homecoming and hospitality

 

Eight hundred years before Luke compiled stories of Jesus and his followers into the Gospel According to Luke and its sequel The Acts of the Apostles, Homer had compiled stories of the Bronze Age siege of Troy and subsequent return home of the Greek hero Odysseus in two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odessey.

In chapter 10 of the Odessey, we hear of Odysseus, his fleet of twelve ships by now already reduced to only one, welcomed as the guest of the mortal king Aeolus, whom Zeus himself had made captain of the winds. To aid Odysseus on his journey home to Ithaca, Aeolus ties up all of the winds, save for the fair west wind, in a bag, which he gives to Odysseus. For nine days and nights the west wind carries them, until they are within sight of home. At this point, Odysseus, who has kept awake throughout, is overcome by sleep. His men then debate what is really in the bag, deciding that it is some treasure their captain is keeping for himself. They open the bag and unleash a storm that carries them all the way back to Aeolus, who concludes that the gods are set against Odysseus and refuses to assist him a second time.

They sail on, arriving at the island of Aiaia, home of Circe, the daughter of Helios, the sun, exiled there for using her strange powers as a pharmika, a witch, to transform a rival sea nymph into a man-eating monster. From time to time, pirates have landed on her shore, have sought to plunder her body and her possessions. But she has always piled them with drugged wine and transformed them into pigs, keeping them in her styes. Occasionally one would escape, and throw itself off a cliff into oblivion. When an advance party of Odysseus’ men arrive at her door, she does what she has done before. But Odysseus, coming after them and forewarned and protected by Hermes, the trickster god and messenger, disarms Circe, persuading her to restore his men. Circe rubs an ointment on their snouts, transforming them back, then clothing them all in shirts and cloaks that she had woven on a loom gifted to her by the master inventor Daedalus.

Luke is a Greek writer writing for a Greek audience, and he models himself on Homer. Anyone hearing his account (Luke 8 ) of Jesus and his disciples caught in a storm on the Lake, Jesus asleep and the disciples at a loss, and afterwards arriving on a strange shore where they are met by a man whose life — his body, his home — has been taken possession of by a legion of demons, whom Jesus will in effect transform into pigs, while restoring the man to dignity, would know exactly what kind of a story they were listening to.

This is a story of the long journey home, undertaken by Jesus returning to his Father in the heavens, a journey that will necessitate that he first descends into the land of the dead and back again. An epic journey of facing and overcoming many challenges. As the sea captain and slave trader John Newton would later put it, ‘through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; ’tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and Grace will lead me home.’

And this is a story of hospitality given to or withheld from the stranger — hospitality being a key measure of morality in their world. When the citizens of this strange, gentile region see the man restored, they beg Jesus to depart. Others will show kindness. Still others will try to kill him. Some will succeed.

But unlike the stories told by Homer, set in a distant past, these stories were set in the present. They had been born too late to sail with Odysseus; but Mary, the mother of Jesus, and John, the disciple, were still alive; Peter, and Paul, only recently put to death by order of the Emperor in Rome. Moreover, it was claimed that this Jesus had returned from the dead, and had returned home to his Father’s palace.

One could yet journey home through this life with Jesus as your captain. One could yet be welcomed at his table, or with him at a table in many strange corners of the world.

In Jesus, the great searchings and longings of the Greco-Roman world might find their deepest fulfilment. And not only theirs, but the searchings and longings of humanity — we still read Homer, we still read Luke.

Today, you are called to journey with Jesus as your captain. Today you are welcomed to a table to find refreshment on your travels, healing for your weary bones. To be restored to your truest and most noble self, which is to be found alongside him.