NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Ezekiel 45:13-46:24; 1 Peter 1:13-2:10; Psalm 119:33-48; Proverbs 28:11

“At that time the land will return to the prince. But when the prince gives gifts to his sons, those gifts will be permanent. And the prince may never take anyone’s property by force.”

“So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy.’”

“Teach me your decrees, O Lord; I will keep them to the end. Give me understanding and I will obey your instructions; I will put them into practice with all my heart. Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found.”

I don’t think much about being holy. Here’s why. It seems an unattainable, frustrating and self-defeating goal. Don’t misunderstand; I think a lot – probably too much – about my sinfulness, and how to get around and past it. But that’s kind of like seeing the hole instead of the doughnut, or the hurdles instead of the finish line. If all we focus on are our weaknesses, failures and obstacles, we almost certainly condemn ourselves to repeat earlier mistakes. It’s no secret humans tend to return to our sin. We need, instead, to concentrate on holy things, things that will help us be better than we are. This much is obvious. What is less obvious is the insidious way we have of just drifting off course and away from home when we are not positively working toward holiness, even when we are not conscious of going against the Lord’s will.

My daughter has been housesitting for our neighbors this week. They have two mischievous dogs they not so affectionately refer to as “The Cockroaches.” We refer to them as “The Criminals.” No prison can hold them, and they pursue freedom with a vengeance and determination that is terrible in its ingenuity. Any gap in the fence, no matter how small, is an excuse for a road trip. Our neighbors put up an invisible, electric fence to supplement their yard’s defenses, and the pups proceeded to chew each other’s sensor collars off so they could cross the threshold with impunity. They are opportunists of the first magnitude whose sole purpose in life seems to be exploring strange new worlds. More than once we have found them in our backyard, having conquered not one but two fences, lounging in the center of our bird bath. Thankfully, they are not malicious, but they are curious and frenetic to a fault. When they do get out, they are immediately seduced by the scents of their new surroundings. It is not unusual for them to track deer for blocks or even miles at a time. They do not mean to be bad. In their singleminded pursuit of the unfamiliar and enticing, however, they quite literally lose their way. They are not able to return home, no matter how hungry or thirsty they get. They must be found by others, or else. It happened again last night. The Criminals escaped. Fortunately, a very wonderful and considerate neighbor found them at 1AM chasing deer several blocks away from home. They were just having fun. They had no idea they were lost or in jeopardy. But that did not change the fact that they were in fact both of those things.

So it goes with us. Focused as we are on sin and punishment, we figure that as long as we do not sense problems or impending doom, we must be OK, so we allow ourselves to wander. We push the envelope. We don’t think about being holy. We leap out of the grip of God into the unknown for its own sake. We have no sense of how lost we can get even before we realize it.

In the power and blood of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit patrols our world looking for lost ones to guide Home. Many of us do not mean to be affirmatively disobedient; we are just giving vent to the explorer within us. We do not mean to get too far off the path to home, but the sights and sounds of the outside world can be too strong to resist and so distracting that they pull us off course without our being aware of it. We can be glad the Good Shepherd is out looking for us. But we can also be much more intentional about claiming Home and holiness in the first place.

Heaven is a lot more than the absence of sin or punishment. It is more than self-preservation and safety. It is our true Home. Heaven also is where Holiness lives. It is where we are given a completely different perspective that turns self inside out and compels not just good behavior but an affirmative outpouring of love and creativity aimed at others. It is not just “pie in the sky by and by,” either. It begins here. Christ has decreed the Kingdom of Heaven has already come to earth. In our misguided quest for independence, we must be careful not to run from it. That’s why the Father calls His children to be holy in the first place. It keeps us facing the right direction.

Fortunately, what the Lord asks of us He already is, and it is His desire to share Himself with us. As we cultivate holiness, we find there is no need to wander. Christ makes us whole as well as holy. We have all we need. And we can share it with others without jeopardizing ourselves.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy goes through all sorts of adventures and perils to learn one simple fact: there’s no place like home. Her problem was that she had never seen that before being swooped off to Oz, because she had never really focused on how blessed she was to have love and family surrounding her there. What was true for her is true for us. We are obsessed with what is on the other side of the fence. We are consumed by the idea of freedom, but we mistakenly translate it as independence. Instead of longing for external newness, let’s allow our newness to spring up from within first. Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to fill our longing hearts with peace and actually equip us to go out into the world before we just rush out on our own. That’s another definition of “holy,” by the way: being fully prepared by the Holy Spirit to accomplish our God given purpose before we rush off into harm’s way.