The Holy Call Home

Some of the small slices of memory that tug most strongly on my nostalgic heartstrings is when, as a young girl, I'd stay outside playing in our yard... until deep dusk had settled around me, and I could no longer see clearly. My body ached from hard play, but the summer night's air was pleasant, and I strung together every precious second for as long as I could...

Until I'd hear my mom's voice calling through the screen door of our home. "Time to come in!"

Our church used to sing an old, old song; I grew up hearing my dad practice it on his guitar before we'd head off to Wednesday evening prayer meetings, where he'd lead our small congregation in singing it:

Many years ago in days of childhood,
I used to play till evening shadows come.
Then winding down an old familiar pathway,
I heard my mother call at set of sun:

Come home, come home, it's supper time.
The shadows lengthen fast.
Come home, come home, it's supper time.
We're going home at last.

There's something about a call that signals belonging. A point of emphasis that says: Here is where you are supposed to be. As a kid, home was where I belonged, and my mom made sure that I knew when I needed to come back inside. Whatever I was doing, I stopped... and went, because that was home. That was my place to stay.

I just finished twenty-four chapters in Joshua yesterday, and I loved the dip back into the Old Testament and looking deeply into the Israelite nation under one of the strongest leaders they'd ever had. This morning as I asked the Lord where He was leading me now, I settled on 1 Corinthians. I've been drawn to this book for a while, but I admit... I'm a little scared of it. There are some hard-to grapple-with passages in it.

I've found that when I'm scared of something, it's usually because I haven't faced it fully, so I'll stand up before this giant like David, with only a sling and a stone and a heart guided by the Holy Spirit, and I'll invite you to come along with me for the journey (which I expect will be full of discovery and some socks-knocking-off moments of holy glory). :)

This morning, I focused on 1 Corinthians 1:1-3, where Paul starts his letter with: "Paul, called (this is significant) to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes. To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy (Paul wasn't the only one called by the Lord Jesus), together with all those everywhere who call (it's a reciprocal call -- we are family together) on the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ -- their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Thank goodness for commas, right? I read this the first time as Paul being called by the will of God and Sosthenes... and realized my aging eyes had completely missed the tiny comma after "the will of God -- comma -- and Sosthenes." My footnotes suggest that Sosthenes is perhaps the synagogue ruler in Corinth (based on a mention in Acts 18:18), and one who had become a Christian -- a Christ follower, likely due to Paul's apostleship and missionary work in Corinth.

So Paul and Sosthenes co-draft this letter -- perhaps Paul dictates the words to Sosthenes and then adds his signature at the end, as he tends to do (see, for instance, Galatians 6:11: "See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!"). Either way, Paul jumps into the meat of the letter in 1:2: "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ..."

The people who call on Christ are called to be holy. Holiness is a place of belonging. It's a place to come back to, it's a place called home. It's where we are supposed to live.

Y'all, we aren't faith gypsies -- wandering through this world without a purpose, doing random acts of kindness (though random acts of kindness are wonderful things to do). We have a purpose and a focal point -- a place to come as we rest and edify and rebuild and hone and shape. 

Think of it this way: Christ is our home, and our home is called holiness. Christ calls us into Himself, and as He is our anchor, our place of rest from which we are able to minister, we are called into holiness so that we can minister out of that holiness to others. 

It's very... domino-effect-ish. If we don't go home, we don't get the rest that we need in order to minister. We lose our focal point; we lose our purpose -- because we don't touch base with our family, with the head of our home, Christ Himself. And so -- if we don't go home -- one domino falls, and then another, and another, until we find ourselves far from home, and out of hearing of the One Who calls us.

Y'all, when I heard the call to come inside, I wasn't very often happy to stop playing. Sometimes, I outright rebelled. "But I want to finish this!" I want to do this my way.

But the call never stopped. That call: "Time to come in" -- it differentiated me from every other person on the block. No other child on that block (with the exception of my brother, who was sometimes with me) belonged to that house or that family. I (or we, my brother and I) were the only ones invited back to that house.

Why? We were family. We belonged to each other. 

If you've lived in Hawaii, or if you've seen Disney's Lilo and Stitch, you know that the Hawaiian word Ohana means family, "and family means no one gets left behind or forgotten."

I have a big project coming up this fall for my action research class. It's the biggest research project of the whole three-year masters program I'm in. Essentially I get to write a researched book about a theme I want to introduce in my future classroom. 

This is the theme I've chosen: Ohana. Family in the classroom. Having a room where every person from every part of the world (I'm working specifically with multilingual speakers, so it's incredibly relevant) has a place, and that place is home. Belonging. Ohana.

Ohana in Christ. We -- who live in Christ -- are family, called home... to the place of holiness.

It's time to stop playing. Listen to the voice of Christ, who says: "Time to come home. Come back to the place of holiness."

We are called to be holy. We need to drop what we're doing, head back through the difficult-to-see dusk, and go home to where Christ is.