Dwelling

Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52

When I was a little girl, my parents and I would go over to my grandma’s for dinner almost every weekend. We would pick up food from Arby’s and eat it on plates at the dinner table. We would chat and catch up, my Dad would play through some old favorites on the piano, and eventually, it would be time to go home. We would gather our things and head to the entryway as we put on our coats. Being the stubborn child I was, I often would try to say that I didn’t need a coat. Growing up in California, I thought coats were mostly unnecessary since it almost never got truly cold. Certainly not as cold as we have been experiencing the last several days here with all of this snow. There would be some back and forth, and then inevitably, my grandma would sing, “take good care of yourself, you belong to me,” and that was final. I knew when I heard her sing that little phrase that I had lost that argument, and I better go ahead and get my coat on. It was years before I realized that little phrase she would sing to me was actually from a song, “Button up your Overcoat,” which was popularized in 1929.

As I read through our scriptures for today, I was reminded of the way that clothing serves us by providing us with shelter, not just as a fashion statement. While my stubbornness not to wear my coat probably wouldn’t have harmed me much as I went from the warmth of my grandma’s home to the warmth of a car and then from the car to the warmth of my own home, there are many for whom their coat is their primary form of physical shelter.

There are many forms of shelter. There is a shelter for your physical body, whether that be a house, a car, or a coat. There is also a sense of metaphorical shelter. However, this is a shelter that holds your spirit, holds your dreams, holds safe your inner self. This type of shelter can be found amongst family or chosen family or even among new friends. It is also this type of shelter that I believe tends to make us feel like we are at home. It is this sense of home that captured my imagination as I have been pondering the forms of shelter. I think that Home is perhaps the truest and maybe purest form of shelter.

I recently had a chance to experience a piece of this sense of home amongst new friends. I got a chance to go over to a friend’s place and bake gingerbread cookies. There were only a couple of us there, and none of us had known each other long, but we quickly fell into a pattern of home. We talked about everything, nothing, and anything. Laughing as we sang along to Disney movie soundtracks. As I left there that evening, hours later than I expected to, my heart felt a little lighter, and I realized that I had let a part of myself shine amongst these new friends that had been boxed and put to the side for a long time. I felt heart happy, a sense of deep intermingling of hope, peace, joy, and love. In that moment, I will also note that I felt fully clothed in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. These virtues that not only would be seen and experienced by any I interacted within that moment but also that would serve as shelter for my own self. A coat of warmth to take back into the world that can feel so cold.

It is also that sense of home and warmth that I think Jesus was experiencing when Mary and Joseph find him in the temple. Jesus was naturally drawn to the place he would find himself at home, his Father’s house. And what is he found doing there? Sitting among the teachers and asking them questions. He was letting a part of himself shine that probably didn’t get the chance to come out very often yet was a fully authentic expression of who he was. A part of himself that had a deep desire to know God better. Not only did he seek out a place where he could develop his interest in pursuing a deeper relationship with God, but also he went to a place where he knew that he would be fully accepted for all of who he was, home. What is interesting is that in embracing this side of himself, he also seemed to embrace the virtues mentioned in Colossians. While it is easy for us to assume that the embracing of these virtues of compassion, kindness, and so on were simply the trinitarian nature of Christ pouring out of the young Jesus, I would argue that it is actually was a product of Jesus feeling at home that he naturally clothes himself in compassion and kindness.

It is really hard to be our best selves when we do not feel like we are in a safe place. And there is a reality that it is not always easy to find places where we do feel at home. When we don’t feel at home in our living situation, at home in our family, at home, perhaps even in our body, it is so much harder to find the clothes of compassion. It can feel like we are being asked to sacrifice ourselves for others to our own detriment. The Good News of this passage, however, is that we always have a home with God. There is always a safe place to be our authentic selves wherever we find God. God knows us and loves us for who we are, who God made us to be. There is always a home for us with God. And when we can find our home, then too can we find ways to clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, trusting that the warmth we share with others will equally warm us as well.