In search of home

Looking at those who sat around him, Jesus said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’ (Mark 3:35)

I think I want to start a house church … or participate in one that would have me.

It’s not just that I am no longer at home in church life as I have known it, nor that I sometimes despair of ever finding it again. I am moved by something I see in Jesus’ eyes.

I imagine his expression as he speaks, the tone of his voice, the tilt of his head, the glint in his eyes, and I meet a man, a soul I know, however poorly or in part, and I fall in love as when, as a boy, he touched me again and again with a love I knew nowhere else.

These days, or at least this day, I feel his hunger, an unrequited longing like the yearning that unsettles my heart, especially as Sunday morning approaches and I have no place I truly want to go.

What I’d like to do is gather around a cup and a loaf of bread in someone’s living room or at a picnic table in a park. We’d sing or at least croak out a song that opens our hearts, pray a psalm and listen to a story of Jesus. Then, talk. Just talk about what we see and feel as we watch him and listen to his voice, sharing whatever hopes or pains, joys or sorrows he stirs in us.

Perhaps we’d share where we have truly loved during the week and where that seemed impossible for us, knowing that each time we have loved or struggled to do so we have known him, his Spirit, awake in our mortal bodies. Then, we’d break bread and share the cup the way he told us to do.

All this is to say that I want what Jesus wanted for himself.

His longing is obvious as he surveyed the sea of faces pressing near to see and touch him. So often misunderstood, reviled and rejected, he looked into their eyes; he felt the hunger of their hearts, and he knew: Here are my brothers and sisters, my mothers and fathers. These are my people, heart of my heart.

Repeating his words, feeling their texture on my tongue, I cannot miss the love he felt for these searching souls, who hungered to know the One from whom all good and graces flow like rays from the morning sun.

When he was with them, he was truly home, and that’s what I want.

I want to gather around a loaf and a cup and look into the eyes of souls who want to know the love of Jesus. I want to be with hearts who know that living this love, however poorly, partially and with myriad failures, is still the very best occupation of life. I want to be with brothers and sisters who are just as restless and just as needy for this Love as I am.

Then, I’ll be home.

David L Miller