Earlier this year, I found myself in my mum and dad’s dining room back in England, sorting through a collection of old report cards, artwork and memorabilia from my childhood. Here in Australia, I keep two shoeboxes of my own, full of concert ticket stubs, cards and letters – a story of old relationships and adventures. I guess it’s something we all do. On that day back in April, my eldest sister Jane was at the table beside me as we leafed through the stuff and remembered the past. The two key revelations from all the memorabilia spread out before us, were that, firstly, my teachers considered me a very anxious child in my school reports, and secondly, I was really, really, terrible at drawing.
Anyway, buried among that pile of papers last April, I discovered a sermon that I had written, probably at that very same dining room table. It was dated February 1979, when I just 9 years old. Optimistically titled “Sermon No. 1”, I take the reader through the 23rd Psalm. And at the end of the sermon, I recommend hymn No. 75 in the old 1962 Baptist hymnbook: “Thee will I love, my God and King.”
Just recently at morning worship, I wondered out loud what chapter of the Bible I would choose if I could only have the one. Luke 15 or the first chapter of Ephesians always spring to mind quickly, along with Psalm 139 and John 21. Ok, maybe all of John… But I suspect that over the years, as both chaplain and congregational minister, the chapter I’ve referred to the most is probably Psalm 23. And there, in that pile of papers and memories, a child’s sermon on Psalm 23, gave its own clue to a future life and future ministry. The as-then-unknown future wanderings of this anxious sheep, in need of leading and comfort, often in steep-sided valleys and in the presence of enemies real or imagined. And yet always with the promise of still waters, green pastures, a full table, and a future home.
Over the years, I have written a lot about home. I’ve quoted Tolkien, “We all long for Eden… our whole nature… is soaked with the sense of exile.” I find resonance in the words of O’Tuama: “I wonder if all my longings could shape for me a ship of hopes to carry me on the seas of homeward yearning.” I treasure the image of being led towards an everlasting home in Psalm 23:6. I am encouraged when seemingly every Wesley hymn ends with an image of heaven. And I do really love the images of the prodigal son returning home, and the lost sheep being found and brought safely home in Luke 15 – that precious chapter of lost things.
Of course, home isn’t always where we think it is. It isn’t necessarily where we started. It’s more than a place – even though right now half my heart is still in the green fields of North Somerset. It is more than a person – even though I have shoeboxes and photo albums full of memories of people who all feel to me a bit like home. It is more than that wave that passes through me when I hear an old song I used to love but had forgotten. It is more than that feeling I have when I drive around Somerset and every place name on every road sign carries a memory. Home is more than the sum of all these things… It is a sense of security, belonging, purpose, hope for the future, freedom, and being known and loved.
I was talking with a friend just last weekend about those moments in life when there is a clear fork-in-the-road and only one path can be taken. We wondered whether ultimately you arrive at the same point regardless of the path you have chosen. I don’t know, though Don McLean did write “’cause all roads lead to where I stand.” I can look back and recall many fork-in-the-road moments in my life – the times I went left and times I went right. There were some brave choices, and quite a few more reckless ones. There were choices that took me so far from anything that felt like home. And yet I wonder, whether, whatever choices I had made, I would have still ended up a minister, sharing my heart, telling people every day about the open-armed love and genuine welcome of God that feels like home. Home that you carry with you wherever you are. Home that rescues you when you’ve wandered off the path. Home that greets you with love when you’ve spent your days beating yourself up or believing what others have been saying about you. Home that has a purpose and a future for you that doesn’t depend on past performance or achievement, but simply on faithfully trusting and letting go.
David says, “And in Your book were written all the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.” Home found in surrender to the wisdom of God. I wonder what God saw while looking at the 9-year-old me writing a sermon on the 23rd Psalm. He must have known that there would be times I’d wander off and need to be guided back into His paths of righteousness. He must have known that there would be times I’d go through the valley and need Him – really, really need Him beside me. He must have known that there would be enemies – people, thoughts, struggles, tough days, regrets – and that I would need reminding of His table of grace and blessing and fellowship spread before me. He must have known all this.
And for sure, God never let me go. And He gave me a roadmap for home while sitting at a dining room table when I was 9 – I’m holding that very roadmap-sermon in my hand right now! God met me at a tent revival and led me to baptism in my teens. He was with me as a young man living in France, and still with me in my twenties when my life turned upside-down. He was with me in the move to Australia – even though I often couldn’t see it. He has been with me as I’ve followed a calling into a life in ministry, and He is with me still.
God’s love never let me go. Paul talked of the breadth, length, height and depth of that love. There are people who don’t know that love or the Source of that love. I would have everything I do now serve as an introduction to that Love. Like Andrea Gibson says, “turning the porch lights on and calling the homeless back home.”
The 9-year-old me chose to end his roadmap-sermon with the hymn “Thee will I love, my God and King” by Robert Seymour Bridges. I daresay the 9-year-old me could not for one moment have imagined how much it would speak to the 54-year-old me. The hymn seems all but lost to time, so let this be a new homecoming for it:
Thee will I love, my God and King;
Thee will I sing, my strength and tower;
forevermore Thee will I trust…
Set in my heart Thy love I find;
my wand’ring mind to Thee Thou leadest;
my trembling hope, my strong desire
with heav’nly fire Thou kindly feedest.
Lo, all things fair Thy path prepare;
Thy beauty to my spirit calleth,
Thine to remain, in joy or pain,
and count it gain whate’er befalleth.
O more and more Thy love extend,
my life befriend with heav’nly pleasure,
that I may win Thy Paradise,
Thy pearl of price, Thy countless treasure.
Since but in Thee I can go free
from earthly care and vain oppression,
this prayer I make for Jesus’ sake,
that Thou me take in thy possession.
Scripture references are taken from: Psalm 23, Luke 15, Jer 31:3, Psalm 139:16, Eph 3:18-19
“Thee will I love” is by Robert Seymour Bridges, 1899
The Tolkien quote is from Tolkien’s Letters.
The Padraig o’Tuama quote is from the poem “Yearn”, from In the Shelter, 2016.
The Don McLean reference is taken from his song “Crossroads”
The Andrea Gibson quote is from the poem “Say Yes”