Sermon - 2013-07-14 - The Return Home

When I was in high school, I was able to travel with a band and choir tour.  We got to travel through eleven countries within Europe in a month.  It was roughly two to three days within each city. Traveling from one place to the next, day after day, eating food that I had never tasted before, seeing historic buildings and the culture was incredible.  It was also the farthest away from home I had ever been within my life.  I had been in a different state but now, I was in another country, on another continent, where people spoke different languages, who did things that were not the way I had done things.  It was exciting, scary, incredible, and life changing.  

Returning home, I was reminded of those words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, “There is no place like home”.  As I was home, all the things were still there and others that I had often overlooked.  The first thing I wanted was a Burger King cheeseburger, my bed was so soft and comfortable, and actually getting to see my family again were things I had forgotten how great they were. However, something was different, these things were different somehow.  Even going to church was something that had changed. These things had not changed, but I had changed. The way I viewed them changed.  

Two weeks ago, we gathered together and talked about Daniel.  Talking about that time, the people of Israel are sitting in a foreign land, with a foreign leader who is telling them what to do, what they should believe and even how they should act.  There were only a few people who would stand up against this leader and still follow and believe in God.  Now Daniel was an apocalyptic book.  For many people when they hear the word apocalypse, they think of the end times. However, an apocalypse is actually a revealing of knowledge.  Therefore, all the prophetic books that we have been talking about in the past few months were apocalyptic in nature.  God was revealing his plan and the future to the people.  The knowledge that these prophets shared though was not some secret.  In fact, this message was written in the very foundation of the Creation.  Yet ever since the very beginning, we have needed to be reminded of the message because we were part of the creation; we distort it, we twist it and we forget it.  

Now Daniel was also a book that contained a foretelling of the Messiah, the Chosen One of God.  The Messiah will be a great king.  He will restore the glory of the kingdom of Israel, and he will unite the people once again in the name of the Lord God. Now this describes two people.  It describes Jesus, but it also describes King Cyrus of Persia.  Some at that time viewed the Messiah as Cyrus of Persia because the Messiah was a person who would be a “Chosen One of God”.  They would be an instrument to do God’s work within the world.  Cyrus, King of Persia, pronounced an edict that would allow the people to return home, to rebuild the temple and more importantly, allow the people to worship the Lord God once again without persecution.  Within the edict, Cyrus said that the cost of rebuilding the Temple would come from the treasury of the king.  The gold and silver items that were taken when the Temple was destroyed would be returned to them.  Along with that, goods, livestock, and a free-will offering would be gathered as offerings to the Lord God.  

Do you hear any echoes?  Do you recall this same thing happening to God’s people before this?  This is very similar when the Pharaoh announced that the Hebrew people were free to leave from slavery.  The people should give to them whatever they asked for; gold, silver, goods, livestock, and above all their freedom to worship God.  Within the land of Egypt, God allowed the people to grow and flourish.  God reminded the people of the truly wonderful gift God has given to them within their life, food, clothing, home, work, family, friends, and so much more.  We as Lutherans call this our daily bread.  When you pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask that God may “Give us today our daily bread.”  For just because we want something or think something is so very important does not mean that we can not go without it for a short time, or even for the rest of our life.  

You don’t know how great something is or how meaningful something is until it is gone.  At long last the Israelites were able to return home.  God echoes the same message to his people, to us.  I love you and will care for you.  I want you to be with me, to gather together with one another. I want you to be together and gather within my house, and to have that focus of your life.  I want you to never forget me, what I give you and what we can do together.  We were created to be in relationship with God, to be in relationship with one another and to care for the creation around us.  

So where are you?  Do you feel like you are home? Do you feel close to God? Do you feel distant from God?  Or do you even know?  If you don’t know or feel distant from God or if you feel close to God, today is for you.  You are welcomed back home, and you get the best of the best, the rich blessings that God brings to us.  God gives you the best thing that we have been given.  It is not gold or silver, but his only Son.  Through that Son, and what that Son has done for us, we are able to look around and be home to share that richly with anyone who we encounter.

For God has chosen you, to be his people, to share that love and God’s word within this community.  Thanks be to God that we have been given this great gift, to change our lives, change the way we look at the world, and can always return home.