There's No Place Like Home

First Baptist Church of Rolla enjoys our connections with internationals and we try to give them a taste of life in America.  Someone came up with the idea that we ought to show them a classic film – one that had stood the test of time.  We decided to show them The Wizard of Oz. 

I thought that was an interesting idea and wondered how they might receive it.  I have all these memories of this film, first as a child and then as a parent watching the film with my children.  I was always in a hurry to leave Kansas and get to Oz.  I don’t know if that says as much about the state as it does my love for fantasy, but I did love the change from black and white to color, and I couldn’t wait until the Munchkins emerged from their hiding place and the wicked witch made her appearance in a plume of red smoke. 

The internationals seemed to enjoy the movie, and I realized that the film hooks all kinds of images and feelings for us.  As children we have our share of fears in the dark – witches and graveyards and flying monkeys, to say nothing about lions and tigers and bears (Oh my!).  In the movie Dorothy and her friends go to the Wizard to solve their problems, and eventually they discover the Wizard is a fraud, using smoke and mirrors to create his own brand of fear.  He can’t really give a brain, nor grant a heart, or inspire courage – of course, each of the characters receive those things on their journey the way we do, by learning and gaining compassion and realizing that courage only comes in the midst of fear.  The ineptitude of the Wizard is exposed when it comes to Dorothy – his bungling attempt to get her back to Kansas ends with stranding her in Oz.  That’s okay, for it turns out that she has always had the ability to return to Kansas, once she could click her heels and voice the lesson of the film, “There’s no place like home.”  A few of the internationals voiced that phrase several times – they were homesick.  One international said, “No, I’d rather be here.” 

That was Friday evening – on Saturday morning I spent some time in Revelation 4 & 5.  The scene there reminded me of Oz but with significant differences.  Angelic creatures that might in some other setting be frightening voiced their praise of God.  Creation bowed before the heavenly throne, and though I imagine smoke rose, it was not smoke and mirrors.  The power and might of God was not a fraud, and God created a reverent kind of fear wrapped up in the gratitude of a thankful, redeemed humanity.  “Worthy is the Lamb” the multitude of heaven cried out, making it clear that Jesus had accomplished what no one else could do:  through His blood He gave us a new heart, a different way of thinking, and the confidence and courage that He has overcome all that we fear. 

Best of all, He has a better place waiting for us than Kansas or Oz.  There's no place like the home God has for us.

Snow

When I first began to pastor, I served a rural church out by itself on a lonely blacktop road in Tennessee.  Snow was something that just didn’t happen much, and then one year that all changed.  We went through a series of what we came to call “wicked Wednesdays” and “sinister Sundays”.  We called off one worship service after another and prayed for Spring to come.

It was about that time that I discovered an interesting passage in the book of Job.  After a flurry of comments and arguments by Job and his fickle friends, God breaks the silence.  He overwhelms Job with question after question, basically convincing Job that he (nor any other human being) could ever understand all that God is up to.  There comes a time when you just have to trust that God is at work even if everything seems to scream that He is not involved.

In that kind of context God asks Job, “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?” (Job 38:22-23). We have storehouses of salt to melt the snow, and God has storehouses of snow and hail – quite an image.  And it is an image – God is trying to help us understand that which is beyond our understanding, and so He calls upon us to look at snow as a way He combats – what?  He reserves these storehouses of snow and hail for times of trouble, for days of war and battle – what does that mean?

As I looked out my study window this week with the snow falling, I was intrigued by how everything had come to a halt.  We go ninety-to-nothing most of the time, and then a little thing like a snow flake stops it all.  Mighty eighteen wheelers slip and slide, and as the snow accumulates, we get stuck inside.  We talk about getting cabin fever, about going stir crazy, and about being bored.  Interestingly enough, some families reconnect, bake cookies, play board games, find new ways to entertain themselves.  We may pray for a sunny day, and we find ourselves longing for Spring.

In it all, I wonder if the battle being fought isn’t for our souls.  We squeeze God out with our busyness, we think we are so powerful with our technology, we believe nothing can stop us – and then a snow flake wakes us up.  A thin layer of ice reminds us of our own instability and frailty.  Being stuck inside forces us to acknowledge our dependency.  God doing battle, God waging a war, gently reminding us that He is God and we are far more frail than we will admit.

Maybe we need more snow.