You Can't Go Home Again
A preview of this Sunday's first sermon in the Lent series "Jesus the Stranger"
You’ve probably heard that proverb—the idea that you can’t go back to the way things were, back to your hometown and have everything be the same.
You may not know the origin of the proverb, however. It’s actually the title of a 1940 book by novelist Tom Wolfe which tells the story of George Webber, a fledgling author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his hometown of Libya Hill in North Carolina. The book becomes a bestseller, but when Webber returns to Libya Hill, expecting a warm welcome for the “hometown boy made good,” he is stunned at the hatred that greets him. The townsfolk thought Webber’s depiction of them was distorted and painted them in a bad light. Webber gets hate mail and death threats, and the fury of his hometown drives him away.
Webber is forced to go on a journey of self-discovery out of the country, eventually returning to America with a different sense about it and himself.
You Can’t Go Home Again reveals the truth that the people who know you best will always see you through the lens of the familiar. Success can make you suspicious, especially if that success takes you away from home. It’s natural for people to want to remind you where you came from, that you’re not better than they are, and that you owe them something.
Jesus knew this from experience, which is why he doesn’t expect much when he comes back home to Nazareth to preach in the synagogue. There in the place he grew up, among family, relatives, and neighbors, Jesus goes from being the snot-nosed kid playing in the street and the craftsman working in the shop to a stranger, an outsider, whose preaching makes them furious enough to want to throw him off a cliff.
“Familiarity breeds contempt,” goes the old proverb, and Jesus reminds us that familiarity with him can breed a certain kind of complacency or expectation among those who think they know him best. He invites us to avoid the mistake of his own family and home tome, to suspend our expectations and preconceived notions, and discover the real truth about who he is and what he has come to do. It’s a truth that might set us on edge, too, but ultimately it’s the truth that sets us free.
Join us in worship at Aldersgate Church on this first Sunday in Lent 2024, either in person or online, and discover how Jesus the Stranger can shake our sensibilities while offering us a whole new family in which we can follow him. We gather at 8:00, 9:00, or 10:30am and I hope to see you here!