What heaven is going to be like...

Home is the place where, when you have to go there,

They have to take you in.

Sounds pretty cynical, huh?  But hang on.

This quote comes from a poem by Robert Frost titled, “The Death of the Hired Hand”.   Warren and Mary, husband and wife, are sitting on the back porch in the evening.  An old man named Silas has arrived while Warren was out.  He’s in bad shape.  Mary has helped him to a chair in the kitchen.

Warren is not pleased.  He’s hired Silas in the past, and the old man has never been reliable.  Warren says, “I’ll not have the fellow back.”  And when Mary says, “He has come home to die”, Warren utters the quote at the top of the page.

In contrast, I think of the opening and closing scenes in the movie, “Love Actually”.  In the opening scene, the narrator says, “Whenever I get gloomy about the state of the world, I think about the arrival gate at Heathrow Airport”.  On the screen, a young woman with a backpack comes through the gate and is greeted with a hug and kiss by a young man.  Then comes several scenes of greetings - of being welcomed home - between two old men, between a mom and two young girls, between two teenage girls, between a father and son.

In the closing scene, we’re back at Heathrow.  There’s a big hug between a woman and a child.  Then the screen splits, and there are two scenes of smiles, hugs, tears and kisses.  The screen splits again and again, until there are hundreds of scenes of people welcoming each other home.

When we get there, that is what heaven is going to be like.

But - in the midst of the current coronavirus and in the midst of the ongoing racial injustice, the experience of aching for a real home where we’re welcomed with open arms - and the experience of identifying with Silas as being not very reliable, not really deserving, not having earned a welcome by our actions - are real.  We get off the plane, and no one’s waiting at the gate.

Jesus has that arrival gate in mind in this Sunday’s gospel.  So join us at 11 AM in the Calvary/St. George’s live-stream service, and bring your aches for a welcome home.  There is a hint at what Jesus has to say to us when Mary responds to Warren’s quote in the line at the top of the page with these words:

I should have called it

Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.

See you on Sunday!

Blessings, Jim