Psalm 84:1-5

Longing for God’s House

1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord of Armies.
2 I long and yearn
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh cry out for the living God.

3 Even a sparrow finds a home,
and a swallow, a nest for herself
where she places her young—
near your altars, Lord of Armies,
my King and my God.
4 How happy are those who reside in your house,
who praise you continually. Selah

5 Happy are the people whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a source of spring water;
even the autumn rain will cover it with blessings.
7 They go from strength to strength;
each appears before God in Zion.

Throughout the past one year, two months of living in a pandemic, my husband Drew and I have embraced a simple practice which has expanded our sense of accomplishment, teamwork, and physical endurance. It makes us feel like lion-hearted champions—heroes, even.

This life-enhancing practice is called (drumroll, please)…

“Walking-to-the-Grocery-Store.”

Oh yes.

When one of us, tired of staring at the same four walls for the past seven days inevitably turns to the other and says, “Wannawalktothegrocerystore?” in an energized yet serious tone, the other will pretend to deliberate, ultimately answer “Sure!” with a tone of equal intensity, and start lacing up their walking shoes. At this point we have silently agreed that it is time for our big outing of the week.

It was on such an endeavor last Wednesday that Drew and I happened upon a scene we did not anticipate when we set out on our arduous .25 mile journey. Upon reaching the store parking lot, we first noticed a young woman with a long, blonde ponytail and tired eyes. Her shoulders slumped, she was holding a battered sign and staring at some far-off point in the distance as people and cars passed her by. At the other end of the parking lot near the store entrance, we heard the sound of Irish jigs and reels in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. A large man was standing in the back of an even larger truck with an (dare I say it?) even larger fuzzy green top hat jauntily perched on his head. In one hand, he held a microphone; with the other, he was controlling a sound switchboard that was connected to a giant speaker. His voice boomed across the parking lot as he heartily sang,

This is my homeland, my heart is here
These are the voices I long to hear
No matter how far I may roam
I have a homeland, I have a home…

At this point we had walked past the woman with the sign, but when I saw the small crowd gathering around the truck bed as the man continued to sing about his Irish homeland (in a highly exaggerated Irish accent), something compelled me to turn back to her. The sign she held read,

Homeless. Anything Helps.

“Can we get you anything at the store?” I asked.
“Honestly, water would be really nice,” she answered. 

On our way back, we placed a bag of food and water at her feet.
Looking both of us in the eyes, she simply said,

 “God bless you.”

 As Drew and I walked home in silence that day with full backpacks and pondering hearts, I thought about the sharp contrast I had just witnessed between the largely ignored woman without a home and the crowd of people with their backs turned, watching the man in the truck proudly singing of his homeland. I thought about how many times I have passed by people in need, and was sobered by the realization that it was easier for me to extend compassion and generosity towards this person because she looked like me. I do not like that truth, but there it is.

 I thought about St. Patrick, a young man who was kidnapped from his British homeland and sold to the Irish as a slave, though he escaped. Several years later, he returned to the very people who had enslaved him—choosing to leave his homeland for the sake of sharing Christ with them. I wonder how often we marvel at the heroic and sacrificial legacy of St. Patrick, dismissing it as something we could never do. Yet our heritage is full of nomads and pilgrims, strangers and seekers, who left the earthly comforts of home behind for the sake of knowing Christ.

As people of God, we are pilgrims on this earth journeying towards our eternal home. In the book of Hebrews, the author describes multiple men and women of faith who died without seeing the realization of their promised homeland in their lifetime:

They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

As a Christian, I can identify with both the young woman with no home as well as the man in the fuzzy green top hat. My innate longing for “home” and “belonging” may never be fully realized in this lifetime, and yet,

I have a homeland.
We have a homeland.

This is the promise we can cling to in times when we inevitably feel like strangers in this world, when belonging is hard to find and we begin to feel lost. Before his death, Jesus comforted his disciples with the promise that he was going ahead to prepare an eternal home for them, but he also invited his followers to look for him in the faces of strangers—in people we wouldn’t think to engage or even look at.

For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. (Matthew 25:35)

When later reflecting upon our interaction with the woman at the grocery store experience—the woman who had blessed us—Drew said,

“We gave her water, but she gave us God. How amazing is that?”

She had nothing but “God bless you” to give—yet with her blessing, she gave us everything. As we enter the last two weeks of Lent, may we keep in step with the Savior who had “no place to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20), welcoming the strangers among us and within us, confident that as we walk, we are not alone. For we are pilgrims, always on the way Home.