Going Home        July 09, 2006    By Pastor Laird Duran

I enjoy going home, and we plan to make a trip to my hometown in two weeks. I enjoy being around the people that I knew growing up, my family and friends. The only trouble is, they always look a lot older than I remember them! I am always amazed to go back to our home church, my old school, and look at all the places I knew and loved.

There’s something good about going home. I feel more connected to my past, and where I came from. In a way, I admire people who have stayed in the same town all their lives. But I also enjoy living in Texas, and the other places I’ve lived, too. I like having the variety of experiences. From my experiences, there’s no other place like Texas.

When I told one of my childhood friends that I was moving to Texas, he said "Hope you like cowboys." What people from New Jersey know about Texas was found in the old cowboy television shows, like Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. I don’t think his comment was fair to me or to people who live in Texas. I think he was really jealous!

There’s something about going home that also pulls us back. Sometimes it’s necessary because people who move away often get persnickety. It’s like a son or daughter that goes away to college, and then comes home unbearable. After he comes home, he thinks he’s better than everybody else and you’re glad when he finally goes back to college again.

When Jesus returned to his hometown, it was not all pleasant memories of times gone by. Maybe some of them were jealous. When he preached in his old congregation, they tried to pull him back to the Jesus they knew when he was growing up. As soon as he started talking about the kingdom, they asked, "Where did he get all of this stuff? Isn’t this the carpenter, Mary’s son, the one I knew back when?" Jesus could see that he offended them, and remembered the scripture they taught him, "Prophets are not without honor, except in their hometown."

Jesus was amazed that the people who knew him when he was growing up could not even accept him as a prophet, much less as the messiah who would give his life for the sake of the world. So he left the village, and went to other towns. There he gathered the twelve disciples, and gave them the job of proclaiming the kingdom of God that began with him.

Now I wonder, was this something Jesus did in light of the reaction of the people back home? Personally, I know that my position as pastor means very little to the people in my hometown. They still know me as simply the guy who grew up with them. I have to differentiate myself from them. Did Jesus learn that he had to differentiate himself that day? Is that what led to his conclusion that the best way to bring the kingdom of God to people is through ordinary people who believed in him?

In any case, the twelve he chose to deliver the news of a kingdom were an interesting bunch. At least three were fishermen, and one was a former tax collector for the Romans who occupied the nation. Talk about suspicious characters!

Today, we can compare the fishermen to cowboys. Since I’ve moved to Texas, I learned that cowboys were entrepreneurs who took great risks to make a better life for themselves. They also had certain skills in riding horses, roping cattle, and living out in the Texas heat. They would gather longhorns off the prairie that they got for free or for very little money. Then they would drive them to places like the Fort Worth Stock Yards, and sell them for more than $40 per head.

This Cowboy Sunday is fun. Cowboy Sunday is fun because it remembers the spirit of the cowboy. I think that if Jesus had come to Texas in the 19^th century, he would have gathered cowboys. They would have been able to cast out demons, heal the sick, and tell people they needed to repent and receive the kingdom of God in Jesus Christ. Folks today still like all the cowboy stories, and the romance of places like the stockyards. We like the songs they sang and the stories they told. We like their faith in themselves and in their faith in God. But we forget the risks and hard work it took them to do what they did.

The same is true for the disciples. We remember them as honored saints, like St. Peter and St. John. But it’s easy to forget the risks they took, the things they did for people, and the hard work it took to bring people the news of God’s kingdom. They did not just tell people about it, or just wait for people to come to them. They went out and helped the people with the problems they had.

Our purpose as a congregation is bringing the message of the Jesus love, and that his kingdom has begun. We can’t just make an announcement and wait for people to show up. Jesus is sending us out to cast out the demons here in Fort Worth. The demons today are found in the families, the children in our neighborhood and in our city and nation. They are the problems with those who grieve, with parents, and the elderly. Every problem we see is a demon that can be cast out. We can cast out their demons through prayer and faith Jesus Christ lives and has conquered evil. Then we will come back rejoicing, bringing in a harvest of people who need the power of Jesus Christ.

Amen

Now we will sing "Bringing in the Sheaves." It is a hymn based on Psalm 126.

At first glance, Psalm 126 reads like a regular harvest hymn. Thanks be to God, who will bring us a good crop and security from want. "We will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves." But if we know the historical context of this psalm, the psalm likely derives from the time when the weary Jewish exiles were returning home from Babylon.

Resettling was mighty hard for them. Foreigners living there weren't happy to see them return. They made their lives dangerous and miserable. That's why the psalm says that the people of God were sewing in tears. There wasn't any evidence that their labor would bear any fruit. A sensible person would have said: Why bother, let's go back to Babylon! And some did go back.

But the psalmist had faith in God. He sang a jubilant song which said: I know that everything looks bleak, but I put my faith in God. There will be justice, and justice will produce peace. We sow in tears now, but we shall come rejoicing one day, bringing in the sheaves. Thanks be to God!