At Home With Whom?

Psalm 119:49-56

Remember your word to your servant,
for you have given me hope.
My comfort in my suffering is this:
Your promise preserves my life.
The arrogant mock me unmercifully,
but I do not turn from your law.
I remember, Lord, your ancient laws,
and I find comfort in them.
Indignation grips me because of the wicked,
who have forsaken your law.
Your decrees are the theme of my song
wherever I lodge.
In the night, Lord, I remember your name,
that I may keep your law.
This has been my practice:
I obey your precepts.

Jeremiah 32:36-44

“You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.

“This is what the Lord says: As I have brought all this great calamity on this people, so I will give them all the prosperity I have promised them. Once more fields will be bought in this land of which you say, ‘It is a desolate waste, without people or animals, for it has been given into the hands of the Babylonians.’ Fields will be bought for silver, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, because I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.”

James 5:1-6

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

Gathered Home with Whom? 

It’s been said, “You can never really go home”, or is that merely a feeling we have lodged deep in our hearts? Then again, it is also true that home seems to be wherever your heart is. 

Where is your home? If you’re asked, “Where’s home?”, what image or location pops in your mind’s eye? My guess is that for most of us, it’s wherever our parents are, or the place we lived with them. For me, that’s St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, because that’s where my parents still live. I left that address back in 1975, but because my parents still live there, it’s “home”… sort of. 

Last month, my dad celebrated his 90th birthday, and Liz and I were able to go “home” for a birthday party. As I recall, I don’t think we ever had a birthday party for my dad ever in all the years I lived at home. We celebrated mom’s birthday and the birthdays of all my siblings, but not my dad’s. It was special. I have six siblings, and we were all there along with most of our children and almost all the great-grandchildren. It was a crowd. We reconnected with family we hadn’t seen in years. We all went to church together and then, oddly enough, we all left to go back “home”, which meant we scattered to the four winds.

Home: It’s a dominant theme in scripture. For Adam and Eve, it was first the garden of Eden. After the event recorded in Genesis 3, they were banished to go live somewhere else. By the time we get to Genesis 12, we discover that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob never really have a “home” that they could call their own. They were wanderers, pitching tents from region to region, always longing for a permanent place to settle. Eventually, after enslavement and wandering in the desert wilderness, they arrive at home, meaning the “Promised Land”. However, as the story goes, they figure out a way to be expelled from the place to become foreigners once again. Yet the longing for a return to “home” remains in their mind and heart. 

This is what the prophets keep talking about. Someday, God’s children will be “gathered back home”.  Where would that be exactly? Canaan? Palestine? The “promised land”? What is Jeremiah referring to in verse 37? Obviously, he means the city of Jerusalem, where the temple of the “Most High God” was. But does it include more than that? Is it just Canaan, or is there more to it? Verse 41 refers to all God’s children everywhere on earth. Just check the previous chapter. So, did our covenant-keeping God plant us inside or outside the land of promise? How do you think about the place where you live right now? Is God your father living with you? Are you at “home” with him? 

When I think of these kinds of questions, I’m puzzled. I know this place here on S. Rova Court is not my home, but it is where I live. I know that my eternal home is with the Lord, and he once promised to live with us forever, someday. So, it seems like, in my mind’s eye, that I’m living in two places at the same time, I’m here in Visalia with several other of God’s children, while simultaneously being at home with God in spirit. However, someday we will be with Him in person. That’s the home we’re all going to live in someday. God is faithful, and He will bring us to the place he promised us He would be. Therefore, we have hope and a future. So, where is your heart?  

I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety. They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me and that all will then go well for them and for their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul.