Some of you have heard that last month Peter and I were finally able to take a belated honeymoon, and we spent two weeks camping throughout the Canadian Maritimes, including Newfoundland.  And we will be getting away this coming week camping up in New Hampshire and down at the Cape.

 

“Getting away” is what summer is all about.  It is great to leave the pressures of work and of life, great to have time to read novels and take naps; great to spend time at the beach or in the mountains or around the backyard grill.  I hope all of you have had, or will have, a chance to get away this summer – if not physically, then at least spiritually; a chance to get away to a place in your soul where you can find peace and serenity and be close to God.

 

For some people – perhaps some of you sitting here this morning – getting away means coming to rather than leaving the Stoughton area.  Comings and goings are a part of the life of a church, especially in the midst of summer.  Each Sunday, this congregation is just a little different.  People we know go away to their camps in Maine or cottages on the Cape or, like Peter and me, on a long-planned trip to another country.  And some people come here. 

 

We enter and move within this community of faith with rapid fluidity and quiet grace almost all the time.  Children are born; people move to this community and join the church; some are called away again; children grow up, graduate, and leave for college, perhaps returning for a time and then moving away again; and through the long years of a congregation’s life, people die and their lives are celebrated and remembered.

 

Today we celebrate with joy the baptism of Jimmy Harrington, whose mom – Melissa Fors – grew up in this church.  Next month, I’ll be performing the wedding of Amanda Walker, who grew up in this church, to Kevin Dobson.  Next week, we will welcome back Mike Ferrini, who back in the 80s built our outdoor chapel for his Eagle Scout project.  He is now Rev. Mike Ferrini, and he will share with us a little of his faith journey since that time.  A congregation’s life embraces all the seasons of life itself – arriving, staying, moving on, coming, and going.  It’s all a part of life and of living in community.

 

Mark reflects this in this morning’s Gospel passage.  We get a sense of the urgency and vitality of Jesus’ ministry, and the ebb and flow of the community that surrounded him, with his words that “many people were coming and going.”

 

The disciples have just returned from the mission on which Jesus sent them out two by two.  It is in these verses that they are called apostles for the first time, signifying their new relationship with Jesus, for he has commissioned them to carry on his work.  The word apostle means “one sent,” and having been sent out, they now return to report in.  They are exhilarated and enthusiastic, for their first excursion has been a success.  And the crowds are coming and going, moving towards Jesus and the apostles with physical needs and spiritual hunger, hoping to find a sense of belonging, hoping to fill the emptiness in their souls. 

 

Jesus calls them “sheep without a shepherd.”  He looks out on the masses of humanity and sees that they are disconnected from the spiritual source that could sustain them, and he extends God’s mercy to those who are scattered and alienated. 

 

For as long as people have been seeking God, there have been comings and goings.  Reading the first stories of the Israelites, we hear of their wandering in the wilderness in search of the Promised Land where they could live forever.  Wherever they went, they were constantly reminded that even in their wanderings, they were connected to God, who sustained them with spiritual strength and guidance.

 

Thousands of years later, Jesus would appear among the people to beckon the lost and leaderless, the alienated and disinherited, and teach them that God has come near.  “Believe this good news” he tells them, “God is for you, God seeks you, God loves you.”  A generation later, in his letter to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul will say it like this: “You are no longer strangers and aliens, but citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.”

 

The life of Jesus reminds us that nothing will be permanent or forever.  Christianity is, in a sense, a religion for wanderers; it is part of our heritage.  Jesus talked about himself as having nowhere to lay his head; he, in a very literal sense, spent his life coming and going from one place to another, from one group of people to another.  And yet, he had a sense of rootedness, for his “home,” his anchor, was with God.

 

We are a lot like the people in today’s gospel lesson; we come and go from each other, from this place, and yes, from God, too.  We are in many ways sojourners, searching to live in community and to belong to the family of God, looking for a spiritual home where we can replenish our spirits and feed our souls, where we can reconnect ourselves to God in preparation to serve others in Christ’s name. 

 

It is great to get away on vacation.  But it is also good to come back.  I am thankful for the opportunities to get rested and have some time away with my family.  But it is always great to come home to you.  I am grateful to come back to this sanctuary, to my church home, and to be your pastor and teacher.  I have been a part of this congregation for only a year and a half, but it is here that I call home and here that my heart belongs.  In my goings away, and in my comings home again, I am deeply moved by the spiritual power of this place, of this faith community in my life, and my sense of belonging to this church family.

 

Amidst all the comings and goings of my life, I have found a home here; and I pray that you have, too.  Amen.

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