Reading
For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy.
Leviticus 11:45
Reflection
There was a time in my life when I considered myself in exile. Not in any sort of profound or poetic way — more in a Texas-native-living-on-the-north-side-of-the-Red-River kind of way. Then somehow, fifteen years passed — two children, five addresses, a couple of jobs, and a smattering of stormy seasons. Somewhere along the way, Oklahoma went from being a place I lived to something else. And yet, it’s still not quite home.
I don’t long for the central plains like I do the Hill Country (though there’s something to be said for the expansive beauty where red soil and wild grasses meet the sky as the sun smolders before its setting). I don’t think about Oklahoma food the same way I do about breakfast tacos, Big Red, and Whataburger (though give me a Braum’s mint chocolate chip shake any day of the week!).
Even folks born and raised here might feel this — especially if they’re living somewhere other than where they grew up. We’re all from somewhere, and those somewheres stay with us long after we’ve left them.
If we’re fortunate, we carry them with us willingly — for education, career, adventure, or family. But for many in our world, home is something carried not out of desire, but out of necessity and longing for return.
The aches are similar — and yet so different.
About a year ago, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that more than 122.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide. Conflict. Violence. Genocide. Famine. Persecution. They left their homes against their will — or had them taken. This is exile.
To say they survive feels too generous. That implies access to something stable. But too many live in limbo — without legal status, clean water, or the dignity of being seen. They endure.
We don’t tend to think about them unless we’re tuned in deeply to the news or a longform story. They only make up about 1.5% of the 8 billion people on our planet. It’s easy to lose track of them. Easy to not see them.
Easy not to care for what we cannot see.
And yet, when we read about the Spirit of God at work in Scripture, or hear about it preached on Sundays, it’s often in and through stories of exile that the Spirit is most alive. In those liminal places — the wildernesses and waiting rooms — hope begins to take root.
The Spirit, as Pastor Brandon said, fills us and leads us into a new life as God’s children. And if that’s true, then the story of the faithful is always a story of journeying — from death, slavery, oppression, loneliness, addiction, grief, and pain, toward life and goodness, wholeness and healing, release and rest.
Life in the Spirit is receiving the breath of the divine when our souls are filled with nothing but the dust of the earth.
In Matthew 9, Jesus kneels down, spits into the dust, and uses that holy mud to bring healing. That’s the image I can’t shake: divine breath meeting the soil of our suffering. The same breath that hovered over the waters in Genesis now mixed with dirt and placed gently on fragile skin.
Holiness isn’t clean.
It’s close.
It’s breath and grit.
It’s exile and embrace.
I don’t know how and where you are today, or how much we’re alike, or how varied the ways we are different. But if you’re feeling a little unsettled — not quite at home in your body, your city, or your season — just know, you aren’t alone.
The Spirit is with the displaced and the disoriented. With those who cross borders and those who sit on porches wondering where the time has gone. With the ones who still ache for what was, and the ones learning to hope for what could be.
We are a people in motion.
From Egypt to the wilderness.
From exile to return.
From dust to breath.
The Spirit goes ahead of us, beside us, within us — guiding, groaning, and gifting us with life when we’ve run out of our own.
You are not forgotten.
You are being led.
Prayer
Spirit, lead me—
Fill my soul with a trust of you.
Give my lungs breath and my heart strength.
Restore and heal me.
Lead me, use me.
Breathe.
AMEN
