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Homecoming: Look Around You!

The Very Reverend Sam Candler
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
17 August 2008
Proper 15A
Homecoming Sunday

I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.  –Genesis 45

When Christopher Wren died, there was no question that this great architect and saint, this builder of both a church and a city, would be buried in a crypt beneath St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London. That majestically measured church might be his crowning achievement.

His son is responsible for the epitaph on that grave, one of the greatest epitaphs in the world: “Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.”

What is meant by those words, of course, is that the summation of Wren’s work and life could not be captured in mere words. His work was, and still is, the magnificent edifice which is St. Paul’s Cathedral.

This morning, as we gather at this Cathedral, St. Philip’s Cathedral, and as we prepare to baptize new Christians, another great work is all around us; and I want to say to all of us the same thing that Christopher Wren’s tomb says: “If you seek Christ, look around you.”

Today, on Homecoming Sunday at the Cathedral of St. Philip, some of us are returning to church routines from other great works. Some are returning from great edifices like the mountains. Some are returning from great bodies of water: oceans, lakes, and swimming pools! Some are returning from the desert. Many of us have not seen one another in a while.

Today is also a Baptism Sunday at the Cathedral, and some of us are seeing the church for the first time. When we baptize these children, we are not just pouring water over them, pouring cleansing water over them. We are actually pouring them, we are pouring them, into another body of water. We are pouring them into the Body of Christ.

The Body of Christ: The Episcopal Church. Given all the questions and allegations towards the Episcopal Church in the past three weeks—or even in the past three years—can the Episcopal Church be part of the Body of Christ? If a visitor used only the newspapers and internet blogs to gain an image of the Episcopal Church, that person would have a famished and starved picture. What is this church that people are arguing about so much? Why belong to a family that acts like that?

But, today, I say: look around you. If you seek the Episcopal Church, if you seek the Body of Christ, look around you.

The Church is a family. I know, of course, that the church can never take the place of our own nuclear families. But the Church does act as a family acts. It has its strong and weak forces. It has its moments of controversy and friction, and it has its moments of homecoming and celebration.

The story of Joseph and his brothers serves as one of the most faithful stories of family in the Bible. Joseph, remember, has been sold into slavery, not by his enemies, but by his very own family. The friction in that family had become so divisive, that most of his brothers would have been satisfied by Joseph’s death.

But, somehow, God saved Joseph. Somehow, God not only saved Joseph, but raised him up to be a leader in the court of Egypt. Then, when a famine ravished the home country, and Joseph’s old family had to travel to Egypt to beg for food, Joseph is the one whom they were forced to ask.

The last chapters of the book of Genesis tell the story eloquently. Joseph’s brothers are embarrassed and shamed. They believe that Joseph will have no use for them.

But, astoundingly, it is Joseph who speaks the gospel. “You are my brothers, he claims. You are my family. …You meant your actions for harm, but God meant them for good.”

You meant it for evil. But God meant it for good.

Baptism pours us together like water. When we are poured together as family, whether that family is church, or whether that family is our own nuclear unit, we live in a tempest of intentions. We are always meaning one thing and then another. It is impossible for any one person in a family to always have the best intentions.  We say we mean it for good, but inside, we often mean it for mischief. And sometimes, we act with no intention at all.

The story of Joseph reminds us that our intentions are secondary. What we do, and what we intend, are actually secondary, to what God does and what God intends. That is the family we are poured into today. We are poured into a family committed to God’s intentions, and not ours. That is the family whose homecoming we celebrate today.

Yes, we may have lived through some famine in our families. We have lived through hard times without refreshing water or nutritious grain. We may have been deterred into wilderness, wandering in a desert where people want to follow their own gods. Yes, all that is true.

But, today, God calls us home. Where is home? Look around you.

Home is where your people are. Home is not a set of walls, not even a set of principles or familiar neighborhoods. Home is where your people are.

Joseph, lost in exile in Egypt, knew he was home when he recognized his brothers. Even when they were the same people who had betrayed him, Joseph knew that the calling of God was irrevocable. This would be the same conclusion which St. Paul realized when he spoke to the Romans about his people, the Jewish people “The calling of God is irrevocable,” he says in Romans.

From time to time, brothers and sisters leave. From time to time, we leave. From time to time, we, and sisters and brothers, return—like prodigal sons and daughters. Those homecomings are worthy of praise. They are worthy of praise because it is not we ourselves who initiate homecomings. It is God who brings us home. It is God who re-unites families, who forgives both sides of domestic disputes. It is God who restores bodies of faith.

One of the great psalms of the Bible, Psalm 133, sings “O how good and pleasant it is when we dwell together in unity.” Brothers and sisters living in unity are like oil, like fine oil rolling down the beard of our ancestors. That sounds like a gooey mess. Yes, but it sounds like a happy mess.

In our time, some people wail the lament of abandonment. God has left us, they weep. Or, they accuse the other side, “God has left you!” they claim.  Can God ever abandon his people?

No. We are here today to say, “God does not abandon us.” No matter who we are, God has not abandoned us. Consider the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, the despised foreigner, who Jesus happens upon one day. Here was a foreigner indeed. That woman had never been considered part of the family. Jesus claims that he was not sent to people like her in the first place. In fact, her people were considered as “dogs.” Does God abandon her?

No, in one of the great revelations of scripture, Jesus himself realizes that she, too, is family. It is her faith that makes her family. Jesus has not seen faith like this in his entire home—the entire house of Israel. Jesus is converted in this story. Jesus is converted to see the great plan of God, that all will be called home.

We are not at the final homecoming yet. That day is a great and future day of revelation and glory. But we do get a glimpse of that day on days like today, days when we remember that we are called to be at home together. We are called to be family.

When we act as family, when we act in unity and grace, we are making a powerful witness to the world. We are showing the world that God lives. This “Body of Christ” that we are baptized into, really is a “body.” That is to say: it does things. It is active. This “Body of Christ” ministers to people, feeds the hungry and cares for the poor, raises children in the way they should go. This “Body of Christ” actually forgives fallen people and encourages the fainthearted.

God calls this Body of Christ for the life of the world. We offer life in this place, life that is as glorious and graceful as fine oil running down the beard of an old man, maybe a little bit messy and clumsy too. But that is grace.

To live in grace is to live where there is always space for God. That is the homecoming we celebrate today. We live in a family, in a home, where there is always room for God. We may mean many things in our actions, some good and some not so good. But God always works for good. God always works for the life of the world.

AMEN.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

Comments? Contact Dean Candler at: SCandler@stphilipscathedral.org

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