Why Houses Matter

This past Monday Becky and I paid the bank an exorbitant amount of money for two keys to a house here in Langhorne.  Then on Tuesday we traveled the length of the turnpike to oversee the packing of all our worldly goods in anticipation of tomorrow's reunion with them in here in Langhorne.

The car rolled to a stop at the curb in front our house in Beaver and the place looked just like it looked three months ago, except that the lawn had waken from its winter slumber and was stretching its new green blades towards the warm sun.  Our next door neighbors were in their yard and glad to see us and to catch us up on all the news from up and down the street.  We let ourselves into the house and as we crossed the threshold into that familiar space we stepped back into a place where all the joys of 90 days at Langhorne Presbyterian Church had yet to be met.

We spent just about an even 48 hours in Beaver taking care of business at the bank and the real estate agent's office, stopping by Park Church and visiting with friends.  But mostly we made sure that all those things that filled the house on Taylor Avenue – tables, beds and chairs, pots, pans and china, photo albums, art projects and knickknacks that tell stories of trips and friends and favorite places – were safely secured by the movers in preparation for the trip to Langhorne. 

When the truck was loaded and packers gone, Becky and I walked through our empty house one final time and we prayed the last prayer we would pray within those four walls.  We thanked God for our children who grew into adulthood in that house, for Christmas celebrations and evenings with friends, good neighbors and long walks along the bluff above the Ohio River.  It was a good house; just the right house for that season in our life. 

As we wound our way over the Alleghenies and through those turnpike tunnels that lead from west to east, I thought a lot about our house and houses in general.  Part of me doesn't like the idea that Becky and I have accumulated so much stuff over the years and that we will be "downsizing" into a house that could accommodate an entire extended family of aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins in the favelas of Brazil or the villages of Guatemala.  I remembered that Jesus told the would-be disciple, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Luke 9:58) I wondered about the Christian wisdom of being a homeowner.

Asceticism, the denouncing of worldly pleasures and possessions, always shows up as an expression of the spiritual life, and Christian asceticism has much to teach every disciple.  But it is a heresy to devise some sort of system that makes the ascetic more spiritual than his housewife sister or closer to God than her computer engineer brother. 

Houses, places to lay your head, are important to Christ's people (just as not getting too attached to them is important to Christ's people).  Jesus enjoyed the hospitality of homes – the home of Peter's mother-in-law, the home of Mary and Martha, the home of Zacchaeus, the home of Simon the Pharisee and many more.  Philemon, Nympha, Aquila and Priscilla, Philip, Simon the Tanner, Lydia, Jason, Titius, and Mnasom are among the homeowners whose house-welcome to the early church is commended. 

Houses are important because they are the places where meals are shared and children nurtured, strangers welcomed and memories stored.  Houses are important because Jesus likes to visit in them and to live there with us.  The Father sent the Son into a world of houses.  Eugene Peterson's provocative translation of John 1:16 gets at this aspect of the incarnation:  "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood."

There were tears mixed with that final prayer in the house on Taylor Avenue in Beaver, but they were not tears of sorrow; they were tears of joy.  Jesus was with us in that old house during all the high days of celebration and during the days when relationships were stretched and nerves frayed. He was there when decisions were made about colleges and careers.  He was with us when bad news broke in like a brigand through a basement window, stealing our joy, and when good news came knocking at the front door.  He was there through it all. 

Tomorrow evening after the moving van pulls away from the curb in front of 31 Golf Club Dr. in Langhorne and we are surrounded by a sea of boxes and by tables and chairs who are confused about which room they're supposed to be in, Becky and I will need to stop and pray and be sure to say that Jesus is welcomed to our new home, too.  Welcome to stay, come what may. 

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.