The war in Ukraine has many of us thinking about what “home” means.
Shelter
The destruction of thousands upon thousands of buildings has created 10 million displaced persons (and at least three million refugees) … Those facts force a new appreciation of home as “shelter and provision” on those of us who have long taken both for granted.
Patriotism
A magnetic pull continues to compel Ukrainian citizens living abroad to return to a war zone, take up arms, and defend territory from an invading force.
This movement of thousands from safety toward danger, on purpose and with passion, proclaims the undeniable connection between “home” and “homeland.”
Many of us have long been at ease in the former because the latter was safe – but we never really thought about it. And many of us have denigrated the whole concept of homeland simply because we could – because we are able to be complacent and obliviously ungrateful – because our homeland is not under attack, not being invaded. (At least, not yet.)
Homelessness
Our culture has long analyzed the “homelessness problem” of American cities, debating the benefits of law enforcement vs. therapeutic intervention vs. ongoing toleration, as if homelessness were a problem that could be solved.
In the Ukraine, we see what a “homelessness problem” looks like when the cities themselves are being reduced to ash and rubble, crushing and entombing the human beings they were built to house.
Russia’s indiscriminate bombs and missiles have framed homelessness as an evil, an affliction of human beings, evidence of egregious injustice. That kind of homelessness obviously cannot be solved. But it must be healed.
Lessons of War
Home as shelter and provision.
Homeland as a precious thing to be defended and protected.
Homelessness as something violent and obscene, a war crime.
These are unmistakable lessons from Ukraine, where the war is, at its root, all about “home” – who gets to live where, and on what terms, and under which authority – and about “homelessness” – what happens to people when their homes are destroyed, when their homeland is attacked, when they have nowhere to go but “somewhere else.”
Closer to home
This past week, all my thinking about the war in Ukraine was seized and amplified by a situation much closer to home: My sister and brother-in-law lost their home in the tornado that hit Jacksboro, Texas.
One moment, they had a home; the next moment, they had piles of debris – their personal belongings strewn over several fields.
But their story has not played out like the stories of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian army. Food and clothing and assistance were in place and available to them within hours.
Within a day, money was pouring into a gofundme account my other sister and I set up for them.
Within two days, they had been offered multiple places to stay and had settled on a home they could use, rent-free, through the end of the school year.
Because their homeland is at peace, and prosperous, and populated by people for whom generosity is integral to identity, my sister and brother-in-law were only homeless for a brief moment.
After the destruction of their home, they remain peacefully in their community, rebuilding alongside sympathetic fellows, sustained physically and emotionally by lavish assistance.
Safe Houses / Safe Home?
It is tempting to draw the conclusion that, as long as we are citizens of a prosperous and peaceful nation, we are safe in our homes – or that we will be safe in speedy replacement-homes, should disaster hit.
But I think there is a deeper implication for us, something C.S. Lewis wrote about in “The Problem of Pain” and Jesus taught multiple times: this life is not and cannot ever be our home.
Wars and tornados only peel back the camouflage to reveal the truth of humanity: in this life, apart from Christ, we are all refugees.
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Psalm 37:3 – 4
so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.
The meaning of this hymn of King David’s becomes clear only when set in the context of King David’s life experience: He had no security in “the land” of this world – he was, at various points, a forgotten youngest son, a resented youngest brother, a fugitive on the run from a murderous monarch, a fugitive on the run from a usurping child, a repentant murderer, a grieving father… Only because David took “delight in the Lord” – only because David trusted “in the Lord” – could David do any good or receive any of his heart’s desires.
The Lord WAS the security David enjoyed. The Lord WAS the desire of David’s heart – which meant the Lord called him “a man after God’s own heart.” (1 Samuel 13:14)
If we want security, if we want delight, if we want godly hearts, then it must be so with all of us, too.
Earth is not our home
Our earthly homes are always, even at their best, temporary and fragile.
As are our homelands.
We cannot settle in and stay permanently, in a home or in a homeland – because we were not made for here.
By our nature, we are and must be (like refugees) bound “somewhere else.”
While we are here, our only real assurance – the only safety that lasts and endures – is not of this world. It cannot be nailed down or roofed. It is offered to us without price; but it is also never forced on us – not even when bombs are falling.
Ironically, when we try to anchor ourselves to “home”, the earthly place – when we stake our all on the bricks and mortar (or borders and armies) that will keep us “safe” – we inadvertently remove ourselves from the sanctuary of “home”, the sheltering Lord.
The security of being under the covering of our Father in Heaven – of being His children, grafted into His family, ransomed and cherished and safe forever – this is the security of which David sang. This is the security which Jesus offers, right now.
But we want it both ways, don’t we? Faith in God, but security in our structurally intact home and our well-defended homeland?
Lewis describes our conundrum like this:
The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and pose an obstacle to our return to God … (so) our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
At Home … nowhere & everywhere
Lewis’s claim finds its fullest expression in Jesus.
Jesus’s lifestyle as itinerate rabbi and Jesus’s teaching about what “home” is meant to be makes it clear that we are only ever completely at home in Him while we are living in the world:
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6:19 – 20)
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
(Matthew 8:20)
In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
(John 14:2 – 3)
Writers of the New Testament applied this logic to all their endeavors, justifying evangelical fearlessness and readiness for martyrdom by pointing to their hoped-for homeland, “somewhere else”:
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Philippians 3:20)
For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
(Hebrews 13:14)
Applications
Our response to earthly homelessness – whatever its root cause – must be generous and swift because our Lord models those qualities.
The Other War; the higher stakes
What’s at stake in the war in Ukraine – who gets to live where, and on what terms, and under which authority – parallels another war, an ongoing war whose end is certain but whose stakes in the meantime are incomparably high.
The victory Christ won on our behalf through the Cross means that we get to live with Him, under terms of extravagant and eternal grace, under the authority of the One who made us and knows us and loves us more completely than we can imagine.
Jesus will never leave us orphaned.
Jesus offers us home.
Jesus is our home!
But … we have to choose Him.
And He – and we – have an Enemy, working hard to woo us into choosing something (anything) other than Him.
Jesus’s is an all-volunteer occupying army; there is no draft, no coercion, no mercenary supplemental force. Jesus invites any and all to enlist, to become part of the campaign of relentless love, to be ready to die for others as love in action. Jesus leads the way; Jesus IS the Way.
His Enemy – and ours – commands forces that resemble the foot soldiers from Russia: deceived, cheated, and indifferently offered up as grist for the machine. That Enemy uses tactics like the thugs who employ kidnapped children for their own violent ends … drugs, intimidation, threats, shame … The Enemy demands a readiness to kill but hides the requirement to be killed. He is “a liar, and the Father of lies.” (John 8:44)
For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
(Ephesians 6:12 – 13)
Please note:
We have the prerogative of denying the existence of this Other War, but we do not have the prerogative of opting out of it.
We are all in one army or the other.
Where we live now
The war in Ukraine. The Other War, ongoing.
The tornado in Jacksboro. The fire – or lightning – or ice storm – or bomb – that’s headed each of our ways, inevitably, at some point.
Our ongoing spiritual task in the face of these realities is threefold:
First, to remember that omnipresent threats to our earthly homes cannot make us homeless, except temporarily. And homelessness only clarifies the truth that we are, in fact, refugees in this life – bound for somewhere else because we were made for somewhere else. In the meantime, we can only be at home, on earth, as we abide in the Lord.
Second, to remember that earthly wars are always and only manifestations of the Other War – the war that Christ won, decisively and permanently, on Calvary. “Wars and rumors of wars” will be with us as long as we are in this world, but we are already the victors, in Christ.
Finally, to treasure the truth that we WILL BE fully and forever at home, with the Lord, someday.
Our practical task is both more straightforward and more unpredictably diverse:
We are to be the hands and feet of the One who is both our commanding officer and our indwelling power.
That means seeing as He sees and serving as He served – compassionately, humbly, extravagantly. Always.
The Grand Finale: Home at Last!
The most profound good news possible is that Christ’s victory has specifically purchased for us an eventual, eternal home that will exceed anything we could have asked for or imagined for ourselves here on earth.
That home exists where all wars have ceased, where God’s victory is on display for eternity. And when we get there, we will truly – finally! – be both forever at home and always at peace. The “abiding” to which we are called in this life will completely define and illuminate the life to come.
John Wesley’s famous last words therefore apply both in the now and in the not-yet: “Best of all, God is with us.”
God is with us. Even now.
And He will be with us. Even then.
He will be with us!
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See, the home of God is among mortals.
(Revelations 21:1 – 5)
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
