A Resting Place

One of Magnus Wennman's photographs depicting where refugee children sleep.  This is 5 year old Lamar from Baghdad, sleeping in a Serbian forest.

November 22, 2015

Matthew 8:14-20

14 When Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever; 15 he touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him. 16 That evening they brought to him many who were possessed with demons; and he cast out the spirits with a word, and cured all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 A scribe then approached and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Psalm 132

O LORD, remember in David's favor

all the hardships he endured;

how he swore to the LORD

and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob,

"I will not enter my house

or get into my bed;

I will not give sleep to my eyes

or slumber to my eyelids,

until I find a place  for the Mighty One of Jacob."

We heard of it in Ephrathah;

we found it in the fields of Jaar.

"Let us go to his dwelling-place,

let us worship at his footstool."

Rise up, O LORD, and go to your resting-place,

you and the ark of your might.

Let your priests be clothed with righteousness,

and let your faithful shout for joy.

For your servant David's sake

do not turn away the face of your anointed one.

The LORD swore to David a sure oath

from which he will not turn back:

"One of the sons of your body

I will set on your throne.

If your sons keep my covenant

and my decrees that I shall teach them,

their sons also, for evermore,

shall sit on your throne."

For the LORD has chosen Zion;

he has desired it for his habitation:

"This is my resting-place for ever;

here I will reside, for I have desired it.

I will abundantly bless its provisions;

I will satisfy its poor with bread.

Its priests I will clothe with salvation,

and its faithful will shout for joy.

There I will cause a horn to sprout up for David;

I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one.

His enemies I will clothe with disgrace,

but on him, his crown will gleam."

Sermon: “A Resting Place”

Part of me wishes I’d never seen those images.  I wish I could erase them from my memory, and with them, my feeling of needing to do something to help.  Helplessness is a horrible feeling.  No one knows this better than the subjects of those images I saw.

They were pictures of children.  Not the pictures my friends post on Facebook of their kiddos playing and laughing in pumpkin patches in coordinated outfits.  These children live a very different life: they are Syrian refugees, fleeing terrorism. 

Swedish photographer Magnus Wennman has been documenting where refugee children sleep throughout Europe and the Middle East.

He says, "I felt this project was more personal for me than others, perhaps because I have a 5-year-old son and I know how important it is for him to feel safe every night when I put him to bed.  The children are the most innocent victims of this conflict. They did not choose to leave their homes.”

Wennman’s images are utterly heartbreaking.  There is Tamam, 5 years old, in
 Azraq, Jordan. She cries every night at bedtime. The air raids on her hometown of Homs usually took place at night, and although she has been sleeping away from home for nearly two years now, she still doesn't realize that her pillow is not the source of danger.  She is terrified of it.

There are Ralia, 7, and Rahaf, 13, who live on the streets of Beirut. They are from Damascus, near where Paul had his conversion in scripture.  A grenade killed their mother and brother. Along with their father, they have been sleeping rough for a year. They huddle close together on their cardboard boxes. Rahaf says she is scared of "bad boys," at which Ralia starts crying.

There is Sham, 1 year old in 
Horgos, Serbia.  He is pictured just alongside the border between Serbia and Hungary by the four-meter-high iron gate, Sham is lying in his mother's arms.  Just a few inches behind them is the Europe they so desperately are trying to reach.  Only one day before the last refugees were allowed through and taken by train to Austria, Sham and his mother arrived too late.  Now, they wait along with thousands of other refugees outside the closed Hungarian border.

There is Lamar, 5 years old, sleeping on the ground in Horgos, Serbia.  Back home in Baghdad, the dolls, the toy train, and the ball are left; Lamar often talks about these items when home is mentioned.  The bomb changed everything.  The family was on its way to buy food when a bomb was dropped close to their house.  It was not possible to live there anymore, says Lamar's grandmother, Sara.  After two attempts to cross the sea from Turkey in a small rubber boat, Lamar's family succeeded in coming to Hungary's closed border.  Now Lamar sleeps on a blanket in the forest — scared, frozen, and sad.

There is Moyad, 5 years old in
 Jordan.  Moyad and his mother needed to buy flour to make a spinach pie.  Hand in hand, they were on their way to the market.  They walked past a taxi in which someone had placed a bomb. Moyad's mother died instantly.  Moyad, who has been airlifted to Jordan, has shrapnel lodged in his head, back and pelvis, and remains in a cold hospital room, alone.

There are literally millions more.

After David went through many hardships, he made God a promise in Psalm 132:  "I will not enter my house, or get into my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling-place for the Mighty One of Jacob."

God, in turn, made David a promise:  ‘the LORD has chosen Zion; God has desired it for his habitation: "This is my resting-place forever; here I will reside, for I have desired it.  I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread. Its priests I will clothe with salvation, and its faithful will shout for joy.”’

And later, when Jesus became famous for healings, a teacher of the law was impressed, and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  Jesus’ reply to him was simple: “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  He would have to follow a homeless Messiah.

The whole of the Gospel, you see, through the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament, is about one story: God finding a home with people, and people in turn finding a home in God.  Put another way, you might say the whole of the Gospel is addressing the problem of homelessness, on a divine scale and an everyday human scale. 

But we are not homeless.  We are not refugees, at least not now.  What do we know of that experience?  More than you would think.  You see, the key for me lies in Psalm 132, where God’s home isn’t described as a 3-bedroom, 2-bath ranch-style house.  God’s home isn’t described as a good investment, or a tastefully-decorated abode.  God’s home is described, again and again as a place of rest.  If home is not restful, no matter how grand or opulent, it is not home.  Those Syrian refugee children know that. 

And we don’t have to sleep in a forest or on a piece of cardboard to know what it is to be without rest.  Because we, my friends are completely and thoroughly exhausted.  We have spent decades working ourselves into a position of comfort and security, only to feel a restlessness settle into our very bones, whispering its menacing message, “Do more.  Be more.  You are not enough.”   It’s no wonder we live in a near-constant state of fear.

Perhaps what makes us all human is this shared restlessness.  And perhaps that’s what can connect us to those millions of children, or at least to one of them.  God met us in Jesus Christ in our restlessness.  And we, like that teacher of the law, want to follow Jesus wherever he leads.  What if he is staying to us what he said to that man, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head?” What if we will only find him when we make a home for him – he who said, “I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.”?

What if we will only find him in our own restlessness, and in the restlessness of the world?  I hope we find him there.  Because he certainly won’t be found in fear-based, vengeful rhetoric, where we blame an entire people rather than looking at the faces of their children sleeping in the streets and forests. 

Aren’t you tired?  For the world, for yourself?  I know I am.  Don’t we need rest?  Rest for us, rest for those children who just so happened to be born into a war zone, rest for a world constantly descending into hate-and-retaliate until we have destroyed ourselves? 

Today, I’m not making a political plea.  I’m making a spiritual one, and inviting you to recognize how very tired and restless you are, and consider how you’re not alone in that.  And then, I invite you find a resting place in the God who still comes to make a home with us all.

I’m going to play a song by Nashville musician Matthew Perryman Jones, to help us practice a bit of that divine rest, to help up silence the voices of fear and inadequacy.  So, sit back in your pew, close your eyes (or read along here if you feel more restful being able to follow the words), and find your resting place.  Then, share that place of rest – home – with the world.  

Amen.