When I was a child, homecoming meant coming home to the mountains.
My family lived in Atlanta at the time, but home had always been Western North Carolina. My mother was from Wilkes County. My father was from a mountain holler off Hardscrabble Road near Burnsville. Before my arrival, my family had lived in Franklin and Brevard. Even though the suburbs were all I had ever known, home had always been the mountains.
Each October, we made the trek up from Atlanta to my grandparent's old farmhouse along the spine of the Appalachians. Homecoming weekend bounced around through the years, but it was always in October. Faithful to their alma mater and the friends they had made in their youth, my parents rarely missed a homecoming at Mars Hill College.
Attending homecoming meant gaining elevation. The leaves changed as we climbed. The temperatures dropped the farther north we ventured. Upon arrival at my grandparents' place, I would walk the broad, sloping fields and would listen to the branch as it gurgled its way through the farm. The scenes and festivities at Mars Hill felt stolen from a Norman Rockwell painting. My parents saw their old friends. They visited with favorite professors. Theirs was a sweet and tender reunion.
Homecoming meant coming home to the mountains, and it always happened in October.
The same can be said about homecoming at First Baptist Church. Except this year, of course. This year, we cannot celebrate our church family in the ways we have in the past. But that doesn't mean that we cannot be mindful of our church and thankful for one another.
Just as our deacon chair, Jim Campbell, has encouraged us to reach out to our church staff this month with words of appreciation for their service with us, October would be a good month to come home to one another. No, it may not be advisable to have the kind of mass gatherings that we love. However, it may never be as important as it is right now to rekindle our friendships. We can do this by remembering one another and by reaching out to them with a word of kindness and hospitable inquiry.
This past Sunday in worship, we were mindful that the way of peace is the way of communion. Jesus's prayer was for his followers to be one as he and the Father are one. For his prayer to be answered, we must actively seek to practice friendship and community. Our challenges right now are many. The context in which we find ourselves is unique and unprecedented. And yet, the month that we would ordinarily celebrate homecoming can still be a season in which we eschew the phenomena of 'ghosting' and choose to come home to one another.
So may this month be a time of reunion for us. Consider who it is that you have not heard from in some time. Write well-wishes to one another. Send a picture in a text message to the person you used to sit beside in the choir. Leave a voicemail message with the ones who sat in front of you each week in worship. Buy a pal a cup of coffee. Go on a walk along the Greenway. Visit with a homebound friend on their front porch. In doing so, you will be strengthening our church's legacy of being a blessing to others.
Come home to one another, First Baptist Church. It's the best way to celebrate God's Good Work among us these 132 years.