What Is Home?

June 14, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Genesis 18:1-15; Matthew 9:35 - 10:8

Don Filiberto is a coffee farmer who lives in a small village near Antigua, Guatemala. I met Sr. Filiberto in 2006 when I travelled to Guatemala to work on houses with an organization called “Common Hope.” We came to his house and were welcomed by his family, his wife and eleven children. His wife, Maria, brought us hot chocolate, a delicacy usually reserved for special occasions, and a little bread. As we refreshed ourselves, we looked around us at his house. It is simply built, a rough, flimsy fence of bamboo surrounding the dirt yard. The family cooks over a wood-fire, barbeque-style stove in a shelter of bamboo and corrugated steel.  Their household items were simple and utilitarian, but everything was clean and well kempt.

In the villages around Antigua, the small houses are packed into every available foot of space, climbing the surrounding hills, or filling valleys and ravines. Between the houses, narrow unpaved streets and alley ways wind toward the main streets and the central square. Around us, women and children were carrying food in colorful sacks and water in every imaginable container, mostly on their heads, up and down the hills, back and forth from the communal spigots on the main street. In the center of town was a square where women would come to wash clothes. On the outskirts of Antigua was a market where artisans would sell their crafts and textiles.

Every morning at 4:00 AM, Filiberto climbs for two hours up the side of the mountain, a dormant volcano, to his farm. There he tends his crops of corn, black beans, avocados, and coffee. He has three mules to help carry things up and down the mountain. We hiked up with him to the farm where we ate lunch. His daughter, Monica, took flour, kneaded it, and made tortillas over an open fire. We ate them with black beans and guacamole made fresh. Don Filiberto stood by us under the trees as we ate and told us his story – how he survived the 30-year civil war and the steps it takes to grow and process coffee.

During this experience in Guatemala, I was struck by how welcoming the families were of my group of tall, pale United States-ians. And I remember thinking how similar life there is now to life for most people in biblical times.

As we read about Abraham, the great patriarch, we discover that he lived, not in a palace, or even in a modest house. At first, the Hebrews were a nomadic people, wandering from place to place, following their herds, and living in tents. Abraham, sitting in his tent by the oaks of Mamre, greets three people traveling in the heat of the day. This story shows us several things. It begins the tale of God’s promise to Abraham to make him the “father of many nations.” It gives us a glimpse of Abraham’s home – a simple tent. And it shows us the importance of hospitality to the Hebrew people.

After the Hebrews fled from Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for forty years, probably living in tents as Abraham had, they settled in Canaan. Their first villages were makeshift settlements. They built rough, flimsy dwellings of unfitted stones. The Hebrews used large goatskin bags or rough earthenware crocks to carry water and grain. Their household tools and implements were strictly utilitarian, and they had only coarse reed mats or woven rugs for furniture.  Though they lived in an area of the world that would be conquered repeatedly, they had been given some rules about welcoming people. Deuteronomy 10:19 reads: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Most people in Solomon’s time lived working the land. Six days out of seven they went at sunrise into the surrounding fields, returning to their houses at dusk to a family meal and an early bedtime. Inside a city’s walls, every available foot of space was used for housing. The marketplaces were jammed with caravans, farmers selling their surplus crops, and local artisans displaying their products.

In the time of Jesus, the Jews of Galilee were still essentially a rural people. The great majority lived in hundreds of small towns and villages scattered throughout the countryside. A small village might claim several hundred inhabitants who lived in modest, one-story houses of mudbrick clustered together on the side of a hill. Between the houses, narrow unpaved streets and alley ways wound toward a dusty square at the center of town. There women came daily to shop in the open-air market, wash clothes, and to draw water from the communal well.

These similarities between the lives of people in the bible and the lives of poor people living in Guatemala today are interesting, but they go deeper than just their living conditions. There are similarities in the way they, and we, understand home.

When I say that something is a “blessing”, what do you think of? Some of the most simple of blessings – cold water, hot soup, a warm fire, a cool breeze, friendship, love, and laughter – are things that people all over the world in every time would consider to be blessings. People coming together to share the food that they have been growing, inviting family and friends to your house for a meal, these are blessings too.

When I think of the word house, I think of four walls, a sturdy roof, a table, chairs, beds, maybe a couch. The house is where you eat food, sleep, and store your things. But, what about home?

In Guatemala I heard someone remark that “My home is the people, my family.” It is the people that live in the house that make it a home. It is the love, the tears and laughter shared, the lessons learned, and memories treasured that make a home. It is songs and stories, and good things by loving hands prepared. It is the promise of children and the devotion of parents. It is prayer and giving thanks for our blessings that makes a house a home. Home is where you are always welcome, and where the people are always glad to see you.

The thing that touched me most deeply in Guatemala was what I saw in the faces of the people we met. They had faith – faith in themselves, in education, and in God’s protection. They had hope – hope for a better future for their children. They had joy – a smile and laughter can communicate across any language barrier. And they had love – a love for one another, for their families, of their community, and enough love to welcome a group of eight strange gringos.

The Spirit of God was present in their lives, visible in their smiles, drifting in the smoky air. God was dwelling with them, helping them to survive, to struggle along one day to the next, and not despair, not lose hope, not give up on love.

One of the names that we have for Jesus is Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” Abraham, living in a tent by the oaks of Mamre, looked forward to a home that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. John’s Revelation dreams of a day when God will make a home among mortals.

My friends, God came to live as a human being, to walk among us, so that we might understand our common humanity, know our common parent, and seek for justice for all of God’s people. God already dwells with us. God dwelt with Abraham and Sarah, with James and John, with Mary and Martha. God dwells now with the people in Guatemala. God dwells with us in our world, in our homes, and in our hearts.

In the simple blessings of our lives God binds us together. The blessings of home are the same for all of us, people in Guatemala, people in the United States, even people in biblical times. We all share the blessings that make a house a home. We are all children of a common parent; we all have faith, hope, love, and joy in our lives. We are bound together with ties of love. God is with us; God is with all of us. Let us welcome God into our homes, let us thank God for our blessings, let us seek for God in the faces of all people, and struggle together for a better future, for that new Jerusalem, the city of God, where all of God’s people will be greeted with the words “Welcome home!”