Sermon for Youth Lock-Out

Preached at St. John's Lutheran, New Freedom, for the Youth "Lock-Out for the Homeless" on November 16, 2013
Scripture: Joshua 1:1-2, 5-9

Trivia question. What do all the following have in common?

• Abraham
• Moses
• Elijah
• Jesus
• Peter
• Paul

If you said “they’re all people in the Bible,” you’d be right, but that’s not the only thing they share in common. You know what else? Every single one of them was homeless at some point in their life.

• Abraham is told by God to pack up his things and leave for a land he’s never seen.
• Moses leads the people of God wandering through the wilderness for 40 years.
• Elijah is exiled from the king’s court and to avoid getting himself perished, he wanders about the countryside where no one can find him.
• Jesus leaves his home to begin his ministry and never really returns.
• Peter is called from his fishing boat by Jesus and spends the rest of his life on the road.
• Paul is famous for his great missionary journeys which take him from one corner of the Roman Empire to another.

In fact, this is only a short list of the homeless characters in the Scriptures. There are dozens, if not hundreds, more. Some of them walk away from hearth and home by choice; they are called to a new life by God. Others are forced from their homes by threat of war. Some are kidnapped and taken away. Some are exiled as punishment. Still others are carried off into slavery. The Prodigal Son is a story about a homeless young man. Lot is driven from Sodom before the cataclysm that destroys the town. Hundreds of examples.

We are very fortunate. Most every night we come home to a warm house with a warm bed. We come home to food on the table, to family that love and accept us.

Tonight, however, and every night there will be nearly one million people in our country who lack some or all of that list. There is no home for them to come back to. No warm bed. No food and no table. Their family may be with them in their plight or they may have long since abandoned them. Over the next 12 or so hours, we will share in some small fashion what it is like to be them.

Most of them, I am certain, did not choose this fate. It was thrust upon them by circumstances well beyond their control. Just as it could be for us. Life is full of uncertainties. One of us could be among them for real some day. Or may face other trials in our lives. What hope is there for us?

Joshua is among that long list of homeless wanderers in the Bible. He’s lived most, if not all, of his life wandering from place to place in the wilderness under the guidance of Moses. Now, Moses is gone and leadership of the people has fallen to him. The people of God are still without a home. They have not yet returned to the land promised to them, and it is on Joshua’s shoulders to get them there. But in the midst of this moment of uncertainty and anxiety, God comes to Joshua and gives him words that are comfort to him and to all of us.

“Be strong and courageous.” Three times, God tells him this. God knows that what Joshua is facing is difficult. It’s going to be hard, so he has to repeat himself. Drive home the point. But what is it that will make Joshua strong and courageous? God tells him that too. “I, the LORD your God, will be with you wherever you go.”

As it was with Joshua, so too with us and with those whose lives we experience tonight. God is with us no matter what happens. No matter where we end up. No matter what triumphs or trials we experience. He is by our side; there to offer his love, his strength, his support, and his courage to us. We could ascend the heights of success and find him still at our side. We could struggle as so many do with the basic needs of life and yet he is there with us.

“Be strong and courageous.” With God beside us, what then can the world really do to us? Amen.