The Homesick Cafe
When I was a child, I walked home from school for lunch, except it wasn’t called lunch but called dinner, and when I stepped through the back door, I could smell the homemade rolls ready to come out of the oven, served with all the butter my little heart desired, the drippier the better. On the playroom table there would be a plate of pot roast and mashed potatoes, with butterbeans or fried okra. Sometimes, in early days of spring, there would be tiny English peas, grown, picked, and hand-delivered to the house in a crocker sack by a down-and-out Black man named Fate Red, and in all the years since, there has never been anything to match the sweetness of those peas. And I still get homesick for the comfort food that I grew up with.
When my children came home from faraway places, I cooked the things they loved the best: lamb chops and angel hair pasta and asparagus with Hollandaise and banana pudding or Chess pie. I wanted them to feel welcomed and to feel the comfort and safety of home.
Most folks are homesick for something. We long to go back and fill up on the food that makes us feel safe. Sometimes I get homesick for what used to be, homesick for the easiness of life of those early years. My little daughter is grown and made her own way. My strong son is long gone, these nineteen years. I remember what used to be. You probably remember that, too. But as they say in the South, “used to” died.
What we have is this moment, maybe this afternoon and tonight, and if the creek doesn’t rise, and the mountain doesn’t blow, maybe tomorrow as well. We spend our whole lives with unbidden change. I don’t like it. Maybe you don’t like it either. The heart of the matter is that we are not in control.The future will unfold for good or for ill.
The great German theologian Moltman wrote this: “The world is a vast container full of future and of boundless possibilities for good and for evil. Suffering and hope reinforce each other. This has to be understood in its historic possibilities. We sow seeds of hope in an age at the horizon of a new future.
It’s a world of possibilities in which we can serve the future of truth and righteousness and peace.” It won’t surprise you that the title of that book is A Theology of Hope.
You can see evil, but there’s an equal and balancing goodness everywhere among us: it’s what my friend and I call a theology of goodness. In this place, on this day, we have things for a feast: family, music, a peaceable kingdom. Maybe something on the plate will bring you comfort, and God knows we need to be comforted.
Usually the homily is a time to dish up food for thought, with a cup-full of theology, a measure of storytelling, a pinch of history, and maybe something scarier. This small universe, St. Luke’s, has its share of quakes, heart-quakes, that shake us to the core. We have to notice and talk about it and cry about it. Blaming doesn’t help. Pretending is worse. But we’re probably not going to melt down or freeze up.
We come here to chase away the homesick blues, and we take comfort wherever it can be found.
The table of Jesus is here. You’ll be welcomed and honored. It is a safe place to be, when there’s no place to run.
Stay with me here. Imagine Jesus standing right over there, to my left. Do you see him? He wears a chef’s apron, clean, bright. He looks directly into your eyes and says, “Welcome to the homesick café. I’m glad you’re here. What would you like to have?”
You hesitate and say, “I’m not quite ready yet. Could I have a little more time?”
He is calm and quiet. He waits. After a while he says, “Today there’s a special tasting menu. The first course is a pâté. I made it myself. Would you like some?”
You might ask, “What does it taste like?”
He says, “Hum. Maybe that’s not what you’re hungry for. Have you ever tried our chicken and dumplings? That comes with sweet potatoes, field peas, and cornbread, and you might like the blackberry cobbler for dessert.”
You say, “That sounds great.”
He says, “Good. Sit back. Relax. Enjoy the view of the trees and the garden. I’ll be back. You’ll be glad that you waited.”
After a while you happen to glance at the right hand column of the menu where the prices usually are, but there are no prices there. Now you think that you’re in trouble. You’ve come into this place and ordered soul food, but the cost may be too high, and panic rises inside.
And suddenly Jesus reappears and says, “Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention – about the menu. Don’t worry. This meal is on the house.”
