Making A Home

A Reflection for the 6th Sunday of Easter St. Mary’s Church, Gatesville, NC Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher and Celebrant May 26, 2025 Acts 16:9-15 Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 John 14:23-29 Psalm 67 Making a Home I am a very lucky man, I get to drive about a hundred miles one way, close to 2 hours, in order to get here on Sunday morning. By Sunday morning, I should have already written the sermon and emailed a copy to St. Mary’s so they can make a copy I can read from. The drive gives me two hours to leave the sermon alone, forgetting the whole concept of perfection, and just have moments of awe about how beautiful this part of this country is. The roads are not too crowded in the early morning, so I can think about how blessed I am. It gives me a chance to keep some friendsin my heart with prayer. While I have to keep my eyes open in that kind of prayer, I don’t crowd out my thoughts with words, but keep thinking of old friends of mine, like one whose wife is dying, being surrounded with graceful peace. He is my age and I met him when I was invited to volunteer at an Addiction Treatment Center as a Chaplain, to help the addicts to go deeper into the Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference; just for today” I did the volunteer work there because my older brother had been an addict and he refused to get help. He committed suicide when it got too much for him. His two teenage sons came to live with me and my wife for a time that summer. I realized I needed to help people who were not parishioners, and was given the opportunity to help addicts there at the center. As I prepared for the Sunday sermon, especially, I was swimming in the words from the Gospel Passage from the Book of John’s Gospel, for this Sixth Sunday of Easter: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” I am praying that my friend and his wife will find that the Holy ( Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are making a home with them. “Making a Home” There is a difference between being a guest and making a home with someone. I have been a guest in many homes. In a couple of weeks I am going to Colorado to visit my daughter. She is putting on a full court press to get the old man to move to Colorado. She informs me that her husband has already connected with a real estate person who will be taking me around to look at properties. I love my daughter, my grandsons and my son in law. I will be a good guest, but at this point I am not yet ready to make my home with them. My daughter is a wonderful person; she is in her 50’s, but she is still my baby. I will enjoy my time snuggling with them. I will take them out to dinner, and I will pay for my grandsons’ drinks. We will laugh and perhaps cry together. We will share special moments. We will make meals together. We will use the same bathrooms: to the naked eye we will share a property; but it is not yet making a home with them. My home is on the Outer Banks, it is the place where my wife and I lived; until she died two years ago. Every day I walk into that Condo we shared, and while she is not physically there, I relax and tell the empty space the news of what is going on at the places and the people I have visited that day. In the home we shared, I will tell her I miss her and share what is going on with our friends. I was reminded of Carl Sandburg’s poem Home Thoughts THE SEA rocks have a green moss. The pine rocks have red berries. I have memories of you. Speak to me of how you miss me. Tell me the hours go long and slow. Speak to me of the drag on your heart, The iron drag of the long days. I know hours empty as a beggar’s tin cup on a rainy day, empty as a soldier’s sleeve with an arm lost. Speak to me … When I speak honestly to my wife; her spirit is there with me. The same is true of my Lord Jesus. When I speak honestly with my Lord, I indeed know he is with me, making a home when I share my heart. It is not the words we use, but the hearts we open. Prayers are not the words we memorize and recite, but the heart we share. With churches, there is a difference between going to a church and making a church home. One of the problems of the Book of Common Prayer, is that we are tempted to speed read through the service. If we only say the words out loud with our mouth, but don’t engage our souls to share with our Lord and our fellow parishioner, or visitor; we miss the whole point of prayer. As a Priest, I have to empty out my pride and remember that I am only a servant taking part in a mystery beyond my understanding. As a Preacher, I “make with a message” by going deeper than the surface of the words I would read in the scripture lessons and prayers for the day, echoing in my heart, under scoring with God’s Spirit lived out in the lives of my neighbors, parishioners, friends and family. As a Parson, I am called to listen to Parishioners and neighbors who struggle to be faithful to their church, their community, their family, the people in the other pews, and the promises they make and have made throughout their lives. I have been fortunate in that the four and a half decades in the churches I have served as a Priest, when they dared to believe in forgiveness rather than perfection. Thank you for allowing me a chance to come into your heart.