"Homecoming" 3/21/04 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

I want to begin tonight by inviting you to think about a time when you were welcomed home in grand style. Maybe it was a reunion with a long lost friend and after years of separation due to geographical location you are reunited with that person again. The friendship is so close that the conversation almost seems to begin were you left off those many years ago. Picture a homecoming after being away from your partner on a business trip and you just can't wait to get into his or her arms again. It feels like eternity but it was only 3 days that you've been apart. Maybe your homecoming was the day your biological family welcomed you with loving arms of acceptance opening the front door that for a long time had been closed. What did those good experiences of home coming feel like?

Tonight I want to talk a little about the ways we experience homecoming in our lives. Coming home to ourselves, coming home to one another, coming home to God. Coming home to ourselves. Begins the day we can accept ourselves for who we are. Coming home to ourselves says I'm okay. I can celebrate the joy of who God has created me to be. When I come home to myself I can truly see that I have made mistakes, there are things I have learned to do differently, I have turned around and am walking in a different direction. As we learn to accept that we all go down the wrong road now again, we can accept that we are human. That we make mistakes, but we always have the opportunity to do things differently in the future. To come home to myself means I can accept that I have gifts, talents, and strengths knowing they are uniquely my own. That I am good and whole and holy just as I am and in all that I am becoming. No better, no worse than the person next to us. Coming home to ourselves means we can walk through life knowing we are of value, coming home to ourselves means we know we have something to offer our world. We know that God not only accepts us just as we are, but celebrates our lives as a loving father, a loving mother embraces their child. Many of us long to hear words of unconditional love, especially if we have not known that in our biological families. We want someone to hold us and just be loves presence to us. Coming home to ourselves is a celebration of feeling deep in our heart, in our soul that we are important, we are worthy of care and respect, we are loved.

Coming home to others - Coming home to others is about the ability to be who we are, just as we are. It's about the freedom to take off the masks that we have learned so well to put on and be in another's presence. To take off the mask of fear, and let another person know our humanness. To take off the mask of perfection and let another know we make mistakes. To take off the mask of security and let another know that we hurt, that we have wounds, that we need others in our lives. As we come home to others we learn that what we say, what we believe, who we are is important. That we can give to others and receive from others what we need on our life's journey. What a joyous homecoming it is, how freeing it is to be ourselves in any given moment or place in time.

Many of us when we walked through the doors of MCC felt like we had been welcomed home. For those of us who had felt excluded from mainline religious institutions coming home to our God again in a faith community that accepts us totally was a most extravagant home coming party. We cried tears of joy for weeks, especially when we came to the communion table, because we knew as we say each week "At MCC churches around the world we celebrate an open communion. Everyone is invited to share in the feast of God's presence among us." We had come home to our God, to brothers and sisters in faith, and to a community of believers who had walked the journey before us.

There is also the homecoming we have with God when we have been off as the Prodigal Son or Daughter sowing our wild oats. Those oats may simply have been times we drifted away from the church. Times that other people or projects or something that seemed more important took us down another road. There have been times when we have tried to do life without God only to find that God was always running towards us trying to bring us home. Coming home to God is always about God who has patiently been waiting for us. That homecoming party is a great feast as we dawn the royal robe, put the family ring on our finger, and set at the table knowing that nothing can every separate us from the love of God. Knowing that what ever we have done or not, knowing that the hurts we have caused, knowing that the words we have said or left unsaid can be erased and we can start anew. Coming home to God the loving father who embraces us and gives us what we need to begin again. Coming home to God the strong mother who gives us the strength and courage to face the future with hope.

Coming home, is God always coming to us with arms stretched wide open in love.

As we continue our Lenten journey may we take the time to celebrate homecoming. Take a look at the ways you may need to come home to yourself so that you can be the person God has created you to be. Sit down and look at the relationships you have with others in your life. What changes need to happen so that you can come home to others. And finally this is great time to look at your relationship with God. Are there things that keep you from experiencing the great joy of God's love and presence in all of your life? Know that without a shadow of doubt that we are always on the journey of homecoming as we celebrate God's presence in all of life.