Those who follow Christ as Lord, who seek to receive and share His life with the world, are not called to settle. We are to be people on the move; the original name for the community of Christ-followers was “People of the Way.” I say this in the throes of settling deeply into a new home, having brought boxes and boxes of objects from my last home to make this one equally homey. I loved my last home, yet over the years I sometimes had to remind myself, “This is not yours. Some day you will have to leave this house.”
The same is true of our life in this world, my friends. As we learn to live this way, settling in for the day, yet ready to move tomorrow, we’re much more open to the Life with which God wants to fill and surround us. This is a quality the writer of Hebrews ascribes to the heroes of faith he lists – people who are moving toward their promised future in God, aware that they are not yet Home.
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. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
When I baptize people, I remind them that they now have dual citizenship, passports in this world and in that realm we will enjoy for eternity with God. We already gain access to that land in this life, and living there intentionally can help us avoid getting too settled in the loves and joys with which we are blessed in this world. To hold those people and things and jobs we love, yet hold them lightly, ready to go when called, I consider to be the goal of the spiritual life.
Few of us want to consider ourselves strangers and foreigners on the earth, as the magnitude of our global refugee crisis acutely reminds us. But strangers we are to be, on the move, accepting hospitality where offered, getting by where it is not, expecting blessing in the famines as in the feasts. We do not go back to the places – or people – we think of as home; we move forward by faith into the future God has prepared for us.
As I finally leave my beloved house, I find God has prepared an equally delightful home for me to dwell in. But even this charming house and yard are as nothing compared to the city God has prepared for us. I intend to enjoy every moment of my life here, always remembering it is not mine to keep.
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