Guest Speaker: Sean Kappauf

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord, join us here today
Grant us the mercy needed
For wounds
Plain or hidden
In those we love
Fret about
And hold close

Bring healing
And restoration
Restoring hope
Faith
Joy
Along with reducing pain
Sorrow
And suffering.

We look to you for these things
For our friends and family
And also
Trusting you
For the healing and restoration
We need as well.
Thank you
Amen

Morning Talk: Sean Kappauf

This Is Home
Wrestling With Home
I just got back from spending about a month in El Salvador.
For those who do not know, I run an international nonprofit that helps families get access to clean water. Because of that work, I have spent the last 13 years traveling back and forth to El Salvador and other places around the world.

This last trip felt different.

I found myself driving through San Salvador without needing Google Maps. I know the city now. I know the roads. I know the people. We have friends there who feel like family. One of our friends has practically adopted our kids as their grandkids.

We love El Salvador in so many ways
Someone recently asked me:
“Would you ever move there?”
And honestly, my answer was:
“I don’t know.”
Yes and no.
I have been wrestling with this idea of home.
Belonging
Where do I actually belong?
In some ways, California does not feel like home the way it once did. But El Salvador does not fully feel like home either. Neither does Vietnam or Honduras or Colombia.
And yet, somehow, they all do.

When Everywhere Feels Like Home
I have felt at home sitting on the floor in Vietnam eating food and singing karaoke.
I have felt at home in a hut with a Vietnamese community leader.
I have felt at home in prisons in El Salvador hugging inmates.
I have felt at home crying with a shop owner in Colombia who had just lost her husband, and then laughing together as they made fun of me.
In those moments, titles disappeared.
Status disappeared.
It was not American and Vietnamese.
It was not gang member and gringo.
It was not donor and recipient.
It was simply two human beings connecting.
And I keep wondering:
Maybe Jesus is not trying to help me find my place in the world.

Maybe Jesus is freeing me from needing one.

Faith, Certainty, and Losing the Structures
For most of my life, my faith felt anchored in clarity.
I knew what I believed.
I knew how to explain it.
I knew how to defend it.
I knew how to preach it.
There was comfort in certainty.
But over the last several years, something has been shifting.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Almost imperceptibly.
It feels like Jesus has been gently removing the structures I used to hold onto Him.

Not removing Himself.

But removing the things I confused with Him.

And that is disorienting.
Because part of me wants somewhere to stand.
A system that works.
A faith that feels stable.
A place that feels like home.
A friend recently shared this quote with me, and I have not been able to shake it:
“You only are free when you realize you belong no place, you belong every place, no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.”

That quote gave language to what I have been feeling.

I belong no place.
I belong every place.
No place at all.

The price is high.
The reward is great.
I wonder if this is what Jesus is doing in me.
Not making my world bigger, but making my categories smaller.
Things I thought mattered seem to matter less.
Things I used to overlook suddenly feel sacred.

Maybe the spiritual life is not about getting somewhere else.
Maybe it is about waking up to the Presence that is already here.

The Woman at the Well
That is why John 4 has been sitting with me differently.
Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well.
She is asking questions about place.
Where is the right place to worship?
This mountain?
Jerusalem?
Who is right?
Where does God belong?
Where do I belong?
And Jesus does something beautiful.
He does not answer her question the way she asks it.
She asks about geography.
Jesus answers with Presence.
He says the hour is coming when people will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
The age of geography is ending.
The age of Presence is beginning.
Jesus is not just relocating worship.
He is liberating it.
God is spirit.
Spirit is breath.
Wind.
You cannot possess the wind.
You cannot own the wind.
You cannot fence the wind in.
You can only receive it.

The Temple Became a Person
In John’s Gospel, we are told that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Literally, He pitched His tent among us.
God became wonderfully mobile.
No longer confined to a temple.
No longer confined to a mountain.
The temple became a person.
Maybe that is why Jesus says:
“Abide in me.”
Not abide in Jerusalem.
Not abide in religion.
Not abide in your understanding.
Not abide in certainty.
Abide in me.
Then I think about Jesus Himself.
He had no place to lay His head, yet He seemed at home everywhere.
At weddings.
On fishing boats.
Around dinner tables.
With Pharisees.
With tax collectors.
With children.
With Romans.
With Samaritans.
Why?
Because His home was never a place.
His home was communion with the Father.

Maybe the Opposite of Faith Is Attachment
Maybe the opposite of faith is not doubt.
Maybe it is attachment.
Attachment to certainty.
Attachment to identity.
Attachment to being right.
Attachment to control.
Attachment to needing everything figured out.

I think about the road to Emmaus too.
Two disciples are walking away from Jerusalem after Jesus died. They do not know He has risen. They are walking away from hope, from certainty, from everything they thought God was doing.
And then Jesus walks beside them.
For miles.
They talk.
They question.
He teaches them.
And they have no idea who He is.
I used to think the miracle happened when Jesus appeared to them.
Now I think the miracle happened when their eyes were opened.
Jesus had been there the whole time.
They simply did not recognize Him.

Maybe that is life with Jesus.
Not convincing Jesus to come near.
Learning to recognize the One who never left.
The same thing happens with the woman at the well.
She recognizes His Presence in the most ordinary place.
At a well.

Waking Up to What Is Already Here
Maybe we keep waiting for life to feel like home again.
Maybe we keep trying to recover an old version of ourselves.
Maybe we keep waiting until everything finally makes sense.
Maybe we keep searching for the perfect theology, season, belief, church, place, or answer.
And maybe Jesus is not asking us to go back.
Maybe He is not even asking us to figure it all out.
Maybe He is inviting us to wake up.
To become more aware.
More available.
More present.
Maybe spiritual maturity is not becoming better at explaining Jesus.

Maybe it is becoming better at recognizing Him.
In my marriage.
In my grief.
In my joy.
In my unanswered prayers.
In my children.
In my work.
In my neighbor.
In the stranger.
In an ordinary Tuesday afternoon.
Maybe nothing has to change except my awareness.

“Surely the Lord Is in This Place”
I think about Jacob in the Hebrew Scriptures (Genesis 28)
He falls asleep with a rock for a pillow.
He dreams.
Then he wakes up and says:
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
God did not suddenly arrive.
Jacob awakened.
And maybe that is the invitation for all of us.
Not that God would become more present.
But that we would become more awake.
The older I get, the less interested I am in certainty.
And the more interested I am in recognizing Christ.
Maybe that is freedom.
Not having every answer.
Not escaping mystery.
Not finding the perfect place.
But becoming more conscious of Christ with me wherever I go.

The Price Is High, The Reward Is Great
The price is high because we lose our attachments.
Our attachment to certainty.
Our attachment to control.
Our attachment to identity.
Our attachment to needing it all figured out.
But the reward is great.
Because Christ becomes our home.
And if Christ is our home, then every table can become communion.
Every conversation can become sacred.
Every country can become holy ground.
Every stranger can become a neighbor.
Not because the world has changed.
But because our eyes have.
The way we see changes our imagination.
And the way we imagine changes how we live.

Maybe the greatest miracle is not that God occasionally comes close.
Maybe the greatest miracle is that Christ has always been nearer than we imagined.
And we are finally waking up to His Presence.

This Is Home
So my prayer is not that we would find God somewhere else.
My prayer is that we would see Christ where we are right now.
Making coffee.
Driving to work.
Sitting in traffic.
Walking into a meeting.
Laughing with friends.
Sitting quietly in grief.
And in that moment, maybe we wake up and whisper:
“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
This is home.