Still Quarrying: Home.

After 34 years of living in the same house you have to expect some spasms of sadness when you finally leave it.  The Manse of St Paul's will always have the happiest of associations which will be with us through whatever years lie ahead.  The new house in Renfrew, however is taking shape and perhaps surprisingly quickly has taken on the ambience of 'home.'   Just this week we spent a very pleasant morning hanging pictures on the walls of the sitting room.  And they don't just have a decorative value.  Most of them were painted by friends and their creativity has brought a new warmth to the room.

One of the most enduring images of the life to come is of a 'going home.'  The apostle Peter speaks of believers being 'aliens and strangers in the world.'  (1 Peter 2: 11).  We are in the world and we are called to engage with it, to bring men and women to a knowledge of Jesus, but we can never allow ourselves to be shaped by the world in its resistance to God.  In that respect believers will always be 'aliens and strangers' in their values and priorities, never completely at home in the world. 

I personally feel the challenge of this more and more as I get older.  Having reached a place of institutional eminence in the West, in many ways the Church has become indistinctive from the ‘world’.  Someone once said that in the beginning the Church invaded the world, now the world has invaded the Church.   As a consequence people of many Christian traditions are feeling more and more uncomfortable in the place that they should feel is their spiritual home.  

Certainly everything that involves human beings will always fall short.  The apostolic letters were written to sort out problems that had arisen in first century Christian communities.  We also have to be careful of idealisation.  For many people the place called home has associations of disturbance and abuse.  Horrific examples of cruelty to children in the place where you would expect them to be cherished and protected continue to come to light.   This is a corrective to being over sentimental about the idea of ‘home’ but it is no reason to soft-pedal on our hope that we can be more faithful to the values and the truths that will dominate creation when the Kingdom of God is fully established.   Scripture holds before us an image of Christian communities where seekers can learn he truth about God and where those who have experienced the worst in life can find a place of healing.  

The pictures in our new home are not just decorative.  They speak to us of valued relationships, of people who have supported us in times of challenge and joined with us in our days of celebration.  They speak to us of the wider community of Christ which will sustain us in our journey to the ultimate home that Jesus has promised.

‘In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you.  I am going    there to prepare place for you.’   (John 14: 2)