Leaving Home Behind

Text: Matthew 4:17-22

I wish I was…Homeward bound,
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.

I didn’t write that (in case you are curious). Paul Simon did. It’s one of the best songs anybody ever wrote about home. I’m sorry I didn’t bring my guitar today. I could fill all of our time together with songs about home:

Country roads, taking us home, to the place we belong…Or maybe my home’s in Alabama, no matter where I lay my head…Unless, it’s where the sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home, or maybe I wish again, that I were in Michigan, down on the farm.

Personally, my hometown is Amarillo, reached by morning, up from San Antone’. Amarillo is, of course, on the range—that’s where the deer and the antelope play and never is heard a discouraging word. There is, however, not a lot of green green grass there.

Home is where I want to be, home is where they understand you, home is where the heart is…

And if you have enough faith in home, then you can return there by closing your eyes, clicking your heels three times and repeating there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home…there’s no place like home.

The word “home”—like the words “mom” or “family” or “Texas”—evokes powerful feelings. We love our home. We love our home church. Tarrytown is a very special place to us and, if you are visiting with us and looking for a church home, we hope it becomes a special place to you, as well.

We strive to give this place our prayers our presence our gifts and our service. During stewardship season, we are particularly interested in the gifts.

This is our home, the house where our church family worships. Remember the theme: My House, Our House, God’s House. When a house needs upkeep, then families pitch in and take care of it. You all know that—and the people in this sanctuary are people that Tarrytown can always depend on.

David Chambers said this best a couple of Sundays ago. There was a huge prayer circle of members of this household. We had all joined hands around a pumpkin patch. David looked at our work for the afternoon and he said:

“This is what families do.”

It felt like home.

But something very funny happens when you look to the New Testament for guidance about home.

Jesus just really isn’t into “home.” As a matter of fact, he’s into leaving home. In today’s gospel reading, he directs two fishermen to cast down their nets—he will make them “fishers of men.” Follow me! Then he comes across two more fishermen, who are part of their father’s family business. He asks them again: leave your nets behind and come with me. They all obey.

One problem with the New Testament is that it doesn’t record any of the side conversations the disciples have with each other. I can only imagine…

“Peter, seriously, we are going to quit our jobs and follow this guy?”

Or, in the case of the other two…

“John, what about Dad? He’s really getting up in years. Should we leave him behind? In this economy? I think Mom is really going to be upset…”

They later come upon Matthew. Jesus tells him to quit collecting taxes and choose a path of righteousness instead. What’s going through Matthew’s head?

“Wait a second, man, I’m making really good money here and the Romans leave me alone. OK, there’s the whole self-loathing thing and my fellow Jews hate me, but seriously? You want me to just close up shop and come with you to listen to what you have to say and spread the word to others? Heal the sick? Tend to the poor? I’ve really never enjoyed their company before…”

Or what do you suppose, later in the story, the disciples thought when Jesus told Peter to jump out of a perfectly good boat during a storm?

But Jesus gets Peter and Andrew, John and James, Matthew and seven others. They leave behind their jobs, their homes, their families…they pick Jesus instead. And they each discover something extraordinary:

Jesus does not need a home.

Jesus takes up residence in the hearts of men and women.

In life, in death and in life beyond death, Jesus never leaves and the disciples never return home. Instead they go to the ends of the earth and make disciples of all nations.

“Hey Thomas – you take India. No, no, you’ll be fine. You’ll like it there.” Can you imagine?

The disciples must have spent at least part of their waking hours being terrified…these were ordinary men who did remarkable things, simply because Jesus asked.

I bring this up because we are in the asking season. We are asked to make sacrifices, but we are not called upon to leave our home and never return. We are not called very often to get out of the boat—to leave the safety of our families.

But we are called to take Christ into the world every day. 

Tarrytown is a wonderful house of worship, a spiritual home and a joyful family, but we do not live by Christ’s example if we leave all of that within these walls. And I should note here that every extra dollar Tarrytown collects is spent outside of these walls in mission to others.  

We answer this call as far away as Russia and as close as a next door neighbor who needs a hand. We answer in our prayer life, in our workplaces, in our communities and through our children.

And sometimes we answer it with simple human kindness. Being there for one another counts, as well.

Every once in a while, Erin and I lament that her siblings live in Dallas, her mom is in Longview and my family is still in the Panhandle. We think, with our young children surrounding us with joy one moment and frustration the next, it’s a shame that we don’t have any family in Austin.

The only thing wrong with this statement is that it is not true.

Thank you for being our family.

And thank you for your generous gifts that make this house a place where we can share in this remarkable walk together.

So, here then, is my pitch on this celebration Sunday:

Leave your pledge card here…

and take Christ out there.

Amen.