A week ago Sunday morning I was preaching at church (Point Grey Community Church) and spoke on Jacob coming home 20 years after he has fled from his brother Esau whom he has cheated out of his father’s blessing. Coming home can be hard and scary.
The night before (Saturday) Karis and Alana, our two daughters were on a sleepover, so Ruth and I had the chance to have a date night. So we went to the movies and saw “Away We Go”.
Here’s how I opened my sermon…
“Away We Go a movie about a couple (Burt and Verona) traveling across the US in search of the best place to raise their family. And… on their journey they meet a variety of sad, tragic and embarrassing friends and family.
It’s a movie that has got a lot of mixed reviews, but… I have to say we really liked it. I don’t think I have literally cried so much and laughed so much during one movie. The crying was partly because there was something that resonated in me… watching this idealistic couple journey together through life and wondering where they should call home.
And in the movie we find that both of Verona’s parents died when she was 22… and this was obviously a huge loss for her. In fact, she refuses to marry Burt, because she will not be able to have her parents at the wedding. We also find that this loss is very hard for her to talk about. And in a conversation with here sister we find that they still haven’t sold their parents home. It’s something in the past that she doesn’t want to face, but… but it obviously affects how she lives in the present.
And one of the things tjat is really neat about the movie is that… in the end, Burt and Verona decide that they should return to Verona’s parents place and settle there. And so at the end of the movie Verona finds that in order to find a sense of home, she actually has to return home… even though it will be a very painful process and and will mean she will have to deal with grief which she has kept beneath the surface.
And so as I came away from the movie I thought about Jacob, and his returning home. And an event in his life which means he must face up to the past, and deal, not so much with his hurt and grief, but the hurt and grief that he has caused others through his scheming and manipulating. Returning home for many of us is a difficult thing… but it’s often something we need to do in order to find ourselves and enter into the difficult work of our own growth.”
Ultimately, the “home” that we need to return to is the embrace of God the Father. That is the place that we find ourselves “wandering” to find even though we might not know it. But there is so much that we keep us from returning home. Mainly, I think, the pain it causes us to face up to who we really are, our failures, our sin, our need, our hurts, our inner lostness. And even when we take steps towards home, most of us take these steps tentatively…. unsure… perhaps a bit afraid of what will happen. Like Adam and Eve, most of prefer to remain in hiding than return home.
[...] all of this came to mind at the end of the credits for “Away We Go” (see my previous post). Perhaps only six out of a congregation of 100 stayed for the benediction… but it was well [...]
I was really moved by this film too – it stayed with me for days on end, pondering. At first I thought it was going to be horrible, and then I realized that it was supposed to feel horrible. I’m glad you were so moved by it because it really does understand core issues faced by GenX (there I go with generational stuff again, but you’re such an expert at interpreting our gang that you’ll forgive me). There’s something about the loss of home and the yearning to re-establish or find it that is a deep, deep ache for us as a generation.
Did you get captivated by Switchfoot’s song “This is Home”, featured on Prince Caspian? I heard it for the first time yesterday and it’s been on continual repeat in the car AND in the house (a rarity to insist on both)… It’s really helping me as I deal with the reality of moving to Rwanda, which doesn’t feel like home yet but has elements of it.