Robert E. Dunham
Seeking a Homeland
June 30, 2024
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Indulge me for a few moments, while I share what may seem to be for some of you a bit of ancient history. But others of us here, though not many, are old enough to remember the optimism and hope of the post-Second-World-War era, when the future of America, our homeland, looked so bright and promising. Just a few years earlier, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had said, “America … stands at the summit of the world.” During my childhood it was easy to see what Churchill meant. The United States was the world’s strongest military power. Its economy was booming, and the fruits of its prosperity – new cars, new suburban houses and other consumer goods – were abundantly available. The possibilities seemed endless. And General Electric’s advertising slogan was our national catch-phrase: “Progress is our most important product.”
Of course, as we all now know, it wasn’t a great time for everyone. The G.I. Bill that helped many veterans learn, prosper and then accumulate wealth in the postwar years didn’t deliver on that promise for Black veterans. In fact, the disparity in the law’s implementation ended up driving growing gaps in wealth, education and civil rights between white and Black Americans. Red-lining in real estate kept many of the new neighborhoods and homes unavailable to persons of color, widening the wealth gap further. The country made arduously slow strides toward integration of schools and workplaces.
In similar, and not unrelated ways, women in America, many of whom had kept the homeland work force going during the war, found that many employment doors had once again closed to them. We got a fictionalized but accurate glimpse of that reality last year with the story of Elizabeth Zott. Zott was the protagonist of Bonnie Garmus’s novel and televised miniseries, Lessons in Chemistry. Zott was a brilliant scientist who struggled against the prevailing gender stereotypes of the time. Her story was fictional, but based on the real-life experiences of many women in every field.
It’s not hard for us to imagine such restrictions; after all, women are still significantly under-represented in U.S. corporate C-suite positions – fewer than 12 percent last year. Then again, women in America weren’t even able to get credit in their own name, without a man’s signature, until 1974. And to get a business loan without such a counter-signer, women had to wait until 1988.
So, what’s the point of such rambling? When the framers of the Declaration of Independence presented “truths” they declared to be “self-evident,” and included the truth that “all men are created equal,” over time it became clear that “men” really meant “men,” and “all” didn’t mean “all.” I’m embarrassed to say that as a child in the mid-1950s, I was virtually oblivious to such disparities, focused as I was on such important matters as keeping box scores while listening to baseball games on the radio. But as I came of age and witnessed all the racist vitriol and violent attacks in response to the struggle for civil rights, and as I became aware of other nascent struggles for human equity and inclusion, I began to understand that there were others in the same city as I, in the same state and country as I, who had a hard time finding themselves at home. And it’s not ancient history; many people still feel that way. And gradually, but more intensely of late, I confess that I have begun to feel something of that same discomfort myself. Unsettled. Here all my life, in this beautiful, complicated country, but not quite at home. Still waiting for its promise to be fulfilled, for its ideals and self-evident truths to be honored.
Then again, maybe such unease is inevitable for people of faith. In the Letter to the Hebrews, which is more sermon than letter, the preacher recalls our forebears in faith – Abel and Noah and Abraham and Sarah – and remembers that all of them died without seeing the fulfillment of the promises toward which they had journeyed. As they pressed on, says Hebrews, “they confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland…. a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (11:14-15). New Testament scholar Frances Taylor Gench says,
Though they never received a homeland, lived out of their suitcases, and ate off paper plates throughout their days, they were guided in this world by their vision of a [God-given] homeland… They knew that what God ultimately had in store for them “transcended security and prosperity in a parcel of real estate on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean….” They embodied the pilgrim lifestyle that Hebrews holds forth for all believers.
“The pilgrim lifestyle.” I think that’s it. People of faith are always pilgrims and pioneers, constantly seeking, never fully settled. I rather like that notion.
When our faith is active, we are always on the move toward a life rooted in what Jesus called the greatest commandments – love of God and love of neighbor – and toward an understanding of “neighbor” as Jesus defined it [in the Parable of the Good Samaritan] – that is anyone who needs our help. When our faith is active, we are more pilgrims than settlers, always seeking a homeland where grace, peace, and generosity of spirit is manifest. Otherwise, we settle for less than what God wants and what every human being needs. We become settlers, defending what is ours, instead of the faith-full pioneers we are called to be.
The poet David Whyte says pilgrims are “always on the way.” He says that “[t]he great measure of human maturation is the increasing understanding that we move through life in the blink of an eye; that we are not long with the privilege of having eyes to see, ears to hear, a voice with which to speak, and arms to put around [another], that we are simply passing through. We are creatures made real through contact, meeting and then moving on….” The question is, how will we act in those meetings, and how will those contacts shape our subsequent journey?
God’s call, friends, is a holy invitation to life as pilgrims, to the pioneer life… an invitation to pursue God’s purposes, to seek to find or create a good and gracious homeland, where, as Paul Simon sang, we “have reason to believe we all will be received.” In our time, we are keenly aware of the shrill and angry voices of settlers, telling us such welcome and compassion are foolish risks and warning us about threats and dangers and enemies, stoking xenophobia. And to be sure, we are living through some challenging and worrisome times. The path ahead is uncharted, uncertain, worthy of concern, and Google Maps is no help. But this much we know: we aren’t yet where we hope to be, or where God wants us to be… not by a long shot. And the promise of a homeland is still out there before us. So, in the relatively short time I have left, my plan is to try my best to live as a pioneer. I hope, perhaps, you will join me. We’ll journey in the assurance of things hoped for, in the conviction of things not seen, and confident that we all will be received. Instead of xenophobia, we will practice what the Bible called philoxenia – love of the stranger.
Some time back I heard the story of Andrew Forsthoefel. A decade or so ago, Andrew was a 23-year-old recent graduate of Middlebury College, who was unsure what to do with his life and so was looking for guidance. But he didn’t go to a career counselor. He decided to undertake a journey in which everyone he met could become a guide. But it was not to be a little trek. Andrew set off on what became a 4,000-mile journey… on foot, walking across the continental United States from his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania … all the way to the Pacific Coast. No rides. No smart phone. He carried only a backpack with camping equipment, a camera, a food bag … and a sign hanging off the pack that said, “Walking to listen.”
He also carried a voice recorder with which to collect the stories of those he met along the way. To everyone he met, he asked the same question: “If you could go back, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your 23-year-old self?” The question yielded some remarkable answers, which Andrew curated into a broadcast for the NPR program, This American Life, and later into a book, called Walking to Listen. A pastor who shared his story said that
Andrew admitted that along with his spirit of adventure he traveled with an acute sense of vulnerability. At times, he said, he was “fear-walking.” [It happens to pioneers.] And this fear was heightened by some of those that he met along the way. Now, not one person said that they would tell their 23-year-old self to be more cautious or more fearful. To the contrary, their messages were full of boldness and daring. Nonetheless, when people would take him in, [before he left,] they were constantly warning him – telling him to watch out for others [just] down the road. “Don’t trust them,” they would say. “They’re not like us.” [One of the recurring refrains of our American life. They’re not like us, some say.]
“What I wish,” Andrew said, thinking back, “is that those people could have experienced what I did and seen that [time after time] the people they had warned me about were the very ones who took me in later on, and fed me, and told me their stories.”
Will you be a pioneer with me? It’s an earnest invitation. I’m not asking you to walk across the country. I’m not up for that either. But I do invite you to join me in seeking a homeland, in searching for that better country we all want and need. If that is our goal, there are people we need to meet, people who want to hear our stories and who long to tell us theirs.
It won’t always be easy. There may be perils and conflicts. We may do some fear-walking ourselves. But we won’t be looking and seeking alone. We’ll have each other and that great cloud of witnesses surrounding us with love and encouragement, and others will take us in, and Jesus will be out there with us. That’s what the angel told the women at the tomb after all – “he’s gone before you” – and it’s what Jesus promised his disciples – that he’ll be out there beckoning us forward. If we follow him and open ourselves to the guidance of other pioneers who share our quest, we may actually find that the homeland we seek – that realm of equity and compassion, of kindness and welcome – is nearer to us than we may have thought. Maybe it’s not even a place, but rather simply abiding in the heart of God. And perhaps our task on our journey is to try to embody God’s heart of grace and welcome and compassion for everyone we meet – “on earth as it is in heaven,” we pray.
Like Noah and Abraham and Sarah, we may not find that welcoming home fully in our lifetime, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to press far enough at least to be able to sense and glimpse it from afar? There was a time not too many years ago when I actually thought we were getting closer. Now, I’m not so sure. But I’m going to press on – in the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And I’m serious when I invite you to join me, as we become pilgrims and pioneers, seeking such a homeland together. What do you say?