A Taste of Home

O Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Psalm 34:8

Yum.  I never realized a hot dog could taste so good!  But it does!  It is for a me a real taste of America.  People are always asking me, “How are you doing? How are you adjusting to life in Germany?”  My answer is usually pretty much the same.  We’re doing fine.  We  miss  our grandkids, our kids and our friends.  But other than that we are making new friends.  Trinity is made up of warm and extremely loving people.  Germany is a great place to live.    We really love Germany.  Yet there are moments when we really miss America and the people we love there. There have been ups and downs, good moments and bad moments.

At those moments, we try remember some advice our son Jon gave us.  He has lived internationally for 5 or 6 years now.  Jon told me, “When you get there, look for things that remind you of America.  On days when you get really homesick or miss America, go do one of those “American things.”  That has been really good advice.  For Linda and me, one of those things we do, is to eat something  “very American.”  I remember one day when I was a really disgruntled mood.  I was homesick but hadn’t put that name to it yet. That night Linda made hot dogs for dinner.  Boy did those hot dogs taste good.  They were a taste of home. They were just the cure I needed for my homesickness.

So now I ask all of you - “How are you doing?  How are you handling life a long way from home?”   I know that most of you don’t think of yourself as living a long way from home but you do.  For those who believe in Jesus our home is in heaven.   We live here as strangers and aliens.  We are in this world but not of this world.  There are going to be times in this life when we feel really out of place – when the morality or the beliefs of those around us is going to make us feel very uncomfortable. There are number of ways we can tend to react to that.  One is simply to get discouraged, and tired of swimming against the stream, wondering what we are doing here and so forth.   Another reaction might be that we compromise our own beliefs in order to fit in and be accepted - to go along in order to get along. A third reaction is to get angry and judgmental of the people around us.  “What’s wrong with them?  Why can’t they see things the way we see them?”  But that would simply shut doors in the faces of those whom God calls us to love.

Such moments of feeling out of place, are moments of homesickness.  We long for the home Jesus promised us in heaven.  The best cure for such homesickness?  A taste of home!  That’s why God invites us to His dinner table.  That’s what He offers us in Holy Communion.  He invites us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”  He gives us here a “foretaste of the feast to come.”  He gives us a taste of home.    He gives us a taste of His love, of the price He paid to forgive our sins. With this taste He reminds us of how He responded when we felt out of place with Him.  When we were in fact His enemies He loved us, died for us, adopted us as His own in baptism.  With this taste He says, “Love those around you, as I have loved you.”  With this taste He encourages us to keep on living for Him as strangers in this world trusting in His promises that He has a place for us, He will come again to receive us unto Himself that where He is, we will one day also be – at home. 

In my first parish, I had a shut in named Faye Werner.  She was bedfast, paralyzed from the waist down.  Every time I visited her, she would ask me, “Pastor, Why am I still here?  Why won’t God take me home?”  Faye was homesick. So I would take her Holy Communion.  In this meal God gave her a taste of home, He reminded her that His home was real and that one day He would come to take her there.  That’s why this meal is so delicious.  That’s why when you are discouraged, tired of feeling out of place, ready to give up, or perhaps even angry at the world around you, He invites you to His table.  Here He forgives you.  He encourages you.  He calms your heart.  He gives you hope. Instead of judging you, He loves you so that you might do the same.  He gives you a taste of Home.  Yum!