Together A Home: A Message for the Fourth Week of Advent

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It took courage for Joseph to make a home with Mary and Jesus. His rather straight-forward plan to settle into life together with Mary is seriously disrupted when he finds out she’s pregnant.  And not only pregnant, but seemingly miraculously pregnant.  If Joseph had a dozen fearful questions, he likely had a hundred.  His conviction about Mary wobbled and collapsed. His plan derailed. Joseph decides to back out.  He’s a kindhearted man, so he’ll break off his relationship without embarrassing or endangering Mary.  At least this is what he thinks he’ll do when he goes to bed that night.

He has a dream.  An angel shows up.  “Don’t be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,” the angels says.  “I know that all that the prophet said about this wasn’t part of your plan. But go ahead—make God’s plan your plan.  You, Mary, and Jesus—together make a home.” 

The angel didn’t have to say anything more. Joseph got up the next morning with courage.  He still had questions but the fear they generated no longer charted his course.  He listened to God’s guidance through his dream.  He drew direction and strength from it.  And Joseph took Mary home as his wife.  He would continue to be at home in his courageous heart with Mary and Jesus—yes, together a home, no matter what, always, with God’s blessing.

Do we have the courage to make a home here, together, with one another?  Do we have the courage to take each other home into our hearts?  Do we have the courage to risk loving one another in Christ and living together in community?

There are moments, days, and seasons when our hearts fail us.  Fear gets the better of us.  We decide that we’re going to back out of this crazy collective relationship called church.  

We quietly disappear. 

Or we storm out, slamming the metaphorical door.  Or we go through the motions of church, but inside we’re withholding ourselves, refusing to be wholeheartedly present. 

Or we might be here, really here and engaged, but hurting from the many pinches and crunches we inevitably inflict on one another because we are all human beings who are forever learning how to love and be loved in Christ. 

Or we are just beginning to get to know this church family, easing into life together. We’ve got anxiety about whether we can trust each other and trust God.  Maybe, more accurately, we’re wondering if we can trust God’s baffling plan—that we deepen goodness within ourselves with and through one another, that we share and multiply grace by making a home together. 

Taking each other home to our hearts, making a home together here is hard work and risky business.  There’s no way around that reality.  There are no perfect people—including ourselves—or perfect circumstances.  There are no flawless churches.  If we think so and we’re holding out in whatever way for that, then we’re seeking a fantasy, an illusion.  We’ll be disappointed and frustrated again and again.  And, more significantly, we’ll avoid the growth of self and community that can only happen when we show up and do all that we can do to make a home together.  We’ll miss out on opportunities to become more like Jesus as individuals and a church family.  And what that boils down to is missing out on the very purpose of our life here and now.

We need God’s guidance and Joseph’s courage to do this thing we call the Christian life together . . . to be at home with one another and to welcome home any and all who find their way to our doors.


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