~ The Places We Call Home ~
“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind…The wolf and the lamb shall feed together…They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”
Isaiah 65:17-25
Dear Members and Friends,
This fragment of a poem can be found in “Third Isaiah.” It’s a lyrical description of the new heaven and the new earth that God intends to create. Like all poetry, it evokes a feeling with images and word pictures. Find a Bible and read the whole passage. It offers a comforting vision of what life could be, or ought to be, or perhaps someday will be. These words were addressed to the exiles returning home to Judah after nearly 60 years’ captivity in Babylon. A few of those exiles might have had dreamy, vague childhood memories of their old homeland, for which they’ve been longing for decades. Others have no memory of the place whatsoever, but still they long for it. Whether they have memories of the place or not, all the returning exiles do have grand expectations. They’re finally going home to the land of milk and honey, where everything is perfect, and everyone is happy.
Upon returning home at last, what do they find? Ruined cities, overgrown fields, their old ancestral homes all ramshackle with distant cousins squatting in the cellars. Their vision of “home” could not live up to the realities of the place. When I returned to the US after 5 years’ mission service in West Africa, I felt a similar shock. During my long absence, America took on a golden hue in my mind. It was a place where (unlike my adopted country) politicians were held accountable, and insurance companies played fair, and infrastructure was maintained. Upon returning home, I discovered that my homeland could never be the perfect place I imaged when I was far from it. Paul Theroux once said, “Being away makes you a stranger in both places.” On one hand, the illusion of a perfect, far-off home kept the Jewish people dreaming and hopeful when they were exiles in Babylon. The illusion served a purpose; it gave them strength. On the other hand, no earthly nation or home can live up to the ideals that we create in our minds.
But Third Isaiah does not envision an earthly nation, as such. The “new earth” is the other reality that Jesus called “The Reign of God,” where even wolves are kind and, “they do not hurt or destroy.” What does this mean for us? It means that we will always be tempted to idolize the places we call home. But our best and truest selves belong not to any earthly nation, but to the good eternity that is our first and final home. This is why Jesus instructs us, “Seek first the Reign of God and God’s justice…” How do we labor for the Reign of God in the places we love, all the while owning their imperfections and flaws? This is our calling for these days–to be good citizens of our earthly nation, while living first and foremost for the universal realm where all human beings belong. May God give us the courage and the imagination to do just that in the year ahead.
Christ’s Peace,
~Brian
PRAYER: God of all nations, your love is everywhere present and nearest to the oppressed and downtrodden. Remind me daily of my truest citizenship in that realm where “they do not hurt or destroy,” and in Christ, give me the strength to represent that realm here below. Amen.
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