You Can`t Go Home Again

You Can`t Go Home Again
By Foy Valentine

I. Home for Southern Baptists
II. A Look at Our Effort to Go Home Again.
If we can`t go home again, then where can we go?
III. Toward Our True Home, the City of God.
     1.This Home is a Family
     2.This Home is a Brotherhood
     3. This Home is a Moral Fortress
     4. This Home Is a Workshop
     5. This Home is a Kingdom
CONCLUSION 

[Breathes there an editor
With soul so dead
Who never to himself
Hath said,
How on earth can I fill this enormous void
of three appallingly empty pages so as
to meet this dastardly deadline that
doth so easily beset me?

Well, I have to tell you that on occasion I have dropped into this worthy journal some of my own palpably questionable, if not glaringly unworthy, writing. Filler. Stuff Copy to accommodate a deadline. The piece that follows is submitted, as graduate students are wont to write, "in partial fulfillment of the requirements" laid on my sore back by the current deadline.

Please permit me, however, one other small agenda.

Ethicists often ponder and frequently debate the issue of change in the world of ethics. It has occurred to me that it might not be a totally unprofitable exercise to look critically at a sermon I preached 35 years ago to the Southern Baptist Convention messengers in Kansas City. Times were different. I myself was a piddling forty years old. What has changed in the ethics arena during the last 35 years? Have the basic ethical issues changed at all? What do you think? What shall we then do?]

I none of the most poignantly insightful titles in American literature, Thomas Wolfe makes the point that you can`t go home again. The point is at once practical and profound, mundane and philosophical, somber and joyous, bitter and sweet, devastating and exhilarating. Most of us have tried it a thousand ways and know with Thomas Wolfe`s George Webber… "that you can`t go home again.

You can`t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man`s dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile… back home to lyricism.. .back home to aestheticism, back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time, back home to the escapes of Time and Memory." [Thomas Wolfe, You Can`t Go Home Again, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941), p. 706.]

The Hebrew children spent forty fruitless and futile years trying to go home again, to what was in reality an alien land.

Their experience is recorded with brilliant clarity in Numbers:

"And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt" (Num. 14:1-4).

T. S. Eliot spoke with poetic precision when he had J. Alfred Prufrock to say, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid." I do not wish to be positionized at this Convention as a Kansas City Kierkegaard nor do I propose that we make Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar our heroes because they sang our song. I should like, nevertheless, to suggest that there are signs that we, like Prufrock, have seen the moment of our greatness flicker, we have seen the eternal Footman hold our coat and snicker, and in short, we are afraid. This is a critical time in American church life, but we will forfeit the future if we continually bathe ourselves in nostalgia and expend our energies in trying vainly to go home again.

I. Home for Southern Baptists

It is in order for us to focus briefly on the home from which Southern Baptists have come.

We were a country people, but, like the rest of America, we have moved to town.

We were an uneducated, even ignorant, people, but we are now learning a few things.

We were a provincial people in confident control of our province, but to our anguish and dismay our cogs no longer seem to engage the gears of any real power in our culture, We find ourselves an isolated and waning force in the court house, the state house, the White House, and the Glass House on the East River.

We were, at least in ecclesiology, a radical sect, but we are tending to become another Church.

We were racially, historically, economically, politically, and culturally homogeneous, but we are fast becoming irreversibly heterogencous.

We were revival-oriented, but revivalism as known and practiced by Baptists when I was a boy is dead. It is dead inspite of our frantic mouth-to-mouth breathing over it and even though we still respectfully hold one-week and even two-week memorial services in loving tribute to its memory.

We were poor, but now, by any reasonable standard on earth, we are affluent.

We were ill-housed in our sorry, one-room, crowded, frame meeting houses, but now we meet in splendid, uncrowded sanctuaries for which we are gloriously in debt.

We were fervently convinced of the rightness of our cause, but now we harbor all the questions and doubts that normally accompany a measure of sophistication.

We were stoutly and vociferously opposed to the institutionalism of the old-line churches, but in only a hundred years we have established institutionalism of every shape, form, and fashion; and all the web is not yet woven.

We were rooted in the soil, but now from the cradle to the grave we roll around on the pavement.

We were a brash and lusty adolescent denomination bulging with unguided muscles, but the aging process has worked its unwelcome work on us and we are now politic, cautious, meticulous, respectable, proper, aging.

We lived in a settled, unchanging world where we knew even as we also were known, but now we live in a world where the winds of change blow with devastating fury across the face of all the earth.

We lived in an isolated, marvelously moated land where men never dreamed of mastering the black arts of nuclear war, but the time has come when men in a fantastically shrunken world have both dreamed that dreadful dream and actualized it.

This has been home for Southern Baptists. For us to go home again would be to go back to the country, back to ignorance, back to provincialism, back to radical sectarianism, back to homogeneity, back to revivalism, back to poverty, back to isolationism, back to our cabins in the clearings, back to the frontier, back to all this and much, much more.

II. A Look at Our Effort to Go Home Again.

Why are Southern Baptists trying to go home again? Because it is the natural thing to do. Because it is inevitable when growth has come. Because we can not help it when we have aged a bit. Because we are caught in a world in travail and

we are badly disoriented. Because we have not yet found ways of adjusting to industrialism, unionism, urbanism, statism, socialism, or for the most part even capitalism. Because we have discovered that our old formulae for success are no longer producing results and we are in shock about it. Because we have not learned to speak today`s tongue. Because we are really not at home in this brave, new world.

How are we trying to go home again? By reproducing country churches in the city suburbs. By resorting to the use of artificial stimuli to produce results like we used to have. By hiding the fact that while we are fierce of visage we are actually faint of heart. By maintaining the pretense that we are as brave as bulls when we have actually become as timid as mice. By cultivating a mood that says, "Hang the facts. Give me a cliche." By our compulsive activism.

What is going to come of the effort to go home again? The effort will win some battles but it will lose the war. It is not a mean and ignoble thing to try to go home again. In fact, it has certain truly sublime elements. It is simply not starred to succeed. We cannot turn back the clock or even stop it no matter how dramatic our histrionics. We cannot recapture our past. We cannot recall yesterday. We can`t go home again.

If we can`t go home again, then where can we go?

III. Toward Our True Home, the City of God.

Like Abraham, we must seek that city whose builder and maker is God. We remember, however, that while the City is in eternity, the seeking must be done in time. Christ was teaching us something very near to the heart of his gospel, not just a bit of pretty ritual, when he taught us to pray. "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Mart. 6:10). Believers are not free to flag or fail until "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rev. 11: 15).

It is the two-fold thesis of this message that we can`t go home again and that we can move measurably toward that true home which God is preparing for them that love him. Here and now, with God`s help and by his grace, we are to be moving consciously, conscientiously, and consistently toward this ideal home. Its final consummation we necessarily await, but its distinct outlines and chief characteristics we need already to be getting familiar with.

In order that we may neither waste precious time in looking back at the home whence we have come or in looking bewilderedly for the wrong city, let us give attention to some of the distinctive features of our true home, the city of God. Any home which is satisfying and adequate for God`s people here must approximate in outline and foreshadow in form the qualities of the home hereafter.

How can the eternal home be identified? What is heaven like? It is a family. It is a brotherhood. It is a moral fortress. It is a workshop. It is a kingdom. Let us consider these characteristics.

1.This Home is a Family

The ultimate home which Christians seek is a family. In it God is Father, Jesus Christ is elder Brother, and the Holy Spirit is eternal Comforter. In it, the family of God`s redeemed children shall ever dwell together in unity. The home we seek is characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

In view of that home which is our ultimate destination, let us, as an earnest of our intent, begin here and now to make of our human homes little colonies of heaven where we dwell together in Christian love, Christian joy, Christian peace, Christian patience, Christian kindness, Christian goodness, Christian faithfulness, Christian gentleness, and Christian self-control. If my profession of interest in the home to come is genuine, then there must be a reflection of that interest in my home housed on the street where I now live.

The concept of family in our Christian faith eschews too-early dating, immature marriages, feminine fathers, masculine mothers, undisciplined children, absentee parents, juvenile delinquency, sexual promiscuity, divorce, materialism, and all the other forces that fragment today`s families. It is a concept that embraces careful preparation for marriage, spiritually solid foundations for marriage, and marriage that is both initiated and lived out "in the Lord," where believers are not yoked unequally together with unbelievers and where husband and wife and parents and children are so caught up in a dream bigger than themselves that they strive through the years to make the dream of a truly Christian home come true.

2.This Home is a Brotherhood

Christians seek a home characterized by brotherhood. It is a city without walls. Outside walls are not necessary in the home where we are headed because there are no enemies there. And inner walls are not required because the redeemed who dwell together in brotherly love have no selfish interests to protect, no evil to hide, no exclusiveness to relish, no psychological neuroses to nurture by shutting out somebody else.

In view of the city without walls sought by the saved, it behooves us to begin here and now to build such cities of brotherhood. The middle wall of partition which still divides believers is a wall Jesus Christ died to tear down. To the extent that we worship that divisive wall, we re-crucify Christ. To the extent that we tolerate it, we deny Him who came to break it down. To the extent that we cherish it, we dishonor Him who hated it and who hates the pride and prejudice it still stands for.

To pretend that our prejudice in maintaining the walls of racial segregation, class consciousness, economic exclusiveness, and social snobbery does no violence to the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and the altar of God, Savior, is to close our eyes to the real purpose of the life and the death of Christ.

We need to abolish racial discrimination in our country and in our churches, not because of a clause in the Constitution, nor because of ideological challenge, nor yet because we need the votes of the watching world. We need to conquer race prejudice because it is a sin against almighty God and a rejection of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son.

Let us then cease shouting at each other across Kipling`s seas of misunderstanding. Let us rather learn, in preparation for the brotherhood beyond, to call God, "Father" and all his people, "Brother" so that God`s city without walls begins to look attractive to us here and now.

3. This Home is a Moral Fortress

Christians seek a home which is a moral fortress. It is that bastion of ultimate integrity, that impregnable mother lode of rectitude, that veritable quintessence of righteousness which John described in Revelation as the city where "there shall in no wise enter… anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie" (Rev. 2 1:27).

As we seek the city "wherein dwelleth righteousness" let us "follow righteousness" on our way there. As we seek the city where no immorality in any form shall ever be, let us make our profession of religion a morally relevant and ethically meaningful thing here and now. Christian morality demonstrates its genuineness only when it authenticates itself outside the church house in the rough-and-tumble, everyday world in which we daily live.

In this world`s moral gloom let us not idly tolerate the erosion of all moral standards until our churches become like Robinson Crusoe`s goat pasture, so big that the goats inside are as wild as the goats outside. Let us rather in the moral realm become "Christ`s men from head to foot and give no chances to the flesh to have its fling" (Rom. 12:14, Phillips).

4. This Home Is a Workshop

Christians seek a home which is a workshop. The old rocking chair won`t get us there. The notion that in heaven we will be stretched out on flowery beds of ease to do nothing forever has an unquestioned appeal when we are tired, but the fact is that the notion is extra-biblical and grossly inaccurate. Our true home will be a place of creative and satisfying work for God where "his servants shall serve him" (Rev. 22:3).

As we seek the home which is the Christian`s ultimate workshop, let us perform our daily work, here and now, "As unto the Lord." In the beginning God assigned Adam the work of tilling and keeping the Garden of Eden. In the decalogue He commanded his people, "Six days shalt thou labor." Even so he wills for us to work. Paul proclaimed this principle when we admonished, "If any one will not work, let him not eat" (2 Thess. 3:10 RSV). The Christian`s approach to work involves seeking to find God`s will concerning what work to do, experiencing something in the work itself which is significant before God and meaningful to man, cultivating a spirit of responsibility which takes honest pride in the work done, and in finding through daily work the highest self-development of which we are capable. Daily work, rightly understood, is no onerous chore but a holy task.

5. This Home is a Kingdom

Christians seek as their permanent home the city of the Great King where our final citizenship is.

As we await the final papers for our future citizenship, let us honor that future with a significant Christian citizenship where we now live.

In the last presidential election when interest in citizenship reached a new high, only 64.3% of the qualified voters in the United States bothered to go to polls. If we find corruption in government we cannot honestly put all the blame on the so-called professional politicians. The blame must be shared by those who refuse to work in the normal processes of citizenship. In recent years many a good man has sought elective office only to be defeated by the apathy and inertia of his friends-equally good men who did not bother to get involved. Plato rightly said that the punishment suffered by the wise who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of bad men.

The Christian citizen recognizes that civil government is of divine appointment. He prays for those in positions of authority. He pays his taxes. He obeys the laws. He conscientiously casts his ballot. When the situation requires it, he presents himself as a candidate for public office. He remembers to use moral discernment in his support of governmental programs, bearing in mind that his ultimate loyalty is to the King of Kings. The responsible Christian citizen will not even try to wash his hands of politics. He will rather try to get redemptively involved in the whole realm of citizenship.

CONCLUSION

If Christians bear clearly enough in mind the open portals of the eternal Home and hold well enough in focus the beckoning arms of the heavenly Father, then we will avoid both crippling commitments to the home of yesterday and debilitating compromises with the home of today. We must ride light in the saddle if we are to avoid injury when the horse stumbles. We must, if we are to manifest spiritual vigor and moral thrust, maintain a structured tentativeness with regard to this present age. Indeed, "It is people for whom the navel cord of this world has been cut who can give themselves most joyously to its redemption." [Karl A. Olsson, Passion (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 91.]

This does not mean, however, that we are to retreat into stained glass sanctuaries, cutting off all concern for and commerce with the world. Quite the contrary. If we fail to leaven the lump, we fail Christ.

This emphasis on the Christian`s responsibility in this world is based on the understanding that God himself cares about what happens on this earth. Jehovah God was portrayed by the prophets as being concerned about such things as military alliances, the selling of debtors into slavery, the plundering of the poor by the rich, the cheating of the buyer by the seller, and the oppression of the weak by the strong. The God of the Bible, the God Christians know through personal faith in Jesus Christ, is no abstract First Cause or Prime Mover or Great Unknown out in the Great Somewhere who can be placated by a bit if discreet crying in the chapel. He is a personal God who is very deeply and very definitely concerned about military alliances, racial segregation, the unconscionable profits of the drug industry, the indefensible price fixing that honeycombs big business, and the criminal corruption that persists in organized labor. He is concerned about tax evasion, padded expense accounts, the exploitation of violence as entertainment, the toleration of senseless killings in the boxing ring, family fragmentation, and the unsolved problems of the aging. He is concerned about unemployment at home and child labor abroad and the one hundred billion dollars a year (or about eight per cent of its gross annual product) which the world now spends on weapons. He is concerned about the hideous inanities preached as a sorry substitute for the Christian gospel, the infuriatingly bland and crashingly dull church programs calculated to produce an attitude of profane indifference, the immensely absurd spectacle of loving the souls of the poor and needy in Africa and Asia and hating the immigrants themselves when they move to our shores from those countries, and all the other moral flotsam and spiritual jetsam that could be orchestrated into this melancholy tune.

God cares. God is concerned. And since God is concerned, his people have an obligation to be concerned, too.

The demand of Christ our Lord is not that we should take a sentimental journey back home. It is rather a demand for us to take a bold and visionary giant step toward our Christian destination. What God wants of us today is not an eviscerated, all-things-to-all-men, formal confession of creedal correctness. What he wants is a quality of life that demonstrates to this world and to the great cloud of witnesses above that we have been with Jesus

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