Nancy and I are back home. At least we have returned to the United States and to our comfortable house in Greensboro, NC. The flight from Dublin was uneventful (which is how I like it), despite the full plane across the Atlantic. It seems that most flights these days are pretty full, which makes sense for the airlines. I read horror stories about some people’s flying experiences but I have not had any significant problems. This time the plane (Boeing, of course…) was comfortable, the food adequate (I do not fly expecting to be served a gourmet meal), and the in-flight entertainment consisted of individual screens (albeit small) with a plethora of options. Our luggage arrived in good shape, except that my bike box had been slit completely open by security, and the bike itself was only kept from falling out by one small piece of duct tape that had evaded the inspector’s knife. Once again duct tape to the rescue!

Harry and Ellen Bruce, two of the four children of our friends David and Zoe Bruce from Northern Ireland, are with us for a two week visit. I think the 95 degree weather that greeted us on arrival has been a bit disorienting to them, but it makes outdoor activities more possible than some of the cloud and rain in Ireland—at least if one can tolerate the mid-day heat. They have also both learned the value of the siesta, Harry shared a birthday with Colette, and they are good fun and help to have with us.

Returning to Greensboro raises once again the question of place. Fifty years ago in his book A Place for You, the Swiss physician-psychiatrist Dr. Paul Tournier mused about that topic. He said that everyone needs a place, that is somewhere that they call home, somewhere that they feel comfortable and safe, relaxed and accepted. He also said that if a person does not have a place then their life will be a journey to find one, and the void will impact all they do, all the relationships they develop and all aspects of their lives. Once finding that place, however, he said that wherever a person went there would be a degree of comfort and security—of self-contentment and tranquility.

This morning I was reading in Genesis about Abraham’s pilgrimage from Ur to Haran to Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan. I read of God’s promise to him of a place, of a land stretching from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates. And I read of Abraham settling down in the Promised Land—claiming that place by setting up a home, grazing his cattle in the fields, and building an altar. Here was a place for him—a touchstone, a familiar location where he and the land would be one.

But then I mused on the New Testament’s view of place. It is much more transitory, much less stationery, much less settled. In Philippians we are told that our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). In Hebrews 13:14 we are told that Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. In James the Christian community is addressed as a community of aliens and strangers, as in I John we are told to not love the things of this world. It seems that in the New Testament there is an intentional distancing from attachment to place and in its place is an attachment to person, to a person, that is Jesus Christ. What this means is that the security, permanence and touchstone for the Christian, what place provided for Abraham has been replaced by the person Jesus Christ.

If this is accurate then there are a couple important consequences. One is that the promise of a land which was made to Abraham, and which has today taken on great political importance in the reemergence of Israel, is not something to be fulfilled in the physical sense. If followers of Christ are truly heirs to all the promises made to Abraham then the promise of a place has been transformed—not abrogated but transformed to something greater. We are co-heirs with Christ not only of a small piece of real estate but of the entire realm of the kingdom of God. And today we experience that inheritance in the power of the Holy Spirit. The other change is that no matter where we live the greatest allegiance, identity and security is to come from our relationship with the person of Christ, not the physical land or house. And that means that when we are secure in Christ we have a security which enables us to be at peace and at home wherever we are.

Now, having said that I still think there is something wise in what Dr. Tournier said as it is applied to a physical place. I still think that it is important to have a home base where we feel safe, accepted and at peace. As Christians the importance of such is not primary anymore, but it is still significant—and it is one of the calls and challenges of the church. My first call out of seminary was to First Presbyterian Church of Fresno. That church adopted as a motto the title of Dr. Tournier’s book, A Place for You. That is a wonderful motto for any church—and a challenging goal as well. To be a place for people from different backgrounds, with different abilities and disabilities, with different perspectives and different needs; to be a place where those varied people feel at home, feel secure, feel needed and valued. Jesus made all sorts of people feel at home with him, and when a church reflects that in its fellowship, worship and witness, then it is truly being the body of Christ.

To have a physical place that is a place for you is important. In fact I tell pastors I have had the privilege to mentor that unless they love not only the people they minister with but also the place they minister in they cannot minister effectively. Physical place is important. But to take our primary identity from any place or to devote time and resources to a home over all else or to put allegiance to a nation over allegiance to the kingdom of God, is a form of idolatry and false worship.

Nancy and I are a bit out of place. We return to a house we thoroughly enjoy, a family that we love, an area with historical and geographical interest, and we are finding a welcoming church family. We are arranging the house and the yard, even looking for a good place for a hammock...That gives us a sense of place.


But our ancestors, particularly Nancy’s, at great cost and sacrifice moved west as pioneers, and we feel a little bit like traitors. And we do miss the particular beauty of the Northwest, family there and the church community that is still such a part of us. But we are in the place God wants us, and we are with the One who is our place. He is the One who was with us where we were before, is with us now, and will be with us in the future—to be our place, wherever we may be. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age… (Matthew 28:20).