Coming Home By Rev. Meghan Cefalu April 5, UUCM

Transcription

1 Coming Home By Rev. Meghan Cefalu April 5, UUCM It feels so good to be home. I ve missed you all. I ve missed standing here in this gorgeous handcrafted pulpit and looking out at your beautiful faces. I ve missed sharing my thoughts and wrestling along with you about how to find meaning in this great mystery of being alive and yet having to one day die. I haven t even been back a week yet but I have heard that while I ve been away on leave things in our congregation have gone along very well. You have enjoyed the string of guest preachers I lined up before I left. I understand that Sunday mornings have been lively and well attended. And I hear glowing reports about the worship services and pastoral care by the extraordinarily talented sabbatical ministers, Revs. Lynn and Wendy. Whenever you come back to a place after having been gone all the changes stand out. The first thing I noticed was that the light switch in the stairwell leading to my office has been replaced. Before I had to flip it up and down, up and down, up and down several times to get the light to turn on and sometimes it just wouldn t. And then when first walked into my office I discovered a new window had been installed. What a wonderful surprise! It is beautiful and now I won t have to mop up the rainwater that would puddle under the old, leaky window after every storm. I know there have been more substantive changes, and I ll discover them soon enough, but so far even these little things have made me smile. Last night s annual congregational dinner was a beautiful, delicious, fun celebration of who we are now and who we dream of becoming. And eight new people joined our membership this morning! I look forward to getting to know each of you a bit better in the coming months. I am gathering that this congregation underwent some real growth during the renewal leave time. When faced with challenges you pulled together and found creative solutions. There is a real sense of maturity. As one person put it, We are taller and stronger! Indeed. You should feel very proud of what you have accomplished together. And just as I have missed you, I feel the sweetness of having been missed. **** When I spoke to you back in January I talked a little bit about my travels and about what it was like to return to Grass Valley after living in New York City for three months last summer. Now that the combined months of my renewal leave, vacation and study leave are complete I am really settling in. I ve come home at last. There is something unique and wonderful about coming home. Coming home. Turn those words over in your mind for a moment. What feelings arise? Can you call to mind a time when you returned home after having been away for a while? Was it your first time back to visit the folks after leaving for college, or a job, or military service? Was it visit to the place 1

2 you grew up? Or a family reunion? Can you remember what it felt like to be home again? Can you see the faces of the people welcoming you? Coming home means catching up with people who you ve been out of touch with, telling one another the stories of what happened while you were away. Coming home means you are back with the people who see you, know you, and love you. Coming home means finding comfort in the familiar language, customs, and ways of your community. Coming home means being embraced by the bonds of mutual affection and trust, being seen and known by the people you claim as your own and who claim you as theirs. For some the idea of coming home can be wrought with pain. I want to acknowledge that for many the word home brings up uncomfortable associations. Their first home may have been a place of not being seen and cherished but rather a place of secrets and silence. I have friends, many whom I now consider family, who consciously reestablished a sense of home by surrounding themselves with loving supportive people. I hope that this congregation can be a form of chosen home to all of you, and to many more who have yet to walk in our doors. *** There are also other deeper and subtler ways that we experience coming home. What I mean is that sense of coming home to oneself. In Mary Oliver s powerful poem The Journey she describes someone who chooses to turn away from all the demands put upon them in order to find themselves. She writes: little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, I imagine that poem struck a chord with some of you here this morning. I know it did with me. Even if you haven t experienced a struggle as intense as the poet describes, the demands of modern life have a way of drowning out the sound of your inner voice. It can take a tremendous amount of diligence to push everything else aside, to begin to hear and recognize the sound of your own voice, as close as the beating of your heart and then to follow that voice home to yourself. **** I know that sometimes there are obstacles between us and our home. Jesus tells a parable about a son who returns home to his father in a state of desperation and shame. 11 And he said, There was a man who had two sons; 12 and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. 14 And when 2

3 he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. 15 So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have fed on [a] the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, How many of my father s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants. 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. [b] 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; 23 and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; 24 for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to make merry. 25 Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 Your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. 28 The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, Look! All these years I ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him! 31 My son, the father said, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. 1 As you probably realize, the story of the prodigal son isn t really about a father and his two sons. It is a parable, a teaching story, about the nature of the relationship between God and humankind. Holding that metaphor in mind, hear how A Course in Miracles summarizes the story: The son of a loving father left his home and thought he had squandered everything for nothing of any value, although he had not understood its worthlessness at the time. He was ashamed to return to his father, because he thought he had hurt him. Yet when he came home the father welcomed him with joy, because the son himself was his father s treasure. He wanted nothing else. (ACIM T- 8.VI.4.) Let me tell you why I chose to tell this story. One of my goals for my renewal leave was to reconnect with a sense of spiritual abundance. That spiritual abundance that seemed to be in the very air I was breathing those years I was in seminary and then newly in ministry. My spiritual life was juicy. I was 1 Prodigal Son story from the Bible Luke 15:11-32 (Revised Standard) 3

4 reading the Sufi poets, Rumi and Hafiz. I was meditating daily and experimenting with different forms of prayer and spiritual practice. Love was coursing through my veins and there was joy in every step I took. The Holy Spirit and I were like that. [cross fingers] But year after year of a highly demanding, full time parish ministry takes its toll. Navigating the interpersonal dramas of congregational life, the anxiety around church finances and fund-raising, committee meetings, a steady stream of in my inbox, writing and deadlines, pastoral care emergencies and most weeks also preparing meaningful services to nourish this community, not to mention the work I do outside these walls in the local interfaith community and service to my UU colleagues at the local and national level the voices of all of these demands had drowned out the voice of the Holy. I could feel my connection to the Holy Spirit had weakened, my guiding light had grown dim. I was running full speed on my own generator power rather than being tapped in to the Source of spiritual strength beyond me. I was the younger son who eventually comes to the realization that trying to make it on his own had left him impoverished. I realized I had strayed from the Holy Spirit. I was bereft. And I didn t know how to find my way back. Can you relate to this experience? Have you ever felt that way? And then renewal leave changed everything. I knew I d have a chance to rest. I knew it would be nice to have weekends with my husband for a while. I knew living in New York City would be one of the most fun times in my life. All of that was true. What I was secretly hoping, but almost afraid to speak aloud, was that I d find my way back to the Holy Spirit. What happened was that when all those demands on me fell away, when my life became quiet, and my ears adjusted to the silence, I heard the faint sound of the bell once again calling me home. When my life became quiet and my vision became clear again I could see that the Holy Spirit had been there all along and was waiting to welcome me back with joy and compassion, celebrating because I had been lost and was now found. The Course in Miracles says, The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never changed. (T-8.VI.9. ACIM) It is easier than you might think to be abducted by the bandits that would carry you away from your true home. So many of us have been wandering in a foreign land, running on our own power, living in spiritual poverty for so long it has begun to feel normal. But if you listen, in the quiet and stillness, you may hear the sound of the bell calling you home. Home to yourself, home to the Holy. I m here to help if I can. It feels so good to be home. 4

5 I love you. Namaste. Amen. Blessed be. 5