Family reunions are amazing things. I don't know if you've ever had the experience, but in these days with families flung far and wide, they are at once, increasingly rare and increasingly important. Some may remember that in the not too distant past, families lived relatively close to one another. But today, for a host of socio-economic reasons that we won't explore, families are often spread out over thousands of miles. Siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and parents often don't see one another for years at a time. Some families I've heard of have reunions every year. I think that's wonderful, but if you're like my family, it doesn't happen that often.

But when it happens, friends, it's wonderful. Cars and pickup trucks fill the yard and the street for blocks. Old recipes are pulled out and the barbeque gets fired up. Embarrassing childhood stories are dusted off and Uncle Ben settles down in the lawn chair to entertain the kids with stories of the old days. Reunited cousins hang out in the backyard comparing notes about their parents. Siblings tell stories about Mom and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa sit down with grins of accomplishment. See what we have done! Coming together after a long separation is a beautiful thing. Not easy all the time, but nonetheless, beautiful.

It happens in places other than families, as well. There are reunions of old army units, where guys who went through hell together reconnect over the years. There are class reunions, where there is an unwritten law that those who got to be cool back in school are not cool now. There are even church reunions, where folks who have been involved in a church community come together to celebrate the long history they have had in faith. Whatever the reason for the reunion, there is something incredibly powerful about coming home.

And, while it is about the people and the relationships; about shared experiences and common links to the past, it's also about place. We get tied to a place when we live there. It can be an old house where several generations have lived. It can be that old school where the smells evoke a cascade of memories. Those guys from the army units ultimately travel back to the battlefield where the struggles, the pain, and the victories were won. It can be the church of your childhood, with frayed red carpet and hymnals full of songs you know by heart.

It can be a country.

Immigrants understand this in a potent way. Whether they come from Latin America or Africa, from Russia or the Ukraine, from China or the Philippines, there is a bond to the homeland that never dies. Sure, the new country is adopted. New customs and languages learned. There are new friends, and in many cases, spouses and families. But always, the soil of home stays a little bit between your toes.

One thing, too, that's important to remember is that immigrants, most of them anyway, leave home by choice. There are millions of people around the globe who don't get a choice. Famine, disease, and advancing armies uproot millions of people every year. These people move, not with suitcases and a shipping container full of furniture, but with what they can carry. Often families are separated, and sometimes husbands or wives, parents or children don't make it out. It is one of the great tragedies we witness over and over again across the globe.

It is this kind of situation that scattered the Jewish people. Conquered, enslaved, a ragged band of refugees carted off to a strange land. It is difficult to imagine the suffering. It is hard to conjure up how much they must have missed their old lives ... their homes ... the soil of their country. This passage from Jeremiah captures what one scholar calls a "day of calamity, a world ordeal." It's thought that the prophet might have written this even while Jerusalem was under siege. One can but imagine the terror.

Then the Lord rises up to save the remnant Israel. "See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back" (Jeremiah 31:8-9a). Talk about a reunion!

Through the trials and the travails, through the suffering and the seemingly endless night, God comes with the people into a new time. The one who scattered the people (Jeremiah 31:10b) will now call them back together. This is a time of redemption, a time of healing, a time of returning to walk by soothing brooks, and to claim a straight path upon which there will be no stumbling (Jeremiah 31:9). It is nearly impossible to imagine the joy of such a return as this; such a reconciliation with God.

As we share the words of the prophet, I cannot help but wonder about the place that you and I occupy in this story. I am led to ask, not just you, but myself as well about the ways in which we are refugees in our own lives. I am led to ask each one of us to peer into our souls and seek the outcast, alienated pieces of ourselves that live somehow in exile apart from God. Perhaps tragedy has left you blaming God for your pain. Maybe you have drifted in the currents of a secular culture and found yourself so far from God that you have no sense of his Spirit. My words cannot describe the state of your soul. I can only address these issues in myself as I hold a mirror up to my own spirit.

I am willing to bet, however, that wherever we are, we can move closer to God. Whatever has happened to us in our lives, we can turn and step back toward the holy center. Each of us has stumbled. Many of us have fallen. Others have traveled to a far country. Yet, the voice of God seeks us out and bids us come home. It is time for the reunion to begin. But the reunion that is significant here isn't a family or high school reunion. It's not coming together of old army buddies or even long lost church friends. It's not even about the people of Israel coming home. The reunion, you see, isn't about any of that. The real reunion is the one we have with God. The real coming together is the reclamation of our relationship with our Creator and our Redeemer. Where we are isolated from God, the call comes to us to return. Where we are alienated from God's Spirit, the call comes to leave everything and come home to God. Where we have lost sight of God, the beacon of holy love shines out so that we might follow the light back home.

My friends, I want to say to you in closing that having one family reunion, nice as it may be, is never enough. Getting a family together only once doesn't solve the problem, does it? We need to schedule more. Whether it's army units or college classes, if you only go once, you don't really pull the relationships together. I believe that our relationship with God is the same way. If we go to God once and think we're done, we've not understood either God or ourselves. This isn't a one time thing. I believe that we live in a kind of perpetual drift, moving with a hundred different currents away from the holy. My experiences tell me that we almost cannot help moving slowly (sometimes not so slowly) away from God. My experiences also tell me that we must develop an intentional disciplined life that helps us to be on a journey of returning. For this reason we are called into community in Christ. For this reason we have been given the gift of one another. For this reason God beckons us, today through Jeremiah, tomorrow, through ... who knows? But we can rest assured that the voice of God will not stop calling.

Shall we start the reunion? Shall we listen for the voice? Shall we come home to the power of God's Holy Spirit? Shall we start today?

Amen.