Zip codes and Eeyore Jesus
My call to a home
Luke 9:57-58
As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
In January, Cameron and I visited IKEA to dream of a life where we might buy our own furniture again. When we were checking out with our new stuffed animal dog, the cashier asked us for our zip code. This was a simple question—the cashier’s hands at the ready to type it into the system—but it did not have a simple answer.
There was a long pause. I’m sure the cashier was confused. It really wasn’t that big of a deal. Still, Cameron and I looked at each other, and asked, “which one do we give her?”
The one on our drivers license? 92109.
The one used for our billing address? 68114.
The one that Amazon is currently delivering to? 55364.
The one we desperately want to live in? 02215.
This insignificant moment encapsulated the itinerant lives we had been living. The lack of home we were feeling. We couldn’t even give someone our zip code.
I ultimately don’t remember which zip code we gave the cashier that day, but I like to imagine that if Jesus was checking out at IKEA—with nothing but a new blanket to sleep with at night and some Swedish meatballs to-go—his response to a zip code would be this response in Luke: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
I’m sure the cashier would have been just as confused as she was that day in January.
I have previously disliked this Luke text because I’ve always read it as highly demanding. It makes me a little angry at Jesus because he responds to this willing disciple like a rude parent with impossible expectations. I even sense a little passive aggressiveness in there, if the God In Flesh was capable of it (and I like to think he was).
Jesus is facing an enthusiastic follower, someone who is interested in what he’s doing, and instead of saying “Hey! Glad to have you on the team!” he responds with “I don’t have a home.” I guess we can’t fault him for being honest, but what the hell, man? What kind of response is that?
This passage brings up something that we miss when we read scripture which is the same thing we miss when reading text messages: tone. We add a lot of subconscious interpretation to the Bible when we add tone to people’s words, often unaware we’re doing it. As someone who reads scripture in worship, I am very aware of the life I’m bringing to words because it makes a difference in how we hear and understand a passage.
When we read Jesus’ response in Luke 9 with passive aggressiveness or as a demanding parent that is asking too much of us, it’s natural for us to respond in defensiveness and annoyance.
But recently, I’ve been wondering if that’s not actually how Jesus said it.
What if, instead, Jesus was lamenting? Lamenting that he didn’t have a home. Lamenting that he wanted the thing the rest of creation seemed to have. Lamenting that he didn’t want to be the reason someone else gave up their entire life for this bigger calling. Lamenting that God sent him on this vagabond journey and he saw no end to it.
What if Jesus said these words more along the lines of Eeyore?
Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. 😞
When I read it that way, my heart goes out to Jesus. I have compassion for him.
And maybe even more, I feel deeply seen and understood by him.
Last spring, when I was filling out first call paperwork for my denominational body, Cameron and I had many conversations about the geographic areas to which we were open to explore a call. After two years of discernment in San Diego, we had some clear criteria:
> A place that is within a day’s drive of Nebraska and our families. We wanted to be able to put the dog in the car and drive home in a reasonable time. We wanted to avoid the flight chaos around holidays.
> A place where we could eat well. Our family has multiple food allergies and intolerances. We needed a place that had grocery stores and restaurants that would accommodate our diets.
> A place where we could stay a one car household. It is a commitment of ours to have as low of a carbon footprint as possible. Having one car, being able to walk most places, and using public transportation is how we love and serve creation (and our bodies).
> A place with an airport. We love to travel. We want to see the world.
> A place where we could have friendships outside of church. We need people. Community is foundational to our wellbeing.
> Lastly, a place with four distinct seasons. A place with snow. A place where I could walk through the fallen leaves and hear that quintessential sound of fall. A place where a lighting strike and thunder would wake us in the middle of the night.
When you’re looking at the United States, there are loads of places that fit these criteria. It honestly didn’t seem like we were being picky. Heck, we weren’t even restricting to one city or state like most people do these days. We were being honest but open. We had gone on an adventure in a new southern California land, had learned some things about what we desired and what was important to us, and we were hoping to find a place where we belonged.
This, however, was not the mindset the first call process had in mind.
Instead, I was often on the receiving end of the demanding and passive aggressive ‘Jesus’ with impossible expectations—in the form of Bishops and synods and well-intentioned pastors—who made it clear that if I was going to follow this Jesus, I had to give up my “hole” and “nest” and go wherever the church needed me to go. Even if it left me and my family without any of the things that were important to us.
As if uprooting our lives to go to San Diego and traveling across the country for a Preaching Fellowship wasn’t enough.
As if they expected me to be Jesus forever, when I had already been at this for three years, the entire length of Jesus’ ministry.
As if to imply that I wasn’t “listening to the Spirit” when I honored the desires of my heart and the intuition of my body, a heart and body God intimately designed to thrive in certain conditions.
It was clear that the discernment Cameron and I had done around where we belonged and could thrive in the world—where we could best love and serve our neighbor—was unimportant to the institutional church.
After a few months of being on the receiving end of this judgmental and demanding ‘Jesus’, I was no longer the willing disciple saying “I’ll go wherever you go.”
Instead, I was lamenting with more Eeyore spirit than ever, “God, I want to be a fox and a bird. I want to have a hole and a nest to call mine. I need a home.”
When I only received impossible expectations and demanding ‘Jesus’ from the church, I could no longer believe that this was the Jesus we find in Luke 9.
Because I knew that Jesus understood. I knew in my bones that God cared.
And I had to believe that Jesus had lamented his itinerant life, too.
Another tendency we have when we read scripture is adding interpretation where there is missing information. We naturally fill in the gaps where it’s actually empty.
For example, Jesus did not say, “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head and you shouldn’t/won’t/can’t either.”
Jesus did not force this follower to become him, or be like him, or do what God called Jesus to do.
Jesus did not explain that the only way to follow Jesus was to leave this follower’s home and family.
The only thing Jesus said clearly is that he, the Son of Man, doesn’t have a home.
Of all the responses to a willing disciple, this is an odd one, right? He doesn’t explain the work or the ministry. He only names what is lacking, what is absent, what is maybe even more challenging than the work of ministry itself.
Maybe in saying this thing about not having a home—in saying only this—Jesus is implying that he knows, he understands, he gets just how important homes are.
This is all a very different way of reading Luke 9, one that I wouldn’t have ever come to without my lived experience alongside the itinerant Son of Man.
Though there are times when we or others might need a little kick in the pants to follow Jesus outside of our nests and holes—or when we need to hear that God meets us in times of transience, change, and unknown1—there are also times when we need to be reminded that Jesus was fully human, too.
And as a full human, I am confident Jesus had Eeyore moments where he longed for the thing that the rest of creation seemed to have, but he could not. Where he wished it didn’t have to be this way. Where he lamented this journey the Father sent him on.
Where he wished he could give it all up and just have a home.
That’s the Jesus who has most comforted me—not the divine perfect one on a mission from God, but the human one.
Last week, we moved to Minneapolis and into our new Brownstone condo, beginning to live out our Boston dreams at a Midwest price. This weekend, we walked to the grocery store—one block to ALDI, two blocks to a co-op—and this morning, I scurried in the early morning hours to try out a local gym. Our place is located on a direct bus line to my church, 20 minutes away from an international airport, and surrounded by trails, lakes, and massive trees that will turn shades of orange and yellow in a few short months.
I was distinctly called to Mount Olivet, and felt profound intuition toward this particular church and community.
But I am also astonished at how beautifully God listened to the desires of our hearts and led us, not only to a job that I felt called to, but also to a home.
A home where we can belong.
A home where we can settle for a while.
A home where I can continue to follow this Jesus while also not giving up the needs of my body, soul, and spirit. While still living out of my values.2
I have spent the past three years following Jesus around the country. My family and I have uprooted multiple times, left behind meaningful people and places, to follow this Jesus’ call. We did it again last week: uprooting, starting over, grieving.
But thankfully, I’m not Jesus, and I’m not expected to be Jesus. The Son of Man may not have a place to lay his head, but I finally do. I finally get to join the foxes and the birds and lay my head on my own mattress, on the floor of a condo with no furniture in it.
It is nothing short of a miracle from God, a gift highlighted on Tuesday when we headed over to IKEA while we still had the UHaul to pick out a new couch. We checked out with our new friend, Steve, who patiently answered all of our questions and helped us think through the decision.
When he was ringing up the purchase so that the warehouse could retrieve it for us, he asked the same question I heard that day in January: “Zip code?”
I smiled ear to ear and proudly, joyfully, with tears in my eyes, answered:
55405.
Home.
🏠
I preached a sermon a couple years ago when this Luke text was in the lectionary. It’s one of my sermons that has stuck with me, which is probably why I thought about this text so much throughout the year. I was preaching to a church that was about to enter transition, a time of change and disorientation. I feel that this passage is especially Good News for those who are feeling unsettled.
I have always believed those things are important to Jesus, too, even if God’s church didn’t much care.