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Forgiving the Mess: How Jesus Redefines Homecoming

Forgiving the Mess: How Jesus Redefines Homecoming

Last updated on: October 16, 2024 at 3:46 am by Gregory T. Smith

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Forgiving the Mess: How Jesus Redefines Homecoming 2024-10-12T18:52:03-08:00 Gregory T. Smith

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This time of year, many churches in the southern US open their doors for homecoming services. What was it like at Jesus’s homecoming?

“We want Jesus in the house, but we don’t want things messy.” Image created by author on openart.ai

Homing services are a traditional Southern practice, where churches invite former pastors and evangelists to speak. They also invite people who have connections to the church yet have not attended in years. Coupled with lavish potluck meals, these special times are sort of like a combination of Back to Church Sunday and a good old family reunion.

One New Testament story hints at what homecoming was like at Jesus’ house.

Jesus’s Homecoming

Mark 2:3-12 tells the story of Jesus coming home to his house in Capernaum. Verse 1 (emphasis added) says:

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that HE WAS AT HOME.

Many people think that Jesus was homeless. But he had a home in Capernaum. It’s just that during his three-year itinerant ministry, he didn’t spend a lot of time there. When Jesus returned home, his friends and family must have done everything they could to make him feel comfortable. Maybe your church is that way. It’s a place of comfort and peace, where you can truly feel at rest. I imagine Jesus must have felt that kind of welcome when he arrived at his homeplace.

No Longer Any Room

Things start to get a little uncomfortable in the next verse.

So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door, and he was speaking the word to them.

Have you noticed that whenever Jesus is in the house, things start to get uncomfortable? This isn’t the way “good Christians” expect things to be, though. We’ve been taught that whenever Jesus is around, everything is beautiful. We can’t wait to go to church on Sundays because that’s our place of comfort. We love the fellowship and the music and the sermons (well, some of the sermons). When the entire world is changing around us, church is the one place where we can find normalcy.

When Jesus is in the House

But it isn’t that way in the Bible. Instead, we find that whenever Jesus is in the house, things start to get uncomfortable. When God is really doing something, it attracts people. And those people bring their messy lives with them. Those messy lives get in the way of our agenda, our plans, our comfort. And sometimes the church doesn’t like it.

One of the churches I served went through a big remodeling project. The old basement downstairs wasn’t use for anything but storage. So, we spent a lot of time and money fixing everything up. When the remodeled church building was beautiful, I started talking about what we could do to attract young families. They said, “We’ve spent so much time and money getting everything just right—the last thing we want is a bunch of kids getting their fingerprints all over the walls.”

What they were really saying was, “We want Jesus in the house, but we don’t want things messy. We want Jesus in the house, but we don’t want it to get crowded.” But it doesn’t work like that. You can’t have it both ways. Either you welcome the crowds and the mess, or you don’t have Jesus. The two go hand in hand.

People with Needs

When Jesus is in the house, people with needs are going to start to arrive. Verses 3-4 show just how messy it can get.

Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay.

Now, that’s messy! Yet, for some reason, churches think they can have Jesus in the house, and it won’t get messy. Other times, they know things would get messy, so they make decisions to avoid the mess. Another church I served (don’t worry—it wasn’t Antioch) had a phone but no answering machine. When I first arrived at the church, I thought that was strange. So, I said to the deacon chair, “Why don’t we get an answering machine?”

He said to me, “We don’t want an answering machine. Because people will just start calling the church, leaving messages, asking for stuff. If we don’t have an answering machine, they’ll still have needs—but what we don’t know won’t hurt us.” Yes, he actually said that. He knew that when Jesus is in the house, people with needs will start showing up, and he wanted to avoid that.

Your Sins are Forgiven!

So, these four friends knock a hole in Jesus’ roof and lower their friend down. Verse 5 says:

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven.”

I hope you can see the humor in this. Jesus has been traveling for a while. It’s still early in Mark’s Gospel, but Jesus has been busy already. He got baptized, went into the desert where the devil tempted him, and he called his first disciples. Then, he healed a man with an unclean spirit and cured Peter’s mother-in-law as well. He started a preaching tour in Galilee. He cleansed a man with a skin disease.

Now, Jesus must be dead tired as he returns home to Capernaum for a little R&R. His family and friends are trying to make him comfortable, but when Jesus is in the house, things get messy. Jesus is just in the middle of a sermon when he hears footsteps and scuffling on the roof. Imagine the racket and the dust and the roofing materials everywhere—then this man comes down through the hole on a stretcher. Jesus looks at the mess they’ve made of his home, his sanctuary. He thinks of the carpenter’s tools he’s going to need to use again to repair the damage and he says, “Oh, man—I forgive you!”

Forgive the Mess

If we’re going to be like Jesus, we’re going to have to learn to forgive the people who come into our churches and bring their mess with them. We’re going to need to forgive the mess in their lives when they don’t meet our expectations. And we’re going to need to forgive the mess they make in our churches when their life situations disrupt our comfort with a cloud of dust. Because when Jesus is in the house, he shows us how to forgive the mess.

If your congregation opens its doors for Homecoming services this time of year, make sure yours is a church worth coming home to. Be the church that welcomes people to come as they are. Forgive their mess. Only then can you offer them healing.

For related reading, check out my other articles:

General Christian

Religious Events

Home and Religion

Challenging the Church

For Pastors

Holidays and special days

Uncategorized

Church homecoming

Homecoming

Jesus at home in Capernaum

Jesus forgives sins

Jesus heals a paralytic

Was Jesus homeless?

About Gregory T. Smith

I live in the beautiful Fraser Valley of British Columbia and work in northern Washington State as a behavioral health specialist with people experiencing homelessness and those who are overly involved in the criminal justice system. Before that, I spent over a quarter-century as lead pastor of several Virginia churches. My newspaper column, “Spirit and Truth” ran in Virginia newspapers for fifteen years. I am one of fourteen contributing authors of the Patheos/Quoir Publishing book “Sitting in the Shade of another Tree: What We Learn by Listening to Other Faiths.” I hold a degree in Religious Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University, and also studied at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. My wife Christina and I have seven children between us, and we are still collecting grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

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