to his hometown and taught in the synagogue, the people of the town were amazed.  But what they talked about after the meeting in the synagogue was not the wondrous message that Jesus shared with them… but the fact that this poor, good-for-nothing carpenter that they had known since childhood was getting presumptuous… and was meddling in their affairs!    He had preached in their synagogue!  What gave him that right?   He was just a woodworker… a craftsman… not an educated man.  How could anything that he said be relevant to the scholars… the merchants… and leaders of the community?  Why, they had known him when he was knee-high to a grasshopper.  He was no wunderkind.   Do you remember when Nathanael asked Philip facetiously “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Well, this was the equivalent of the folk in Nazareth saying “Can anyone from the wrong side of the tracks have anything to say that worth listening to?”

If Jesus had played the part of the humble native son, he would probably have been welcomed home by those who remembered him and thought well of his family.  Of course, they were poor… and they did live on the wrong side of the tracks. His father was a carpenter and worked with his hands.  But it was a small town and they all knew him.   Instead, he chose to teach at the synagogue and, in doing so, he offended a lot of people who thought he was taking advantage of the situation and that he had no business doing that.  As a result, he was rejected… thoroughly emasculated by his own hometown crowd… in the one place you should be able to find love… support… encouragement… and a sympathetic ear.  But they thought they knew him and so, he got no respect at all.

The writer James S. Hewett once told this story: “I visited a new family in our neighborhood,” he said. “The father of the family introduced his children in this way: 'This is Pete. He's the clumsy one of the lot.'  'That's Kathy who’s coming in with mud on her shoes. She's the sloppy one.' 'As always, Mike is last. He'll be late for his own funeral, I promise you.'"

Hewett went on to say, "The dad did a thorough job of identifying his children by their faults and mistakes. People do it to us all the time. They remind us… of our failures… our errors… our sins… and they won't let us live them down. There are people who try… sometimes desperately… to free themselves from their past. They would love a chance to begin again. When we don't let people forget their past… when we don't forgive… we glue them to their mistakes and refuse to see them as more than something they have done… we refuse to open our minds to the possibility of their potential.”   How often have we done the same thing?  How often to we connect the people we know with the mistakes that they have made… forever classifying them in that way… and ignoring the potential that lies within them… or the power of God to radically change a human life?

One of the things that seminarians do is talk about their faith journey.  They tell the story of how they became aware of the presence of God in their lives and how it changed them.  In all of those stories, there is a thread of “I can’t go home again.”  “I can’t go home again because, even though God has forgiven me… called me… changed me… from the inside out… even though God has made me a new creature… those who knew me before… cannot forget the person I was.”    How many times have you heard the phrase, “He’s always been a troublemaker”?  Or “she’s never been one to help her family.”   Is it any wonder that so many folks move away from the town they grew up in?    It is just easier to start over again without having to deal with the past.

So, where can we find a home for the lost and the rejected… a place where people can start over again… a place that offers freedom and hope to all?   Some would say that this is that place.  One of the greatest symbols of our nation opened her crown to the public again for the first time since September 11, 2001.  How many hundreds… and even thousands of immigrants remember the sight of that statue as their ship arrived in New York’s harbor?  How many of them have read… and believed… the inspiring words inscribed on her base:  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”    The French writer, Alexis de Tocqueville, after visiting America in 1831, said, "I sought for the greatness of the United States in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, her fertile fields, and boundless forests – and it was not there. I sought for it in her rich mines, her vast world commerce, her public school system, and in her institutions of higher learning – and it was not there. I looked for it in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good.”   Are we good… still?   Do we still welcome the tired…  the poor… the homeless… the tempest-tossed to our shores?  Are we still a home for the lost and rejected?

This week, more than one thousand immigrants took the oath of citizenship at Walt Disney World in Florida.  But, that wasn’t the story that captured my attention.  Yesterday, two hundred and thirty-seven soldiers from fifty-nine countries took the oath of U.S. citizenship in Baghdad.  Two hundred and thirty-seven individuals who were already fighting for a country they believed in… putting themselves in harm’s way for the cause of freedom… before that country even recognized them as citizens.   I would guess that each one of them has a story… like Sylma and Alden Smith do… of their dreams of a place to be safe… a place to be free… and of how challenging it is to go through that process to become a citizen.  I would hope that each one of them found a church… a group of people who welcomed them with open arms… and provided the encouragement and support that they needed during the months and years that it took for them to achieve that goal.  “America is great because America is good.” 

Just as God has seen the potential in you… and given you a world filled with limitless love… and constant encouragement… so God asks you to give that same love and encouragement to others… even to the ones that you think you know… the ones you are convinced will amount to nothing.  At the end of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks his audience, “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?  Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”  And he goes on to say, "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you.”   How different would Jesus’ experience in his own hometown have been if the people he knew… his acquaintances… his friends… his family… could have done just that?   Do we welcome that troubled teen home with open arms?  Do we encourage and support them as they make their own way in life… even the ones who have let us down so many times before?   Are we willing to listen… and to hear… words of wisdom from them?   Or do we, too, dismiss them, as Jesus’ hometown folk dismissed him?

What made our country great… and what still makes our country great… is the incredible array of people who have come to this place looking for the opportunity to be all that God created them to be… and finding, in this place, a haven… and a home.  As we celebrate that this year… and the symbol that the Statue of Liberty is for our nation… may we ask ourselves whether we, too, have welcomed “the tired… the poor… the homeless… the tempest-tossed”… or even the boy next door.  Jesus did.  Amen.

Mark 6:1-13